Gregor von Rezzori - An Ermine in Czernopol

“Wonderful, Adamchik,” groaned Theophila, “truly wonderful. Where does he come up with all of this?”

“And to think that this act of will can be conjured by a slap on the face!” Herr Adamowski continued, teeth bared and monocle flashing. “Yes, my dear friends, once we realize that true human relations occur as chemical reactions, outside all logic and even morality, then we land smack in the middle of alchemy. What spirit guided the hand that with one stroke made a hitherto chaste youth into a man, a human being full of the desire and distress of his hatred — with no apparent cause, mind you — it’s impossible to have any delusion in the matter, this is not about motives, but a metaphysical rite of initiation, the meaning of which we are able to discern with increasing clarity as it plays out. I tell you, we live in a magical hour, and so it is our human duty to ask, and with the greatest concern: How is the general health of the assembly?”

“Fabulous, Adamchik,” said Theophila. “Ready for print. Amazingly clever. You’re outdoing yourself lately.”

Disgust filled me with a restless despair. I was now looking openly at Aunt Paulette, no longer pretending that I was reading my book, and I knew at once that she was lost. I understood that what drew her here was a similar despair, although hers was far deeper and more relentless. Her self-contempt formed a bond of kinship with these people. The terrible act of exposure contained in Herr Adamowski’s words must have transformed this contempt into lust. I recalled one of Herr Tarangolian’s lines: “ Because if you live in a world so full of disdain and contempt, armed with nothing but your own scorned existence …” and a terrible pronouncement of the smirking Kunzelmann: “ Humor is when people laugh in spite of everything …”

At that moment the doorbell rang, and Herr Adamowski got up, saying, “Aha, she decided to come after all …” and rocked out of the room to open the door for a new guest.

It was Tamara Tildy.

She entered with a shy, apologetic smile, nodded to all present, and said, when I was introduced to her, “How is your sister?” She smiled as she explained: “I once wanted to give his little sister my necklace. If I had only done so — but I had mislaid it somewhere, back then. Now I no longer have it.”

Fellner squirmed in his seat, and Kopetzki choked again and coughed prolifically. Aunt Paulette didn’t move, and Theophila in the taffeta dress was also frozen in a mix of hostile defensiveness and gruesome curiosity that was evident in her hard eyes.

Tamara Tildy sat down in a chair that Herr Adamowski had wedged into the circle after freeing it from a load of magazines. Fellner came to his aid, brushing off the dust that had collected there with his handkerchief.

Madame Tildy smiled with strained grace, a little painfully, to each guest, one by one, and as she did so her head rocked slowly and slackly to the side, as if she had just woken up from a deep slumber full of happy dreams — a recuperative sleep following a long, strength-sapping illness. She was dressed in the trappings of a bygone elegance, faded and exceptionally feminine, with an abundance of silk scarves as delicate as veils, now frayed and torn. Her silver brocade jacket was now tarnished to a shade of black that hardly matched the hour, much less her delicate woolen dress, which was light-colored and summery. She was carrying a gold mesh purse, clutching it somewhat frantically, as if she were afraid someone might take it from her; its long chain was forever getting caught in the fringes, corners, folds, and bulges of her overburdened attire.

“It’s nice that you could make it after all, my dear,” said Herr Adamowski, staggering around to set a glass of liqueur in front of her. No one seemed astounded at the embarrassing way he addressed her.

“Yes, my friend, I have come to you,” said Madame Tildy gently. “You know that. I always come to you, day after day …” Below her sharp hooked nose, her doll-like mouth expressed a tender irony.

“Here, I have a present for you,” said Herr Adamowski, placing a delicate, high-stemmed glass of rare shape on the table in front of her.

“A Murano glass,” said Tamara Tildy in a cheery voice that was agonizingly distant. “From Venice … I’ll put it in my room, in the middle of the floor. It will be very beautiful there, all alone in its beauty.”

She stared at it for a while, and no one said a word.

“It will be very beautiful there,” she repeated. “All alone …” She reached for it and squeezed it to splinters in her hand.

“Oh, I’ve cut myself,” she said, and looked at her hand, which was dripping blood.

“I’ll bandage your hand,” said Herr Adamowski. He tottered to a chest covered with magazines, and fished a little bottle of tincture of iodine and some bandages out of a drawer. The general silence was so horrible it hurt. It made me hate everyone in the room, including Aunt Paulette.

“This will burn a little,” said Herr Adamowski, as he first blotted the blood with some cotton wool and then pressed another piece that had been dipped in the iodine against her fingers. He exuded a fatherly, if also awkwardly transparent, authority.

Once he had cleared the shards of glass off the table, she said: “You can do magic. Why don’t you make it whole again?”

“I’m not allowed to perform magic in the presence of Fräulein Paulette,” he said, with a toothy smile that was meant to be charming.

“But if I want you to …” said Tamara Tildy, looking at my aunt. Aunt Paulette met her stare with a similar coolness and indolent calm.

“Yes, yes, I know …” said Madame Tildy, lost. She got up. “I’ll be going again.”

“But why? You just got here,” said Herr Adamowski.

“I have something to do. Something important. Something very important.” She seemed very anxious. “I had forgotten about it when I came. I have to … My dress is full of blood. I have to change.” She left the room without saying goodbye. Herr Adamowski followed her out. We heard him stamping as he walked her to the door.

“Well, Herr Kavalier , how about another little glass of Cointreau?” he asked me when he came back, and brought me the glass that Madame Tildy had left untouched. “Not a drop of this noble drink should go wasted.”

The three men, who had been sitting there, dumb as blocks, laughed once again. Herr Adamowski returned to his seat and launched into a long anecdote of excruciating wit that began with the words: “By the way, do you know the story of the two Russians who go to their priest …” Like all bad mimics he grossly exaggerated the Russian accent, going from the highest head note to the deepest bass, and back up to a high-pitched squeal, going so far as to say “saltpyotr” for “saltpeter”—which elicited a new burst of applause. I was relieved when Aunt Paulette was finally ready to go.

We spoke even less to each other on the way home than we had on the way to Herr Adamowski’s. We were just crossing the street between the officers’ casino and the entrance to the Volksgarten when a caravan of vehicles drove up that we had to let pass. There were several families of Galician Jews, who were coming to town in small horse-drawn carts piled with their meager possessions. Their melancholy dark eyes looked on us as strangers.

At home, my mother said: “My heavens, the boy is completely pale. Aren’t you feeling well?”

I said I was fine, although I really felt awful. Tanya steered clear of me and avoided being alone with me for the next several days.

As a result it wasn’t until much later that I learned about Tanya’s own visit to Herr Adamowski’s:

During the night, she hadn’t been able to sleep. She was so restless and upset about her clumsy dancing that she was crying. Finally she got up to go to Mama. As she passed Aunt Paulette’s room she heard our father’s voice, very worked-up: “If you go to his place one more time there’s going to be hell to pay. Believe me, I’m not joking. This time I’m serious.”