The Emperor of All Things - By Paul Witcover Page 0,142

Adolpheus none too gently, whether from weariness or exasperation, deposited me onto the bed.

‘Apologies, Herr Gray,’ he said cheerfully.

‘Adolpheus, you clumsy idiot!’ cried Corinna, who had followed Inge into the room. ‘Are you trying to kill him?’ She rushed to my bedside as though to protect me from a murderer. Ignoring the hurly-burly, Hesta went straight to the simmering furnace and flopped down onto the floor in front of it.

‘That’s enough from you, young lady,’ Inge said sharply. ‘Herr Gray left in your care, and see how he returns!’

‘Are you saying it’s my fault he was hurt?’ Corinna demanded, pulling up short and turning to face the landlady, an incredulous look on her face.

‘Isn’t it?’ Adolpheus asked. ‘After all, he would not have climbed the tower had you not tempted him with a kiss.’

Corinna flushed, and whatever she had been about to say went unsaid; in the heat of the exchange, she had, or so it seemed to me, forgotten what she had told Adolpheus earlier, but now the memory of it left her quite unable to speak.

‘What?’ cried Inge at this news. ‘Why, you shameless hussy! A kiss, indeed! Your father shall hear of this, I promise you.’

‘But Frau Hubner …’ Suddenly she looked near tears. Real ones this time. Corinna’s customary self-possession had the effect of making her seem older than her years, but now that façade was stripped away, revealing her youth and innocence. It wrung my heart to see, yet what could I say? She had invented the story of a kiss to stop me from telling Adolpheus the real reason for my climb; for whatever reason, she wished to keep what we had seen a secret, and I had no sense now that her wishes had changed, even if circumstances had taken an unforeseen turning.

‘But nothing,’ Inge said. ‘Get downstairs with you this instant. You’re late for work as it is, and that crowd of drunks is probably robbing me blind.’

‘But—’

‘I said now! You, too, Adolpheus – Herr Gray is not a sack of potatoes to be thrown down so roughly. He requires a woman’s touch.’

Corinna, after a plaintive glance at me, eyes brimming with tears, turned and left the room, her posture one of abject defeat. Adolpheus followed almost jauntily. ‘Well, clockman,’ he said in the doorway, ‘I’ll look in on you later, assuming there is anything left of you after Herr Doppler is through.’ He shook his shaggy head and chuckled. ‘A kiss indeed. That girl is a menace.’

‘She is innocent,’ I responded.

‘And all the more dangerous for it, as you are about to discover.’ He jerked his chin in my direction and added, ‘If the lesson hasn’t sunk in already.’

‘Ach, don’t pay him any mind,’ Inge said after Adolpheus had departed. ‘He is just jealous.’

‘Jealous?’ I exclaimed.

‘Of course jealous,’ she answered. ‘Do you think anyone has offered to kiss him lately? Or ever?’

I had to laugh.

Inge smiled, her apple-red cheeks dimpling. ‘That’s more like it. Don’t worry about Herr Doppler. He knows his daughter’s tricks and fancies. You are not the first she’s led astray.’ The landlady leaned over the bed, her abundant breasts seeming about to spill out of the top of her blouse like ripe fruits from a cornucopia. The heady aromas of the kitchen wafted from her as if from an open oven, and once again they proved to have a stimulating effect, which I shifted my position on the bed to disguise, though I could see by Inge’s glance that my condition had not escaped her notice. ‘Your poor foot,’ she said, laying a massive hand on my leg, above the knee; I could feel the heat of her through my clothing, as if she and not the tile stove were the source of the room’s excessive warmth. ‘Can I do anything to ease your pain until the doctor arrives?’

I had the distinct impression that she was not referring to my foot at all. But just at that moment, the gentleman in question knocked at the open door. He was a small man, though of course taller than Adolpheus, but slight as a reed and pale as parchment, as if he had no more than a trickle of blood in his veins. He peeked into the room, blinking owlishly behind a pair of spectacles. He was dressed in black, which made his skin seem all the paler; his powdered grey wig, of a style long out of fashion, was tilted askew, as though he had jammed it onto