Iron Gustav (67 page)

‘And I'm sixty-three.'

They smiled at one another, both very proud of the distance they had travelled in life.

‘But at ninety-three she shouldn't be going out, when she ain't used to it. It's bound to upset her.'

‘But she has to go to the clinic – an operation. The Herr Geheimrat insists on it, otherwise she'd never be well again.'

‘Me, if I was as old as that I wouldn't let them cut me about, Fräulein. I'd leave things as they are.'

‘But she wants it. She's made up her mind. She wants to live till she's a hundred and eleven – she says that's a nice age to live to. Even as a young girl she set her heart on it.'

‘Well,' said Gustav, ‘we old 'uns are another make from the tender young growths of today. They'd never be able to stand what we've bin through. We're of iron.'

And with that he drove away.

The next day, being again reminded, he said:

‘I'm talkin' against me own int'rests but I advise a private ambulance. You know, Fräulein, at ninety-three a cab's goin' ter shake you up a bit, an' in an ambulance everythin's rubber and springs.'

‘But she won't have one. The Herr Geheimrat has ordered an ambulance for eleven o'clock but, just like her, she's going an hour earlier in the cab. Secretly … She's very tickled at the thought of outwitting the Herr Geheimrat.'

‘Must be a caution, your missis.'

‘Indeed she is! What she wants, she wants, and what she doesn't want she won't do. An ambulance is a motor car and she won't have one. A car means petrol, she says, and petrol explodes if you light it. All cars will explode sooner or later, she says.'

‘Well, well,' said Hackendahl, ‘can't say I'd mind, though I haven't much hope of it.'

And the next day the old woman of ninety-three took her first drive for twenty-one years.

From the porch of 17, Neue Ansbacher emerged an enormous armchair, an upholsterer's triumph of bulge and curve, covered with a very faded velvet on which were seen embroidered birds – colibris and a great yellow and blue parrot. Two removal men were
carrying the chair by means of straps while a third held the back. And behind him followed the house porter with rugs and pillows, and behind him in turn came the old servant who had a small travelling case in her hand – all these people looked half solemn, half amused.

In the chair was sitting a little old woman – such a tiny old woman, only a remnant of humanity – with hands no larger than a child's and scanty white hair beneath a smoothly fitting cap of jet beads. Her small face was covered with a network of lines and wrinkles, the mouth had fallen, but her eyes still looked alertly at the world.

They were looking at Gustav Hackendahl now. ‘Yes, that's a real Berlin cabman,' said a very clear voice, contentedly. ‘You did well, Malvine. What's your name, my dear man?'

‘Gustav Hackendahl,' said Hackendahl, grinning all over his face and feeling like a young man again. ‘But people call me Iron Gustav.'

‘Iron Gustav! Do you hear that, Malvine? Yes, that comes from our old, our good, Berlin. But are you feeding your horse properly, my good fellow? He looks so thin.'

Iron Gustav preferred not to tell this old woman anything about his feeding difficulties, but he assured her that his horse got his daily twelve pounds of oats, only that his digestion was so bad because he had chewing problems: his teeth didn't bite together properly.

‘Yes, his teeth! His teeth! And his digestion – with old age. Now earlier! Earlier!' But the old woman immediately quietened down again. ‘All right, Malvine, give the horse its sugar then.'

And behold – everything had been anticipated – Malvine brought out the sugar from her apron pocket. ‘Three lumps now and three lumps more when you've taken us safely there.' Then the old lady was piloted into the cab, in which she was firmly anchored with pillows and rugs, and Malvine got in.

‘Start, driver! But go slowly. I want to have a look round, I can't bear the way they used to rush you.'

Away went the horse, walking slowly, and every time a car glided past the old lady cried out: ‘Disgusting!' And, looking at the shops, she began to rummage in her memory. ‘A confectioner used to live there. You must remember, cabman. Dietrich. Yes, Dietrich was the name.' She started back with a cry, however, when a big double-decker bus
thundered past and it was quite a time before she enquired whether there were not any of the pleasant horse buses still in existence. Not now? Not a single one?

And soon she became confused, no longer recognizing the streets they were driving through. Wasn't Hackendahl going the wrong way? Here there used to be a promenade and water. ‘The lakes can't have gone as well. I can still see the children splashing about.'

Ah, the children whom the old lady saw were probably long dead and their children in turn had stopped splashing about and were themselves being driven to hospitals. The cab drive to which she had looked forward with so much pleasure proved too much for her after the first ten minutes. Indoors she had been able to think that the old Berlin still lived. Now everything was changed – the streets, the buildings, the shops. Different people everywhere. And suddenly it must have dawned on her how old she was, how very old. Her world had long since passed away and she alone was left – terribly alone.

Closing her eyes she asked to be driven faster, so that she could be put to bed. A bed doesn't change as a town does; everywhere and at all times it is alike. And the old woman longed for hers. When the cab drew up at the clinic the bearers couldn't bring the stretcher quickly enough; driver, horse and sugar were utterly forgotten. Thus she vanished, the weeping Malvine behind her, and Gustav Hackendahl had to wait some time before a nurse came to fetch the rugs and pillows and other things.

‘You're to go to the Matron's office for the fare, driver,' said the nurse.

Grumbling, old Hackendahl descended, took the bit off the black horse and put on the nosebag. Then he went to the office. The Matron was looking out of the window. She turned round, a stately, determined woman. His daughter Sophie.

‘You, Sophie?' he said. ‘That's funny … I have to drive a half-dead woman so as to see you again. Curious how things turn out between parents and children.'

‘I saw you draw up outside, Father,' she said coolly. ‘That's why I called you in. I could have sent the money out just as well. How's Mother?'

‘Yes, it's you all right, Sophie. You haven't changed. Cold-hearted an'—'

‘I didn't make myself, Father.'

‘Is that meant for me?'

‘Don't let's quarrel, Father. How's Mother?'

‘How should she be in these times? The main thing is we have enough to eat.'

‘Things not going too well? Yes, I can see that from your horse and cab. And by looking at you, Father, too.'

‘No need to tell me that. I do me best. Gimme me fare, four marks fifty. I may be in a bad way but I don't have to stand an' listen to me daughter preachin'. I don't need you, but you needed me once.'

She considered him with her cold eyes. ‘I needed you as every child needs its father, no more and no less. But we won't talk about that. Let bygones be bygones.'

‘That's what you say. I still see you children as when you were little. But you don't want to know that. You want always to have been grown up.'

‘I still remember being small; I dream of it sometimes. Not good dreams. I've only been satisfied since I stood on my own two feet. I'll never be completely satisfied. It's as if something was lacking, Father.'

‘I was never unkind to you, Sophie. I did what I could.'

‘Yes, and so did I,' said she. ‘Well, Father, I'm Matron here and have a share in the place and do pretty well – if you like I'm in a position to do something for you and Mother …'

‘I don't want yer money.'

‘I wouldn't give you money. Money helps no one. But what about moving here with Mother? Downstairs there's quite a nice little flat and you could attend to the central heating and the boiler.'

‘No, Sophie, I'm a cabby and a cabby I'll remain. I'm not becoming a porter in me old age.'

‘Well, consider Mother a bit.'

‘Mother's satisfied if I'm satisfied. I've always bin able to earn a crust of bread.'

Not in the least offended, Sophie looked at him thoughtfully. He,
the father, was perhaps stubborn and embarrassed but she, the daughter, was quite cool, cold … Yet perhaps she was not so much at her ease as she seemed. Confronted by the old man in his stained and patched greatcoat, seeing his tanned and bearded face, something troubled her – not love, far from it – something more like duty or pride. If she no longer saw him, if she no longer knew of him, it wouldn't worry her. She could build up a private clinic, really up to date, a good place of work, a secure income and, above all, a meaning to her life – a world in which she would give the orders, to carers, to nurses, and to the sick – she, who had for so long been ordered about.

There he stood, the one who had ruled over her most sternly and most fatefully. Yes, perhaps it was not only the sense of responsibility which influenced her; was there not also – she herself realized it – the wish to order him about as he had ordered her, to have as a dependant the one on whom she had been dependent? No, she had not this intention of ordering him about, of letting him feel her power. Desire for revenge was not so strong as that, nor she so petty. It sufficed to know: he is dependent on me, he works for me. That would be sufficient. The trouble was, he wouldn't have it. She continued to look at him while all this went dimly through her mind, and at the same time she quickly made another plan.

The old man had become annoyed. He didn't like being looked at in this way, least of all by his own daughter. ‘Come on,' he said, ‘gimme the money. Four-fifty, I said.'

‘Of course. Forgive me, I was only thinking …' She took the money from her desk and gave it him. ‘Please sign the receipt. I need it for the patient.'

‘What's the matter with her? Such an old woman! Will she pull through?'

‘Who? Ah, the one you brought in. I don't know. I think it's cancer. No, she won't pull through. Hardly. And she's lived long enough, don't you think so?'

‘Let's hope you won't be sayin' that of me, Sophie. I'll be seventy soon.'

‘Of you? Why, then? Oh no, Father, you'll carry on for a long time
yet. I think you'll live to be very, very old. One has to admit one thing – you've given us iron constitutions. Thoroughly sound.'

A pathetic twinge of happiness passed through the old man – the first appreciation he had had from this daughter.

‘Listen, Father. I've had another idea.' He made a defensive gesture. He wanted nothing from her, but then he listened to her all the same. And she went on to explain that the nursing home with its eighty beds called for much cartage to and fro; patients' luggage had to be fetched and removed again; provisions, coal, wood must be brought in – there was always something.

‘I'll never turn carter,' he said. ‘I'm stayin' a cabby. I might just as well drive a car.'

But she did not give in. She'd talk it over with her doctors. ‘With my doctors,' she said. ‘The patients need fresh air and a car is not really good for them. They're then either in a draught or shut in. Yes, we ought to buy a small open carriage; it would pay us. We'd cover our outlay. We only receive wealthy patients and we would charge them for each separate drive and pay you a lump sum monthly. There'd be no charity in that, Father.'

‘I work for myself,' he said stubbornly. ‘Not for wages an' never have done.'

‘Yes, you did, Father,' said she quickly. ‘I remember before the war you drove people regularly at a monthly rate.'

‘That was with me own cab. I've never driven someone else's for a wage. Except p'r'aps at Whitsun or an outing.'

She was shrewd enough not to press him. ‘Well, you think it over. You needn't decide today. And I'll have to speak with my doctors first. In any case, you could keep on your cab as well – the work here wouldn't amount to so much.'

He went, he promised to consider it, but naturally no consideration was necessary. He didn't want to do business with his daughter. His feelings told him nothing can go right if parents are to depend on daughters, if daughters are to give advice to fathers. (He sensed aright: exactly what attracted her repelled him.)

In addition: he wanted nothing of it. Drive sick people around the streets? – out of the question! He's a cab driver, used to the regular
sound of the taximeter, his destination, waiting at cab stops, and the gossip with other drivers and chauffeurs … He's Iron Gustav! Perhaps she wanted to put him into a uniform – she's quite capable of it.

He wouldn't even bother to discuss it with Mother. It wouldn't help. He must have known: if Sophie wanted something, Mother would be behind it. And precisely because he didn't tell Mother, she'd be in favour of it.

‘The fact that you no longer ask me about such things, Father!' she complained. ‘That I hadn't thought of you! But of course such a man couldn't give a damn about what his wife cooks for him, or how she manages with the money. Sometimes you give me nothing three days long – and then we should have had a regular income!'

He didn't answer, but Mother continued to speak and to complain. Whenever she saw him, whenever he gave her only two marks instead of five, whenever he wanted to take a rest, it was always the same: ‘He could have had a regular income, but he refused! The older he gets the more stubborn he becomes. He just refuses everything. He never listened to me. He would rather not have mentioned it to me.'

So it constantly went, whether they were eating, or he wanted to sleep. He could still get angry, oh, yes – go over the top, lash out – but to what end? At nearly seventy you can't explode every hour, not even every day. And Mother was tough; she could go on complaining. Even when asleep her breathing sounded like a complaining groan … ‘Regular income, regular income, regular income,' she seemed to snore.