The Sleepwalkers (32 page)

Korn appeared at the door and Ilona flung herself on his uniformed breast with Eastern words of endearment. No, it was past endurance! Teltscher laughed: “See that you enjoy yourself,” and as they went out together he shouted after her in Hungarian a few words, obviously spiteful, which earned him not only a glance full of hatred from Ilona, but also a half-joking, half-serious threat from Korn that he would give the Jewish knife-thrower a beating yet. Teltscher paid no attention to this, but returned to his beloved business speculations: “We must provide something that isn’t too expensive and that will draw the crowd.” “Oh, what an epoch-making discovery, Herr Teltscher-Teltini,” said Gernerth, making calculations in his notebook again. Then he looked up: “What do you say to wrestling matches for women?” Teltscher whistled reflectively through his teeth: “Might be considered: of course that can’t be done either without money.” Gernerth scribbled in his notebook. “We’ll need some money, but not so very much; women don’t cost much. Then tights … we’ll have to get someone interested in it.” “I’m willing to teach them,” said Teltscher, “and I can be the referee too. But here in Mannheim?” he made a contemptuous gesture, “there’s no closing one’s eyes to the fact that business is bad here. What do you say, Esch?” Esch had formed no definite opinion, but the hope rose within him that with a change of scene Ilona might be saved from Korn’s clutches. And as it lay nearest to his heart, he replied that Cologne seemed to him a splendid place for staging wrestling matches; in the previous year wrestling matches had been given there in the circus, serious ones of course, and the place had been packed. “Ours will be serious too,” Teltscher decided. They talked it over from all sides for a while longer, and finally Esch was empowered to discuss the matter, on his approaching visit to Cologne, with the theatrical agent, Oppenheimer, whom Gernerth would have written to in the interval. And if Esch should succeed in hunting up some money for the undertaking, it would not only be a friendly service, but he might get a percentage on it himself.

Esch knew at the moment of nobody likely to invest money. But in secret he thought of Lohberg, who might almost be regarded as a rich
man. But would a pure Joseph have any interest in wrestling matches for women?

The arrests that had been made in advance of the strike had deprived the dock labourers of all their leaders, yet after ten days the strike was still lingering on. There were indeed some blacklegs, but they were too few to handle the railway freights, and since shipping in any case was partially paralysed, they were employed only on the most urgent work. In the bonded warehouses a Sabbath quiet reigned. Esch was annoyed, because it was unlikely that he could get away until the strike was over, and he lounged idly round the sheds, leaned against the door-posts, and finally sat down to write to Mother Hentjen. He gave her the details of Martin’s arrest and told her about Lohberg, but he did not even mention Erna and Korn, for the mere thought of doing so disgusted him. Then he procured a fresh batch of picture postcards and addressed them to all the girls he had slept with in recent years, and whose names he could remember. Outside in the shadow the foremen and stevedores stood in a group, and behind the half-open sliding doors of an empty goods truck some men were playing cards. Esch wondered whom he should write to next, and tried to count in his head all the women he had ever had. He could not be sure of the total, and it was as if a column in his books would not balance properly, so to get it right he began to make a list of the names on a piece of paper, entering the month and year after each. Then he added them up and was satisfied, more especially as Korn came in boasting, as usual, what a fine woman Ilona was, and what a fiery Hungarian. Esch pocketed his list and let Korn go on talking; he would not be able to talk like that for much longer. Only let the strike once come to an end, and the Herr Customs Inspector would have to run all the way to Cologne for his Ilona, perhaps even farther still, to the end of the world. And he was almost sorry for the man because he did not know what was in store for him. Balthasar Korn went on boasting happily of his conquest, and when he had said his say about Ilona he drew out a pack of cards. In brotherly amity they sought out a third man and settled down to play for the rest of the day.

In the evening Esch looked in on Lohberg, who was sitting in his shop with a cigarette in his mouth before a pile of vegetarian journals. He laid these aside when Esch came in and began to talk about Martin. “The world,” he said, “is poisoned, not only with nicotine and alcohol
and animal food, but with a still worse poison that we can hardly even recognize … it’s just like boils breaking out.” His eyes were moist and looked feverish; he gave one an unhealthy impression; it seemed possible that there really was some poison working within him. Esch stood, lean and robust, in front of him, but his head was empty after so much card-playing and he did not catch the sense of these idiotic remarks, he hardly realized that they referred to Martin’s imprisonment; everything was wrapped in a fog of idiocy, and his only definite wish was to have the affair of the theatre partnership cleared up once and for all. Esch didn’t like hole-and-corner methods: “Will you go shares in Gernerth’s theatre?” The question took Lohberg quite by surprise, and opening his eyes wide he merely said: “Eh?” “I’m asking you, are you willing to go shares in the theatre business?” “But I have a tobacco business.” “You’ve been lamenting all this time that you don’t like it, and so I thought you might want a change.” Lohberg shook his head: “So long as my mother’s alive I’ll have to keep on the shop; the half of it’s hers.” “Pity,” said Esch, “Teltscher thinks that putting on women wrestlers would bring in a hundred-per-cent profit.” Lohberg did not even ask what the theatre had to do with wrestling, but merely said in his turn: “Pity.” Esch went on: “I’m as tired of my trade as you are of yours. They’re on strike now and there’s nothing to do but sit about, it’s enough to make one sick.” “What do you want to do, then? Are you going into the theatre business too?” Esch thought it over; that meant simply being tied to a stool in some dusty manager’s office beside Gernerth and Teltscher. The artists didn’t appeal to him now that he had been behind the scenes; they weren’t much better than Hede or Thusnelda. He had really no idea what he wanted to do; the day had been so stale. He said: “Clear out, to America.” In an illustrated journal he had seen pictures of New York; these now came into his head; there had been also a photograph of an American boxing match and that brought him back to the wrestling. “If I could make enough money out of it to pay my fare I’d go to America.” He was himself astonished to find that he meant it seriously, and now began seriously counting up his resources: he had nearly three hundred marks; if he put them into the wrestling business he could certainly increase them, and why shouldn’t he, a strong, capable man with book-keeping experience, try his luck in America as well as here? At the very least he would have seen a bit of the world. Perhaps Teltscher and Ilona
might actually come to New York on that engagement Teltscher was always talking about. Lohberg interrupted his train of thought: “You have some knowledge of languages, but I haven’t, unfortunately.” Esch nodded complacently; yes, with his French he could manage somehow, and English couldn’t be so very much of a mystery; but Lohberg didn’t need to know languages in order to go shares in promoting wrestling bouts. “No, not for that, but for going to America,” Lohberg replied. And although to Lohberg it was almost inconceivable that any man, let alone himself, should live in any town but Mannheim, both Esch and he felt almost like fellow-travellers as they discussed the cost of the voyage and how the money could be raised. This discussion brought them back, by a natural concatenation of thought, to the chances of making money through women wrestlers, and after much hesitation Lohberg came to the conclusion that he could quite well abstract a thousand marks from his business and invest them with Gernerth. Of course that wouldn’t be enough to buy out Teltscher, but it was quite good for a start, especially when Esch’s three hundred were counted in.

The day had ended better than it began. As he went home Esch brooded over the problem of raising the rest of the money, and Fräulein Erna came into his mind.

Strong as was Erna’s temptation to bind Esch to her by financial obligations, she remained firm even here to her principle of parting with nothing except to her affianced husband. When she archly intimated this resolve Esch was indignant: what kind of a man did she think he was? Did she imagine he wanted the money for himself? But even as he said this he felt that it was beside the point; that it was not really the money that was in question, and that Fräulein Erna was much more in the wrong than she could ever be made to understand; of course the money was only a means of ransoming Ilona, of shielding defenceless girls from ever having knives hurled at them again; of course he didn’t want it for himself. But even that was by no means all, for over and above that he wanted nothing from Ilona herself—not he, not at the cost of other people’s money—and he was quite glad, too, to be in that position; he didn’t give a fig for Ilona, he was thinking of more important things, and he had every right to be angry when Erna supposed him to be self-seeking, every right to tell her rudely: well, she could keep her money, then. Erna, however, took his rudeness as an admission
of guilt, exulted in having unmasked him, and giggled that she knew all about that, thinking meanwhile of a commercial traveller in Hof, who had not only enjoyed her favours, but had involved her in the more serious loss of fifty marks.

It was altogether a good day for Fräulein Erna. Esch had asked her for something which she could refuse him, and besides she was wearing a pair of new shoes that made her feel gay and looked well on her feet. She was ensconced on the sofa, and as a saucy and slightly mocking gesture she let her feet peep from under her skirt, and swung them to and fro; she liked the faint creaking of the leather and the pleasant tension across her instep. She had no desire to abandon this delightful conversation, and in spite of the rude end that Esch had put to it she asked again what he wanted so much money for. Esch once more remarked that she could keep it; Lohberg had been glad enough to get a share in the business. “Oh, Herr Lohberg,” said Fräulein Erna, “he has plenty, he can afford it.” And with that waywardness which characterizes many phases of love, and in virtue of which Fräulein Erna would have given herself to any chance comer rather than to Herr Esch, who was to be granted nothing except in wedlock, she was very eager now to infuriate him by giving the money to Lohberg instead of to him. She swung her feet to and fro. “Oh, well, in partnership with Herr Lohberg, that’s a different story. He’s a good business man.” “He’s an idiot!” said Esch, partly from conviction and partly from jealousy, a jealousy that pleased Fräulein Erna, for she had reckoned on it. She turned the knife in the wound: “I wouldn’t give it to
you
.” But her remark was strangely ineffective. What did it matter to him? He had given up Ilona, and it was really Korn’s business to redeem her from those knives. Esch looked at Erna’s swinging feet. She would open her eyes if she were told that her money was really to be applied in helping her brother’s affair. Of course even that wouldn’t do what was needed. Perhaps it was really Nentwig who should be made to pay. For if the world was to be redeemed one must attack the virus at its source, as Lohberg said; but that source was Nentwig, or perhaps even something hiding behind Nentwig, something greater—perhaps as great and as securely hidden in his inaccessibility as the chairman of a company—something one knew nothing about. It was enough to make a man angry, and Esch, who was a strong fellow and not in the least afflicted with nerves, felt inclined to stamp on Fräulein Erna’s swinging feet to make her quiet. She said: “Do you like my shoes?” “No,” retorted
Esch. Fräulein Erna was taken aback. “Herr Lohberg would like them … when are you going to bring him here? You’ve simply been hiding him … out of jealousy, I suppose, Herr Esch?” Oh, he could bring the man round at once if she was so anxious to see him, remarked Esch, hoping privately that they would come to an understanding about the theatre business. “No need for him to come at once,” said Fräulein Erna, “but why not this evening for coffee?” All right, he’d arrange that, said Esch, and took himself off.

Lohberg came. He held his coffee-cup with one hand and stirred in it mechanically with the other. He left his spoon in the cup even while he was drinking, so that it hit him on the nose. Esch spread himself insolently, asking if Balthasar and Ilona were coming, and making all kinds of tactless remarks. Fräulein Erna took no notice of him. She regarded with interest Herr Lohberg’s rachitic head and his large white eyeballs; truly, he looked as if it would not take much to make him cry. And she wondered if, in the heat and ardour of love, he would be moved to tears; it annoyed her to think that her brother had pushed her into an unsatisfactory relation with Esch, a brute of a man who upset her, while only two or three houses farther away there was a well-established tradesman who blushed whenever she looked at him. Had he ever had a woman, she wondered, and to satisfy these speculations and to provoke Esch she skilfully piloted the conversation towards the subject of love. “Are you another of these born bachelors, Herr Lohberg? You’ll repent it when you’re old and done and have nobody to look after you.”

Lohberg blushed. “I’m only waiting for the right girl, Fräulein Korn.”

“And she hasn’t turned up yet?” Fräulein Korn smiled encouragingly and pointed her toe under the hem of her skirt. Lohberg set down his cup and looked helpless.

Esch said tartly: “He hasn’t tried yet, that’s all.”

Lohberg’s convictions came to his support: “One can only love once, Fräulein Korn.”

“Oh!” said Fräulein Korn.

That was clear and unambiguous. Esch was almost ashamed of his unchaste life, and it seemed to him not improbable that this great and unique love was what Frau Hentjen had felt for her husband, and perhaps that was why she now expected chastity and restraint from her customers. All the same it must be dreadful for Frau Hentjen to have to pay for her
brief wedded bliss by renouncing love for ever afterwards, and so he said: “Well, but what about widows, then? At that rate, a widow shouldn’t go on living … especially if she has no children …” and because he was observant of what he read in the illustrated papers he added: “Widows ought in that case really to be burned, so that … so that they might be redeemed, in a manner of speaking.”