Richard Weiner - The Game for Real

It’s so simple!

It had begun — how? With the idyll with Zinaida. The beast, which wanted to be an angel at all costs, adapted the idyll into a bucolic chant accompanied by bagpipes— caritas — and shawms — equality, liberty, fraternity. (“No, Zinaida, don’t call me ‘sir.’ Speak to me naturally,” his craving kowtowed, playing the democrat.) An unhypocritical beast would have grabbed Zinaida, who had wished for nothing else, grabbed her by the waist, seized the opportunity by the hair, and done what any country boy would — but yes, in mill-side meadows, in the willows past the pool! After noontime, in the scorching heat, when the whole house was having a siesta. — In the evening, in the yard, he would wait for his supper, a gratified little beasty, a benevolent little creature, a kind little monster. It was an evening so becalmed — he recalls — one of those evenings in which the gratified, and only they, can be innocents for a moment, with the mystical innocence in which love blossoms afresh like a lotus. — Gratified, refreshed, benevolent, kind. A car would have arrived, a car of swaggering upstarts; they would have motioned to him with a teaser’s sprightly irony. They would have asked him for his room; he would have surrendered it to them grumbling, but grumbling heroically; no pedantry, no bachelor worry about “pardon the mess” he’d have been left in peace at his table; but no, he’d have gone upstairs; to help; let’s say that even then he would have gone “to help”; let’s say that it still would have come to a “misunderstanding”; and what then? It would have stopped at the misunderstanding, it would have dissolved the way mere misunderstandings do: with Homeric laughter, which opens the tears’ floodgates and peoples’ arms; for the male, when the satisfied female sets her gaze upon him, is cheerful, bold, and invincible; the female happy, and Zinaida, Zinaida had, after all, been there , she had been there from start to finish. She, his fair-haired, almost-new woman, heavy around the hips, with down on the back of her neck, with breath like mature rye. . Move out of Benedictine Mill? Away from Zinaida, from the meadows and willows? Out of the question. He would remain there always, until the seductive September mists, when Paris’s “happy hour” buzzes at those who know when they’ve heard it, even as far as mountain villages in the middle of nowhere.

Then, early one morning and in mist that stretches all the way to cities and arouses in them an atavistic, ephemeral memory of their country origin, Zinaida would have been helping him load up the carriage, and a swish of the driver’s whip would have entwined the two of them and the simultaneous “until two weeks from now, in Paris,” and this melodious ribbon would have become entangled in the looks of two creatures, boldly measuring themselves up, who had long since gone down that easy path from words of passion to words of reason, the path that the predestined couple are walking, and this melodious ribbon would then have been rolled up by the happy voices of boarders and landlords bidding farewell merely warmly, but warmly , and they’d then press her upon him even into the carriage, when it was already in motion. .

“What a coincidence,” someone said, grabbing him by the elbow.

At first he didn’t really understand, at first he only heard, and then only that the words were directed toward him. And because it was precisely one of those now so frequent instances when he was meandering the merciless spiral that wound around his depraved thoughts, wherein drowned even the memory of his burning ignominy from Benedictine Mill, which he had to dig out from those sucking morasses again and again (for in his present humiliation it seemed to him so pure that he clung to it as to a treasure), because he was now once more on those humbling rambles, he jolted himself like a shamefaced man who’s been found out, and who knows, maybe he wasn’t shy about being addressed by a common cop, who was also sizing him up.

But it was Zinaida. She took him by the elbow and leaned over in such a way that she was both blocking his path and forcing him to look at her fully and slightly from above, for she was much shorter than he.

He recognized her immediately, even though she was wearing her enterprising Sunday smile, through which it was easier to get to her than it had been at the mill, where she carried a servant’s lack of urgency, which one had to step around, and he saw Zinaida, in whom it was as if he’d wiped away the memory of everything that would have made him blush before her.

“What a coincidence!” she shouted cheerfully, and as if she were whispering to him the kind of accent with which to say “Zinaida, is it you?” so that the return of those dark memories would be exorcised forever. — But he said, “What do you want from me?” and in such a way that she turned serious and looked up toward the voice of a person accustomed to no one ever addressing him except to demand a justification, a handout, or a comfort in no way resembling the truth.

“What would I want from you? Nothing. . just show me to the café. I’m waiting for someone. We can talk in the meantime.”

“I’m waiting for someone,” she repeated as they sat down, as though she were savoring it: “yes,” she said, when he didn’t respond.

She said “yes,” not suspecting how timid that sheepish “yes” contrasted with the sticky thought within him, which at first only popped up, and then, as if in its own glue, got stuck and was rotting.

She was talking quickly and easily, radiating a chattiness where, as though in rising water, her interest in him slowly drowned without her actually suspecting. He went from a being to an opportunity, some neutral vessel into which she was pouring scads of her excitement, joy, happiness, a little out of playfulness, a little out of need, and a little out of spite.

Yes, she has the day off; yes, of course she has a boyfriend (how could she not have a boyfriend?); yes, they go dancing; a tour bus driver (a driver! oh, a driver through and through!); no, he won’t be here before eight; what time is it now?; half past seven; half past seven — another half hour; how will she get back to the mill so late?; she’s used to it; for that matter, maybe she’ll spend the night in town; why wouldn’t she spend the night in town?; what’s wrong with spending the night in town?; “Good heavens, what are you thinking?” At the inn, naturally; or possibly with relatives; but why worry your head over it?; how long? — till noon tomorrow;. . yes; oh yes. . What a card!. .

“For that matter, if you want, you can wait until he gets here.”

And if he’s jealous? — Then he’s jealous. — Oh no, he certainly won’t be angry; “I’ll introduce you.”

At Benedictine Mill? — “The Steels? The ladies left for a spa.” — And the gentleman?. .

“Wouldn’t you know it, he gives me his attentions. . But no way. .”

“About you? — Oh yes, they talk about you. . Yes. .”

She looked up, inadvertently stabbing him with her eyes, she felt bad, lowered her head, murmured.

“No. . But no, what for?. . What do you care?” She looked up again; she stared at him slightly askew, slightly from below.

“No. . rather, no. . don’t go there. . You wouldn’t be able to do anything about it — you wouldn’t. With a clear conscience. . How could you with a clear conscience. .?”

“And what would you go back there for? — It’s not like they would even serve you.”

“What are you saying?”

“Really — they wouldn’t serve you,” and Zinaida’s voice spilled out suddenly into a great and shame-inducing pity, and it was so thoroughly that humiliating pity that nothing else went into it.