Iron Gustav (29 page)

He asked the woman at the window where the Hackendahls had moved to. She, in true Berlin manner, met this question by asking if he were one of the sons. Then Otto asked how long they had been gone and learned that they lived in the Wexstrasse. And was he the elder or the younger one?

Otto said thank you and left. He no longer saw either the woman or the courtyard. Nor did he turn towards the wooden fence, though he couldn't help thinking about how often, on Father's orders, armed with bucket and brush, he'd had to scrub away the slogans of the local youths, from ‘I'm an idiot' to ‘Teacher Stark's got false teeth'.

He went on. At last, it was all over. Earlier he obeyed Father's orders. Now he had his own voice in his own breast, the voice that gave orders about grenade craters and which told the strange Lieutenant von Ramin what had tortured him for so long …

Otto Hackendahl went along the Frankfurter Allee, and considered how he could most quickly get to Wexstrasse. It occurred to him that in this completely unfamiliar area of Berlin (like a completely different town, in fact), there was the circle line station of
Wilmersdorf-Friedenau. Wexstrasse must be near it. That's how he would get there fastest.

He hurried away, crossed the Alexanderplatz, went to the Suburban Railway and got in a train. Tack-tack-tack went the dilapidated carriages, grumbling and groaning. The winter wind blew through the broken panes. Their window straps had been cut off, the netting of the luggage racks was torn – but the carriages still did their duty, though not without protest. They were taking him to the destination for which he had prepared himself during two years on the Western Front – this destination was the Wilmersdorf-Friedenau Station for the moment.

The Wexstrasse was easy to find, everybody knew it. But he did not like the place. In the grey light of the early winter evening the street seemed to him narrow and cheerless. The Frankfurter Allee had been spacious and airy – here one could hardly breathe. Oh Father! Otto stopped dead. He had seen something familiar, a link with the past. By the kerb stood a cab without a driver. But Otto had no need to see the driver – he knew the horse. It was the grey, dismally hanging her head and seeming to study the pavement.

Otto ruffled her mane and rubbed her nose but the grey did not move her ears, nor sniff at the caressing hand – hardly bothered even to lift up her dull, half-extinguished eyes to her master's son.

How often have I groomed you! thought Otto. Do you remember how ticklish you used to be under the belly and how you always kicked out at me? I could never be careful enough. It wasn't your wickedness but just exuberance. In those days I was the one kept under and you were full of life. But now … No, I'm still not the exuberant type, but I still lift my eyes from the road and see the edge of the sky, rather farther than one can reach … So he chattered on, interspersed with, Horsey, where's Father? Horsey, what's happened to Father? Horsey!

No, it was naturally impossible that Father would ever drive this, his most miserable beast. True, Mother had written that business was bad, many reductions had to be made, and that Father was driving once again … However, the coachman sitting safely in the bar over there would be some kind of supplementary driver needing to pass the one and a half hours till going-home time.

Otto entered the tavern.

It was about half past four in the afternoon and the gas lamps in the street were beginning to light up. But inside they were sparing with their illumination; a solitary bulb burned dimly over the counter, just sufficient light for the landlord to see how much he was pouring into his glasses. In the corners were a few dim figures.

Otto sat down near the door and called out to the landlord: ‘A bitter, please.'

For a moment there was silence. Then a hoarse voice said: ‘Man, it's quite clear that the war can't be won. They asked for U-boats and now they've got them and still the Americans keep sending over soldiers and arms, no end to them.'

‘Excuse me …'

‘You hold on a moment, I'm speaking. Great offensive on the Western Front they said – and they're still in the same old place. Decision in the East they said – well, it's now been decided in the East, and what's it come to? You any less hungry?'

‘Let me have a say, Franz!'

‘Forget it for a moment. I'll just say one word. I'll say: international social democracy! Oh, yes, you'll think, the big bosses … Big bosses indeed, and the stories they've told us. But a light eventually goes on even with the most stupid, and when it goes on it goes red …'

‘You'll get your mug punched – there's a soldier here.'

‘Well, and what about it? What d'you mean, soldier? He thinks just as I do. When you're down, everyone turns on you – that's life.' But the speaker said no more, for the soldier stood up, took his beer glass in his hand and went obliquely across the tavern towards the speaker's table.

The speaker puffed himself up and was already half ducking himself under the table, calling the others almost pathetically as witnesses. ‘But what did I say then? I didn't say anything. I just said that we'd succeed in the East.'

However, while he was still speaking, Otto passed his table. Beer glass in hand, he went to a table behind by the wall, put his glass down and said, ‘Good evening, Father. It's me – Otto!'

The
old man slowly raised his large, round, staring eyes from the dregs of his beer, which he had sat contemplating. With a sudden movement he held out his hand.

‘You, Otto? That's good. Sit down, sit down! D'you find me by accident?'

‘I saw the grey, Father, so I looked in.'

‘Oh, the grey, the grey! There's less an' less to her every day, no feed an' no guts. I can't get her past the horse butcher's – she always tries to walk in.' The old man laughed, a dismal sound.

‘And how are things otherwise, Father? How is the stable doing?'

‘The stable? Haven't got a stable now. I've got a bay horse as well, but it's worn out, too. Not much doin' in my line, Otto.'

‘Are you on your own, Father? Where's old Rabause?'

‘What do I want him for now? With two horses? Even if the war finished I wouldn't have any work for you either. You're lucky to have your war.' Again he laughed, grimly.

Otto sat beside him, next to the beaten man. The blue coat hung loosely on the once robust figure; the formerly solid-looking face was flabby. Otto could recollect his father as a respected visitor to the bars in the Alexanderplatz, but here nobody looked at him, nobody listened to what he had to say – he was only an old cabman nodding over his glass of beer. A stricken man – and I'm going to strike him still harder, thought Otto.

‘You've moved, Father?' he asked.

‘Yes, I've moved. How d'you like the house?'

‘I haven't been there yet, Father.'

‘No? I suppose you were on your way. Where's your things?'

‘I haven't got them with me. This time I'm staying elsewhere.'

‘So you're stayin' elsewhere. All right, then.' Old Hackendahl gave his son a penetrating glance. All at once he was very wide awake and suspicious.

‘The house, you know,' he said abruptly in his best German, ‘… I exchanged the yard for it. I don't need a yard with only two horses. And now I've a five-storey apartment house and the horses are in a workshop five steps up. But that doesn't worry them.'

‘Father, just a moment! I've wanted to tell you this for a long time, even before the war …'

‘There's
plenty of time. Perhaps it can wait till after the war, anyway. As I say, my place in the Wexstrasse …'

‘I'm living at Gertrud Gudde's, Father. You know, she used to be our dressmaker at the old place.'

‘Gudde? Don't know her.' The old man was pretending to misunderstand. ‘There are so many people in the new place. An apartment house, I said to myself, that's an investment! Always brings in money – if only people pay. Bit heavily mortgaged, though.'

‘Father, I've known Gertrud Gudde for a long time. We've a son who's already four years old. We called him Gustav after you. And we want to get married.'

‘Gudde? Isn't she the little hunchback who did our dressmaking? Always at the sewing machine – I thought it wouldn't do her any good. She's a bundle of misery as it is and with all that legwork …' The old man looked at Otto angrily.

‘The child's quite healthy,' said Otto resolutely. ‘Father, it's no use your talking like that. For a long time I was too cowardly to speak to you about it, but now it's different.'

‘Gudde!' said the old man as if he hadn't heard. ‘Now I remember – Mother let it out one day. Your sister Eva, who's become a whore, lives there. It seems to be a good place of accommodation. So the child's four, you say? Well, unwed you can go to bed.'

Otto had turned white but he controlled himself. ‘Father, why do you say that?' he said indignantly. ‘You're hurting yourself most.'

‘And what's that to do with you?' cried the old man angrily. ‘Marry your Gudde and brat if you want to. Called after me – as if I'd be taken in by such nonsense! Hurting myself! Well, Eva's a tart and I get from Sophie a letter once a month – “I'm quite well, the Senior Staff Surgeon tells me I'm capable, the Chaplain tells me I'm even more capable” and so on, all about herself, never a word askin' how Mother's doing. Erich – he only writes when he needs money. And after two years here's Otto on leave and he's actually got time to speak to his father about his marriage. Well, my boy, I'm made of iron. Even if I'm drivin' a cab again I still say there's something rotten about all my children. P'r'aps not Heinz, but it's too early to tell yet.'

‘Father,'
said Otto, ‘you don't know Gertrud Gudde at all. She's capable, too, and hard-working. She's made a man of me.'

‘She's made you the sort of fellow who smacks his father one an' then says: “Cheer up, Charlie – tomorrow you'll be in clover!” So you're going to marry, eh?'

‘Yes,' said Otto firmly. ‘I only came to fetch my papers. It's no use talking, Father. I can't leave Gertrud in the lurch just to please you.'

‘I see – you only came because of your papers. And I, like a fool, was actually pleased when I saw you. Afterwards, of course, I could see you had something up your sleeve.'

‘But what can you have against our marriage, Father?'

‘Nothing at all – nothing. And now, my boy' – he dived into his pockets – ‘here are the keys. You go home an' open my desk. Your papers are inside.'

‘It won't do, Father,' said Otto resolutely. ‘Give me a real objection – not merely that you don't like it.'

‘You want me to say something, eh? Here are the keys – take 'em! And if you think I'm going to say I agree to your marriage, Otto, then let me tell you – never! Not even to save you from death and damnation. I'm of iron in that. “Yes, Father,” it's easy enough for you to say that! Like one of those dolls you press in the tummy. And if you press yours it only ever said “Father” because you were hungry and I had to feed you.'

‘Just tell me, Father, what you really object to in this marriage. I'm twenty-seven …'

‘I don't object at all. What I say is, if you go to bed with a woman I'm not particular, I don't take offence; all I say is, get on with it if it gives you pleasure. But to wait till your child's four years old before you've got the pluck to tell your father about it and then only in a pub because he'll keep quiet in front of people – well! But Gustav doesn't keep quiet, he's made of iron …'

‘Yes, you really are, Father. From the neck upwards.'

‘Made of iron is Gustav! Calls a milksop a milksop an' a coward a coward. And he's not sitting at the same table as a coward, that's certain. I was glad to see you swaying towards me through the tavern, but now I'm taking my beer glass and I'll sit at another table.' He
looked at his son bitterly, picked up his glass and rose. But he did not go at once. ‘You've got the keys,' he said. ‘At eight o'clock I'll have finished with the horses and you'll be gone by then. And if you want to visit your mother I'm out most of the day.'

‘But, Father, what does it all mean? Please be sensible …' asked Otto once again.

‘Sensible? Am I sensible? Are you? Neither of us knows that! But how you can ask me to be sensible? That I can't understand. If I'm not sensible, so be it, but I still remain iron all the same. I remain iron, and you're a milksop, and that's why I drink my beer alone …'

And with that Iron Gustav left. He did so with his glass of beer in his hand, but he didn't go through the whole tavern, only to the next-door table. There he sat, his back to Otto, and shouted: ‘Landlord, gimme another, since it tastes so horrible.'

Otto sat there for a time, brooding. Now and then he looked at his father's back, and at the keys. But finally he remembered Gertrud waiting anxiously, and picked them up. Rising, he looked for a moment rather uncertainly at his father and then said: ‘Goodnight, Father.'

‘Goodnight,' said Hackendahl indifferently.

Otto waited but the old man merely picked up his glass and drank.

So Otto went.

The tree had been transplanted from the nursery and flourished in fresh earth. It grew new branches and was stronger. The transplant had done it good. True, some roots had been torn off – it still pained Otto to think of his angry, incomprehensibly stubborn father, or his mother who, in a crowded, noisy house, longed to be back in the big, clean coaching yard.

Yes, these roots and been torn up, and such memories were painful. However, by and large, the tree flourished. For lack of light, it had not done so in the shadow of its father tree. Now it grew apace. Tutti was often surprised to see with what assurance this formerly
weak man now went through life. He has become quite changed, she thought almost happily.