Everyone present had looked at Dafna. As in the solemn silence when the priest pronounces the name of a child. And they saw that her large eyes had lost their dull membrane, but they themselves remained fat and without depth. Not beautiful. Worthless, round tokens left over after a lost game.
Whether it was because of her eyes, or something else, Dafna remained unmarried. Her special surname became known even outside the house.
It was not that she did not have admirers. But they were always beneath the standards of the house. They did not measure up to the surname that took two intakes of breath to pronounce. When Dafna was approaching the age of an old maid, the great house agreed silently to lower its standards. At least until Dafna was married. In the meanwhile, time, and not just Dafna’s unlucky influence, had deprived it of many of the signs of its former prosperity. There was still a long table with heavy chairs round it. But the very last piece of Alt Wien had gone, not this time due only to poor Dafna’s butter-fingers.
So, it was decided that Dafna should marry. That a young man should come to the house, introduce himself and sit down. Everything would be done without a fuss unworthy of that house, all the more so since it was an old maid who was to marry.
Spring was already well advanced and the early cherry tree in the yard was bearing fruit. But the day had dawned cold and damp, straying by mischance into the calendar.
The household sat, Dafna sat and the young man, a bank clerk of low rank, sat. If his origin and surname were unworthy of the house, at least his brow was high and pale. His eyes were suitably shy. His fingers fine and long.
He took the cup of coffee graciously, although it bore no famous trademark. The minor bank clerk nodded his head politely. He said ‘Yes, please!’ And ‘No, thank you’, nicely. He did not blow on his hot coffee. He did not slurp. He drank exactly the appropriate sip. When he lowered his cup onto the tray in front of him it clinked just as in the days when the Alt Wien had clinked in the house. He took the sugared rose meekly without licking the little silver spoon. He made a nice arc with his hand before he placed the little spoon in the crystal glass from which he had taken a sip of water. After that he gave a quiet, noble sigh.
The members of the household gazed contentedly at the little silver spoon as at an exotic fish in an aquarium. Just two or three more sighs and a nice full stop, worthy of the house, would have to have been placed on this scene. But it was just then that Dafna’s eldest sister came into the room, the one most abundantly endowed with her mother’s beauty. Here came the unpractised extra to confuse the order of images and scenes and wave a halberd at just the wrong moment.
The water in the glass became cloudy and the little silver spoon lost its sheen. The sister came in with the ill-humour of a former beauty. She looked somewhere over his pale brow and, with barely a greeting, asked:
‘Whose is that dreifirtl on the hook?’
The end! Dafna no longer wanted to see the minor bank clerk nor was she able to answer the household’s insistent persuasion and questions as to why. That dreifirtl just kept ringing in her ears. And the minor bank clerk appeared before her inner eye in a coat, which reached only three-quarters of its full length. As time went by, she was increasingly certain that on that ill-fated day, her sister-the-beauty had been carrying a halberd in her right hand, while down her pink cheek hung red sideburns, although admittedly not lush ones. When Dafna began to read cards, her sister-the-beauty appeared as the knave of hearts. Dafna forgot her long dead uncle who once, to earn some pocket money or for the love of a capricious actress, had been an extra in the last act of a theatrical performance.
So the modest book of expectation closed over the girlhood of Dafna Pehfogl and an old maid’s cards were laid out on the table. Dafna learned to read signs in the cards and through them to reveal the coming days. A dark shadow was already sprouting on her upper lip. It was too late for marriage negotiations. That day the little silver spoon had fallen to the bottom of the crystal glass like an anchor dropped in vain. When the minor bank clerk left, and the heavy front door closed behind him, smaller now in his three-quarter coat, Dafna had drunk the remains of the tepid, tasteless water in the crystal glass. Later, in her clumsiness, she had broken the glass. All that was left her was the little silver spoon. Since that day, it had rested like a silent secret among the trifles from Dafna’s girlhood.
Misfortunes of one kind and another continued to befall her. Even when the sound of the name Alt Wien had faded from the proud house. The worst had been the one with the electric coffee mill. Even now, the night before her crossing to the other side, when she thought of it, Dafna hastily clutched her left hand with her right.
She fell asleep just before dawn. She was roused by the ticking of the antique clock.
When the rigid frontier was set up between this side and that, and the only one of the family left here was Dafna, they had held an anxious consultation. The former beauty had said ill-temperedly:
‘Out of all of us, it had to happen to her.’
The others said nothing, then someone sighed and murmured:
‘Yes, pehfogl!’
But no plush curtain fell onto the stage. They did everything they could to bring Dafna over to their side.
At six-thirty, two young men with weapons and uniforms led Dafna to the bridge. One was tall, with a sharp nose from which a little drop hung. When the young man snified the little drop fell off, but was quickly replaced by a new, larger one.
‘Damn autumn weather,’ the tall lad swore.
The other one said nothing. He was small and dark. When she turned to him, just to try her luck, he looked at her irritably. And at her old-fashioned raincoat and little old-fashioned hat and fat eyes. Three yards away from the bridge, Dafna sensed the enemy and a bad sign. The knave of hearts had come up, although all this one had in his hand was a rife.
They led her to the bridge and left her. The sneezing one gave her a push and hissed:
‘Go on now, quick!’
Dafna stepped out as though in the large room where the children used to make living pictures during the winter holidays. She was always the one who practised longest and she was always the one who, sniffing, coughing or stumbling, spoiled the living tableau. But now she was on a bridge over which she had to move. The bridge between there and here. She clutched her little bag tightly to her.
She stepped boldly and decisively. Freed from other people’s gaze and lengthy sighs. Her feet were light on the deserted bridge between there and here. She was already approaching the middle of the bridge and the other bank seemed quite close.
But, the time of the living tableau was not yet over and she felt a tickle in her nostrils. She had as fast as possible to bow, to make a charming curtsy, and garner the praise of the household.
Her heart was beating irregularly, although no longer in response to the sound of the antique clock. She could smell the aroma of burnt coffee in her nostrils. Had he come up behind her, she would have hurried and escaped him. But he was coming from the bank to which she was drawing near. That was where the gleam of the crooked incisor beneath the full lip was, and the golden trademark cracked through the centre, the ill-fated clink of long-ago china. Perhaps, if she hurried, she could anticipate the shattering of the fine trademark. Perhaps she could avoid the eyes of the man with the halberd in his hand who was watching her from behind.
She would turn round and curtsy. She would escape him. She was half-way across and she would try to appease her destiny. Maybe she would no longer be Pehfogl. A blunder – a matter of a fraction of a second and you pay for it for years.
She turned. She raised her left arm. (Of all of us, she had to be the only one who was left-handed, her sister-the-beauty used to say). The one who was looking askance at her had lost at cards the night before, he was as incensed as a hungry wild beast and was sniffing the air to catch the scent of bad luck. Dafna had not yet had time to smile. And the latest little drop had not yet slid of the nose of the one who was sneezing. And he waved his pistol.