Wolf Among Wolves (54 page)

He looked at the Lieutenant challengingly, as if expecting him to agree. But the latter merely said: “That doesn’t interest me. Where are you intending to go?”

“A little further away,” said Meier with a laugh. “I find that the country around here smells sour. I was thinking of Silesia or perhaps Mecklenburg.”

“Fine, fine,” said the Lieutenant. “Very sensible. Silesia’s not bad. But where are you going
now?”

“Now?”

“Yes, now.” The Lieutenant spoke a little impatiently. “I can quite understand that you’re not taking a train tomorrow morning from the local town, where everybody knows you.”

“Now? Oh, just to a village nearby.”

“I see, to a village? Which, may I ask?”

“What’s that got to do with you?” This interrogation, behind which something was hidden, made Meier quite nervous.

“Oh, it has a little to do with me, my lad!” answered the Lieutenant coolly.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I like to know, for example, the whereabouts of someone who is aware of my relations with Fräulein von Prackwitz. In Silesia not a soul would be interested; but here in the vicinity he might hit on the idea of making money out of his knowledge.”

“I would never think of such a thing,” said Meier indignantly. “I’m not such a scoundrel as that. You can rest assured, Lieutenant, I’ll keep my mouth shut. In such matters I’m a gentleman!”

“Yes, I know,” said the Lieutenant unmoved. “Well—what’s the name of the village?”

“Grünow,” said Meier hesitating, not really knowing why he shouldn’t give the name, seeing that the Lieutenant already knew everything.

“Grünow. Why particularly Grünow? I suppose you mean Grünow near Ostade?”

“Yes, my girl suggested it to me. She wants to visit me there on Sundays, for the dances.”

“You want to dance there as well? Then you’re going to stay there some time?”

“Just a few days. On Monday I shall be clearing off, leaving from Ostade. You can rely on that, Lieutenant.”

“Can I?” said the Lieutenant thoughtfully. He stood up and went to the drawer which Meier had previously pointed out to him. He pulled it open and regarded its contents. “Yes, you’ve got a couple of very nice blunderbusses there,” he said patronizingly. “You know what, Herr Meier? I’d take one of those things along if I were you.”

“What should I do with it? No, thanks!”

“You are going through the forest, and there are all sorts of rogues on the prowl now. I’d take the thing with you, Herr Meier; I myself never go about without firearms. Nothing like being prepared.” The young Lieutenant had become almost loquacious, so worried was he about the life of his friend Meier.

But the latter persisted in his refusal. “No one’s going to do anything to me,” he said. “No one’s done anything to me yet. That old thing just tears your pocket.”

“All right. Do what you like!” the Lieutenant said in sudden irritation and laid the pistol on the safe. He nodded curtly to little Meier, said, “Good evening,” and was already out of the office before the other could reply.

“Queer,” said Meier, and stared at the door. “He was very queer at the end. But still,” he went on to comfort himself, “all these chaps are like that. They first talk big and then there’s nothing behind it.”

He turned round and regarded the pistol. No. He’d have nothing to do with such a thing. It might even go off in his pocket. Where was Mandy? He’d have to have a look. She was well able to carry the suitcases for a bit.…

He went to the door. No, first he’d better put the pistol away again. It would look so silly there tomorrow morning.

He had the weapon in his hand, and again he hesitated.

As a matter of fact, he’s quite right, was the thought that darted through his head, a weapon is always handy.

He went to the door, switched the light out, left the house. At every step he noticed the weight of the pistol in his hip pocket.

Queer—gives you a feeling of strength, a thing like that, he thought, not dissatisfied.

III

And Meier had only to go a few steps to see the two girls sitting on a bench. Next to them stood the Lieutenant, talking. At his approach the fellow looked up and said: “Here he comes.” His proximity to the two girls, his whispering
with them, this remark, all irritated little Meier. Advancing, he said crossly: “If I’m intruding I can go away again.”

No one seemed to have heard him, no one answered.

“I suppose you three have some nice secret among yourselves,” he said provokingly.

Again no answer. But now Violet stood up and, addressing the Lieutenant in a polite and formal tone, said: “Are you coming?”

“You needn’t be stand-offish to him on my account,” cried little Meier angrily. “We know what you’ve been up to!”

With astonishing calm the Lieutenant took the girl’s arm and walked away with her into the park, saying not a word.

“Good night, sir, good night, madam. Pleasant dreams!” Meier called after them contemptuously.

The Lieutenant turned round and called out to Amanda:

“Just try and persuade him. Persuasion always helps.”

Amanda nodded thoughtfully.

Angrily Meier let fly at her. “What do you mean by nodding to the fool? What do you mean speaking to the fellow at all?”

“You think that everyone’s a fool, except yourself!” she replied calmly.

“Oh! So in your eyes I’m a fool!”

“I didn’t say that!”

“Shut up! You said it just now!”

“I didn’t!” And after long reflection: “Fräulein Violet is quite right.”

“What is Vi right about? All she can do is talk nonsense. She’s just like a seven-months-old babe.”

“That it’s better not to get mixed up with a man like you.”

“So that’s what she said?” Meier almost burst with fury and injured conceit. “And her fellow, the Lieutenant—is he anything better than me? What? You think he is? A swine like that! Comes into my office and brandishes a revolver in front of my nose. But I told him where he got off! Just let him come again, the silly idiot. I’ve got a revolver now. And I won’t just threaten like that fool. I’ll shoot.” He wrenched the pistol from his pocket and waved it in the air.

“Have you gone mad?” Amanda screamed at him furiously. “Put that thing away at once. Waving a thing like that in my face! I am pleased! You seem to think it impresses me.”

He was startled by her angry, contemptuous words. Somewhat crestfallen, though of course still defiant, he stood before her, in his hand the pistol with its muzzle lowered.

“You’re going in again at once and put the money back in the safe!” she ordered. “Heavens, I can put up with a lot, and I’m not at all squeamish, but stealing money—no, thanks! Not me! And you’re not going to, either.”

Meier went red—she could not see it, of course.

“So that’s what he’s been blabbing to you, the fine chap!” he cried angrily. “I just want to tell you one thing: it’s no bloody business of his or of yours! That’s my own affair with the Rittmeister. If I take my wages, there’s no need for you to put your nose in—understand?”

“Hans,” she said more gently, “you must put the money back; otherwise it is finished between us. I can’t stand for that sort of thing.”

“I don’t bloody well care whether it’s finished between us or not. I’m glad it’s finished. Who do you think you are? Do you think I bother about you? I slept with Hartig tonight; yes, Hartig, so there! And an old girl like that with eight children—I prefer her ten times to you. Oh, damn!”

It was a blow with all her strength and it landed right in the middle of his face. Meier staggered.

“You swine, you!” she said breathlessly. “You miserable wretch!”

“You struck me?” He was half out of his mind with pain. “You—you low-down chicken girl—strike me, the bailiff? Now you shall see.…”

He himself could see almost nothing, however. Everything reeled before his eyes, her figure melted away in the moonlight; then she was there again.… And now he saw her quite clearly.… She had struck him!

He quickly raised the pistol and pressed the trigger, with trembling finger.…

The shot cracked unbearably loud in his ear.

Amanda’s face came close to him, getting bigger all the time, white and black in the moonlight.…

“You!” she whispered. “You, Hans, shoot at me!”

And there was complete silence between the two. Each heard only the jerky breathing of the other. They stood like that for a long time.…

The echoes of the shot had long died away, to be replaced by gentler noises.… They again heard the soft wind in the treetops.… Back in the stable a halter chain rattled slowly through its ring.

“Mandy,” said Black Meier. “Mandy … I …”

“Finished!” she said with a hard voice. “Quite finished!”

She looked at him once again.

“He fires at me—and then he says ‘Mandy.’ ” It was as if this thought took her breath away. “What would he have said if he had hit me?”

And the serious danger in which she had stood, her incredible escape, overwhelmed her so suddenly that she broke into a soft weeping. And weeping thus she ran away from him, her shoulders hunched. Under the light hem of her skirt he saw her strong legs moving faster and faster as she sped away.… She turned into the path leading to the Manor; he no longer saw her, heard only her weeping, that suppressed pitiful, sobbing—and then that, too, was gone.…

Meier stood for a moment longer, staring after her. Then he lifted the pistol, heavy in his hand, and regarded it. He moved the safety catch into place—there, now it was safe, nothing more could happen with the thing.…

With a peevish shrug of his shoulders he pushed it into his trouser pocket and went hastily into the office to get his suitcases.

IV

The Lieutenant and Vi were sitting on a bench in the park. They were not sitting there like a pair of lovers: or perhaps indeed they were—like lovers who have quarreled. That is to say, they sat far apart, silent.

“Fancy letting that coward say a thing like that to you,” she had said at the conclusion of their argument. “I don’t understand you.”

“Of course you don’t understand me, my little lamb,” he had answered very patronizingly. “That’s all to the good. That means he won’t understand me either.”

“Running away from the fellow! What airs he will give himself now! And I just can’t bear the smell of him.”

“Don’t go so near him,” he had said in a bored way. “Then his smell won’t upset you.”

“Excuse me, Fritz, when have I gone too near him? That was mean of you, Fritz!”

But Fritz returned no answer, and so they had fallen into silence.…

The echo of the shot interrupted this quarrel. The Lieutenant started out of his thoughts. “He has fired a pistol!” he cried and began running.

“Who?” she asked, received no answer, and ran after him.

Their course took them over the moonlit park. Its long grass wetted her stockings; then through bushes, across paths, right through flower beds. Vi panted, wanted to call out and could not, since she had to keep on running.

Then the Lieutenant paused and signaled to her to be quiet. She peered over his shoulder through lilac and guelder-rose bushes and just caught sight of the weeping poultry maid disappearing in the direction of the Manor. Bailiff Meier was standing motionless outside the house.

“Hasn’t hit her, thank God!” whispered the Lieutenant.

“Then what’s she crying for?”

“Fright.”

“The fellow must go to jail,” exclaimed Vi.

“Don’t be so silly, Vi. Then he’d let his tongue wag a bit, wouldn’t he? I suppose you’d like that?”

“Well, and now?”

“Now we’ll wait and see what he’s going to do.”

The little dark figure went quickly up to the staff-house; even in the bushes they could hear the noise of the vigorously slammed door. Bailiff Meier was gone.

“Now he’s gone,” said Fräulein von Prackwitz disconsolately. “And from now on I shall have to be particularly polite to him, so that he won’t tell Papa.”

“Just wait a bit,” was all the Lieutenant said.

They did not have long to wait. Hardly three or four minutes. Then the door opened again and out stepped Meier, a suitcase in his right hand, a suitcase in his left hand. He did not even waste time in closing the door again, but strode on, a little hampered, it is true, yet at a steady pace—toward the farmyard, out into the world—away.

“He’s clearing out,” whispered the Lieutenant.

“Thank God!”

“You won’t see him again,” he muttered, and fell silent, as if he was annoyed at what he had said.

“Let’s hope so.”

“Violet!” he said after a while.

“Yes, Fritz?”

“Wait here a minute, will you? I just want to find out something in the office.”

“What do you want to find out there?”

“Oh, nothing much.… Just to see what it looks like.”

“What do you mean? It doesn’t matter to us.”

“Still, let me. Excuse me—now, you wait here!”

Hurriedly the Lieutenant went over to the staff-house. He felt his way through the dark passage, switched the light on in the office and went straight to the drawer containing the weapons. It was half open, but this was not sufficient for him. He pulled it right out and regarded its contents very attentively.

No, the nine-millimeter Mauser was not there. He closed the drawer again, switched off the light and went out.

“Well, what does it look like in there?” Violet asked a little maliciously. “I suppose he tidied it up quickly?”

“What should it look like? Oh—I see—yes, of course. Pigsty, that’s what it looks like, my little lamb.” The Lieutenant was strangely cheerful.

She took advantage of this at once. “I say, Fritz.”

“Yes, Violet?”

“Do you still remember what you wanted today?”

“Well, what did I want? To give you a kiss? All right, come along then!”

He seized her by the head, and for a while she lay completely breathless in his arms.

“There!” he said. “And now I must dash off to Ostade.”

“To Ostade? Oh, Fritz—you wanted to look round my room to see whether I kept a diary.”

“But, my lamb, not today. I really must dash off. I’ve got to be at Ostade at six!”