Iron Gustav (82 page)

Didn't it look splendid? ‘Grundeis.' There it was in print.

‘Have you read it?' he asked the foreman casually.

‘Don't stand around here, Herr Grundeis,' the man shouted. ‘Read it? You expect a damned lot for the measly wage you pay. It's bad enough having to print your bourgeois rot without expecting us to read the muck into the bargain.' For the foreman belonged to another party, unfortunately, and only printed his adversary's stuff holding his nose.

So young Grundeis wandered on, thinking about the old man who, when Potsdam would have been quite far enough for the first day, intended at all costs to reach Brandenburg. Through the dark streets his own career and success were now bowling along in that cab, and should anything happen to the old man, however undeservedly, then
he, young Grundeis, would certainly never be given another chance, not in this firm.

He pictured old Hackendahl falling ill (he had just been ill anyway) or run into by a car (such accidents happened every hour) or drunk (he had a suspicious-looking nose) or losing a wheel (the consequences would be endless) or transgressing some traffic regulation (and landing himself in jail instead of Paris) or the horse getting colic …

The more he cursed himself for his folly in imagining all this instead of spending the evening comfortably with a glass of beer and his colleagues, the more restless and lunatic he became. Why had he been fool enough to choose so exceptionally villainous a profession and, on top of all else, afflict himself with this damnable Paris expedition? Why couldn't he simply say: fate, do your worst?

He rumpled his hair, he rattled the change in his pocket; as if hounded by furies he rushed through corridors and rooms, and when he thought how long it would be before Herr Hackendahl had the grace to complete his journey, and that during all those days and nights he would be in this same state of anxiety – then he really felt he was going mad.

Be calm, he told himself. Calm down, my lad. A reporter has to keep cool. A newspaper man must be able to take notes at a murder without turning a hair. You show too much excitement, Grundeis. You must cool down.

He went into the editorial office, rummaged (how pleased they'll be in the morning!) among piles of manuscripts, picked out one, read half a page, said ‘Bilge!' – took the next, read ten lines, and said ‘Tripe!' The third he opened not at all, but groaned with anguish: ‘Oh rot, oh bloody rot! Who'd be able to stand it?' But this time he didn't mean the manuscript … he had let that drop – and it had fallen into the wastepaper basket into which, as is well known, manuscripts never fall in well-ordered newspaper offices. Leaping up, young Grundeis – leaving the light on of course – rushed out.

Ten doors further along he looked for a timetable. Those words of his: ‘Who'd be able to stand it?' had given him the hint that there wasn't the slightest need for him to stand it; at this hour there was bound to be a train to Brandenburg (Havel).

And of course there was. Like one distraught, although he had
plenty of time, Grundeis rushed into the street and jumped into a taxi. ‘Potsdamer Station,' he panted. Greatly impressed, the chauffeur reached the station in four minutes. Obviously the fare was on his way to a deathbed.

Grundeis ran to the booking office, raced up the stairs, stormed a still-empty train, settled himself in a compartment, jumped out again, went for a drink, bought a newspaper, jumped in again, out again, bought some fruit, jumped in again, out, in … And at last the train departed.

For an hour, for nearly an hour and a quarter, he sat imprisoned in this confoundedly slow train stopping at every station, Potsdam included. He had told Hackendahl not to go beyond Potsdam tonight, but age of course never listened to the wise counsels of youth; the man had set his mind on driving to Brandenburg – overdoing it the very first day! Gloomily he stared at his ticket. It told him that the distance between Berlin and Brandenburg was sixty-two kilometres, and he had arranged with the stubborn old fool to drive on an average thirty-five kilometres a day. His life's happiness had been entrusted to an idiot like that!

He was gripped by a feeling of profound despair. Everything was bound to go wrong. Everything he ever touched went wrong for sure. Already at school, his fat teacher had told him: ‘Grundeis, you only have to know something and it's definitely rubbish.' And when his mother dressed him in his white suit with the blue sailor collar, and put him on the revolving piano stool so that he was sure not to get dirty before going out, who tried to make the stool go round, and did so till the wooden thread ran out and he fell to the ground with stool, tread and white suit?

Him. Always him! Nothing ever yet went right for him in this life. His motto seemed to be: ‘Grundeis versus Grundeis'.

Dolefully he slunk through the dark and uneven streets of Brandenburg. Dolefully, timidly, he pressed the night bells at the hotels, waiting patiently and humbly till some half-awakened creature threw her ‘No, not here' at him, when he would slink on to the next.

Hopeless indeed. If there was a bench, he would rather sit on it, be sorry for himself, and patiently await the only thing of which he was certain – his own collapse.

However, there was no bench. Instead, he happened upon a kind of nightwatchman, and this man informed him that the cab driver from Berlin had arrived and had been piloted by him to the Black Horse.

‘A lively old boy but perished with the cold. Just around the corner, sir. I'll show you the way.'

Rather miserably, Grundeis ambled after his guide. The whole thing must be a misunderstanding, or else his competitors must have sent another cab driver out. His man must at least be in Potsdam, if he hadn't already fallen down a ditch in the road. He accompanied his worthy guide just so as not to disappoint him. He never even thought he would ever reach the Black Horse; he couldn't possibly pull a fast one on the competition! It wasn't remotely possible. Fat Willy from the evening paper was bound to be already there.

From the porch of the Black Horse Grundeis heard roars of laughter.

‘The gentlemen are in splendid high spirits,' remarked the head waiter, and chuckled likewise. ‘Our Berlin cab driver greatly amuses them!'

Hardly waiting to press a tip into his guide's hand, he burst into the bar parlour … and saw him sitting there surrounded by the local notables, an old man with a stately beard, his tanned face glowing with warmth and grog. ‘An' I calls to the nag, me Blücher, Gee-up an' the bloomin' horse starts ter back, not half he didn't, gentlemen.'

And seeing him thus Grundeis felt the need to break out – he the only person who took a real interest in him – felt that he wanted to fling wide his arms and declaim: ‘O godly old man, vessel of my longing and hope, sail happily to harbour!'

What he said was: ‘Well, Hackendahl, managed it after all? You must be the most iron Gustav of all Berlin!'

The old cabby was driving through Germany. April (wet, cold and stormy) had turned into warm, serene May. And the farther he got from Berlin, leaving behind the bleak, gloomy plains of the Mark, and approaching the merry Rhineland over the provinces of Saxony
and Hanover, the more tempestuous and enthusiastic did his welcome become.

In Magdeburg it had been regarded as little more than an attempt to set up a record, and a speedometer was presented to him and was attached to his cab so that this record could be established – the record-breaker, old Hackendahl, meanwhile wondering if Grasmus would stay the course. And in Hanover it had been an affair of endurance, nothing more. Rainstorms chilled and soaked him. Will I be able to stick it? was his secret anxiety. Gratefully he received the gift of a mackintosh.

April, however, had turned into May. Dortmund and Cologne approached. People became more relaxed and happier. The record-breaking drive, the affair of endurance, became a triumphal procession.

Criers went through the villages, swinging their bells and proclaiming: ‘Tomorrow the Berlin cabby drives through here on his way to Paris. Receive him, welcome him, honour him.'

And they received, welcomed, honoured him. On that day no peasant took his team to the field, the schoolchildren were given a holiday and they and their teachers lined the road, waving flags, while small girls with nosegays anxiously repeated to themselves the verses they had learned to welcome the strange old traveller.

Dusty, but covered with flags and decked with flowers, his cab rattled through the cheering village. The old driver sat on top. People waved to him and cheered him; more verses were recited, greetings pronounced and equine libations poured. Everyone felt highly honoured when the old man descended and took his meal at the village inn, while the chestnut, tied to a ring before the door, nuzzled an abundant feed of oats. They thought up special gifts for the driver. They couldn't exhaust their surprises for him. During the meal, his cab would be thoroughly greased by the most respected of the villagers, and Grasmus newly shod at the smithy.

As in the villages so in the towns. Hackendahl's entries into Dortmund and Cologne resembled the triumphant processions of victorious generals. Overnight the unknown cabby had become an almost legendary figure whose every word was greeted with
laughter, whose every anecdote passed from mouth to mouth. In the city of Dortmund a hundred and fifty thousand people assembled in welcome and the entire police force was called upon to regulate his passage, notwithstanding which the traffic was brought to a standstill. And, so that the telephone girls could at least glimpse the old man from their windows, no calls were accepted at the exchange for two minutes. The local cabs provided an escort and outside all the inns stood landlords with foaming glasses of beer or bowls of wine. Inside the cab were gifts of cigars, wine, liqueurs, great cheeses, tubs of pickled herrings, while bouquets covered the back seat. One determined man suddenly drew a rope across the street so that the traveller had to stop outside his house.

Old Hackendahl showed himself equal to everything. Grundeis was lost in amazement. He, the successful one, who couldn't send in enough articles about the triumphant journey, watched a man even more successful. Such enthusiasm he would never have expected even in his wildest dreams.

But not the self-assuredness of the old man either. He always did what the people expected of him, or at least the people were always delighted by whatever he did.

When he went past Cologne Cathedral, and the people looked at him and expected him to do whatever he could, what in heaven's name could an old cab driver do in front of thousands of people, when he drove past Cologne Cathedral? He looked at the cathedral, then at the crowd, at the cathedral again, and then the expectant crowd … then he stood up and waved his glossy top hat – mother's milk jug – and shouted: ‘Long live Cologne Cathedral!'

And everyone cheered. Everyone was delighted.

However, when a publicity-minded iron factory solemnly presented him with four brand new horseshoes for Grasmus, he looked at them and then at Grasmus and at the boss in his frock coat, shook his head and said: ‘No, take 'em away. They don't fit Grasmus. He needs much smaller shoes!'

Then he pressed the iron shoes into the boss's hand and drove off.

And once more the people cheered and were again delighted.

What did they see in him that made them so delighted, that in
town and country they poured in to see him, and found everything he did so wonderful? They worked themselves into ever bigger displays. Why did they do it?

Well, here was a man of seventy who had undertaken something which would not be easy for a man of thirty or forty.

But it was not only that.

Well, here was one of the last cab drivers. In his person a dying era travelled through the land. In him they cheered what their fathers had been.

Certainly. But there was more than that in it.

After prolonged hatred people were beginning to feel friendliness towards the ‘sworn foe' beyond the Rhine, towards whom Hackendahl was travelling. He went to the French like a consoling angel, and they rejoiced in him – but that was not all. In him they were acclaiming their own indestructible will to live. This old man, from the middle of the last century, had been through it all. You only had to look at his face, lined like a ploughed field, repeatedly sown with new disappointments, worse defeats and bitter deprivation. But the eyes were bright, the lips ready. Whatever had happened had been unable to change him; he was truly Iron Gustav and had not forgotten how to hope. Even though ninety-nine of his plans had miscarried, the hundredth might still succeed. We travel. We laugh. We never give up hoping. Maybe we will fall into the mud one day, but we don't have to stay there. We mustn't give up if we do fall. On we must go.

Thoughts like these stirred the crowds to acclaim him.

But how was he affected, the old man, who, from the quiet obscurity of a completely private life, suddenly found himself at the centre of a whole people?

He did not lose his head. He was neither megalomaniac nor intimidated. He was far too sensible for that. He had never been a dreamer. ‘Lor, the people!' he said. He didn't understand them or their enthusiasm. On the sly he fed their bouquets to Grasmus and sold their gifts to the people he stayed with; and he never forgot about selling his postcards. Too often things had gone badly with him; now that he saw a last chance of scraping together a bit of money for himself and Mother he took it. One mustn't be
squeamish about making money out of anything that amuses people, and indeed it never entered his head to be squeamish. (And this in its turn pleased people.)

But he was not so thrilled as they were. After all, he carried the responsibility of the journey and really was old. For one thing, the farther he went the closer came the frontier, a strange people, a foreign language – it secretly made him uneasy. But he didn't breathe a word of this to anyone, including to the solidly red Grundeis. The more enthusiastic people were, the more impossible it was for him to go back.