Fredric Brown - Eine Kleine Nachtmusik

Dooley listened to the drumming roll of his heart in his ears as he rolled aside to free the musician and both men got slowly to their feet.

“Was it close?”

Dooley nodded, swallowed with difficulty. “Like a shave with a straight razor.”

The musician had taken his instrument from under his coat and was examining it. “Not broken.,” he said. But Dooley, realizing that his own hands were empty, whirled around to look for his clarinet case. And saw it. He must have dropped it when he raised his hands to push the musician. A front wheel and a back wheel of the car must each have run over it, for it was flattened at both ends. The case and every section of the clarinet were splintered, useless junk. He fingered it a moment and then walked over and dropped it into the gutter.

The musician came and stood beside him. “A pity,” he said softly. “The loss of an instrument is like the loss of a friend.” An idea was coming to Dooley, so he didn’t answer, but managed to look sadder than he felt. The loss of the clarinet was a blow in the pocketbook, but not an irrevocable one. He had enough to buy a used, not-so-hot one to start out with and he’d have to work harder and spend less for a while until he could get a really good one like the one he’d lost. Three hundred it had cost him. Dollars, not marks. But he’d get another clarinet all right. Right now, though, he was much much more interested in getting the German musician’s hautboy, or one just like it. Three hundred dollars, not marks, was peanuts to what he’d give for that. And if the old boy felt responsible and offered …

“It was my fault,” the musician said. “For not looking. I wish I could afford to buy you a new— It was a clarinet, was it not?”

“Yes,” Dooley said, trying to sound like a man on the brink of despair instead of one on the brink of the greatest discovery of his life. “Well, what’s kaput is kaput. Shall we go somewhere for a drink, and have a wake?”

“My room,” said the musician. “I have wine there. And we’ll have privacy so I can play a tune or two I do not play in public. Since you too are a musician.” He chuckled. “ Eire Kleine Nachtmusik, eh? A little night-music—but not Mozart’s; my own.”

Dooley managed to conceal his elation and to nod as though he didn’t care much. “Okay, Otto Niemand. My name’s Dooley Hanks.”

The musician chuckled. “Call me Otto, Dooley. I use no last name, so Niemand is what I tell any who insist on my having one. Come, Dooley; it isn’t far.”

It wasn’t far, just a block down the next side street. The musician turned in at an aged and darkened house. He opened the front door with a key and then used a small pocket flashlight to guide them up a wide but uncarpeted staircase. The house, he explained on the way, was unoccupied and scheduled to be torn down, so there was no electricity. But the owner had given him a key and permission to use it while the house still stood; there were a few pieces of furniture here and there, and he got by. He liked being in a house all by himself because he could play at any hour of the night without bothering anyone trying to sleep.

He opened the door of a room and went in. Dooley waited in the doorway until the musician had lighted an oil lamp on the dresser, and then followed him in. Besides the dresser there was only a straight chair, a rocker and a single bed.

“Sit down, Dooley,” the musician told him. “You’ll find the bed more comfortable than the straight chair. If I’m going to play for us, I’d like the rocker.” He was taking two glasses and a bottle out of the top drawer of the dresser. “I see I erred. I thought it was wine I had left; it is brandy. But that is better, no?”

“That is better, yes,” said Dooley. He could hardly restrain himself from asking permission right away to try the hautboy himself, but felt it would be wiser to wait until brandy had done a little mellowing. He sat down on the bed.

The musician handed Dooley a huge glass of brandy; he went back to the dresser and got his own glass and, with his instrument in his other hand, went to the rocker. He raised the glass. “To music, Dooley.”

“To Nachtmusik, ” said Dooley. He drank off a goodly sip, and it burned like fire, but it was good brandy. Then he could wait no longer. ” Otto, mind if I look at that instrument of yours? It’s a hautboy, isn’ t it?”

“A hautboy, yes. Not many would recognize it, even musicians. But I’m sorry, Dooley. I can’t let you handle it. Or play it, if you were going to ask that, too. I’m sorry, but that’s the way it is, my friend.”

Dooley nodded and tried not to look glum. The night is young, he told himself; another drink or two of brandy that size may mellow him. Meanwhile, he might as well find out as much as he could.

“Is it—your instrument, I mean, a real one? I mean, a medieval one? Or a modern reproduction?”

“Imade it myself, by hand. A labor of love. But, my friend, stay with the clarinet, I advise you. Especially do not ask me to make you one like this; I could not. I have not worked with tools, with a lathe, for many years. I would find my skill gone. Are you skillful with tools?”

Dooley shook his head. “Can’t drive a nail. Where could I find one, even something like yours?”

The musician shrugged. “Most are in museums, not obtainable. You might find a few collections of ancient instruments in private hands, and buy one at an exorbitant price—and you might even find it still playable. But, my friend, be wise and stay with your clarinet. I advise you strongly.”

Dooley Hanks could not say what he was thinking, and didn’t speak.

“Tomorrow we will talk about’ finding you a new clarinet,” the musician said. “Tonight, let us forget it. And forget your wish for a hautboy, even your wish to play this one—yes, I know you asked only to touch and handle, but could you hold it in your hands without wanting to put it to your lips? Let us drink some more and then I will play for us. Prosit!”

They drank again. The musician asked Dooley to tell something about himself, and Dooley did. Almost everything about himself that mattered except the one thing that mattered most—his obsession and the fact that he was making up his mind to kill for it if there was no other way.

There was no hurry, Dooley thought; he had all night. So he talked and they drank. They were halfway through their third round—and the last round, since it finished the bottle—of brandy, when he ran out of talk and there was silence.

And with a gentle smile the musician drained his glass, put it down, and put both hands on his instrument. “Dooley … would you like some girls?”

Dooley suddenly found himself a little drunk. But he laughed. “Sure,” he said. “Whole roomful of girls. Blonds, brunettes, redheads.” And then because he couldn’t let a squarehead square beat him at drinking, he killed the rest of his brandy too, and lay back across the single bed with his shoulders and head against the wall. “Bring ’em on, Otto.”

Otto nodded, and began to play. And suddenly the excruciating, haunting beauty of the music Dooley had last heard in the wine cellar was back. But a new tune this time, a tune that was lilting and at the same time sensual. It was so beautiful that it hurt, and Dooley thought for a moment fiercely: damn him, he’s playing my instrument; he owes me that for the clarinet I lost. And almost he decided to get up and do something about it because jealousy and envy burned in him like flames.

But before he could move, gradually he became aware of another sound somewhere, above or under the music. It seemed to come from outside, on the sidewalk below, and it was a rapid click-click-clickety-click for all the world like the sound of high heels, and then it was closer and it was the sound of heels, many heels, on wood, on the uncarpeted stairway, and then—and this was all in time with the music—there was a gentle tap-tap at the door. Dreamily, Dooley turned his head toward the door as it swung open and girls poured into the room and surrounded him, engulfing him in their physical warmth and exotic perfumes. Dooley gazed in blissful disbelief and then suspended the disbelief; if this were illusion, let it be. As long as— He reached out with both hands, and yes, they could be touched as well as seen. There were brown-eyed brunettes, green-eyed blonds and black-eyed redheads. And blue-eyed brunettes, brown-eyed blonds and green-eyed redheads. They were all sizes from petite to statuesque and they were all beautiful.