Hanno’s Doll (2 page)

“M-m-m-mister Dietrich, d-d-don't t-tell m-m-me!”

“What? Are you saying, ‘I must warn you that anything you say will be put down and may be used against you'?”

“No. C-c-come on, Mr. Dietrich! Look—nobody's asking you a thing. I m-m-mean, I'm just h-h-here. This isn't off-official or anything. It's j-j-just you shouldn't t-t-talk to anyone. I m-m-mean, talk t-t-to your lawyer.”

“Mr. Starter, my lawyer is Moe Herman. There's nothing happens inside a theatre Moe doesn't have an angle on and nothing outside a theatre he knows anything about.” He made a face. “The Body Beautiful, yes; this body, no. I'm going to tell you, Mr. Starter.”

“I th-think you sh-should th-think it over.”

“I don't need to think it over. I will tell you; then you call my house and tell my wife and Dr. Leopold. Anni, also. Dr. Leopold's mother.

“Relax, Mr. Starter. I'm going to talk. Of course I'm going to talk. You can't think I murdered that young man. Hanno Dietrich? An accident, Mr. Starter. It could have happened to anybody, anywhere. Of course I will talk.

“I am rehearsing, then. I want to rehearse.… I am accustomed to.… Don't you want to hear? Aren't you curious?”

The K.K.K. blushed. He was curious, all right.

“It was an unfortunate accident … a terrible accident. My God, what else? I never saw that boy before that night. What would I want to kill him for, a boy I never saw before? What would the percentage be?” He took note that he was using American slang—“What would the percentage be”—. Americans were using it when he first came here from Vienna, and he was using it now to show the K.K.K. he was a regular fellow, not a fat foreigner. “This was November nineteenth. The curtain rises on a quiet domestic scene.

“Am I trying to remind you with this—‘curtain … quiet domestic scene'—that I am Hanno Dietrich, not a nobody. Perhaps a little. No, not even a little. I introduce theatre because that was the essence of it. Yes, essence. There are curtains in life also. You are a young man,” he said. “Have you ever had a tragedy in your life? Not a thing like this, no. An ordinary human tragedy. Someone you love is going to die. A parent, perhaps?” The K.K.K. nodded. “For a while didn't everything become unreal to you? Theatre? Can this be me? Can this happen to my mother, to my father? For a while, you aren't you. Your home is not your home. Your life is not your life; then, of course, it does become your life, your life includes the tragedy. But with this thing, that has not yet happened.” He ran his hand through his hair, noticing the gesture only because his hair was damp with sweat. He said, “Perhaps I was beginning to believe it hadn't happened. Perhaps this is what all criminals do.”

He went back to it. He on one side of the fireplace reading and Puppchen on the other side, knitting. Music on Felix's hi-fi. “This must have been about eleven-thirty in the evening. When we are alone, my wife and I go to bed at eleven. My wife was finishing a pattern in her knitting—if you stop you lose your place—so I went up for my shower first. There is only one bathroom. My poor friend Felix was not quite American enough to require two bathrooms for two bedrooms. Of course, the little powder room downstairs … Where was I? Yes, it was about eleven-thirty, Mr. Starter, say, eleven-forty. I had finished my shower. My wife had finished her knitting pattern and had gone up for her shower. I came down in my robe for my nightcap. I have a glass of wine … as one takes a sleeping pill.

“I was bending over the tray when I heard this knock on the window. There is a big window. We do not curtain it We have nothing to hide.” He made the conjurer's gesture he had used in
The Quicker Hand;
then he leered suggestively. “
Downstairs
we have nothing to hide.” He couldn't prevent himself from doing this “even fat boys will be boys” face, and the K.K.K. grinned shamefacedly. (He felt better then.)

“When I heard this knock, I went to the door and switched on the outside light and it was a young man there. Jeans, sneakers, sweater, one of the boys, I thought at first, one of the students from the Drama Department, I mean. I opened the door because in the two and a half months we'd been in Bradley, it had become a regular thing for the Drama boys to drop in and see us a couple of evenings a week. Open house. They didn't come so late and not alone, of course, but, anyhow, I let him in.

“But I didn't recognize this lad. I asked him whether he was from the Drama Department because I hadn't seen him before.

“He said he wasn't from any department. He wasn't from the college, not from any college. ‘Do I look wet behind the ears?' he asked me. College of life, he said. College of hard knocks.

“I want you to notice that he was very anxious, right away, to show how tough he was. For example, I told you I was having my nightcap. The tray was right there. Right away he asked if he could have a drink. When the students come, we give them beer. I said I would go to the kitchen and get him a bottle of beer. ‘No beer,' he said, this tough specimen, this—hood? He drank only gin. Gin only. Since he wasn't a student, I went into the kitchen and fetched the bottle of gin. ‘No soda,' he said. ‘No water.' Not for that one! Gin and bitters!” His face screwed up at the thought of such a drink.

“I remember how he walked—how he stood, legs apart, hand in the pocket. Tough. If he hadn't put on the tough from the beginning, I don't believe it could have happened. I had not seen a boy like that since the inflation days in Berlin, Mr. Starter, back in the twenties, Mr. Starter. He took me back to a different time. There were so many of them then. What like? See all evil. Hear all evil. Speak all evil. Why? Because all
is
evil, you understand. Right away they knew you were a no-good because nothing
was
good.

“With that boy I immediately stood convicted of God knows what lowness. From the minute he walked in.… There was this roll to his walk.… I could show you better, this tough roll, like a stage sailor. I wish I could show you. No, it matters. It counts, Mr. Starter. I have asked myself over and over why I allowed myself to become so angry with a mere boy. All I can see was that from the first step into Felix's room, he was a living insult to me, to everything I cared about. I believe I reacted to that as well as to what he said.

“Have you known boys like that? They make evil,” he said. “They make evil happen. It is the only explanation. I have been over and over it in my mind to try to understand it, and that is what I think. He brought evil in with him. He changed the atmosphere. He changed the lighting. The set became a different set, I tell you. It wasn't Felix's room any more, my good friend Felix's room, where only good things could happen: good wine, good talk, the good life. He brought the evil with him. Believe me, believe me, nothing happens in a vacuum!

“He told me he was here today, gone tonight. (That was his expression.) He had hitchhiked and would be on his way after he left me to catch another hitch on a truck heading for New York City. He had just come from the Green Lantern, where he'd eaten. The Green Lantern being full, they had put him at the big table, and at the big table some students were talking about me. No, about us, about Mrs. Dietrich and myself, Mr. Starter. What an ideal couple we were, this gorgeous dish (his expression) and Hanno Dietrich. Then he laughed—a rough, know-it-all laugh. He meant I wasn't full of fat and years, but of years fat with evil. I was fat-with-evil Hanno Dietrich. (Oh, he knew all about me, the laugh meant. He knew all my publicity, and all that had never been made public.)

“He said the students had made him very curious about this ideal marriage and so he came to see for himself.

“He figured that it was okay to come see for himself because the college guys said they could waltz into Hanno Dietrich's house any night they wished and guzzle beer and Mrs. Dietrich. Notice that … ‘guzzle beer and Mrs. Dietrich.'

“I asked him if the students had said
he
could just waltz in and guzzle. He said he hadn't asked them. Why should he ask them for permission?

“I said if he had told them he intended to waltz in they would have informed him that it wasn't that open a house, just certain of the students whom I worked in the theatre with were welcome. But he had asked nothing, told nothing. He said, ‘I listened, watched and wondered.'

“But he didn't wonder. Not he! He
knew
it was bad in our house. Remember what I told you: See all evil. Hear all evil. Speak all evil.

“I asked him if the college boys had wondered also. ‘No, of course not. The students hadn't wondered, the dumb bunnies, the wet-behind-the-ear bunnies!' They thought it was a regular Valentine in your house, all lavender and old lace, he said. ‘It made tears come to their eyes,' he said. ‘Your devotion to her … her devotion to you.'

“I asked him what
he
thought it was at our house. He repeated that it was this he had come to find out.

“By this time he'd finished his gin. I was sorry I had let him have it. He must have been drinking already, must have been half-drunk to come at all. There were beads of perspiration on his upper lip. I asked him to leave.

“He said, ‘Come on, what's the secret of your success, Hanno? How do you keep a wife like that so happy? Come on, come on, what do you do for her? Is it this open house they were talking about? Is it those wet-behind-the-ears kids? Come on, come on,' he said, ‘give! I don't dig it.'

“Dig his own grave. I held the door open. I made a gesture he should get out.

“‘You can give her anything but love, baby? You do give her anything but love, and that you leave for the college kids? You say to these college kids, ‘Come on up and see me sometime'? (He did a bad Mae West, Mr. Starter. You know: ‘Come on up and see me sometime.')

“I was shaking with anger by then, beside myself. Yes. When something is close to the truth but a lousy lie, it hurts most. If there is no possible connection, you can laugh it off better, Mr. Starter. Well, it is true that my wife is not quite one third my age. It is true that I try to make her happy. It is almost true that I … as he put it … filled the house with boys for her. They're nice kids, young and gay and, oddly enough—poor little rich girl—my poor Puppchen had very little fun in her life until she met me. Yes, I did keep open house so that Puppchen could giggle with those boys and—‘Be your age,' they used to say. I wanted her to giggle and be her age, have the puppy admiration, the prom stuff she had missed. All that …” He gestured helplessly. “So … ‘You can give her anything but love … and they give her that …' It was so close and so wrong. It fouled the truth. It befouled me and the students and Puppchen also. Yes, I was boiling angry.

“And then he took his time about leaving. He stopped and put his back against the wall and ‘panned'… You know that word? As with a camera, his eyes ‘panned,' as if to record … as if he wanted to remember our room as part of the dirty story he would tell others about Puppchen and me. Yes, that is it. That is what made me grab him by the shoulder.” The smooth flesh had slipped beneath the wool of the sweater, he remembered. “I wanted to shove him out of the door.

“He said, ‘You wanna wrestle?' He said, ‘Whatsa matter, Hanno, you wanna wrestle?'

“I told you I came down for the nightcap in my bathrobe. His hand caught in it as I tried to shove him out the door and pulled the robe open.” Now he plucked at the pajama jacket which stuck to his skin. “At home I sleep in the raw. There is surely nothing wrong with that, but to this boy that was evil also.

“He said, ‘Jesus, you're naked there!' He said, ‘Take your cotton-picking hands off me or I'll change my mind. Maybe I got it all wrong,' he said. ‘Maybe the reason you keep her so happy is she
wants
everything but love, baby. Are the boys for you?' he asked. ‘Did I get it wrong? Are the boys for you, Hanno?'

“This was another thing which did not happen in a vacuum. I am fifty-seven. I was unmarried until I was fifty-five. You cannot be an unmarried male actor of fifty-five and not have the innuendoes. The reason I was officially a bachelor until fifty-five …” (Anni! Anni!) “I won't go into my reasons but they were not that I loved no woman. But I had heard these innuendoes. If Hanno Dietrich gave a male actor a foot up the ladder …
aha!
If Hanno was kind to some poor girl who got into trouble … kind is all he wants to be to girls. I am not like Barnum. I do not not care what you say about me so long as you talk. I have always resented these filthy … Just as a fat man has always to keep his body more clean and neat than an ordinary-sized man, in the same way it is more disgusting when they hint these things about someone who looks like me. Perhaps I am so close to being a freak that I am more sensitive to these hints that I am one.”

“S-s-sure,” Mr. Starter said. “Yeah.”

“And my wife … She did me the honor of being my wife, as I am. Fat and fifty-seven. That this boy should befoul her! That he could say, ‘I'm not one of the boys, so take your cotton-picking hands off me.'”

Even now, repeating it and remembering the boy's sneering face, the swagger-stagger, the perspiration of drunkenness beading the upper lip and under the eyes, he became beside himself again, and to keep calm asked, “What is a cotton-picking hand, Mr. Starter?

“Anyhow, that must have been when I shoved him hard. Yes, I shoved him out of that door as hard as I could, and he fell. It had been raining, did I tell you? Slippery. He was wearing sneakers and he slipped. There was a chaise longue with a rubber cover—he fell over it—backwards onto the terrace. Stone, it is.” The soles of the dirty sneakers had gleamed up at him. “I said, holding my voice well in because I didn't want my wife to hear,
‘Du Stueck Dreck!'
I cursed him, that is. I said, ‘Get the hell away from this house and never come back again!'