BETWEEN NINE AND NINE

Fiction

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By LEO PERUTZ (Ariadne; 1918/2010)

Austria’s late, great Leo Perutz (1882-1957), the author of head-spinning classics like THE MASTER OF THE DAY OF JUDGEMENT (1921) and SAINT PETER’S SNOW (1933), demonstrated incalculable range in BETWEEN NINE AND NINE, his second novel. Translated by Thomas B. Ahrens and Edward Larkin, it’s the comedic and rambunctious account of Stanislaus Demba, a lowly student on a madcap dash through Vienna. His object is to come up with the funds necessary (he believes) to nab the woman he loves.

From Nine to Nine

The first half of the book is puzzling, as Perutz keeps us in the dark as to why Demba is always trying to keep his hands covered. It turns out they’re handcuffed together because (as is explained around the halfway point) Demba was arrested the day before but managed to break free and leap from a prison window at around nine that morning.

Demba’s exploits grow increasingly ribald as people mistake his bizarre behavior for that of a hashish smoker, an invalid or a burn victim. He’s even believed to be harboring a gun under his robe, a misconception the opportunistic Demba isn’t shy about using to his advantage. But readers shouldn’t get too complacent, as in the final pages Perutz throws us a narrative curve ball, with a twist ending that places the proceedings on a hallucinatory plain that’s in keeping with Perutz’s better-known fantasy-tinged novels.

The twist in question isn’t a terribly novel one, at least to anyone remotely familiar with “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” JACOB’S LADDER or the aforementioned MASTER OF THE DAY OF JUDGEMENT, and the ending furthermore raises more questions than it answers. Much of the story is told from the POVs of peripheral characters who pass through Demba’s life, all of whom have distinct personalities and histories…and yet we’re ultimately led to believe they’re all a figment of the protagonist’s imagination.

Certainly, I admire the author’s storytelling trickery. His comedic skill and sumptuous depiction of early Twentieth Century Vienna are also commendable, but he’s just not playing fair.