Iron Gustav (68 page)

It was nearly a month, however, before old Hackendahl gave way and went back to Matron Sophie.

‘Mother keeps on about it. You shouldn't have gone to see her. It was a matter between us.'

But Sophie was very busy that morning, besides which everything had been arranged; it annoyed him greatly to see how sure she had been of his consent. He was given a note telling him to look at a carriage in such-and-such a place, a cart in another, and be measured for a new blue greatcoat, new boots. Everything had been thought of and in such a way that he could raise no objection. Even the tailor seemed to have received instructions. ‘That's understood, of course,
Herr Hackendahl. Like your old coat – naturally! The Matron spoke to me about it.'

And the work started. It was winter, so that he could not very well grumble at having no patients to drive. Instead he had to deal with luggage and provisions, besides carting refuse and ashes in the evening. But when one morning they wanted him to take thirty urinals to a laboratory he demanded to see the matron. Matron, however, was in the operating theatre and couldn't be spared – naturally! Would he please hurry up, the tests were urgently required …

So he drove off, consoling himself with the reflection that ultimately it was all the same whether he took people's urine for a ride in bottles or in its natural containers.

It's all human, he said to himself.

Happy though the days were on the island of Hiddensee, Heinz often felt restless at passing the time so without thought for tomorrow, buoying himself up with, ‘I'll get a job all right, once I'm in Berlin.' He couldn't help a little anxiety. When he and Irma went back to Berlin on 1 July they wouldn't have more than about six weeks' money left. And what then – with a baby coming? Would he get a job? He'd never go on the dole. Well, they'd scrape through somehow. And the child?

Damn it all! It's a funny thing. If he sees the unemployed – who still exist even here on the island – standing around, he gets really worried about not being worried. ‘Am I irresponsible,' he asked Tutti and Irma, ‘for not bothering about a job? What are we going to do if I don't get one?'

‘Oh, that's impossible,' exclaimed Tutti, who had worked all her life. ‘Whoever wants work gets it. Those who don't find it just don't want it.'

Heinz Hackendahl actually thought the same, but he said: ‘There are two million unemployed. They can't all be lazy.'

‘Why not?' Tutti contradicted. ‘They've been degraded by the war and inflation. Just look at the young layabouts with their flat
caps over one ear and cigarettes in their mouths – they just don't want to work.'

‘So you think I needn't worry?' he asked once again.

‘Not at all,' she replied. ‘Don't go and spoil your holiday. You'll get a job all right.'

Irma said nothing, she was often silent now. ‘That's due to my condition,' she had told him.

That evening, as they went towards the winking light on the dunes, she suddenly squeezed his arm and said: ‘Heinz, please don't let's get back as late as the end of June.'

‘No? Are you afraid about the job after all, then?'

‘Heavens no!' she said. ‘I'm afraid on
his
account. No, not afraid. But everything ought to be ready.'

‘Logical,' he said. ‘So let's go in the middle of June.'

Silently they walked on.

He had said ‘logical', but that was just a way of speaking. He found it strange, how women think. He could never work out what Irma was thinking about, how she came to her conclusions. She was convinced that he'd get a job, he felt that. She had no fear on account of money; not even in her dreams was there any question of the dole. But they had to leave early so that the baby should find everything in order. The baby who had yet to learn about order …

It was a funny thing. As something begins, it is easy to work out that it will so continue. What is good enough for the parents is far from being so for a baby.

‘The first thing I must do,' explained Irma, ‘is to get his layette ready. It would be splendid if you could earn a bit more in your new job. The layette's bound to cost a good fifty marks – would you be able to get that for your radio?'

There you are, you see! Dole and worry and more salary and having to sell a radio – it was closing in on him from all sides. And he was worried that he was not worried! Of course he was worried, naturally so – about what the future held. And between himself and dark fate, there was nothing, absolutely nothing but belief in himself, self-confidence. In Berlin dialect he would say to himself: Heinz, things are going to be all right.

And then everything went miraculously well. In Stralsund, Heinz bought some Berlin newspapers and, as the train carried him towards an impoverished, hungry city, he studied the advertisements.

‘Here's something for me, Irma!' he exclaimed, pointing to a notice inserted by the banking house of Hoppe & Co. ‘Required, young accountants, energetic and good-looking. Interviews from three to five in the afternoon.'

‘Don't you fancy yourself!' she naturally retorted. ‘Good-looking and energetic!'

‘Hoppe & Co. Never heard of them,' he reflected. ‘Well, we'll see … I won't accept just any old job.' His freedom from misgiving was in fact miraculous.

Shielded by this innocence, he entered the premises of Hoppe & Co. in the Krausenstrasse. When a man has been accustomed to palatial bank buildings he is no doubt justified in turning his nose up at a smoky, dirty-looking office, but on the other hand if he is out of a job …

‘Vacancy?' asked the young fellow behind the grille. ‘Vacancy? All filled long ago. Do you live in the past?'

‘I'm from outside!' said Heinz, determined not to be imposed upon. ‘At the sea resorts we get the
Berliner Zeitung
one day later.'

‘Oh, you've been swimming in the sea?' grinned the fellow. ‘And I was thinking you'd overdone things a bit, because you're not quite normal.'

They laughed at each other.

‘Well, as far as being not quite normal is concerned, you're not doing such a bad job yourself!'

‘You've got to! You've got to – especially in this place! I say, I seem to know you. Are you also from … ?'

‘Of course. You bet. Export statistics.'

‘My name's Menz. Erich Menz. Stocks.'

‘Heinz Hackendahl.'

‘Axed too, eh? Yes, everything's filled. Pity! I'd gladly have done something for an old colleague.'

‘What do you do here, anyhow?' Heinz glanced at the five young fellows sitting behind the counter. They all looked rather bored.

‘Do? We've nothing to do.'

‘And you take on more people?'

‘Oh, we'll be breaking out on the first of the month, we're moving to the Friedrichstrasse. Swell place. Pity that everything's filled. Day before yesterday we sent away a hundred applicants.' Suddenly he became animated. ‘There's the old man coming in. Have a go at him. You never know.'

The old man, not more than thirty at the most, was a sandy-haired fellow elegantly dressed and with a rather dissipated look. He wore a monocle.

‘Herr Doctor,' said Menz addressing him, ‘excuse me, this is a colleague of mine, Herr Dahlhacke, from the same bank. He has just become disengaged. Terribly efficient. Excellent testimonials … If you think it could be managed, Herr Doctor.'

‘Be managed what? I'm always being asked to manage it. I'd like to know what you manage in return for my good money. Well, let's hear what you, Herr Dahlhacke, can manage.'

Heinz waived for the moment a protest against his new name. ‘I've learned all branches of banking. My testimonials …' He dived into his bosom.

Herr Hoppe motioned him to desist. ‘I put no store on testimonials – they've all got 'em, ha, ha!' He laughed explosively into Hackendahl's startled face. ‘You haven't got much presence of mind, Herr Dahlhacke,' he said, dissatisfied. ‘Here a young man has to be energetic. He must be able to get rid of a client if necessary. He must be able to eject him.'

‘We had a lot of that to do at my last bank in recent months, Herr Doctor.'

‘Oh, well,' said Herr Hoppe. ‘Are you married? Good, I like my employees to be married. I myself am a bachelor. Children? You're expecting? Splendid. I've never had a young man in the family way yet. Ha, ha, ha!' More spluttering into Heinz's face. ‘Well, start on the first. Herr Tietz, Herr Dahlhacke is engaged from the first of the month, two hundred marks to begin with and every six months an increase of fifty up to a maximum of two hundred. Ha, ha, ha!'

Suddenly serious, he looked critically at his new employee. ‘But kindly wear another tie, Dahlhacke. Too much red. Won't do. We're neutral here.' He disappeared into his sanctum.

‘Seems a bit cracked,' said Hackendahl, full of sympathy.

‘Don't you believe it! It's all eyewash. He's rather a sly dog.'

‘But that's no real banker.'

‘Why worry? Long as he pays. You be glad of two hundred marks! And net – no deductions.'

‘Well, well,' said Heinz thoughtfully.

It was really a very strange establishment, this into which Heinz Hackendahl had strayed, and it remained so even when the firm moved to imposing offices in the Friedrichstrasse. As to the madness of Herr Hoppe, the proprietor (for the Co. never put in an appearance), Heinz soon came to the same conclusion as his colleague Menz – Herr Hoppe was far from being mad. Herr Hoppe was a bright lad, a sly dog. But Heinz got no nearer to finding out what Herr Hoppe otherwise was. As before he could only reply in the negative – Herr Hoppe was no banker. And it needed little wit to discover this, for Herr Hoppe made no secret of the fact.

‘You stallions of the banking world,' he would say when some employee bothered him about a book entry, ‘you gelded accountants, for aught I care you can carry forward the debit into the credit as long as it all comes out in the wash. Ha, ha, ha!' Concluding splutter into some face or other.

Herr or rather Doctor Hoppe (it was uncertain whether he really had his doctorate but he set great store by the title) had acquired, it seemed, some small banking firm that had collapsed during the inflation; and now, when the big banks were anxiously looking out for clients, he too was getting ready to angle for them. Heinz Hackendahl learned that shortly before the removal to larger offices some thousands of persuasively fraternal letters had been dispatched urgently advising recipients to invest money with Hoppe & Co.

And their continued dispatch, together with determining who
was to receive them, seemed to be Herr Hoppe's most important task. Surrounded by dozens of directories he closeted himself in his holy of holies and far from him was any inclination to joke or splutter into laughter. The words he spoke to his employees as they rummaged through the directories were indeed sage.

‘Gentlemen, always remember we seek to interest a virgin clientele, gentlefolk who so far have had nothing to do with banks, people who have lost confidence in savings banks, men for whom stocks, mining shares and bonds are unknown things – in short, the small man. The small man is starting to save again. He's just received a bang on the nut – and yet he's saving again. But how? In a cash box or a stocking! Idle money, at the mercy of thieves. And we want to introduce it to the capital market. Even the small man likes to make money. Eh, what?'

Herr Doctor Hoppe, as all agreed, was a queer fish but he took care that his suggestions were carried out.

‘Who's been sending a letter to Herr Regierungsrat von Müller? You, Dahlhacke?' (In spite of all declarations he adhered to that form of name.) ‘I must ask you most distinctly to comply with my wishes. Don't argue! A Regierungsrat, and a von Müller at that, has never been a small man; he may own stocks and shares, he may even be on some board of directors. Be more careful! Now if it had been a clergyman – clergymen are always good. And market gardeners aren't so bad.' He became thoughtful. ‘Senior schoolmasters are excellent. Midwives – all right, Menz, you were going to make a joke – but midwives as a class are thrifty. That comes from their profession. By the way, is there a National Midwives' League? I've a feeling there is … if so, we ought to get hold of its membership list. I already thought of going for all the midwives at a blow … No, you're right, Krambach. Farmers are a waste of money.'

Such was the talk when the promotional letters were sent out. It was clear then that Herr Hoppe wanted the custom only of the inexperienced and unimportant, which needed signify nothing more however than that he thought it worthwhile catching the small fry ordinarily disdained by the big banks. Many a mickle makes a muckle. With regard to the promotional letters, though, Herr Hoppe did not like his employees taking personal interest in them.
They came from the printers set out in a fount deceptively similar to typescript and with very handsome headings. Herr Hoppe could not prevent employees who had to insert name and address at the top from reading them, but …

‘Herr Menz! Herr Menz!'

‘Yes, Herr Doctor?'

‘May I point out politely but firmly that you're here to get letters ready for the post, not to pass the time reading them? I'm not paying fifty per cent more in overtime for the sake of evening classes. Please, gentlemen, this batch of a thousand has to be posted tonight.'

In spite of this supervision a few things leaked out, however. Herr Doctor hadn't got eyes in the back of his head; when his attention was distracted the young fellows simply pocketed a letter to read at home. Perhaps Herr Hoppe came to realize this or he may have understood that his employees had to cope with the clients at the counter; whatever the reason, he gradually became more informative.

‘I could tell at once by the faces of you lads,' he said grandly, ‘that you were taken aback when I promised the clients three per cent interest a month, yes, in some cases even four and five per cent. You immediately thought there must be something shady. Am I right, Dahlhacke?'