The Berlin Stories (11 page)

“And he can keep her, the dirty bitch,” added Otto violently. “I wouldn’t have her again if she came to me on her knees.”

“Well, well,” Arthur began to murmur automatically, “we live in stirring times…

He pulled himself up abruptly. Something was wrong. His eyes wandered uneasily over the array of plates and dishes, like an actor deprived of his cue. There was no tea-pot on the table.

Not many days after this, Arthur telephoned to tell me that Otto and Anni had made it up.

“I felt sure you’d be glad to hear. I may say that I myself was to some extent instrumental in the good work. Yes… Blessed are the peacemakers… As a matter of fact, I was particularly interested in effecting a reconciliation just now, in view of a little anniversary which falls due next Wednesday… You didn’t know? Yes, I shall be fifty-three. Thank you, dear boy. Thank you. I must confess I find it difficult to become accustomed to the thought that the yellow leaf is upon me… And now, may I invite you to a trifling banquet? The fair sex will be represented. Besides the reunited pair, there will be Madame Olga and two other of my more doubtful and charming acquaintances. I shall have the sitting-room carpet taken up, so that the younger members of the party can dance. Is that nice?”

“Very nice indeed.”

On Wednesday evening I had to give an unexpected lesson and arrived at Arthur’s flat later than I intended. I found Hermann waiting downstairs at the house door to let me in.

“I’m so sorry,” I said. “I hope you haven’t been standing here long?”

“It’s all right,” Hermann answered briefly. He unlocked the door and led the way upstairs. What a dreary creature he is, I thought. He can’t even brighten up for a birthday party.

I discovered Arthur in the sitting-room. He was reclining on the sofa in his shirtsleeves, his hands folded in his lap.

“Here you are, William.”

“Arthur, I’m most terribly sorry. I hurried as much as I could. I thought I should never get away. That old girl I told you about arrived unexpectedly and insisted on having a two-hour lesson. She merely wanted to tell me about the way her daughter had been behaving. I thought she’d never stop… Why, what’s the matter? You don’t look well.”

Arthur sadly scratched his chin.

“I’m very depressed, dear boy.”

“But why? What about?… I say, where are your other guests? Haven’t they come yet?”

“They came. I was obliged to send them away.”

“Then you are ill?”

“No, William. Not ill. I fear I’m getting old. I have always hated scenes and now I find them altogether too much for me.”

“Who’s been making a scene?” , Arthur raised himself slowly from his chair. I had a sudden glimpse of him as he would be in twenty years’ time; shaky and rather pathetic.

“It’s a long story, William. Shall we have something to eat first? I’m afraid I can only offer you scrambled eggs and beer; if indeed there is any beer.”

“It doesn’t matter if there isn’t. I’ve brought you a little present.”

I produced a bottle of cognac which I had been holding behind my back.

“My dear boy, you overwhelm me. You shouldn’t, you know. You really shouldn’t. Are you sure you can afford it?”

“Oh yes, easily. I’m saving quite a lot of money nowadays.”

“I always,” Arthur shook his head sadly, “look upon the capacity to save money as little short of miraculous.”

Our footsteps echoed loudly through the flat as we crossed the bare boards where the carpet had been.

“All was prepared for the festivities, when the spectre appeared to forbid the feast,” Arthur chuckled nervously and rubbed his hands together.

“Ah, but the Apparition, the dumb sign, The beckoning finger bidding me forgo The fellowship, the converse and the wine, The songs, the festal glow!

“Rather apt here, I think. I hope you know your William Watson? I have always regarded him as the greatest of the moderns.”

The dining-room was draped with paper festoons in preparation for the party; Chinese lanterns were suspended above the table. On seeing them, Arthur shook his head.

“Shall we have these things taken down, William? Will they depress you too much, do you think?”

“I don’t see why they should,” I said. “On the contrary, they ought to cheer us up. After all, whatever has happened, it’s still your birthday.”

“Well, well. You may be right. You’re always so philosophical. The blows of fate are indeed cruel.”

Hermann gloomily brought in the eggs. He reported, with rather bitter satisfaction, that there was no butter.

“No butter,” Arthur repeated. “No butter. My humiliation as a host is complete… Who would think, to see me now, that I have entertained more than one member of a royal family under my own roof? This evening, I had intended to set a sumptuous repast before you. I won’t make your mouth water by reciting the menu.”

“I think the eggs are very nice. I’m only sorry that you had to send your guests away.”

“So am I, William. So am I. Unfortunately, it was impossible to ask them to stay. I shouldn’t have dared face Anni’s displeasure. She was naturally expecting to find a groaning board… And, in any case, Hermann told me there weren’t enough eggs in the house.”

“Arthur, do tell me now what has happened.”

He smiled at my impatience, enjoying a mystery, as always. Thoughtfully, he squeezed his collapsed chin between finger and thumb.

“Well, William, the somewhat sordid story which I am about to relate to you centres on the sitting-room carpet.”

“Which you had taken up for the dancing?”

Arthur shook his head.

“It was not, I regret to say, taken up for the dancing. That was merely a façon de parler. I didn’t wish to distress one of your sympathetic nature unnecessarily.”

“You mean, you’ve sold it?”

“Not sold, William. You should know me better. I never sell if I can pawn.”

“I’m sorry. It was a nice carpet.”

“It was, indeed… And worth very much more than the two hundred marks I got for it. But one mustn’t expect too much these days… At all events, it would have covered the expenses of the little celebration I had planned. Unfortunately,” here Arthur glanced towards the door, “the eagle, or, shall I say, the vulture eye of Schmidt lighted upon the vacant space left by the carpet, and his uncanny acumen rejected almost immediately the very plausible explanation which I gave for its disappearance. He was very cruel to me. Very firm… To cut a long story short, I was left, at the end of our most unpleasant interview, with the sum of four marks, seventy-five pfennigs. The last twenty-five pfennigs were an unfortunate afterthought. He wanted them for his bus-fare home.”

“He actually took away your money?”

“Yes, it was my money, wasn’t it?” said Arthur, eagerly, seizing this little crumb of encouragement. “That’s just what I told him. But he only shouted at me in the most dreadful way.

“T I never heard anything like it. I wonder you don’t sack him.”

“Well, William, I’ll tell you. The reason is very simple. I owe him nine months’ wages.”

“Yes, I supposed there was something like that. All the same, it’s no reason why you should allow yourself to be shouted at. I wouldn’t have put up with it.”

“Ah, my dear boy, you’re always so firm. I only wish I’d had you there to protect me. I feel sure you would have been able to deal with him. Although I must say,” Arthur added doubtfully, “Schmidt can be terribly firm when he likes.”

“But, Arthur, do you seriously mean to tell me that you intended spending two hundred marks on a dinner for seven people? I never heard anything so fantastic.”

“There were to have been little presents,” said Arthur meekly. “Something for each of you.”

“It would have been lovely, of course… But such extravagance… You’re so hard up that you can only eat eggs, and yet, when you do get some cash, you propose to blow it immediately.”

“Don’t you start lecturing me, too, William, or I shall cry. I can’t help my little weaknesses. Life would be drab indeed if we didn’t sometimes allow ourselves a treat.”

“All right,” I said, laughing. “I won’t lecture you. In your place, I’d probably have done just the same.”

After supper, when we had returned with the cognac into the denuded sitting-room, I asked Arthur if he had seen Bayer lately. The change which came over his face at the mention of the name surprised me. His soft mouth pursed peevishly. Avoiding my glance, he frowned and abruptly shook his head.

“I don’t go there more than I can help.”

“Why?”

I had seldom seen him like this. He seemed, indeed, annoyed with me for having asked the question. For a moment he was silent. Then he broke out, with childish petulance: “I don’t go there because I don’t like to go. Because it upsets me to go. The disorder in that office is terrible. It depresses me. It offends a person of my sensibilities to see such entire lack of method… Do you know, the other day Bayer lost a most important document, and where do you think it was found? In the waste-paper basket. Actually… to think that these people’s wages are paid out of the hard-earned savings of the workers. It makes one’s blood boil… And, of course, the whole place is infested with spies. Bayer even knows their names… And what does he do about it? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. He doesn’t seem to care. That’s what so infuriates me; that happy-go-lucky way of doing things. Why, in Russia, they’d simply be put against the wall and shot.”

I grinned. Arthur as the militant revolutionary was a little too good to be true.

“You used to admire him so much.”

“Oh, he’s an able enough man in his way. No doubt about that.” Arthur furtively rubbed his chin. His teeth were bared in a snarl of an old lion. “I’ve been very much disappointed in Bayer,” he added.

“Indeed?”

“Yes.” Some last vestiges of caution visibly held him back. But no. The temptation was too exquisite: “William, if I tell you something, you must promise on all you hold sacred that it will go no farther.”

“I promise.”

“Very well. When I threw in my lot with the Party, or, rather, promised it my help (and though I say it who shouldn’t, I am in a position to help them in many quarters to which they have not hitherto had access)—”

“I’m sure you are.”

“I stipulated, very naturally I think, for a (how shall I put it?)—let us say—a quid pro quo.” Arthur paused and glanced at me anxiously. “I hope, William, that that doesn’t shock you?”

“Not in the least.”

“I’m very glad. I might have known that you’d look at the thing in a sensible light… After all, one’s a man of the world. Flags and banners and catchwords are all very well for the rank and file, but the leaders know that a political campaign can’t be carried on without money. I talked this over with Bayer at the time when I was considering taking the plunge, and, I must say, he was very reasonable about it. He quite saw that, crippled as I am with five thousand pounds’ worth of debts….”

“My God, is it as much as that?”

“It is, I’m sorry to say. Of course, not all my engagements are equally pressing… Where was I? Yes. Crippled as I am with debts I am hardly in a position to be of much service to the Cause. As you know yourself, I am subject to all sorts of vulgar embarrassments.”

“And Bayer agreed to pay some of them?”

“You put things with your usual directness, William. Well, yes, I may say that he hinted, most distinctly hinted, that Moscow would not be ungrateful if I fulfilled my first mission successfully. I did so. Bayer would be the first to admit that. And what has happened? Nothing. Of course, I know it’s not altogether his fault. His own salary and that of the typists and clerks in his office is often months overdue. But it’s none the less annoying for that. And I can’t help feeling that he doesn’t press my claim as much as he might. He even seems to regard it as rather funny when I come to him and complain that I’ve barely enough money for my next meal… Do you know, I’m still owed for my trip to Paris? I had to pay the fare out of my own pocket; and imagining, naturally enough, that the expenses, at least, would be defrayed, I travelled first class.”

“Poor Arthur!” I had some trouble to avoid laughing. “And what shall you do now? Is there any prospect of this money coming after all?”

“I should think none,” said Arthur gloomily.

“Look here, let me lend you some. I’ve got ten marks.”

“No, thank you, William. I appreciate the thought, but I couldn’t borrow from you. I feel that it would spoil our beautiful friendship. No, I shall wait two days more; then I shall take certain steps. And, if these are not successful, I shall know what to do.”

“You’re very mysterious.” For an instant, the thought even passed through my mind that Arthur was perhaps meditating suicide. But the very idea of his attempting to kill himself was so absurd that it made me begin to smile. “I hope everything will go off all right,” I added, as we said goodbye.

“So do I, my dear William. So do I.” Arthur glanced cautiously down the staircase. “Please give my regards to the divine Schroeder.”

“You really must come and visit us some day soon. It’s such a long time since you’ve been. She’s pining away without you.”

“With the greatest pleasure, when all these troubles are over. If they ever are.” Arthur sighed deeply. “Good night, dear boy. God bless you.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

The next day, Thursday, I was busy with lessons. On Friday, I tried three times to ring up Arthur’s flat, but the number was always engaged. On Saturday, I went away for the week-end to see some friends in Hamburg. I didn’t get back to Berlin until late on Monday afternoon. That evening I dialled Arthur’s number, wanting to tell him about my visit; again there was no reply. I rang four times, at intervals of half an hour, and then complained to the operator. She told me, in official language, that “the subscriber’s instrument” was “no longer in use.”

I wasn’t particularly surprised. In the present state of Arthur’s finances, it was hardly to be expected that he would have settled his telephone bill. All the same, I thought, he might have come to see me or sent a note. But no doubt he was busy, too.

Three more days went by. It was seldom that we had ever let a whole week pass without a meeting or, at any rate, a telephone conversation. Perhaps Arthur was ill. Indeed, the more I thought about it, the surer I felt that this must be the explanation of his silence. He had probably worried himself into a nervous breakdown over his debts. And, all this while, I had been neglecting him. I felt suddenly very guilty. I would go round and see him, I decided, that same afternoon.