Wolf Among Wolves (40 page)

“There, she’s starting again!” said the warder in an undertone.

The girl’s face, close to that of the kneeling Petra, changed frightfully. The mouth was a dark deep cavern; the eyes stared with rage and anger.

“You beasts, you swine!” she shrieked. “That’s not snow. You’ve cheated me. Oh—oh—oh!”

Her whole body struggled, her head reared up. The face became crimson, then blue, with her efforts to get free. “Let me go!” she screamed. “I’ll show you!”

Petra had recoiled—such hatred, such despair showed on the face which had been so contented only a moment ago.

“No fear, my girl,” said the warder. “That’ll hold you. Take care, you in blue, you’re the most sensible of the lot. Let her lie on the ground; don’t set her free whatever she says. And see that she doesn’t bash her head in on the stone floor, she’s quite capable of it. If she screams too loudly put a wet towel over her mouth, but don’t let her choke.”

“Take her out of this,” said Petra angrily. “I don’t want to do that. I’m no wardress. I don’t want to torture people.”

“Don’t be silly, you in blue,” said the warder imperturbably. “Are we torturing her? It’s the snow which does that. Did we make her an addict?”

“She ought to be in hospital,” said Petra indignantly.

“Do you think they’d give her snow there?” rejoined the warder. “She’s got to get rid of the craving in here or somewhere else. Is she still a human being? Have a look at her.”

And indeed the Hawk hardly looked human, a trembling, raging thing, sometimes full of fury and hate, sometimes weeping and despairing; at other moments beseeching as a child beseeches who believes that the person pleaded with can do everything.

“I’ll see if I can get her a sleeping draught from the sick ward,” said the ginger one reflectively. “But I don’t know whether there’s anybody there who has the key to the medicine chest. These are times, I can tell you.… So don’t depend on it!”

“You can always give her salt occasionally,” interposed the other. “She’ll be taken in by it at least a dozen times. People are like that. Well, good night.”

The door was pushed to, the lock groaned under the keys, the bolt grated. Petra sat down beside the patient, who with shut eyes was flinging her head from side to side, ceaselessly, quicker and quicker.… “Snow,” she whispered. “Snow, snow, good snow.…”

Again and again she’ll be taken in by salt, thought Petra gloomily. “People are like that!” He’s right, people
are
like that. But I don’t want to be like that anymore. No!

She looked at the door. The peep-hole blinked like an evil eye. Wolf won’t come, she thought resolutely. He has believed what they told him. I’ll not expect him any longer.

V

At the Manor in Neulohe the old people, the von Teschows, had supper every day punctually at seven o’clock. At half-past seven they finished, and the maids had only to wash up and tidy the kitchen, which, at the latest, would be finished by eight. As the old lady would remark: “Even a servant must have her free time in the evening.”

True, at eight-fifteen came evening prayers, which everybody in the Manor had to attend after a wash—except old Herr von Teschow who, of course, to his wife’s perpetual annoyance, had always, just at this very hour, an urgent, absolutely essential letter to write.

“No, this evening it’s really impossible, Belinde! And besides—for your sake I listen every blessed Sunday to what old Lehnich tells us from the pulpit. I must say it sounds quite nice, but it doesn’t give me any clear ideas, Belinde. And I don’t believe you get any, either. The only notion I get is that we shall one day be angels flying about in heaven, you and I, Belinde, in white shirts like the pictures in the big illustrated Bible …”

“You’re mocking again, Horst-Heinz.”

“God forgive me, not in the least. And I’ll meet my old Elias there, and he too will be flapping around and singing eternally, and then he’ll whisper to me: ‘Well, Geheimrat, you’re lucky. Had I told the Lord about your red wine and the wicked language you’ve used at times …’ ”

“True, Horst-Heinz, very true!”

“And all without any class distinction and on the most familiar footing, in a kind of nightshirt and with goose wings. Excuse me, Belinde, they really are goose wings. It ought to be swan’s wings, but swans and geese are very much the same.”

“Yes, go upstairs by all means, Horst-Heinz, and write your important business letters. I know you’ll only sneer—not at religion, but at me. Well,
I don’t mind that; I can stand it. Perhaps it’s better so. Because if you really mocked at religion you would be an outcast forever and ever—but if you sneer at me you’re only being discourteous. And you can do that, for we’ve been married forty-two years and I’m thus quite used to a discourteous husband!”

With that the old lady bustled off to the chapel, leaving the old gentleman laughing on the landing. The deuce, I’ve got it again hot and strong, he thought. But she’s right—and I’ll go to one of her meetings tomorrow or the day after. It livens her up a bit, and once in a while one ought to do something for a wife, even though one’s been married for forty-two years. If only she wouldn’t get the hiccups as soon as she’s upset. It’s exactly like somebody getting a cannon at billiards—I can’t stand that clicking sound, and I can’t bear her hiccups—I keep on waiting for them. Well, I’ll do some of my accounts. I fancy my son-in-law pays much too little for the electric current …

With that the Geheimrat went upstairs to his study and three minutes later was wrapped in the smoke of a Brazilian cigar, immersed in his belligerent accounts, an old but incurable fighter. The accounts, however, were belligerent because he wanted them to assault his son-in-law with. Who, according to his father-in-law, paid much too little for everything; and according to himself, much too much. Electricity included.

Neulohe was not connected up with any area system, but generated its own current. The generating machine, an up-to-date crude-oil Diesel motor, with its batteries, stood in the Manor cellar, and because of this was not leased to the son-in-law, who was the chief user, but retained by the old gentleman for himself, although he burned only “three miserable lamps in his old hut.” The arrangement about the price of the current was also quite simple: each party had to pay his share of the cost according to the amount consumed.

But even the simplest, clearest arrangement fails when two parties cannot stand one another. Old Herr von Teschow considered that his son-in-law was no farmer, but a grand Herr von Have-Not, who wanted to live comfortably on his father-in-law’s pocketbook. Rittmeister von Prackwitz regarded his father-in-law as a grasping skinflint, and a good deal more “plebeian” than he could bear, at that. The old gentleman saw his ready money dwindle in the inflation and, as the savings of years became worthless, all the more desperately did he chase after fresh sources of revenue. The Rittmeister noticed how, month by month, it became more difficult to carry on, saw the money which came from the harvest vanishing in his hand, was worried, and found the old gentleman miserly in that he was forever coming along with new claims, objections and reproaches.

On the whole, Geheimrat von Teschow found that his son-in-law lived much too well. “Why doesn’t he smoke, as I do, cigars which one can draw at
for an hour? No, he must have cigarettes, those coffin-nails which stain your fingers and are puffed away in three minutes. After the war he came here with only an officer’s trunk, and no more in it than his soiled linen. No, Belinde, if anyone pays for his cigarettes it’s us—but of course, he doesn’t pay for them at all, he buys them on credit.”

“All young people smoke cigarettes nowadays,” Belinde remarked, thereby rousing her husband properly. Wives—in fact married people generally—have a special knack of making irritating remarks.

“I’ll teach him! He’s not as young as all that any longer,” cried the Geheimrat finally, nearly blue in the face. “My dear son-in-law shall learn how difficult it is to earn money.”

And so the old gentleman was sitting at his desk and calculating with the idea of earning more money himself. He reckoned what his electric-light plant would cost if he purchased it today at a dollar rate of 414,000 marks, and this purchase price he distributed over ten years. For the plant would certainly not last any longer, and even if it should, he wanted to write it off within that period.

Quite a pretty little sum stood on paper; even charged at the rate of only a twelfth part every month, it still showed a huge figure with very many noughts.

My son-in-law will stare tomorrow morning, said the Geheimrat to himself, on reading these glad tidings. He won’t have any money, of course; the little he still had will have been left behind in Berlin. But I’ll press him so that he starts threshing soon; then I’ll get the threshing money out of him, and he can wait and see how he’ll get through the winter.

The hatred the old man felt toward his son-in-law was incomprehensible. Formerly the two had got on quite well, when the Rittmeister was still an officer living in some remote garrison, or later, during the war, when they had met once in a while. Hatred had only arisen since the son-in-law had lived in Neulohe as its tenant. Since the Prackwitz’s family life had played itself out under the eyes of the old gentleman.

The old gentleman was not entirely foolish and obstinate, for he realized how much the Rittmeister toiled and worried. But his son-in-law was a retired cavalry officer and not a farmer, for which reason he often got hold of the wrong end of the stick, and clumsily at that. Moreover, he was often too easy-going and sometimes impulsive. Besides which, he wore suits made to his measurements by a very expensive London tailor, and shirts which were buttoned from top to bottom (“Revoltingly effeminate”—although no woman ever had such a garment), while the old Geheimrat wore only coarse homespuns and Jaeger
shirts. Yes, there were ten or twenty objections to the Rittmeister. But each by itself, or the sum of them, was insufficient reason for such a hatred.

Geheimrat von Teschow had finished his calculations; he would write the letter to his son-in-law after having a look at the
Oder-Zeitung
. But he did not get as far as reading, for the first glance showed that the dollar no longer stood at 414,000, but at 760,000 marks. That really ought to have annoyed him—he should have looked at the newspaper before starting his calculations—because now he would have to do them all over again. Yet he was not annoyed. With a sense of enjoyment he set about the new reckoning—it meant that his son-in-law would only have to pay more.

I’ll finish him off yet, he thought for a fleeting moment, and the hand which held the pen stopped short, as if it had been frightened. Then it went on with its writing, and the Geheimrat shrugged his shoulders. What a foolish idea! Of course he was not out to ruin Herr von Prackwitz. Prackwitz had only to pay what was right; more was not demanded. For all the Geheimrat cared he could live in the place as he liked, in his silk shirts and breeches!

Through the old Manor sounded the melancholy, yet sometimes almost frivolous, tones of the organ. Geheimrat von Teschow nodded, keeping time with his feet, hurrying up the music. Faster, Belinde, faster! People would fall asleep if she didn’t go faster.

“For he’s not only the Rittmeister von Prackwitz—he’s also our only daughter’s husband,” Belinde had said recently. That was just it! That was the very reason! How like a woman to speak about it as if it were the most natural thing in the world! Our only daughter’s husband!

Now when the old Geheimrat goes through the village and sees a girl, he crows aloud the length of the village street: “Oh, what a charming child! Come over here, my little sweet. Let’s have a look at you. You really are a charmer, my little one. Goodness me, what eyes you’ve got!”

And he strokes her cheeks and chucks her under the chin, all in front of the whole village. And in front of the whole village he goes with her to the shop and buys her a bar of chocolate, or he takes her to the Inn and treats her to a sweet drink. Then he puts his arm around her waist, right in front of everybody. Then he lets her go and goes into the forest smiling with satisfaction.

But he wasn’t smiling because of the girl who, embarrassed yet flattered, had really been delightful. No girl exists anymore on earth who could warm up his old blood. He was smiling because he had once again thrown dust in people’s eyes. Pastor Lehnich will hear about it, and he’ll whisper it to Belinde—and Belinde, poor old hen, will run around as if she’s swallowed a ruler. And no one, but no one, will have any idea.

Except one—the old man himself knows very well. She also feels it; even more, she knows it. He hardly ever sees her anymore, and never by herself. And after the beginning of the bad times, as this problem quite unexpectantly began, he naturally didn’t bother to meet her anymore. No, the Geheimrat knew alright: Hot fires don’t burn in old men anymore. He was nothing but a spark time smothered by ashes.

When a Rittmeister von Have-Not and Cannot but Wants-a-Lot comes along, it must be made clear to him—we haven’t brought up our daughter for your benefit. That’s amazing conceit, thinking we have brought up a daughter, a girl second to none, just for your pleasure. And not only that—one hardly passes the Villa without hearing you shout at Eva. No, my dear son-in-law, we’ll show you; and it doesn’t matter to us that the price of our current is exactly eleven times as high as that of Frankfurt power station; you’ll have to pay up, although—no, because—you are our daughter’s husband.

With angry determination the old man set down his figures. What did he care whether there would be a quarrel? The more quarreling the better. And he would also make another hole in the park fence, so that Belinde’s geese could get into his son-in-law’s vetch. Belinde, up till now, had poured oil on the troubled waters, but if her son-in-law harmed her geese, as he had threatened to do, then she would no longer act as peacemaker.

Yes, Herr Geheimrat Horst-Heinz von Teschow was just in the right mood to write this letter to his son-in-law. It must, of course, be restrained, concise and businesslike, as suited the matter, for one ought not to mix family feeling with financial arrangements.