Iron Gustav (34 page)

From where Heinz and Irma were now standing, they could easily understand what the speaker was now shouting. He was speaking of the people's victory, of the victory of socialism: ‘Let us not sully the honourable cause of the people!'

The voice stopped. A rattling noise had become audible, and grew louder and louder. The crowd began to stir; cries were heard in the distance. The cries came nearer. Heads swayed, just as when the wind ripples over a field of corn.

The rattling continued. There were shouts now. ‘They're firing on us.'

‘Machine-guns!'

‘It's the Liebknecht lot!'

‘Spartacists!'

‘Murderers!'

And still louder: ‘Run! Save yourselves! We will not allow ourselves to be mown down. Help! Help!'

The orator had stopped. He looked towards the rattling guns, gesticulated, and stood between the entrance pillars.

The soldiers were reaching for their hand grenades …

‘They're shooting,' whispered Irma, very pale. ‘Help me down quickly, Heinz. Heinz!'

‘I can't see anything,' he said, peering towards the edge of the rapidly thinning demonstration. He could see people running, and the grey hood of a car.

‘Hurry up! I don't want to be killed.' Irma let herself slide into his arms so suddenly that he lost his balance and, half slipping, half falling, they found themselves down below, in a crowd which was dissolving in wild confusion.

‘Come along, come along! Do run, Heinz! Take hold of me!'

Everybody was running, running for their lives, men, women and children – some in silence, some shouting, some weeping. Many fell, of whom some were dragged to their feet and others trampled; no attention was paid to their shrieks.

The firing seemed to have grown louder …

Panic had seized everybody. People were running away from the speaker, from the banners which had fallen to the ground, from the torn placards with the inscriptions: ‘Peace!' ‘Liberty!' ‘Bread!'

And Heinz and Irma ran with them down street after street. They were young, had long legs, and could run fast. They did so side by side, hand in hand. They had already left a long time ago, and were running through the streets, through quite different other streets.

‘Can you keep on running?'

‘Come on, run!'

And then they became aware that they were quite alone, racing now down a wide street in the middle of which was a strip of green grass. They were on this.

Suddenly they heard shots, in front, near at hand and coming nearer. The whole district seemed up in arms.

Heinz tried to think what to do – they were running straight into the firing. He saw an open doorway. ‘Come in here!' he shouted and they ran hand in hand into safety, into its protection.

For some time they stood silent, wiping the sweat from their faces with trembling fingers and listening to the firing, which kept on breaking out again both in the distance and nearby. Once they thought they heard the wicked tack-tack of a machine-gun …

Gradually they regained their breath and their hearts beat more normally. Here in the safety of the doorway, alone with one another, they felt the goodness, the pleasure of life. Guns continued to rattle …

‘Well, Irma,' said Heinz and tried to lift her head. Then he saw she was weeping quietly into a handkerchief. ‘We're wonderfully brave, running away like that!'

‘Be quiet,' she cried furiously, ‘You coward, you!'

‘Irma!' He was dumbfounded by this outbreak of the feminine in his friend, for she had been the one to suggest running away. ‘Neither of us was exactly a hero!'

‘Will you be quiet?' she shouted, stamping her foot; she had entirely lost control of herself. She was trembling in every limb and the half-jesting, half-consoling note in his voice was unbearable. When, jokingly, he now attempted to pull her handkerchief away, she hit out, and the blow landed full in his face.

‘Good heavens, Irma,' he exclaimed. ‘What's come over you? Have you gone mad?'

He was deeply offended and crossed to the other side of the doorway. There was an angry furrow between his brows and Irma wept harder than ever.

‘Well, you little beauties,' came a mocking voice from the street. ‘What are you hiding here for? Come out of it, both of you.' In the entrance stood a sailor, a little dark man with a bold, ill-natured face. He had a pistol in his hand.

‘And hurry up,' he called out roughly when the two hesitated. ‘Hands up, my lad. You were shooting just now, you swine.'

‘I wasn't – I've nothing to shoot with,' said Heinz defiantly and went up to him. ‘Have a look!'

‘Not so much of your lip,' said the sailor threateningly. And with experienced hands he swiftly made sure that there was nothing concealed on Heinz. ‘Your turn now, my girl,' he said but in a different tone. ‘He slipped you the pistol, of course, the dirty dog. The bloody Socialist!'

Very pale, but both endeavouring to hide their fear, they stood before the furious little man.

‘He hasn't got a pistol, truly,' said Irma. ‘We went to the meeting at the Reichstag …'

‘Oh,' drawled the sailor sarcastically, ‘you heroes were with Scheidemann, were you? And you've run all the way here!'

‘They fired on us,' burst out Heinz.

‘Yes, a car makes a bit of a noise and twenty thousand people bolt like a lot of rabbits! We laughed ourselves sick!' And he looked contemptuously at the pair, who turned crimson.

‘But there is shooting going on,' insisted Heinz. ‘You've got a pistol yourself.'

‘What, that little bit of popping! That's only because you Socialists are in a rage at your grand meeting being broken up. You'll soon see how quickly I restore order.' He looked at Irma. ‘You come with me, kid! What do you want with this louse who messes his trousers? With us you'll get plenty to eat and see life …'

‘Thanks,' said Irma, ‘you'd better go by yourself. I don't want to get shot.'

‘Who's talking of getting shot? I've put in four years at the war and I'm not dead yet. You'll see, kid, nothing happens to me.' He crossed the road to the strip of grass. ‘Off the streets!' he yelled. ‘Close your windows! Close your windows!' And, raising his pistol, he fired. They heard the crash of falling glass.

Then he turned to them again. ‘Well, kid, what about it? You see, nothing happened.'

‘No, thanks,' Irma called out.

‘Then stay with your bloody Socialist,' he shouted back, unconcerned.

In his wide, flapping trousers he walked away down the street, scanning the houses right and left, sometimes shooting, sometimes shot at, but always calling out in a careless voice: ‘Off the streets! Shut your windows!'

So he vanished.

‘He's certainly no coward!' said Heinz, and said so calmly rather than reproachfully.

‘Well, I shouldn't like you to be like that,' said Irma nevertheless.

‘That's just it. He certainly has courage – but is it the right kind of courage? Perhaps there are several kinds. In which case there would also be several kinds of cowardice.'

‘Oh, do stop!' exclaimed Irma. ‘That's all nonsense. I know quite well that if you have to be courageous you will be. And the same with me too.'

‘There you are!' cried Heinz, delighted. ‘So you think so too, eh? Though we undoubtedly ran like hares, and from a car backfiring!'

‘Perhaps that wasn't true. He may have said it just to annoy us.'

‘I don't think so. Besides, I saw the car.'

‘If you'd only told me, then!'

‘But you just fell straight into my arms from the North Pole.'

‘You really are annoying me today!'

‘And you hit me!'

‘You know I didn't do it on purpose.'

‘Yes, you did!'

‘No!'

‘Yes, you did. Definitely. Fist to Nose. On purpose!'

‘You're being really mean!'

‘No, I'm not!'

‘You've made it up.'

‘I've always been averse to lying.'

‘Rubbish!'

‘It's true.'

‘Now, you're admitting you lied.'

‘Rather be burnt at the stake –
eppur si muove
!'

‘Idiot!'

‘Thanks …'

Then they were silent, overheated, but cheered up too.

Then, after a while: ‘Heinz!'

‘No!'

‘But Heinz!!'

‘Again, no!'

‘I only want to ask if the street is quiet again. We can hardly stay here till night-time!'

‘No'.

‘What no? Go or stay?'

‘Both.'

‘Fool.'

‘Thanks.'

Again, long silence, then: ‘Heinz!'

‘Yes, but according to my birth certificate it's Heinrich.'

‘Heinrich …'

‘No, for God's sake!'

‘Oh, Heinrich, Heinrich!'

‘What's wrong? Are you crazy?'

‘Yes, Heinz! Look at me!'

‘So?'

‘What am I doing?' She stamped with her foot. ‘Oh, God, don't be such a complete fool.'

‘Me the fool … ? Oh, Quaasin's daughter! Have you got toothache?'

‘Heinz, come here! Closer! Look at me – no, don't look at me, shut your eyes! Shut your eyes, you fool! Tightly! You're not to cheat!'

‘I've got my eyes shut.'

‘Tight?'

‘Word of honour! What's up? What's the stupid idea?'

Something damp and warm touched his chin …

‘Damn!' He opened his eyes. ‘What was that? Did you lick me?'

Trembling but resolute, she gazed at him. ‘I kissed you,' she said solemnly.

He looked at her hard, wiped his chin with his hand and said: ‘Damn me if that isn't the revolution! A kiss.'

‘Yes,' she nodded, ‘our first kiss … because I love you.'

‘I think you've gone mad. Have you forgotten that we've rejected smooching as unaesthetic? And that this so-called love is just Nature's cunning trick for preserving the species? What's the matter with you, Irma? This shooting must have affected your mind.'

‘I don't care.' And she emphatically denied their recently shared opinions. ‘I love you, and that's why I kissed you.'

‘Well, Irma, tell me – did you like it? The kiss I mean.'

‘No, it was ghastly. But when you love someone you kiss them. That's right, isn't it? Perhaps you have to get used to it.'

‘Then I won't ever.'

‘I was terribly afraid,' she confessed. ‘Do look at me, Heinz. How do I look?'

‘How should you look?'

‘I mean, can you see any difference?'

‘In you? Not a trace.'

‘No marks? I'm not blushing, am I?'

‘No, you look about as red as a lemon!'

‘Then let's try again,' she decided relentlessly.

‘For heaven's sake, Irma, stop this nonsense!' The boy was horribly embarrassed.

‘Please, Heinz, just once. I promise you, only this once. Shut your eyes. Yes, I do feel ashamed, but I'm not ashamed with you … and bend down a little or else I'll get your chin again.'

‘Irma!' he protested feebly.

And something soft as a petal touched his mouth … he would never have thought that the lips of his little friend could be so warm and tender. And her arms were round his neck, those arms he knew so well, arms more like sticks and yet smooth and soft now. In his ears the blood began to beat, a delicious, a magic rhythm … for the first time he heard that melody which, in all the long years to come, would never cease from haunting him.

Irma gave a little cough … ‘I think they've stopped shooting, Heinz.'

‘Yes, that's right. Can't hear anything.'

They were hopelessly embarrassed; they did not look at one another. Adam and Eve had eaten of the Tree of Knowledge and were ashamed – they knew that they were naked.

‘We've got masses of time till seven.'

‘Yes, what do you think? Shall we go and see Tutti?'

‘Oh, how right that would be! We've just got time.'

They rushed back to the city centre alongside each other. Both so skinny, badly clothed, undernourished and not very clean. But in both shone the spark of life. It almost shone out of their very eyes.

Eva Hackendahl had called upon Gertrud Hackendahl.

The little dressmaker was busy at her sewing machine, listening vaguely and with scant sympathy to her sister-in-law's account of recent events in Berlin. She did not relish these visits when Gustäving had to go out of the room and was not allowed to kiss his aunt. In the last two years Eva had become what, lacking will-power and courage, she was fated to become – a prostitute. That was a good reason for Tutti not liking her sister-in-law. A woman for whom love is holy will always complain about someone who makes a business out of it.

And yet Tutti Hackendahl received her sister-in-law, tolerated her, let Eva pour out her heart; she understood that every person in trouble must have a place of refuge from the desolation of everyday life … This the little cripple understood very well, for she herself was not without such a refuge.

She looked at the chest of drawers where, arranged on a lace cover, stood relics of Otto – some photographs, the wallet containing her letters (it had been sent back from the Front; the stains on it had long ago turned black), all the examples she could obtain of his carving, and the box that held his knives, files, small saw and the piece of limewood in which the Christ figure had been roughed out – the work he was last engaged on. Nearby were Otto's school reports, a copybook or two and a thumbed geography book. These had been presented by Heinz.

Sometimes she would show the relics to Gustäving, six years old now – the other child, Otto's posthumous boy, was still too young. And she would tell him of a courageous, unselfish man, an artist in wood-carving … And when it was already dark, she would tell the child that the last words of his father were: ‘Whatever happens, we must go forward!' Then she holds the little boy for a long time quietly in her arms and prays to God that the seeds of such things might be in him too. Enough to eat, she thinks sometimes, I can't give him, but I can give him faith … She didn't know exactly what sort of faith it was; it just seemed to her to be simple good faith, with heroes and hero-worship.