I Was Jack Mortimer (Pushkin Collection) Read Free Page A

and took her coat off. In the meantime he went over to the table and ate a few mouthfuls. She joined him at the table. She wasn’t pretty, but had a good figure and marvellous blonde hair, which now shimmered in the light of the lamp.
    “Would you like me to sort out some of your things?” she asked.
    “That’d be nice,” he mumbled, picking up the tray withthe uneaten food and putting it outside the door. “Have you eaten already?” he asked, when he was back in the room.
    “Yes,” she said. She had opened the wardrobe, taken out a few of his underclothes, and was holding them up to the light.
    “We can always go to the cinema later,” he said.
    “I’m easy either way,” she replied.
    She took her handbag and rummaged in it for a needle and thread. He offered her a cigarette, which she stuck between her lips before getting down to work.
    He shut the window, sat down on the bed, leant on his elbows and looked at her. The light played on her hair.
    They were planning to get married, but kept putting it off for various reasons: if the truth be known, only because they’d already known each other for too long. In the meantime she’d lost her job as a shop assistant, had then been unemployed for months at a stretch, and was now helping out here and there at a friend’s, taking in washing and doing mending and stitching jobs.
    She still hoped, of course, that he’d marry her, only she never mentioned it.
    He watched her all the while she was working, and sometimes made a comment or two. She asked him where he’d been all day, and he in turn asked her what she’d been doing.
    Every now and then, she returned the inspected items to the wardrobe and brought new ones to the table.
    Finally she put her needle away. He kissed her hands, drewher to him and kissed her on the lips. Then they stroked each other’s cheeks.
    They remained like that for some time and listened to the wind blowing round the house. And they thought how long they had already known each another. Or rather, they didn’t think, they simply felt how unhappy they were.
    At about nine they went to the cinema after all.
    Then he took her home.

    He didn’t have to go to work till midday the next day.
    At about nine he took the tram to the centre.
    In Alleegasse he didn’t see the commissionaire, who was probably on an errand. He was therefore able to walk up and down in front of Marisabelle’s house without having to engage in tedious conversation.
    It was a sunny autumn day. At the top of the street, where it climbed slightly, the wind blew dead foliage from the Theresianum Gardens. The tall windows of the palace reflected the sky above.
    Sponer stopped at a Packard that was parked in front of one of the houses.
    The chauffeur started talking to him, but almost immediately the owner of the car appeared, and they drove off.
    At about eleven Marisabelle came out of the entrance. She was again wearing the same grey suit and a fox over her shoulders.
    Sponer went up to her straight away, before she had even closed the gate, and his heart began to pound.
    “Excuse me,” he said, “for troubling you yesterday, I only wanted… I’m…”
    She looked at him while the gate swung shut.
    “I don’t have my car today,” he continued quickly. “I only wanted to apologize.”
    She didn’t reply immediately. “What for?” she asked, finally.
    “About yesterday,” he said. “I didn’t want you to think that I was trying to force you into anything.”
    “Really,” she said, and it seemed as though she wanted to say something else.
    “But I’d have had no other opportunity of speaking to you…”
    “You wanted to speak to me?”
    “Yes,” he said, and looked down.
    She leant against the gate and smiled, although he didn’t notice it. But when he looked up again, she merely said, “What about?”
    “I just wanted,” he said after a pause, “to… just to see you…”
    She took her handbag, which was under her left arm, transferred it