Iron Gustav (77 page)

With that his thoughts would stray towards Paris … Nothing tangible, no immediate intention, not even a plan – just a day-dream, the sort of thing a man imagines while telling himself: That wouldn't be a bad thing to do … And makes no attempt to do it.

Hackendahl had told his wife about the horsewoman who had ridden to Berlin and told her story, and he added, ‘I wouldn't mind doin' that either.'

‘You're mad!' Mother merely said.

‘What's that? Mad? D'you mean I can't do what that Frenchie did?'

‘At your age, Father? You must have a screw loose.'

He saw she hadn't the least idea he meant it seriously, and it was this utter disbelief which egged him on. They all think I'm cracked, he thought. I'd like to have a chance of showin' 'em.

However, there was a big distance between thought and deed. It was soon obvious to him that he couldn't simply mount his box and set forth. It would all have to be prepared beforehand and money provided for him and Blücher, and for Mother to live on when she was by herself.

One
day in a side street he saw a barrow on which an unemployed man was exhibiting the model of a mine. Getting down, he had a look at it, watched the tiny lamps flash, the little trucks run, the miniature hammers fall – a very fine bit of work. One couldn't grudge buying a picture postcard of the thing.

‘Well, how's business, young feller?' he asked.

‘So-so. You scrape through. Brings in a bit more than the dole.'

I ought to do somethin' like that, he thought as he drove on. Sell picture postcards. The oldest cabby in Berlin. On his way to Paris an' back. People'd buy, it'd amuse 'em …

Thus bit by bit he approached his decision. But that didn't mean an actual decision by a long way. Something else had to happen before so old a man could make up his mind, some impulse from without to set him in motion, something particularly sad or cheerful or at all events extraordinary …

And this came …

‘Mother,' he said, ‘I dunno what you're doin' with the money. We used to do all right on five marks a day an' now all of a sudden it ain't enough.'

‘Everything's dearer, Father. The butter … meat …' It was so long and tearful an explanation that Hackendahl gave up listening. What his wife said wasn't important; the main thing was to make the money do, and that didn't seem to be happening.

‘Mother,' he said a week later, ‘Heinz bin round?'

‘No, Father. Why?'

‘I dunno. There's a smell of tobacco hanging about.'

His wife thought for a bit, then it occurred to her that the gasman had smoked.

‘Well, tell him not to, Mother,' remarked Hackendahl, ‘otherwise he'll set our place on fire an' we'll be in the soup.'

But he soon forgot about it. He was hardly ever at home except to sleep, and that not for long; he spent ten or twelve hours on the box according to what business there was, besides sitting near his horse for an hour and a half, morning and evening, watching him eat, grooming and watering him. Very often his wife brought his supper into the stable, in the old workshop belonging to the man who had hanged himself – he no longer recalled his name – where he liked to
be when the streets had quietened down and another day had passed. Then, after giving the horse a last drink of water, he would go straight to bed, very fatigued indeed. But with old people fatigue like that doesn't last – it's more a weariness of life than a desire to sleep; after he had slept two, three or four hours, he would wake up, lying quite still so as not to disturb his wife. He simply lay there as he had woken up – not the worst thing to do, just to lie there. One could think about many things besides the journey to Paris, which was more a matter to brood over in daylight; at night he thought of past events, of projects successful and unsuccessful, of the children, of horses he had once owned, of drivers who had worked for him, of old Rabause; of his time in the army, of officers and men. And he could still remember many things about the home village he moved from to Pasewalk. He would like to have seen that village again. He'd wondered whether it wouldn't be possible to go through it on the way to Paris, but decided it was hardly possible, as it was too far north.

It's a funny thing about a place in which you have lived for years – you know it as you do a suit worn for a long time; if there's something in the wrong pocket it worries and irks you till you change it round. And here was old Hackendahl in his bed, the old familiar bed, which the same woman had made for him, wide-awake as so often at this hour, but aware that tonight there was something, he himself didn't know what, that irked and worried him …

He wasn't thinking about the smell of tobacco for instance, or that his wife seemed suddenly unable to manage on her money – no, he wasn't suspicious – he was merely restless and that was odd … Hadn't someone coughed just then? Not coughed perhaps but cleared his throat, as you do in your sleep? It sounded exactly as if it were in the flat, say in the small room where Heinz used to sleep …

It could not possibly have been in his own flat, but without listening any longer or waiting to make sure, he gripped his wife's arm and shook her. ‘You, there's someone in the flat.'

His wife moaned and then replied quickly: ‘You're imagining things, Father! You're dreaming. Who can possibly have got in?'

‘There's somebody here,' he repeated stubbornly. ‘I know it. Who is it?'

‘Father,
you're dreaming. There's no one. How could there be? There's nothing to be got here.'

‘In Heinz's bedroom – I know it as well as if I could see it. There's someone in Heinz's room.' He was groping for matches to light the candle.

‘Father, Father, don't make us unhappy. Yes, I've given someone a shakedown, I told him he could, but I'll send him away tomorrow. Or I'll go now – let
me
go – I'll send him away at once, Father.'

She began to weep, wept bitterly, clutching him …

But Hackendahl was in no hurry to leave his bed now. ‘Who've you got in Heinz's room, Mother, that I'm not to see or know anything about? Who can it be, Mother?'

‘It's a lodger, I don't know what he does. So's to get a penny or two because I can't make the money reach. That's why, Father.'

‘You're tellin' stories, Mother, I can hear that all right. As if I don't know when you're tellin' fibs! I knew it when you spoke about the gasman. That was a fairytale, but I didn't bother.'

‘It's true, Father, it's only a lodger …'

‘You wouldn't be tellin' me lies about a lodger, you ain't ever lied to me about money. It's always bin for your children. Underhand dealin's with them behind me back. I know who it is sleepin' there.'

‘Father, don't go. Do me this one favour and don't go. Let him sleep, he needs sleep, he's quite done-up.'

‘An' why's he done-up? Why's a swell like that have ter come crawlin' to his mother when he usually puts up in a fine hotel?'

‘I don't know, Father. Let him sleep! I'll see to it that he goes. He'll have gone by tomorrow night – I promise you that, Father.'

‘Why's he got to wait till night? What's he been up to?'

‘How should I know, Father? I haven't asked him. He's my child and I'll not cast him out when he comes to me. Let him have his rest. I don't want to know what he's done. What he did to me, I've long forgotten.'

‘This ain't a doss-house for crooks on the run. He was always a bad egg and he'll take you down too.'

‘And suppose he does? I don't mind, Father.'

‘He must go,' said the old man, rising and taking the candlestick. ‘I'm not blamin' you, Mother, an' I'm not goin' ter blame him either,
so don't worry. There was a time when I'd have raised hell about something like this but in those days I used ter think it's an ill bird what fouls his own nest. Now I think diff'rently. They fouled my nest all right, and my proud life in the army, too. Now I just laugh at such stuff and don't even look at it.'

Standing there before his wife's bed, candlestick in hand, old Hackendahl looked far from laughing, however. His fat face quivered, and his beard quivered too …

‘Let him sleep, Father,' she begged. ‘Don't hit him.'

‘Don't be silly, Mother. Why should I hit a man thirty years old? That wouldn't help us now. No, you stay in bed.'

In his bare feet he crossed the passage and opened the bedroom door. Holding up the candle, he looked, he listened. Then he approached the bed …

There, sleeping on his side, lay the son who had been closest to his heart and perhaps still was, in spite of everything. Had his wife stuck to it that it was a stranger Hackendahl would probably not have recognized him. A puffy sallow face, dark bags under the eyes, a worried frown above them, a chin covered with ugly bristles – a stranger's face!

The father bent over the bed, throwing the light on those sleeping features, searching for the face of the youth he had loved, the one who had been so much more spirited than he, admired, alert, joyous. But now what he lit up was only something troubled and miserable, stubborn, insistently transient and death-bound. This man slept as if he were dead … His grace and high spirits had died, no doubt, long since …

The father straightened himself. He examined his son's clothes. No, these were not the clothes of one who could go into a smart hotel – a month or two more and they'd be worn out … Item by item he examined them, looking at the shoes, feeling the join between the upper and sole, going through the pockets – all rather mechanically.

The father sighed, then he picked up the candlestick and went out. His wife, sitting in bed, fixed her anxious eyes on him. ‘You needn't worry, Mother,' said he. ‘Still snorin'. Gimme your purse. Got any other money?'

He
went through his own pockets; he scraped together all the cash in the flat, even down to the small change which every cabman likes to carry on him. Then he went back into the other bedroom.

The son still slept. Putting the money into one of the pockets, the father marched up to the bed, shook the sleeper's shoulder and barked out in his old military voice: ‘Get up, Erich!'

In the twinkling of an eye the son awoke. One saw that the tone of command spoke to every limb; the flight of fifteen long years had not caused his body to forget that imperious voice. His eyes blinked and as the waking man saw the dark figure with the light and grasped who it was that stood before him, fear showed in his face. Fear and terror.

Thus the father at last saw the child's face beneath that older face. He recognized his son by his fear, his cowardly, grovelling fear, his fear of punishment when he had been up to no good and his father admonished him for it.

‘Get dressed!' ordered the father.

The son obeyed. He did not hurry; the fear was wearing off. He had grown shameless and the shameless readily turn insolent when they realize that the other intends no harm.

Thus it was not long before the son opened his mouth. But what did the former loved one say? What did he say?

‘Once you locked me in the cellar out of pure love, what, Father? And now you're turning me into the streets out of love too, eh? You can't get rid of me quickly enough, what?'

Everything had become coarser, language and expression, thought and manner.

‘Yes, you fathers!' said the son with a contempt either real or assumed. ‘Fine mess you've got us into. You could get children all right, but you couldn't make men out of them, because you yourselves were lacking.'

Every word a lie, every word cowardly and deceitful. The father's fist itched, but he had promised his wife not to strike the boy. And he had no desire to reply – the other would only twist every word one uttered.

But he did something, he blew out the light; and the son became silent. As soon as he could no longer see his father the old fear
returned. Who knew what might happen now? He cursed under his breath. ‘What tomfoolery's this?' he asked. But he made haste.

And it was just as if his father could see in the dark, for hardly had Erich put his hat on when a hand took him by the neck and pushed him into the passage. Erich offered no resistance. He could go now …

But he was propelled past the front door and in the direction of the bedroom. It was in vain to struggle. The hand on his neck was like a vice; at the least resistance it gripped the harder.

Mother had heard the noise. ‘Father! Erich! What is it?'

‘Say goodbye to your mother,' whispered Hackendahl in his son's ear. ‘And thank her, you understand? Politely! Properly!'

Erich started to struggle but the old man's hand tightened and the voice in his ear said still more threateningly: ‘Will you obey?'

Erich cleared his throat. ‘I'm going now, Mother. Thanks … very much.'

‘Erich,' she called. ‘Erich, my boy. Why isn't there a light? Come and give me a kiss … Father, bring a light!'

Father, however, brought no light. Cloaked in the darkness he pushed his son, his hopelessly unsuccessful, wretched son, up to the mother's bed. ‘Do what she wants!' he whispered. And again: ‘If you don't, I swear I'll call the police!' He pushed his son down by the edge of the bed, and his son kissed his mother goodbye.

‘Oh, Erich, look after yourself, do! Don't let them get you, see that they don't, Erich. Goodbye …'

She was crying. To the sound of her tears the son was taken out of the room, to the front door and out onto the stairs … There the hand released him and, before he had a chance to vent his spite in words, the door had closed between father and son.

The next evening old Hackendahl saw in the paper that the police had recognized in the street a criminal, one who had betrayed his country. No name was mentioned; there was nothing to indicate that this traitor was Erich Hackendahl, but his father – saying not a word to anyone – knew in his heart that it was he.