Billiards at Half-Past Nine Read Online Free PDF Page A

22, architect, not living here; a daughter, 19, at college. Dr. F,’s assests: considerable. Related on his mother’s side to the Kilbs. Nothing negative to report.’ ” Jochen chuckled. “ ‘Nothing negative to report’! As if there ever had been anything out of the way about young Faehmel. And with him there never will be. One of the few people I’d stick my hand in the fire for any time, any old time of the day. Get me? This rotten arthritic old hand, right square in the fire! You don’t have to worry about leaving that kid up there alone with him. He’s not that kind. And if he was, so what? They allow queers in the government, don’t they? But he’s not that kind. He already had a child when he was twenty, by the daughter of one of my friends. Maybe you remember the girl’s father, Schrella. He worked right here once, for a year. No? You weren’t here at the time? Then take my word for it, just let young Faehmel play his billiards in peace. A fine family. Really is. Class. I knew his grandmother, his grandfather, his mother and his uncle. They used to play billiards here themselves, fifty years ago. You wouldn’t know, of course, but the Kilbs have lived on Modest Street for three hundred years. That is, they always did—there aren’t any left any more. His mother went off the beam, lost two brothers and three of her children died. Never got over it. Fine woman. The quiet kind, if you know what I mean. Never ate a crumb more than the ration card allowed her, not an ounce more, and her children didn’t get more than was coming to them, either, not from her. Crazy, of course. Whatever she got extra, she’d just give it all away. And she always got plenty: they owned big farms, and the Abbot of St. Anthony’s, down there in the Kissa Valley, he sent her tubs of butter, jars of honey, bread and so on. But she never ate any of it, or gave any of it to her children. They had to eat that sawdust bread with artificially colored marmalade, while their mother gave all the other stuff away. She even gave away money. Seen her do itmyself. Must have been in ’16 or ’17—used to see her coming out the front door with the bread and the jars of honey. 1917! Can you imagine what it was like then? But none of you can remember. You can’t imagine what it meant, honey in 1917, or in the winter of ’41–’42. Or the way she went down to the freight yard and tried to go along in the cars with the Jews. Screwball, they said. They locked her up in the looney bin, but for my money she wasn’t crazy at all. She was the kind of woman you only see in the old pictures in the museums. I’d go right down the line for her son, and if he doesn’t get first-class, number one service, things are going to hum around this joint. I don’t care if ninety-nine old women are asking for Hugo. If Herr Faehmel wants the kid with him, then he’s going to get him and don’t you forget it. Argus Information Bureau! Just imagine paying those fakers ten marks! Now I suppose you’re going to tell me you don’t know his father, old man Faehmel? Good! You do know him. But I bet you never thought he might be the father of the one playing billiards up there. Sure, everybody and his brother knows old man Faehmel. Came here fifty years ago in one of his uncle’s hand-me-down suits with a couple of bucks in his pocket. He used to play billiards right here, too, at that time, here in the Prince Heinrich, before you even knew what a hotel was. Some desk-clerk you are! Leave that one upstairs be, then. He’ll never do anything foolish or cause any harm. Worst he might do is get teed off in a nice quiet way. He was the best man at the plate and the best hundred-meter-dash man this old town’s ever had. He was tough, and if he had to be hard, he was hard, all right. He just couldn’t stand seeing some people giving other people a rough time. And if you can’t stand that kind of stuff, first thing you know you’re mixed up in politics. He