Wolf Among Wolves (37 page)

Thank God, there was a knock at the door of the adjoining office, to break the monotony. “Come in,” he growled, and when the person outside hesitated, he growled still louder: “Come in, you fool!” And was immediately frightened. Suppose it was somebody he oughtn’t to call a fool—the Geheimrat, or Frau von Prackwitz—then he’d be in the soup again. What a life!

But it was only old Kowalewski, the overseer.

“What’s the matter?” Meier shouted, delighted to have someone on whom he could vent his fury.

“I just wanted to ask a question, bailiff,” said the old man humbly, cap in hand. “We had a telegram from our daughter in Berlin; she’s coming tomorrow morning by the ten-o’clock train—”

“So that’s what you wanted to ask, Kowalewski?” sneered Meier. “Well, now you’ve asked it, you can go.”

“It’s only about her luggage,” said the overseer. “Is a carriage going tomorrow to the station?”

“Of course,” said Meier. “Tomorrow quite a lot of carriages are going to the station. To Ostade and Meienburg and Frankfurt, too.”

“I just thought whether one of our carriages could also fetch her luggage,” explained Kowalewski.

“Ah, that’s what you thought! You’re a mighty fine cock, overseer, talking about ‘our’ carriages.”

The overseer was not discouraged. He had experienced generations of bailiffs, and this one was perhaps the worst of the lot. But a poor man had to beg a hundred times before one of the powerful said “Yes” for a change; and sometimes little Meier was quite different. He was like that; he liked to have his little joke; one ought not to blame him for it.

“It’s only because of her box, bailiff,” he begged. “Sophie doesn’t mind walking at all; she likes walking.”

“But she likes to lie down on her back still better, eh, Kowalewski?” grinned Meier.

Not a muscle of the old man’s face twitched. “Perhaps a farmer will be going to the station,” he meditated, half-aloud.

Meier, however, was satisfied. He had vented a bit of his rage, he had felt not altogether without power. “Well, clear out, Kowalewski,” he said graciously. “The harvesters and the Rittmeister are arriving by the ten-o’clock train. There’ll be room for your little Sophie. Hop it, you stinking old crow,” he shouted, and with a muttered “Very many thanks” and “Good evening,” the overseer retreated.

Black Meier was alone again with his thoughts. “If only I could at least sleep …” he growled to himself, his ill-temper returning. “Any damned fool can sleep when he’s drunk as much as I have, but not me; I never have any luck, of course.”

But perhaps he had not drunk enough. In the inn he had been quite tight; the trouble was, it had blown off by now. He could go back again, but he was too lazy for that. Besides, he would have to pay for all he had had there, and he shuddered at the thought of the reckoning. Well, Amanda was sure to put in an appearance this evening, and she could go and fetch him a bottle of schnapps. It would give her something to do; he couldn’t bear the thought of women today. If Vi hadn’t made such an exhibition of herself, he wouldn’t have behaved so stupidly. But that sort of thing was enough to drive a man mad.

Meier lurched from his soiled, damp bed and stumbled round the room. He had remembered that the forester had told him to pack and get away as soon as possible.

His boxes lay on top of the wardrobe. He had two small suitcases, a cheap dilapidated one of fabric-covered cardboard and a smart leather case which he had taken away with him on leaving his last job—it had only been standing about doing nothing in a loft. Meier squinted up at this suitcase; the cheapness of its acquisition always pleased him.

When you look at a suitcase you think of traveling. And when you think of traveling the money for the fare occurs to you. Thus it was that, without having looked through the half-open office door, Meier had a vision of the safe, bulky and painted green, the gilded decorations of which had become a dirty yellow with the years.

Usually the Rittmeister kept the key and only on pay days or for some special expenditure would fetch from it the necessary money. Meier was, of course, utterly reliable in money matters, but the Rittmeister was a great man and mistrustful! It would serve him right if he came a real cropper through his suspicions.

The bailiff pushed the office door open with his shoulder and planted himself thoughtfully in front of the safe. Yesterday evening the Rittmeister had checked the amount in hand twice over—the safe held quite a handsome packet
of money, more than Bailiff Meier could earn in three years. Lost in thought, he fingered the key in his pocket. But he didn’t take it out. He didn’t unlock the safe. No, I’m not such a fool as all that, he thought.

Whatever he did was always on the safe side; he might possibly be sacked, but he couldn’t be jailed for it. To get the sack didn’t matter. One always got a new job after a while; an employer never stated in his testimonial the real reason for dismissal. But Meier had a lively aversion to jail.

I’d only squander the money in a week or two, he told himself. Then I’d be broke and couldn’t get another job, because they were looking for me. No, certainly not.

Nevertheless he stayed before the safe for a long time; it fascinated him. A way out of the dirt, he thought. They don’t catch everybody, by a long way. They say you can get false papers quite cheaply in Berlin. I would only like to know where. How long will it take before the Lieutenant learns that I haven’t delivered the letter? Well, tonight those two are going to miss each other. You’ll have to go to bed hungry, dear Vi. Meier grinned with malice.

There was another knock, and he jumped away from the safe and leaned negligently against the wall before calling out: “Come in,” this time politely. But all his trouble was unnecessary; once again it was no one of any consequence—only the charwoman, the coachman’s wife with the seven urchins, Frau Hartig.

“Your supper, Herr Meier.”

Meier did not want her to see the soiled bed in the next room (Amanda could tidy it up a bit later); he was in no mood for a dust-up now. “Put it on the desk,” he said. “What is it?”

“I don’t know why the women think so much of you,” said Frau Hartig, taking the lid off the dish. “Now Armgard is starting, too.… A roast and red cabbage in the evening for a bailiff.…”

“Rot,” said Meier. “I’d have preferred a herring. Whoa! Look at the fat! To tell the truth, I’ve had a drop too much.”

“I can see that,” confirmed Frau Hartig. “Why can’t you men lay off the booze? Supposing women did the same! Was Amanda with you?”

“What next! I don’t need her for boozing.” He laughed, suddenly quite lively and in high spirits. “What about it, Hartig? Would you like the grub? I can’t eat tonight.”

Frau Hartig beamed. “My old man’ll be pleased. If I quickly cook a few potatoes to go with it, it’ll be sufficient for us both.”

“No,” drawled Meier by the wall. “That’s for you, Hartig, not for your old man. Do you think I want him to get strong on it? You’re crazy. No, if you want the food you must eat it here. On the spot!” He looked hard at her.

“Here?” she asked, returning his stare.

Their voices had changed, become almost soft.

“Here!” answered Black Meier.

“Then,” said Frau Hartig in even lower tones, “I’ll close the windows and draw the curtains. If somebody saw me eating here …”

Meier didn’t answer, but he followed her with his eyes as she closed the two windows and carefully drew the curtains. “Lock the door as well,” he added softly.

She looked at him, then she did so. She sat down in front of the tray on the desk. “Well, it’ll taste good to me,” she said with simulated vivacity.

Again he did not reply. He watched her as she put the meat on the plate, then the potatoes, then the red cabbage. Now she ladled gravy over it all.…

“Hartig, listen,” he said quietly.

“What is it?” she asked without looking up, apparently only concerned with her food.

“Yes, what was I going to say?” he drawled. “Yes, where do you button up your blouse—in front or at the back?”

“In front,” she whispered, starting to cut the meat. “Do you want to have a look?”

“Yes,” said he, adding impatiently, “well, get on.”

“You must do it yourself,” she replied. “Or else my food will get cold. Ah you … ah.… Yes, darling … such good food … yes … yes.…”

III

Violet von Prackwitz was having supper with her mother. The manservant stood stiffly by the sideboard. Räder, although not much over twenty, was of the “serious servant” type. He was obsessed by the notion that his employers would one day move out of their jerry-built place into the old people’s mansion, where he would no longer be the manservant but the butler. Therefore, in spite of his faultless demeanor, he regarded the old Geheimrat and his wife as people who withheld from his master and mistress something which by right belonged to them. Most of all, however, he hated old Elias, who lorded it over the silver at the Manor. How could anyone bear to have a name like Elias, anyway! His own Christian name was Hubert, and his employers called him by it.

Hubert had one eye on the table, in case they needed anything, and both ears on the conversation. Although he did not move one muscle of his somewhat lined face he was filled with glee at the way in which the young Fräulein was duping her mother. For, as Hubert had little to do, what with Armgard the cook and Lotte the servant, he made it his business to be acquainted with all that went on, to see everything, to know everything. Hubert knew a great
deal—he knew, for instance, exactly how the young Fräulein had spent her afternoon. Which madam didn’t know.

“Have you seen to Grandpapa’s geese this afternoon?” Hubert heard Frau von Prackwitz ask.

Frau Eva von Prackwitz was a very good-looking woman, perhaps a trifle plump, though one noticed it only when she stood beside the tall, lean Rittmeister. She had all the sensual charm of a woman who was glad to be a woman and who, in addition, loved country life, and whom the country seemed to reward for this with an inexhaustible freshness and cheerfulness.

Vi pulled a reproachful face. “But, Mamma, there was a storm this afternoon.”

Hubert understood. This evening Fräulein Violet was playing the role of a small girl, which she particularly liked to do whenever she had been up to some very grown-up mischief. This would stop her parents from thinking any wrong of her—that is, from thinking of her aright.

“You would really do me a favor, Violet, if you kept an eye on Grandpapa’s geese. You know Papa gets so annoyed when the geese get into his vetch. And the storm only started at six o’clock.”

“If I were a goose I wouldn’t like to be in Grandpapa’s old damp park with its sour grass,” declared Vi with a childish pout. “I believe the park stinks.”

Hubert, who well knew how often and how gladly the young Fräulein stayed secretly in the Geheimrat’s park, was enchanted by the naïveté of this precautionary reply.

“But, Vi, the word ‘stink’—and at table!” Frau Eva’s calm and smiling glance passed over Räder’s wooden yet far from youthful face.

“All right, Mamma. I won’t go there, I think it st—smells of corpses.”

“Stop it, Vi!” Frau Eva knocked on the table very energetically with the handle of her fork. “That’s enough. Sometimes I think you might be a little more grown-up.”

“Yes, Mamma? Were you more grown-up when you were my age?” The girl’s expression was completely innocent—nevertheless the servant wondered if the artless young person had possibly heard a rumor of her mother’s youthful pranks. There was a story about the old Geheimrat thrashing a farmer’s boy out of his daughter’s bedroom window; and perhaps it was true. At all events, Hubert found that Frau Eva’s next question fitted in very well with the rumor. “What had you to say to Meier that took such a long time this afternoon?” she asked.

“Pooh!” said Vi disparagingly and pouted again. “Old Black Meier.” She laughed. “Imagine, Mamma, all the girls and women in the village are said to
run after him, and yet he’s as ugly as—I don’t know, as old Abraham.” (Abraham was the he-goat they kept in the stable, in accordance with the old cavalry idea that he banished disease.)

“The dessert, Hubert!” admonished madam still calmly, but with rather dangerously flashing eyes.

Räder marched out of the room, not without regret. Fräulein Vi had made a slip. And now she would certainly get a good talking-to. She had been piling it on a little too much in her exuberance; madam was not a fool by any means. Hubert would have liked to hear what the mother said, and above all what the daughter answered. But Hubert was not one to eavesdrop; he marched straight away to the kitchen. Granted common sense, there were many ways of learning what one wanted to know. One needn’t shake, by eavesdropping, an employer’s confidence in an exemplary servant.

Old Forester Kniebusch sat at the kitchen table, waiting.

“Good evening, Herr Räder,” he said very politely, for the detached and taciturn manservant was regarded as a power in the land. “Is supper finished yet?”

“The dessert, Armgard,” said Räder, and started to arrange the plates on the tray. “Good evening, Herr Kniebusch. Whom do you want to speak to? The Rittmeister doesn’t come back till tomorrow.”

“I only wanted to see madam,” said Kniebusch cautiously. After long deliberation he had come to the conclusion that he had better lay his knowledge before the older generation. Fräulein was too young to be of any real use to an old man.

“I’ll announce you, Herr Kniebusch,” said Räder.

“Herr Räder,” asked Kniebusch, “could it be arranged that Fräulein Vi is not present?”

Räder’s face showed even more furrows. To gain time he snapped at the cook: “Get on, Armgard. I’ve told you a hundred times that you’re to arrange the cheese dish before I come.”

“In this heat!” sneered the cook, who hated him. “The butter balls would stick to each other.”

“You need not take the butter out of the refrigerator until the last moment. But if you’re still only cutting up the cheese!” And in low tones to the forester: “Why shouldn’t the young Fräulein be present?”

Kniebusch became visibly embarrassed. “Well, you know … I only thought … not everything is fit for a young girl’s ears.”