Wolf Among Wolves (63 page)

“You talk to me too familiarly, Fräulein,” said Räder coldly. “The Rittmeister won’t have it, neither do I think it quite right.”

“Oh, you old fathead! I don’t care how I talk to you. I won’t be polite to an old haddock, either. Yes, that’s what you are—you’re an old haddock! You’d better pay attention to what I tell you—you were there, too. And don’t go and make a hash of it all if Mamma asks you.…”

“Excuse me, Fräulein, I was not there. If anything as outrageous as that happens then I am not there. I have got to think of my reputation. I don’t mix with safe-breakers and poachers. It’s just the same as with uniforms—I don’t mix with them.”

“But Hubert, you know that Mamma said you were to go with me. You are not going to let us down.”

“Very sorry, Fräulein, it can’t be done. Would you mind stepping off the rug? I have to comb its fringes. Why do people make fringes like that on carpets anyway? They always look untidy and bedraggled. I suppose it’s just to give us more work.”

“Hubert!” said Vi very appealingly, and suddenly despondent. “You won’t tell Mamma that you didn’t go with me because of the things that happened, will you?”

“No, Fräulein,” said Hubert. “My nose began to bleed in the farmyard, and I said I’d come on later and didn’t find you because you’d taken the path by the coach-house and I went up the glade by the deer’s feeding ground.”

“Thank God!” Vi breathed with relief. “You’re a decent chap after all, Hubert.”

“And I’d spend a little time if I were you,” continued Hubert unmoved, “thinking about what you’re going to tell madam. I wouldn’t say too much about Bailiff Meier. And how about the poacher, Bäumer? If the forester caught him, then you must have been there, Fräulein. What story have you fixed up with the forester?”

“I haven’t fixed up any story, Hubert. He went straight back to the forest again—with the bailiff.”

“There, you see! And did you shoot the stag or did he shoot it? Or hasn’t it been shot at all? I thought I heard a report toward morning.”

“Oh, Hubert—but that’s the craziest thing of all; I haven’t told you about that yet. That was little Meier. He fired at the poultry maid, Amanda Backs. Really!”

“Fräulein!” said Hubert sternly, turning his expressionless fish’s eye on her. “I didn’t hear
that
, I know nothing of any such wild goings-on.”

“But he didn’t hit her. He was drunk.”

“Go up to your room now and change,” said Hubert Räder, as agitated as it was possible for him to be. “No, you must get out of here now, I’ve got to tidy up, you’re disturbing me.”

“Hubert, don’t be impertinent. If I want to stay here I’ll stay.”

“And if I were you I’d think out carefully what I was going to say—and the best thing for you is to say nothing. Say that you turned back with me when my nose began to bleed.… But you’ll never manage that—and so this afternoon there’ll be the prettiest gossip going around, and this evening we’ll have the police in the house.… But I’ve taken every precaution as far as I’m concerned. I’ve got two blood-stained handkerchiefs, and at half-past one I knocked at Armgard’s door and asked her what the time was, because my alarm clock had stopped. Not that it had. So I know nothing, and I haven’t spoken to, you either. I haven’t seen you since my nose began bleeding.… Good morning, madam, I hope you slept well. Yes, I’m making it thoroughly clean here, except that the vacuum cleaner’s broken. But that was Armgard’s fault, madam. Still, I can manage … And I must ask you to excuse me for not having accompanied Fräulein Violet into the forest. You see, my nose began to bleed frightfully because I can’t bear sleeplessness. I suffered from that as a child. If I didn’t get enough sleep …”

“Please, Hubert, would you mind being quiet now? As I say, when once you open your mouth! And you, Violet—still in hunting dress! May I congratulate you, or was the expedition in vain?”

“Oh, Mamma, what a time we had! It was marvelous. Yes, the stag was shot but I didn’t shoot it, it was, now think—but you’ll never guess—it was Bäumer who shot it. Oh, you know, Mamma, the poacher from Altlohe whom Grandpa is always cursing. And Kniebusch caught him, Bäumer of course, but we’ve got the stag too. And now they’re in the forest, fetching him, but he’s unconscious. And Bailiff Meier …”

“May I get on with my cleaning?” interrupted Räder with quite unusual emphasis.

“All right, Vi, come into my room. To think of you present at all this! I’m sure to get a fright when you tell me.… But Papa will be pleased that Bäumer’s been caught. How is it that he is unconscious? Did Kniebusch shoot him? I’m always telling father that Kniebusch is better …”

They were gone.

For the moment everything is all right, thought the servant. But if the Rittmeister comes and asks? What then?

VII

Von Prackwitz sprang from the taxi and ran up the steps into the entrance hall of the railway station. It was a good half an hour before the train was due to start, but he had still to take over his men from the agent, pay him, get a party ticket made out …

Despite his sleepless night the Rittmeister felt enterprising and hopeful—it was a good thing that he was not returning to Neulohe alone, without friends. And then something of the country was in the station air. At Alexanderplatz one still thought only of Berlin; here in Schlesische Bahnhof one thought of fields and harvest … He had a feeling that he would bring in the Neulohe harvest successfully!

The Rittmeister stood as if thunderstruck. Impatiently he motioned a porter away with a shake of his head. Then he stepped back a pace or two, afraid of being discovered. It was a thing which could happen only to him: the employer hiding himself from his workers, frightened at the sight of them.

There they stood on the steps, a swarm, a horde—the Rittmeister didn’t doubt for a moment that these were his men, although the agent was nowhere to be seen.

“Oh, God!” he groaned, stricken to the heart, “and that lot want to cut my rye, want to dig potatoes! That gang living in Neulohe!”

Young fellows, caps jauntily tipped over their ears, cigarette stubs in the corner of their mouths, with extremely wide trousers whose beautiful creases extended to the toes of their shoes, Chaplin sticks modishly in their hands;
and other louts, shaggy, either without collars or with dirty open ones, their shirts gaping over chests tattooed like their arms in blue and red—in ragged trousers, barefooted or with worn-out plimsolls … Two street-girls with hair almost bleached white, silk dresses and high-heeled patent shoes … An extremely ancient man with nickel-rimmed spectacles, his black frock coat hanging over his withered loins, a botanist-box slung on string from his sloping shoulders … Another girl with some sort of green-striped flannel blouse over breasts like sacks of flour—a screaming child on her arm …

“Oh, my God!” groaned the Rittmeister again.

And not a scrap of luggage, not a margarine box, not even a cigarette carton—only this one battered green botanist-box, their communal luggage. Sixty tooth-brushes wouldn’t even go into the thing, let alone sixty shirts!

And all that crowd jostled one another in the best of moods, laughing, chattering, whistling popular hits, and bawling; two of them were already cuddling, sitting on a step.… They called out cheekily after travelers hurrying by, jeered at them, begged things of them … “A cigarette, guv’nor, please give us a cigarette.” And the scamp took the lit cigarette from the dumbfounded man’s mouth. “Thanks, guv’nor, I ain’t so particular, we’re all suffering from the same disease.”

The journey to Neulohe and the gathering of the harvest were a country excursion, a welcome spree for these hooligans! “Yes, hooligans,” growled the Rittmeister. And excitedly to von Studmann who had come up with a suitcase: “Look at these hooligans! And they want to work on the land. In patent shoes and pressed trousers!”

“Bad!” said von Studmann after a short scrutiny. “You shouldn’t take them. You asked for land workers!”

“But I must have men. My harvest is rotting out there!” said the Rittmeister with some embarrassment.

“Well, look for others. It won’t matter if we’re a day late. Let’s travel tomorrow!”

“But you can’t get proper men now, in the middle of harvest time. Everyone holds tight to what he’s got. And not a soul wants to go to the land!—They prefer to starve here in their cinemas.”

“Then take these—you will be able to use them for something.”

“And my father-in-law? My mother-in-law? I shall make myself absolutely ridiculous, they’ll laugh at me. I’ll be done for if I arrive with these people. They’re all pimps and prossies!”

“They do seem rather down at heel. But if you’ve
got
to have workers! What do you want to do, then?”

The Rittmeister avoided a direct answer. “I tell you, Studmann,” he said irritably, “I haven’t taken on an easy job. I’m no farmer, my father-in-law’s right about that. I study, I reflect, I run about from morning till night, but still I make a mess of things, admitted! Simply because I haven’t got the knack of it … And now I’ve really managed to get something to grow, not a bumper harvest, but tolerable—it’s standing out there, it should have been got in—I’ve this: no men! It’s enough to drive one to despair.”

“But why haven’t you any men, when others have? Excuse me, Prackwitz, but you yourself said they all hold tight to them.”

“Because I’ve got no money. The others engage their men in the spring. I put off engaging them to the last moment, so as to save the wages … Look, Studmann, my father-in-law is a rich man, a very rich man, but I have nothing. All I have is debts. He leased the farm to me as it stands, with all the stock; I required no money for that. Up till now I have always scraped along somehow, selling a few potatoes, some cattle—and that brought in enough for wages and our living expenses. But now I must have money! Otherwise I’m finished, completely bankrupt. And the money’s there, standing in the field. All I need is to bring in the harvest and I shall have money. And then I get men like that! I feel like hanging myself.”

“I don’t know how many million unemployed we have,” said von Studmann, “but they increase from day to day. Yet for work there are no workers.”

Prackwitz had not been listening. “I’m not taking this lot,” he said with grim determination. “Perhaps they’d even do a little work to begin with, as long as they didn’t have their return fare and were hungry. But I am not going to be laughed at by the whole district and my dear relatives! I’m not going to turn my reapers’ barracks into a brothel. Just look at those two cuddling around on the stairs. Disgusting. Damned disgusting! I’m not going to spoil Neulohe; it’s already bad enough with the people from Altlohe.… No, I am not taking them.”

“What are you going to do instead? Since you have got to have men?”

“I’ll tell you what, Studmann. I shall phone up the prison. Meienburg prison is near us, and I shall ask them to send me a prison gang. I’d rather have those scamps with a few proper warders in attendance, rifle in hand, than these. The governor of the prison can’t refuse me—and if need be we’ll both drive over to him. I’ve got you to help me now.”

The Rittmeister smiled. He realized once more that from now on he had close to him a real friend with whom he could discuss everything. That was why he had said more in the last five minutes than in the preceding five months.

“Now look, Studmann, my father-in-law is right again: I’m no businessman. Here I travel to Berlin at the most pressing time, leave all the harvest on
which everything depends to an empty-headed fool for twenty-four hours, spend a mint of money, gamble away still more, return with a pile of debts to you and young Pagel, and then bring no men but have to do what my neighbors advised me to four weeks ago; that is, take a prison gang.” Von Prackwitz smiled and so did Studmann, but very cautiously. “All right, then, I’ve done it all wrong again. But what now? We all make mistakes, Studmann. My father-in-law, too. But the main thing is to realize our mistakes. I realize mine and I shall correct them. I’m going to carry on, Studmann, and you are going to help me.”

“Of course! But isn’t it time for our train? You’ve still got to talk to the agent, haven’t you? And young Pagel isn’t here yet, either!”

But von Prackwitz was not listening. Was his friend talking? Or was it the upsetting experience in the night? Prackwitz was talkative. Prackwitz wanted to unburden himself. Prackwitz wanted to confess.

“You’ve been working now for so long in a hotel, Studmann, you must certainly have learned something about bookkeeping and budgeting and handling men. I just yell at them. We’ve got to manage it. What? Manage so that I can keep the farm! I know my father-in-law would be only too glad to have it back. Excuse me for talking so much about him, but he’s my pet aversion. I can’t stand him and he can’t stand me. The old man can’t bear seeing me run the farm. And if I don’t scrape the rent together by the first of October, I’ve got to get out—and what shall I do then?” He looked at Studmann angrily. “But it’s standing out there, Studmann, and we’ll get it in; and now that I’ve got you we’ll make Neulohe into a model farm. Studmann, it was a lucky stroke meeting you. But I must confess to you that I really had a shock when I saw you there, bowing obsequiously in your black coat to every loudly dressed female. How you’ve come down in the world, Studmann! I thought.”

“There comes Pagel!” cried Studmann, all hot and cold at these confessions of a man who was usually so reserved. For the good fellow would bitterly regret it one day. And then he would be annoyed with his friend for having spoken to him like that.

But von Prackwitz was as if intoxicated. It must be the air at the Schlesische Bahnhof.

“You’ve got enough baggage, Pagel,” he said very benevolently. “I hope you’ll be able to stand it long enough to wear everything you’ve got there. In the country we work, you know, we don’t play! All right, all right, I didn’t really mean it that way! Come to that, I’ve been playing about myself. And now be so good as to get three second-class tickets at the booking office, as far as Frankfurt. Then we’ll dash through at the last minute.”

“But don’t you want to talk to the agent first? After all, the men have been told to come here.”