Little Man, What Now? (5 page)

‘Why should it be? Don’t we want to save money? Only last Sunday we walked around Platz for two hours!’

‘But there’s your things …’

‘We could have got a porter to bring them along. Or someone from your firm. You’ve got workmen …’

‘Oh no, I don’t like that, it looks as if …’

‘All right,’ said Lammchen, submissively, ‘As you like …’

‘And one more thing,’ he said hastily, as the train was already braking. ‘Let’s not act as if we’re married. Let’s pretend we’ve only just met.’

‘But why?’ asked Lammchen in astonishment. ‘When we
are
married.’

‘You see,’ he explained with some embarrassment. ‘It’s the people here. We didn’t send out any cards, we didn’t put a notice in the paper, so if they saw we were married they might be offended, mightn’t they?’

‘I don’t understand,’ said Lammchen, utterly mystified. You’ll have to explain again. Why should people be offended if we’re married?’

‘Yes, I’ll explain it all to you. But not now. Now we have to … Are you taking your bag? Now, please, look as though you don’t
know me very well.’

Lammchen said nothing more, but kept casting dubious sidelong glances at him. He had suddenly become the perfect gentleman, helping his lady out of the carriage, then saying, with an embarrassed smile: ‘This is the Central Station of Ducherow. We also have the narrow-gauge line to Maxfelde. This way, please.’ And he went ahead, down the steps from the platform, really a little too fast for such a concerned husband, who had gone to the lengths of ordering a car in case the walk was too much for his wife. He kept two or three steps in front of her all the time, and went out through a side exit. There stood a car with its hood up.

The driver said: ‘Good afternoon, Mr Pinneberg. Good afternoon, miss.’

Pinneberg murmured hastily, ‘One moment please. Perhaps you could get in while I go and look after the luggage …’ And he was off.

Lammchen stood and looked at the station square, with its small two-storey houses. Directly opposite was the Station Hotel.

‘Is Kleinholz’s round here?’ she asked the driver.

‘Where Mr Pinneberg works? No, miss, we’ll be going by there shortly. It’s right on the Market Place, beside the Town Hall.’

‘I say,’ said Lammchen. ‘Couldn’t we take the hood down? It’s such a lovely day.’

‘Sorry, miss,’ said the driver. ‘Mr Pinneberg expressly asked for the hood up. I don’t normally have it up myself in this weather.’

‘Ah well,’ said Lammchen. ‘If that was what Mr Pinneberg ordered.’ And she got in.

She saw him coming, behind the porter who was pushing a cart with the trunk, the bed-bag and the crate. And because for the last five minutes she had been seeing her husband with quite new eyes, she was struck by the fact that he kept his right hand in his trouser pocket. And that was really not his style; it was something he never did; yet there he was with his right hand in his
trouser pocket.

They drove off.

‘So,’ he said, with a slightly embarrassed laugh. ‘This way you get to see the whole of Ducherow in passing. Ducherow is just one long street.’

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘you were going to explain to me why people might be offended.’

‘Later,’ he said. ‘It’s difficult to talk now. The road-surface is awful here.’

‘All right, later,’ she said, and was silent too. But then she noticed something else; he had pressed his head right into the corner, so that if anyone looked into the car they would not be able to recognize him. ‘There’s your firm,’ she said. “ ‘Emil Kleinholz. Corn, animal feed and fertilizers. Potatoes wholesale and retail.” Oh, I can buy my potatoes at your place.’

‘No, no,’ he said hastily. ‘That’s an old sign. We don’t do potatoes retail any more.’

‘That’s a pity,’ she said. ‘It would have been really fun coming into your place and buying ten pounds of potatoes from you. I wouldn’t have acted married at all, you know!’

‘Yes it is a pity,’ he said. ‘It would have been great fun.’

She tapped her foot and gave an indignant snort, but said nothing further. A little later she asked pensively, ‘Is there any water around here?’

‘What d’you mean?’ he asked cautiously.

‘To go swimming, of course,’ snapped Lammchen. ‘What else would I mean?’

‘Oh yes, there are a number of places where you can swim,’ he said.

And they drove on. They had now left the main street—Lammchen saw a sign reading ‘Feldstrasse’—and there were detached houses, all in their own gardens.

‘Oh look, it’s pretty here,’ said she, happily. ‘Masses of summer
flowers!’

The car was fairly bouncing along.

‘Now we’re in Green End,’ said he.

‘Green End?’

‘Yes. Our road’s called Green End.’

‘This is a road? I thought the driver had got lost.’

On the left was a paddock, fortified with barbed-wire and occupied by a few cows and a horse. On the right was a field of pink clover in bloom.

‘Do open the window now!’ she begged.

‘We’re nearly there.’

The paddock marked the end of the levelled ground. There the town had planted its last memorial—and what a memorial! On the last piece of levelled ground stood Mothes the Builders’ speculative apartment box, a lank and lofty affair, plastered brown and yellow in the front, its side walls bare, waiting for adjoining buildings.

‘It’s not exactly beautiful,’ said Lammchen, looking up at it.

‘But it’s very nice inside,’ he said encouragingly.

‘Then let’s go inside,’ she said. ‘And then of course it’ll be lovely for the Shrimp. So healthy.’

Pinneberg and the driver picked up the wicker trunk, Lammchen took the egg-crate; the driver said: ‘I’ll go back for the bed-bag.’

On the ground floor where the shop was it smelled of cheese and potatoes; on the first floor it was mainly cheese, on the second floor cheese reigned supreme, and right at the top under the roof, the damp, mouldy potato-smell was there again.

‘How did this smell get past the cheese? Can you tell me that?’

But Pinneberg was already opening the door.

‘Let’s go into our room first!’

They crossed the small hall, it was indeed small, with a wardrobe on the right and a chest on the left. The men could scarcely
get by with the trunk.

‘Here,’ said Pinneberg, and flung open the door.

Lammchen stepped over the threshold.

‘Goodness,’ she said, in confused surprise. ‘What’s all this …?’

But then she threw down everything she was carrying onto a re-upholstered plush sofa, the springs of which groaned under the impact of the egg-crate, ran to the window—there were four big windows streaming light into the long room—tore it open and leaned out.

Down below her was the road, a field track of wheel-ruts worn into the sand, overgrown with grass, goose-foot and sow-thistles. And the clover field: now she could smell it, and nothing has such a glorious smell as flowering clover after the sun has been shining on it all day.

And next to the clover field were other fields, yellow and green, and a few strips of rye that were already cut to stubble. And then came a ribbon of deep green: meadows; and in between willows and poplars and elder there flowed the Strela, here quite a narrow little stream.

‘On its way to Platz,’ Lammchen thought. ‘To my Platz where I worked so hard, and was so miserable and lonely, in a flat looking out onto a courtyard, nothing but walls and stones … Here you can see for ever.’

And then she saw in the window next to hers the face of her young man. He had just settled with the driver who had brought the bed-bag, and was now beaming at her, lost to himself with joy.

She called to him: ‘Just look at all this. This is a place you can really live …’

She reached her right hand to him out of her window, and he took it with his left.

‘The whole summer!’ she called, and described a half-circle with the other arm.

‘D’you see that little train …? That’s the narrow-gauge railway
to Maxfelde,’ he said.

The driver appeared below. He must have been in the shop, for he hailed them with a bottle of beer. The man carefully wiped the rim with the palm of his hand, bent back his head, called ‘Your good health!’ and drank.

‘Cheers!’ called Pinneberg, dropping Lammchen’s hand.

‘Now then,’ said Lammchen. ‘Let’s have a look at this chamber of horrors.’

And, like all such places, very horrid it was. To turn away from observing the clear simplicity of the countryside and see a room in which … Now Lammchen was certainly not spoilt, having perhaps once in her life seen simple, rectangular furniture in a shopwindow in Mainzerstrasse in Platz. But this! …

‘Please, Sonny,’ she said. ‘Take me by the hand and lead me. I’m afraid I’ll knock something over, or get stuck and not be able to go forward or back.’

‘Oh, I don’t think it’s as bad as all that,’ said he, a little hurt. ‘I think there are some quite cosy corners here.’

‘Yes, corners,’ said she. ‘But now tell me, what in heaven’s name is this? No, don’t say a word. Let’s go on. I must examine it at close quarters.’

They set out on a tour of exploration, which most of the time they had to do in single file, Lammchen never relinquishing her Sonny’s hand.

The room was a sort of ravine; not all that narrow, but extremely long, rather like a bridle path. Four-fifths of it was entirely filled with upholstered furniture, walnut tables, display cabinets, mirrored consoles, flower-stands, whatnots and a large parrot cage (without the parrot), while in the remaining fifth there was nothing but two beds and a wash-stand. But it was the partition between that and the rest of the room which had attracted Lammchen’s attention. It had been erected to separate the living-from the sleeping-area, but it wasn’t made of plaster-board,
it didn’t have a curtain or a folding screen. It was a kind of grapevine trellis of slats extending from ceiling to floor with an arch to go through. Not ordinary plain slats, mark you, but beautifully-stained walnut, each with five parallel grooves carved down it. To stop it looking too naked, this trellis had been wound with paper and fabric flowers: roses, daffodils and bunches of violets. There were also those long green paper garlands that you get at beer festivals.

‘Oh God!’ said Lammchen, and sat down. She sat down just where she was standing, but there was no risk of landing on the floor, because there was something standing everywhere, and her bottom landed on the wicker seat of an ebony piano stool, just standing there without its piano.

Pinneberg stood there, speechless. He didn’t know what to say. It had all quite appealed to him when he’d come to rent the place. The trellis had seemed distinctly gay.

Suddenly Lammchen’s eyes began to fire sparks; her legs regained their strength, she stood up; she approached the flowered trellis; she ran her finger down one of the slats. The slat was as previously described: ridged, grooved, notched. Lammchen examined the finger.

‘There!’ She held it out to her young man. It was grey.

‘A bit dusty,’ he said cautiously.

‘A bit!’ Her eyes darted fire at him. ‘Will you get me a charwoman? Five hours a day she’d need to be at it, at least!’

‘But why? To do what?’

‘And who’s supposed to keep the place clean, may I ask? I could just about handle the ninety-three pieces of furniture with all their knobs and notches and pillars and shells, though it’d be a criminal waste of time. But this trellis will take three hours a day on its own. And then the paper flowers …’

She slapped a rose. The rose fell to the floor leaving in its wake a million grey dust-particles dancing in the sunshine.

‘Are you going to get me a charwoman?’ asked Lammchen, utterly unlike a lamb.

‘What if you did it thoroughly once a week?’

‘Don’t be idiotic. And this is where the Shrimp is supposed to grow up? How many bruises is he going to get bumping into all the knobs and handles? Hm?’

‘Perhaps by then we shall have a flat.’

‘And what’s going to happen in the meantime? Who’s going to heat this place in winter? Under the roof? Two outside walls! Four windows! We could use up half a ton of briquettes a day and still have our teeth chattering!’

‘But,’ he said, rather offended, ‘of course a furnished place is never the same as one of your own.’

‘I know that. But you tell me: do
you
like it? D’you find it pleasant, would you like to live here? Just think of it, coming home and having to mind every step, and dustsheets all over the place. Ow! It’s just as I thought; they’re fastened down with pins.’

‘But we won’t find anything better.’

‘I’ll find something better. You bet I will. When can we give notice?’

‘On the first of September. But …’

‘To leave when?’

‘The thirtieth of September. But …’

‘Six weeks,’ she groaned. ‘Well, I’ll survive it. I’m only sorry for the poor Shrimp, having to go through it all as well. I thought I was going to have a fine time taking him for walks out here. Cooking, polishing the furniture.’

‘But we can’t give notice straight after we’ve arrived!’

‘Of course we can. Preferably today, this very minute!’

She stood there, all determination, aggressive, with red cheeks and flashing eyes, her head thrown back.

Pinneberg said slowly: ‘You know, Lammchen, I’d thought you were quite different. Much gentler …’

She laughed, sprang over to him, ran her hand through his hair. ‘Of course I’m different from what you thought I was. Did you really think I could be all sugar and spice when I’ve been going out to work since I left school, and had the sort of father and brother I’ve had, as well as that bitch of a boss and those workmates of mine?’

‘Yes, I suppose …’ said he, thinking about it.

The clock, the famous glass-covered clock on the mantelpiece above the stove, flanked by a hammering cupid and a glass oriole, struck seven, briskly.

‘Quick march, Sonny! We’d better get down to the shop to buy the food for tonight and tomorrow. I can’t wait to see this so-called kitchen.’

THE PINNEBERGS PAY A COURTESY CALL, THERE IS SOME CRYING, AND THE ENGAGEMENT CLOCK KEEPS ON STRIKING

Supper was over, a supper bought, prepared, conversed over and filled with plans by an utterly transformed Lammchen. There was bread and cold meats, and tea. Pinneberg had been in favour of beer, but Lammchen had declared. ‘One: tea is cheaper. Two: beer isn’t good for the Shrimp. Right up till he’s born, we’re not going to drink a drop of alcohol. And, as a general rule …’