Flaw (12 page)

A pronounced stench accompanied the commander and his guests into the café. As soon as they took their places at the table, the obliging, lisping waiter took their boots to be cleaned. Sitting at the table in their socks, they finally felt a sense of relief. They ate with relish the special dish not mentioned on the menu: pork knuckle with cabbage. They also enjoyed the chocolate mousse, which, like the pork knuckle, they owed to the waiter's resourcefulness. Everyone ate as much as he could without worrying if he would later be able to get up from his seat. It was all on the house. Nevertheless, the commander of the guard found the energy to try on the general's greatcoat, seemingly just as a joke. Because of his rank, the general served himself first from the various dishes, and led the way in overeating and overdrinking. The moment he started to laugh, a button popped and his uniform jacket opened over his belly, showing the world his white undershirt. The general's button was located by the adjutant in the semidarkness under the table and was wrapped solicitously in a paper napkin.

The greatcoat hung on the commander of the guard as if it had been made to measure; it looked unquestionably better than on the general even, and the commander glanced uneasily towards the officers, unable to comprehend why they too were laughing fit to burst. During the short moment he had had the coat on, his eyes had glowed with a gold-tinted metallic gleam, as if they had always belonged to the braided collar. Confident in his appearance, which inspired benevolence along with an appropriate admixture of respect, and which inclined the residents of the apartment buildings to see in him a model of noble courage and pure intentions, the commander of the guard felt that the golden sheen was his due. After all, he was the one that maids had crushes on, he was the one the grammar school pupils looked up to, he was the one wished well by old men watching out from behind their lace curtains. For a moment he imagined that the general would present him with the greatcoat out of gratitude for all he had done. Why wouldn't he, especially if he could order as many coats of this kind as he wished? But what if, in the place he came from, there was not even one other such coat? So let him at least forget to take the coat with him when he flew off in the helicopter. It did not seem likely; one couldn't really count on his being so absentminded. The general's appearance also inspired respect, hinting at an iron will, experience, and a presence of mind that in the past had saved him more than once from mortal danger – otherwise he would not be sitting here at the table. One moment more, one
more portion of chocolate mousse and one more glass, and he himself would start to recount the story. But what if the commander of the guard enlisted the help of the waiter? What if the latter agreed to take the greatcoat from the rack at a crucial moment and hide it somewhere?

However, first the helicopter would have to arrive, and there was still no sign of it. Was it not expected after lunch? The snow clouds had not dispersed but, on the contrary, had thickened. The airmen considered “after lunch” to mean more or less the same as “before dinner,” so everything was in the best possible order. By the time dessert came, they had already recovered their spirits and wished to have some fun before their departure. But what was it they really wanted? They weren't interested in the billiard table of polished wood with its little pyramid of ivory balls arranged on the dark green baize. They would probably have preferred a noisy pinball machine with flashing colored lights, like the one in the air force mess where for years they had killed time in their off-duty hours. The officers were looking for pleasing distractions. But the commander couldn't even show them a good movie: the cinema projector had been removed, along with the rows of seats upholstered in thread-bare plush, and the auditorium was filled with neatly piled sacks of quicklime, sand, and plaster that were evidently waiting for remodeling work to begin. So after a few more rounds, all they could do would be to have the waiter fetch a gramophone and then dance for a while, one airman with another, one officer
with another, to the sound of the fox-trot. To amuse the company the youngest of them, the general's adjutant, might put on, for example, a lady's hat with a feather, procured from goodness knows where.

In the meantime, the inquisitive children from the orphanage had gathered at the window of the café and, unnoticed, their noses flattened against the pane, were avidly watching the spectacle: first the silverware maneuvering about the plates, then the fascinating remains of the chocolate mousse in a glass serving bowl, which eventually, to the astonishment of the audience, was shifted to the edge of the table to make room in the middle. The commander of the guard laid a paper napkin in its place and drew something on it for the airmen, who leaned forward intently. The general was enjoying a cigar and condescendingly watching the movements of the pen out of the corner of his eye. In the middle of the napkin there was a crooked circle. It was marked with numbers like the face of a clock. Above the twelve there appeared the word “offices,” and beneath the six, “school.” The number one was underlined twice, and a curved arrow led from it to the seven. At the seven the simple drawing grew more complicated. The dark depths of a gateway opened up here, cutting into the circumference of the circle; right next to it, in a jagged line, the outline of kitchen steps led upward to the right door. That was the best place to have the general's button sewn back on, and also for any other services they might require. The personal presence of the commander
could be awkward; it would be sufficient to mention his name.

For a moment the pencil hovered undecidedly over the napkin. If I am the young man whose gaze is fixed on the general's greatcoat, I must just have remembered how she wouldn't let me go. She clung to my cuff, weeping, and when I gave it a tug, she almost tore it off. She needed a single sobering blow to the cheek; after that she calmed down at once. On second thought, he could safely assume that she was stupid and submissive enough not to make any more fuss: the wily old general would know how to handle her. The abbreviation “x 1” probably meant that they should climb only one flight of stairs, though it could also have indicated that the airmen ought to go to number seven one by one, and never in a group. So the major would follow the general, then would come the captain, with the young adjutant last. The commander put away his pencil, raised his honest steel gray eyes to the general and, standing from the table, placed the napkin in his hands.

It was then that he suddenly noticed half a dozen hungry pairs of eyes outside the window following his every movement. The spectators huddled together were not content with observing him as, having eaten so much he was fit to burst, he drew on the napkin, furtively suppressing a belch. They would have preferred him to go on eating rather than scribbling on napkins. They waited impatiently for the appearance of further courses, being unsated with the ones they had already seen.
They would have wanted to see other delicious morsels raised on his fork, so as once again to devour them with their gaze until they disappeared into the pink mouth beneath the neatly trimmed mustache. A rap on the windowpane gave mild expression to the commander's irritation, but it did not scare the mob away; quite the opposite, they responded by making faces and giggling impudently. There was no one around to drive them back behind the iron ring of the tracks.

If the commander of the guard had had his boots on, he would have run out on the spot and dealt with them himself. It would have been enough, he believed, to grab one of them by the scruff of the neck and give him a few kicks on the shin; the rest would have quieted down at once and would not have said another word. In the meantime, the general and the major have already gotten back their boots, which have been polished till they gleam; the captain is just getting ready to pull his on, and the adjutant will be next. If I am the leader of the guard, I demand my boots! This instant! Yet the boots are still in the closet by the cloakroom, next to the adjutant's, last in line for being cleaned. The waiter would not dare bring them as they are, dirty and smelly; he prefers to grovel tearfully and offer endless apologies. And so minutes go by, and the spectators outside the window, relishing the commander's helplessness, torment him by aping his gestures, laughing as they shake their fists. In response to the curses spilling from the commander's lips, barely audible murmurs of reassurance come from the back
room. So the commander starts pounding on the window; a moment longer and he'd be brought to his senses by the sound of breaking glass he knows so well. And the children scatter. They run away and hide in courtyards, attics, and who knows where else. If I am the commander, I have my men to thank for all this. They evidently all went off home the moment their superior officer was out of sight – for, extraordinary as it seems, they too were eager for their lunch.

The waiter, a figure of the most beggarly cut, is of too little significance here to be able to make amends for the indignity he has caused the commander – the regrettable moment when he left him in his stockinged feet in front of an insolent derisive rabble. And because of this, the long-awaited lunch with the officers went unappreciated. The admiring and grateful question of where the waiter had obtained the pork knuckle, and how he had miraculously been able to marinate it and roast it, would never be uttered. If anything at all here could be made right, it would only happen if the waiter were forced to take all of the mockery upon himself, to be submerged in it, to sink in ridicule without mercy and without end. When the boots are finally brought, then, the commander will grab them by the uppers and for a long time will assail this figure, who in his consternation will be lisping even more than usual, until the offense is washed away in blood. It will drip from a cut over the eye onto the black tailcoat and the white shirt front. The airmen pretend they are involved in their game of billiards, their backs
turned, rather than watch this scene, which reminds them only too much of the barracks. The balls click against one another unconvincingly and miss the pockets. A word of gratitude will be found for the commander, but not until he is pulling on the boots, for only then will they sense it's finally over, and breathe a sigh of relief. Their thanks will sound rather offhand considering the care with which they have been treated, the cordial hospitality and the astonishing lavishness of the meal. The reserve with which the airmen shake hands with the commander is especially painful to him, though on the other hand he understands that he ought not to bear a grudge.

Alas, nothing has gone as planned, and it's no surprise he has grown solemn. With one more longing glance into the cloakroom, at the gold-trimmed greatcoat which would have been so much more effective than his own jacket in setting the tone of his relations with the world, the leader of the guard sets out on his business, not noticing that his boots still smell. Only one course of action remained to him, one last resort: he must now gather his subordinates, line them up, and call to account the first one at hand. Returning from their homes, the guardsmen assembled in the school yard. Given soup and chops by their mothers, they had no excuses. All the more so because after lunch barely half of them had returned to their unit. What had happened to the rest? Had their mothers kept them at home and made them do their homework? If they started doing what their mothers said, the whole lot of them would end up deserting.
That was what he was afraid of. For the moment, though, they stood in a shortened but orderly double line in the grammar school yard, while he stormed back and forth in front of them, furious at those he could no longer reach. The longer he raged, the angrier he became. As he screamed till he was out of breath, meaningful pauses came of their own accord. In this way it cost no effort whatsoever to imitate the harsh tone of the radio broadcast. But the cadences of his speech were drowned out by dance music. Fox-trots could be heard coming from the café, where the gramophone with its big trumpet had been turned up to full volume.

By early afternoon someone had already picked up the chalk-and-plaster fragments left after the incident that some time ago had interrupted the distribution of the rolls, and had put them to use. The first scrawl to deface the walls had appeared on the façade of the cinema. It was a question mark with a provocatively curving belly, devoid of any context whatsoever. Since no one knew what it referred to specifically, it brought everything without exception into question, including the lace curtains in the windows, the ornamental railings, the widely accepted principle that one's fingernails ought to be clean, and the dignity of the life being led all around. Through its suggestiveness, the question mark became vulgar and offensive in and of itself. The guards were ordered to scratch it out, making use of their unlimited access to school supplies of chalk. From that moment, for a long while they were kept busy, because question marks
kept popping up here, there, and everywhere. Yet no one was caught red-handed. At least four such marks blighted the front of the government offices alone, one standing out mockingly beneath the damaged emblem. Two could be seen at number seven, a larger one and a smaller one, joined together in a single visibly obscene figure. The orphanage children, who were sticking their noses into everything, may well have preferred to write plainly and simply that, for example, here at number seven a young lady went with a young man. But that would have taken too many letters. A question mark is the easiest thing to scribble in haste, when the writer is all set to scram at a moment's notice. Exposed to the public view, it immediately takes on a shared meaning that is allusive in the most general sense. The guards ran from place to place, smudged in chalk from head to foot, till the last question mark had vanished, and all the buildings around the square were covered near ground level with a rash of expressive blotches that would never let anyone forget that here anything could be called into question.