The Drinker (25 page)

57

After my swift ironical words, a deep silence ensues. I am in no hurry to break it. Magda fidgets rather uneasily in her chair, I am waiting for what she will say next. But when she begins to speak it is only to thank me for the power of attorney.

“I don’t really need it. Neither the post office nor the bank have made the slightest trouble about my signature. But I understand what you meant, Erwin, and I want to thank you for your good opinion of me.” She reaches her hand to me across the table, and I take it coolly and cautiously, being careful not to press it warmly. The hand returns somewhat disappointed to its owner.

“And how’s business?” I ask, just for something to say.

But Magda livens up.

“I’m happy to be able to tell you, Erwin, that business is going well. Yes, remarkably well. The harvest turned out quite satisfactorily, and we did well out of it. Particularly with peas and beans, I had unbelievable luck. I bought just before the price suddenly went up.…”

For a while we go on quietly talking about the business. Really, quite incontestably, an efficient woman. How her eyes light up, how lively her voice becomes, as she speaks of it! Her eyes did not light up before, when it concerned her husband. But it was always like that with her: the business, the garden, the house, everything was more important than her husband. I might have been jealous of these inanimate things, had it not been somewhat ridiculous. But perhaps not so ridiculous as this efficiency which the doctor found so praiseworthy, too. If only she could think a bit more rationally, she wouldn’t go to all that trouble, she would lease the business for a small income and live comfortably on our property. But of course such a thing wouldn’t occur to a woman of her kind.

So my thoughts ran on, while I listened absent-mindedly to Magda’s eager chatter, which awakened memories of old clients, of drives through off-the-track villages, of lucky deals.… But suddenly I prick my ears up, for Magda has mentioned our rival, the young beginner who had set up in my native town in defiance of myself, and had already given me some trouble on two or three occasions. Am I mistaken, or does a special undertone creep into Magda’s voice, something warmer than hitherto? I listen very attentively to what Magda is saying.

“Yes, just think, Erwin, I’ve got to know Herr Heinze personally. One day I got so angry about our constantly undercutting each other just for the sake of snatching a few customers, and we were both losing by it. So I simply went to his office and said: ‘Herr Heinze, I’m Frau Sommer, can’t we try to come to some sensible arrangement? There’s a living for both our firms in this town, but if we go on undercutting each other, we’ll both end up bankrupt!’ That’s what I told him.”

Magda looks at me triumphantly.

“And what did he say?” I ask eagerly.

“Well,” she says, and again I detect the warm undertone in her voice, “Herr Heinze is not only an educated man, he is intelligent as well. In five minutes we had come to an understanding. Every morning, midday and evening, we inform each other of the prices we’re paying, neither offers a groschen more or less, and poaching customers is completely abolished!”

“Oh, you innocent!” I cry, “he’ll land you properly in the cart. That Heinze is just a cunning double-dyed rogue. Naturally he’d say nothing to your face, but behind your back he’s pinching your customers one after the other. Eventually he’ll have the whole business in his hands, and you’ll be left with nothing!”

“Poor Erwin,” says Magda, “still so full of suspicions. No, I’ve got to know Herr Heinze really well. I meet him socially sometimes.…”

I wondered what lay behind that “socially sometimes” but Magda did not blush. She continued: “I know enough about human nature to be able to say: Herr Heinze is a thoroughly upright, decent man, whom I would trust blindly. And if you think me too trusting, Erwin, perhaps our books would be sufficient proof. We’ve increased our turnover by half as much again this autumn. That would hardly be the case if Herr Heinze had been snapping up our customers!”

She looked at me triumphantly, her eyes shining with joy. I said icily, “The figures on their own prove nothing. You say the harvest was good and the weather particularly favourable for early crops, so the turnover might well improve for a short time and you could still be losing customers.… By the way I can’t remember, wasn’t this Heinze married?”

“Certainly,” Magda nodded. “But he was divorced a year ago.”

“Is that so?” I answered, as indifferently as possible. “Divorced—of course, she divorced him?”

“How can you say such a thing,” cried Magda, almost furiously. “I told you just now he’s a highly respectable man. Of course the blame was on the other side!”

“Of course …” I repeated, rather sarcastically. “Pardon me, but you seem quite thrilled about this fellow, Magda!”

For a moment she hesitated, then she answered in a firm voice: “Yes, I am, Erwin!”

We looked at each other for a long time in silence. Many unsaid things were in the air. Even head-warder Fritsch had noticed something, he had leaned forward on his chair, his elbows propped on his knees, and watched us both expectantly. Incidentally, the usual visiting-time was over long ago.

58

“Have you already started divorce proceedings?” I finally asked, in a low voice.

“Yes,” she answered just as softly.

Again a deep silence fell between us. Suddenly we both looked round at head-warder Fritsch, who got up from his chair with a jerk and rattled his keys.

“Well,” he said, almost embarrassed, “visiting-time is up by rights, but as far as I’m concerned, you can have ten minutes more.” And he went over to the window where he ostentatiously turned his back on us.

“Erwin,” whispered Magda hastily, “I had a long struggle with myself, it seemed so wrong to leave you in such a position; but then when I heard from the medical officer that your case was going all right, and that you would probably be let out in a short time.…”

She looked at me imploringly, but I was silent. I did not help her with a single word. I was possessed by a wild and furious rage.

“We can arrange everything as you like, Erwin,” Magda continued still more hastily. “If you want to take over the business, all right. We’re ready to move away from here, too. Heinrich, I mean Heinze, will make over his business to you, too. Don’t look at me like that, Erwin, it won’t help! Inside ourselves we’ve been quite estranged for a long time, think of that horrible time when we were always quarrelling! It’s better if we part.…”

I was still silent; so that was the reason for the new costume, the fresh colours, the warm trembling undertone in her voice. A new man—and already the amorous little pigeon starts to coo. The husband is clapped into gaol, and along comes the other one, the upright one, the highly respectable one, whom she blindly trusts. I looked intently at her white neck, already becoming a little fat. Her throat moved, touched by her own words, the good woman swallowed her tears, as they say. I would so much have liked to span that throat with my two hands, and I swear I would not have let go again, for all the Fritsches! But I kept a tight hold of myself, only a few days separated me from freedom. It wasn’t only her I meant to get, there was the other one, the highly respectable one, who had the effrontery to steal the wife of a sick man! She still went on looking at me, and now when she began to speak, the tone of her voice had grown colder, she was no longer imploring. A line of determination, of hardness even, was about her mouth.

“You’re looking at me all the time and not saying a word,” she resumed. “I can see a threat of something dreadful in your eyes. But that won’t deter me, nothing can deter me. For once in my life I want to know happiness. I’ve sacrificed so many years for you, for your meanness, your obstinacy, your stupid conceit and misanthropy, and above all what you call your love. A funny kind of love, that I only get to feel when you have demands to make—but I never dare to make any! No, I’ve had enough of it.…”

She would probably have gone on talking but I had had enough of it too, of her tirade, I mean. After failing to lure me with sweetness, she was going to crush me with hatred. I leaned far over the table and spat right into her face.

“Adultress!” I cried.

At this loud exclamation, head-warder Fritsch turned from the window and stared in utter amazement for a moment at the scene confronting him: I, leaning across the table gazing at Magda contemptuously, threateningly, and my former wife, who made no move to wipe away the spittle that ran down her deadly pale cheek, returning my gaze steadfastly from the very depths of her brown eyes. And as we stared at each other in this way, it seemed to me as if I penetrated deeply into this woman with my gaze, sank right into her for a fraction of a second, and encountered a being I had never known.…

Then it was all over, for head-warder Fritsch had seized me by the shoulder and began to shake me furiously.

“You insolent swine!” he shouted. “What do you think you’re doing? I’ll report you to the medical officer! That’s a respectable woman, d’you understand?”

And he shook me again with all his strength, so that my head rolled loosely from side to side.

“Let the man go, warder,” said Magda, in a deep, utterly exhausted voice. “He’s perfectly right: I am an adultress.”

She paused for a moment as if in thought, then she turned to me, her eyes lit up again, her voice was ringing once more.

“And I’m glad I did it!” she said in my face.

Then she went slowly out of the visiting room wiping her face at last, though only mechanically.

59

How I got through the night after that dreadful meeting, I cannot say. I did not sleep for a minute, of that I am sure. That night I was utterly crushed and would have put an end to all my misery, had not the thought of revenge sustained me. And I intended to have my revenge down to the smallest detail, not merely after my release but immediately, by tomorrow I would set my plans in motion. I would engage a smart young lawyer and I would cross-petition in the divorce case, Sommer versus Sommer, and I would name Magda as the guilty party. Hadn’t I a witness, head-warder Fritsch, before whom she herself had admitted her adultery? Oh, I would give Magda every reason to regret that rash confession, and I had good grounds for hoping that that highly respectable and successful business-man Herr Heinrich Heinze would not be sparing of his reproaches about it either. Furthermore, I would lodge an application that the divorce court judge should forbid the two adulterous parties ever to marry each other. Oh, she would get to know the sort of happiness she longed for, under my whip. I would sell up the business and follow on their heels all the time, a constant avenging angel. I would never weary of it. If I was a bad partner in love, as Magda had suddenly discovered, I’d be so much the worse in hatred. And I pictured to myself how, on my travels, I would sleep in the next hotel room to theirs, and disturb their sleep with furtive knocking. I saw myself, unrecognisably disguised, getting into the same railway compartment, and watching everything they did from behind my dark glasses; I was driving a car immediately behind them, and only put my brakes on at the very last moment so as to gloat over their fear of death, and, the most beautiful of all my images of revenge, I saw her dying, murdered by me, but undetectably, and he was kneeling at her side, abandoned to utter despair, and I stood behind him and whispered in his ear what I had done, but of course it was undetectable—I raved, the images chased each other through my brain, I was feverish. My companions had long since fallen asleep and I still stood at the cell-window, spinning the web of my revenge ever tighter and more tangled, in the cold glitter of the stars.

Morning came, and found me empty and almost completely apathetic. I must have eaten my breakfast with the others, but I remember nothing of it. Before the working-parties fell in, I availed myself of an unguarded moment to slip over into my work-cell. The sight of my fellow-sufferers disgusted me. I seized a few bristles between two fingers and tried to insert them into the hole, but I had taken too many, as I had when I was first beginning. I let them fall carelessly to the ground and went over to the cupboard. By now I had writing-paper and envelopes in it, I ought to write the letter to the lawyer. But however urgent it had appeared to me in the night, I could not bring myself to it now. I stared at the paper for a while, then went to the window. Outside autumn was drawing on already—swaths of grey mist drifted across the countryside, I saw the first early potato-pickers among the rows. “Autumn is coming,” I said to myself. “That’s bad.” I did not know myself what I meant. I only knew that I was in a bad way, very bad. Two lines from a poem I once read, ran through my head: “This is the autumn, it will break your heart.”

Obstinately, they returned, they kept returning with a desperate obstinacy.

“This is the autumn, it will break your heart.” Two words tacked themselves on: “Fly away! Fly away!”

Yes, to be able to fly away from this soiled world, from this unclean “I”! And again and again: “This is the autumn, it will break your heart,” and again the echoing warning: “Fly away! Fly away!”

I looked across at the stout knife with which I levelled-off the bristles. It would be such an easy matter to cut my arm so that I bled to death. But I knew I would never have the courage to do it. For I was cowardly, at this moment I confessed to myself without reserve, that I was a coward; when Magda was enumerating my faults, she had forgotten that one.

“Fly away!” And still too cowardly.…

So the head-nurse found me. He had missed me from among those who came to be bandaged. He spoke sharply to me: my boils would never get better unless I took care to have them dressed regularly! Completely indifferent, I followed him to the medical room. The stream of patients had gone away, I was the last. The head-nurse tore off my dressings, applied ointment and iodine, and lanced a boil which seemed to him to be ripe. Sensitive as I usually am to pain, this morning I took no notice at all. I was completely dulled. Then the telephone rang in the glass box. The head-nurse went away, leaving the door wide open. For a moment I stood motionless, then my gaze sought the medicine-chest, whose door stood open also. I took a quick step towards it. There lay many hours of oblivion, release from the unbearable torture in which I was living now, the means to good peace-giving sleep for days on end. My hand was grasping a small glass tube, when my glance fell on a row of bottles that stood on the lowest shelf. Right in front stood a half-filled bottle with the label: Alcohol 95%. I had made no decision, I acted quite mechanically. I did not bother at all about the open door, or the head-nurse who was bound to return at any moment. I took the bottle and went to the wash-basin that was let into the wall. I took a tumbler and poured out two-thirds of a glass of alcohol, then very carefully I filled it up with water. My hand did not shake. I put the potent mixture to my mouth and drank it down in three or four gulps. For a moment I stood as if stunned, an immense brightness spread rapidly within me. I smiled, ah, that happiness, again that wonderful boundless happiness. My Elinor, my
reine d’alcool!
How I love you! How—I—love—you! Senseless, I fell forward to the floor, flat on my disfigured face.