Little Man, What Now? (20 page)

The gentleman seemed a little bemused, as though there was something he didn’t quite understand. ‘Mr Pinneberg isn’t in?’ he asked, as he went into the little room.

‘It’s years since Mr Pinneberg …’ she was going to say ‘died’ and then she realized: ‘Oh, you want Mr Pinneberg. He isn’t here yet. I’m expecting him any moment.’

‘That’s funny,’ said the gentleman, seeming pleased rather than offended. ‘He left Mandels at four today, having just invited me round for this evening. My name is Heilbutt.’

‘Oh heavens! You’re Mr Heilbutt!’ said Lammchen, and then said no more, thunderstruck. ‘What about supper?’ she thought. ‘Left at four. Where can he have got to? What have I got in the house? And any minute Mama’s going to come barging in …’

‘Yes, I’m Heilbutt,’ said the gentleman, who was obviously a very patient man.

‘Goodness, Mr Heilbutt, whatever must you think of me?’ said Lammchen. ‘It’s no good me telling you anything but the truth. So first I thought you wanted my mother-in-law who is also called Pinneberg …’

‘Right,’ said Heilbutt smiling merrily.

‘And second, Sonny didn’t say anything about wanting to invite you today. That’s why I was so taken aback.’

‘Not very,’ said Mr Heilbutt reassuringly.

‘And third, I don’t understand how he could have left at four—and why leave at four anyhow?—and not be here yet.’

‘He had something he wanted to do.’

‘Oh dear, I’m afraid he’s trying to buy me a winter coat.’

Heilbutt reflected for a moment: ‘I don’t think so,’ he said. ‘He’d get that with the employee’s discount at Mandels.’

‘So what …?’

The door opened, and Mrs Mia Pinneberg sailed up to Heilbutt with a joyous smile. ‘You must be Mr Siebold, who rang up about my advert today. May I, Emma …?’

But Emma didn’t budge. ‘This is Mr Heilbutt, Mama, a colleague of Hannes. He’s come to see me.’

Mrs Mia Pinneberg beamed. ‘Oh, of course, excuse me. I’m pleased to meet you, Mr Heilbutt. You work in ready-to-wear as well?’

‘I’m a salesman,’ said Heilbutt.

There was the sound of a door shutting outside. ‘That must be Sonny,’ said Lammchen.

And it was him, on the landing holding one end of a dressing-table, the other end of which was being carried by the apprentice from ‘Himmlisch for Beds’. ‘Good evening, Mama. Good evening, Heilbutt. I’m glad you’re here already. Evening, Lammchen. Yes, you may well stare. This is our dressing-table. We nearly got run over by a bus on Alexanderplatz. I tell you, I was sweating blood all the way home. Would someone open the door to our bedroom?’

‘But Sonny!’

‘Did you bring that thing here yourself, Pinneberg?’

‘In person,’ beamed Pinneberg. He continued in English: ‘I myself with this—how do you call him?’—lapsing back into German—‘apprentice?’

‘A dressing-table!’ exclaimed Mrs Pinneberg, highly amused. ‘You must be well-heeled, you two. Whoever needs a dressing-table now we all have our hair cut like little boys?’

But Pinneberg hadn’t heard. He felt that he had won the right to own the thing by pushing and shoving it through the hurly-burly of the Berlin streets, and no budgetary considerations were going to cloud his hour of glory.

‘Over there in the corner, young man,’ he said to the wretched-looking apprentice. ‘Sideways on a bit. That way the light is better. We must put a lamp in over it. There we are, young man, now let’s go down and get the mirror. You’ll have to excuse me one moment longer … This is my wife, Heilbutt,’ he said, smiling broadly, ‘I hope you like her?’

‘I can shift the mirror meself, guv,’ said the apprentice.

‘I like her immensely,’ responded Heilbutt.

‘But Sonny!’ laughed Lammchen.

‘He’s off his head today,’ declared Mrs Mia Pinneberg.

‘Certainly not. It’s too expensive for you to fall up the stairs with!’ And, in a mysterious undertone. ‘The mirror is real engraved crystal; it costs fifty marks all on its own.’

He disappeared with the youth, leaving the others looking at each other.

‘Well, I won’t disturb you any longer,’ said Mrs Pinneberg. ‘You’ll have to see to the supper, Lammchen. If you need any help, just let me know.’

‘Oh dear, whatever shall I do about supper?’ cried Lammchen despairingly.

‘Well, as I said,’ said her mother-in-law, departing, ‘I’ll gladly help.’

‘Please don’t worry about it,’ said Heilbutt, laying his hand on Lammchen’s arm. ‘I didn’t come for the food.’

The door opened again, and Pinneberg reappeared with the boy.

‘Now wait, and you’ll see it in its full beauty. Lift it a bit, son. Have you got the screws? Wait everybody …’ He sweated, and screwed in the screws, and talked non-stop: ‘A little bit more light here. That’s right, it’s got to be really bright. Please, Heilbutt, do me a favour and don’t go near it yet. Lammchen’s got to be the first to see herself in the mirror. I haven’t looked in it either. I’ve kept the cover over it. Here, son, there’s something for you. All right? Get off then. It’ll still be open downstairs. ‘Bye. Lammchen, there’s something I want you to do. You needn’t be embarrassed with Heilbutt. Isn’t that right, Heilbutt?’

‘Of course. Not with me.’

‘So. Put on your bathrobe. Just over your clothes. Please. Please. I’ve kept thinking of how you’d look in the mirror in your bathrobe. I’d like it to be the first sight I see in it. Please Lammchen …’

‘Sonny, Sonny,’ said Lammchen, but of course she was moved by so much enthusiasm. ‘You see, Mr Heilbutt, there’s nothing to be done.’ And she took a bathrobe out of the wardrobe.

‘Speaking for myself,’ said Heilbutt, ‘I love to see things like that. And your husband’s quite right. Every mirror ought to start off by reflecting something particularly pretty …’

‘Oh, stop it,’ said Lammchen, waving off the compliment.

‘But it’s true …’

‘Lammchen,’ said Pinneberg, looking in turn at Lammchen herself and at her reflection. ‘I’ve dreamed about this. To think it’s come true! D’you know, Heilbutt, the big bosses up there can bully us and under-pay us and treat us like trash …’

‘Which is all we are,’ said Heilbutt. ‘We don’t matter at all.’

‘Of course,’ said Pinneberg. ‘I always knew that. But they can’t take this away from me. Let them go to hell and take all their speeches with them. But standing here looking at my wife in her bathrobe in the mirror, they can’t take that away from me.’

‘Have I been sitting in state long enough?’ asked Lammchen.
‘Is it a good mirror? Does it give a good reflection?’ asked Pinneberg. Then, to Heilbutt by way of explanation: ‘Some mirrors make you look greenish, like a drowned corpse, not that I’ve ever seen one. Some make you look broad, some make you look dusty. But this mirror is a good one, isn’t it, Lammchen?’

There was a knock, the door opened a crack, and Mrs Pinneberg’s head appeared: ‘Have you got a moment, Hans?’

‘Soon, Mama.’

‘Well, make it really soon, please. I have to speak to you urgently.’ The door shut again.

‘Mama will be after the rent,’ explained Lammchen.

Pinneberg looked surprisingly sombre. ‘Mama can go to …’ he said.

‘But Sonny!’

‘She should stop fussing,’ he said crossly. ‘She’ll get her money.’

‘Well, of course Mama will think we’ve got a lot of money because of the dressing-table. And you do get good wages at Mandels, don’t you, Mr Heilbutt?’

‘Well …’ said Heilbutt hesitantly, ‘It depends on what you mean by good. But I suppose a dressing-table like that costs at least sixty marks …’

‘Sixty … you’re off your chump, Heilbutt,’ said Pinneberg excitedly. And then, seeing Lammchen was watching him. ‘I’m sorry, Heilbutt, you can’t be expected to know …’ Then, very loudly: ‘And now I proclaim that nobody’s going to talk about money for the whole evening. We’re all going to go into the kitchen and see what we can find for supper. I, for one, am hungry.’

‘Right you are, Sonny love,’ said Lammchen, looking at him very hard. ‘Just as you like.’

And they went into the kitchen.

CONJUGAL HABITS OF THE PINNEBERGS. MOTHER AND SON. JACHMANN TO THE RESCUE AS USUAL

It was night. The Pinnebergs were going to bed, their visitor had gone. Pinneberg got undressed slowly and thoughtfully, glancing over now and then at Lammchen, who was out of her clothes in a trice. He sighed deeply, and then asked, with surprising cheerfulness: ‘How did you like Heilbutt?’

‘Oh, I did like him,’ but Pinneberg saw from her tone that she didn’t mean to talk about Heilbutt. He sighed again deeply.

Lammchen had got into her nightie, and was now perched on the edge of the bed, slipping off her stockings. She laid them over the dressing-table. Pinneberg noted with regret that she had no sense of where she was laying them.

But Lammchen didn’t get into bed. ‘What did you say to Mama about the rent?’ she asked suddenly. Pinneberg was rather embarrassed: ‘About the rent? Oh, nothing. I told her I had no money at present.’

Pause.

Then Lammchen sighed. She swung herself into bed, pulled up the cover, and said: ‘Aren’t you going to give her anything?’

‘I don’t know. Yes. Just not yet.’

Lammchen was silent.

Now Pinneberg was in his nightshirt. Since the light-switch was near the door and could not be operated from the bed, it was part of Pinneberg’s marital duties to switch off the light before climbing into bed. It was, however, Lammchen’s wish to kiss goodnight with the light on as she liked to be able to see him. So Pinneberg had to go right round to her side of the regal bed to deliver the goodnight kiss, then go back to the door and turn out the light before getting into bed himself.

The goodnight kiss itself was divided into two parts: his and hers. His part was fairly constant: three kisses on the lips. Hers
fluctuated greatly, either she took his head between her hands and smothered him with kisses, or she put her arms around his neck and held him very tight to give him one lingering kiss. Or she laid his head on her breast and stroked his hair.

He generally made a manly attempt to hide how tedious he found this extended billing and cooing, and was not quite sure how far she saw through him, or whether she simply didn’t notice his coolness.

This evening he wished the whole goodnight business were over, and for a moment he even contemplated ‘forgetting’ it. But that would certainly only complicate matters. So he went around the bed with as indifferent an air as possible, yawned loudly and said: ‘Fearfully tired, old girl. Got to work hard again tomorrow. Good night.’ And swiftly gave her the three kisses.

‘Good night, my Sonny,’ said Lammchen, and kissed him hard, once. ‘You sleep well too.’

Her lips tasted particularly soft and full, yet cool, and for a moment he would have had no objection to continuing. But life was complicated enough already, he controlled himself, turned around, clicked the switch and swung himself into bed. ‘Good night, Lammchen’, he said once more.

‘Good night,’ she said.

At first it was, as always, pitch-dark in the room, then very gradually the two windows became visible as grey patches, and at the same time the noises became clearer. Now they could hear the city railway, the shunting of an engine, then the sound of a bus going down Paulstrasse. Suddenly, almost on top of them, a roar of laughter, which made them both jump, followed by shouts, catcalls and giggles.

‘Jachmann’s on form tonight,’ commented Pinneberg involuntarily.

‘They got a whole case of wine from Kempinski today. Fifty bottles,’ explained Lammchen.

‘How they booze!’ said he. ‘What a waste of money …’

He was sorry the remark had slipped out: it could provide an opening for Lammchen. But she remained silent.

It was a long time later that she said quietly: ‘Sonny, darling?’

‘Yes?’

‘D’you know what sort of an advertisement Mama had put in the paper?’

‘An advertisement? No idea.’

‘When Heilbutt came, she thought it was for her, and asked if he was the man who’d phoned about the advertisement.’

‘I don’t understand, I’ve no idea. What sort of advertisement could it be?’

‘I don’t know. She wouldn’t be going to let our room, would she?’

‘She can’t do it without telling us. No, I don’t think so. She’s glad to have us.’

‘Even if we don’t pay any rent?’

‘Please, Lammchen. We’re going to pay.’

‘But what can it be? D’you think it’s got to do with these parties?’

‘How? You don’t advertise a party.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Nor do I. Good night then, Lammchen.’

‘Good night, Sonny.’

There was silence. Lammchen lay facing the window and Pinneberg facing the door. It was now of course quite out of the question for him to get to sleep, firstly because of the stimulating kiss of just now, and the fact that there was a woman tossing from side to side a foot away from him and breathing fitfully. And secondly because of the dressing-table. He would have done better to confess earlier.

‘Listen, Sonny,’ said Lammchen very quietly and gently.

‘Yes,’ he said, with an anxious feeling.

‘May I come over to you a moment?’

Pause. Silence. A moment of surprise.

Then he said: ‘Please do, Lammchen. Of course.’ And turned onto his side.

This was the fourth or fifth time in their marriage that Lammchen had made such a request to her husband. And it did not constitute a hidden invitation to love-making on Lammchen’s part. Although love-making was usually what resulted, due to Pinneberg’s rather obvious, down-to-earth and typically male interpretation of the request.

For Lammchen it was actually a continuation of the goodnight kiss, a need to cuddle up to him, a longing for tenderness. Lammchen only wanted to hold her young man for a while in her arms. There was a wild, wide, noisy and hostile world out there, which knew nothing of them and cared less. It was so good to lie one against the other, like a little warm island!

And so they lay now, in each other’s arms, face to face, a small warm patch in the middle of thousands of miles of darkness—and you had to lie very close when there was only one of those modern four-foot-square eiderdowns to cover the two of you, otherwise draughts got in on every side.