Iron Gustav (12 page)

‘In the lamp-weight,' he repeated thoughtfully. ‘That's not at all bad. You're smart, I can see that. Don't tell me you thought of that hide-away just for this. You've been pinching things before, eh?'

Furious at her blunder, she did not reply and once again there was the abrupt change from mockery to threat. With his swarthy face close to her pallid one, he whispered: ‘And now I'll tell you what's what, Fräulein Schmidt from the Lützowstrasse. Do what you're told – that's what you've got to do. And turn up whenever I whistle, understand? D'you understand? Eh? Look at me, you – whore!'

Trembling, she looked at him.

‘You whore an' thief!' he hissed. ‘You nice young lady – Eva Hackendahl!' He was savouring her terror now that she realized there was no escape, that he knew her name.

But when he saw her so utterly subjugated, deathly pale and trembling, his rage went. The victor became magnanimous. ‘Yes, surprised you, what?' He laughed. ‘Well, you shouldn't cart round an old buffer who bawls out your name right across the street. You see, I'm not the sort to pretend I know by magic. That was your father, wasn't it, who called you?'

She nodded.

‘When I ask you something, you answer, see. Say “Yes”.'

‘Yes.'

‘Say: “Yes, Eugen”.'

‘Yes, Eugen.'

‘Good – and now where d'you really hang out? But no more lies or I'll give you something to worry about, you can depend on that.'

She was convinced he would keep his word and racked her brain for an escape and found none.

‘Where d'you live?'

‘Frankfurter Allee.'

‘Whereabouts?'

‘The cab yard.'

He whistled. ‘Oh, that's him, is it, him with the taxicabs? So I'm getting a swell sort of girl, I've clicked somethin' first-class. Fine.' Suddenly he was very good-humoured. ‘And now listen, my dear … me Evchen. Don't you look so worried, you needn't be afraid of me. I'm the kindest chap in the whole of Berlin. I'm a real mug, I am, if you do what I tell you, that is. Well, you be at the corner of Grosse and Kleine Frankfurter Strasse at nine this evening. Savvy?'

She nodded. But when he made a gesture she said quickly: ‘Yes, Eugen.'

‘As for the sparklers you needn't bring 'em with you specially – because you've got 'em on you already. Don't be so stupid another time and tell an old friend that they're in the lamp-weight when I c'n see the cord in the neck of your blouse.'

She turned pale.

‘But I'm a decent chap. I'll take the swag off your hands. What use is it to you anyhow? You can't wear 'em or you'd get caught. But I'll give you somethin' you can wear, something nice – I got enough for that … And anyhow, my girl,' and he pressed her arm affectionately, ‘we're going to have a swell time together. You needn't be afraid. Oh, we'll have some grand times.' He gave a short laugh. Her arm was lying quietly in his. ‘There's only one thing. You got to do what I tell you, make no mistake about that – even if I say jump off the roof. Otherwise I'll get mad.'

He let go of her arm and observed her closely. ‘Got the wind up, eh?'

She nodded slowly, tears in her eyes.

‘You'll get over that, Evchen,' he said brightly. ‘At first every girl's frightened, but they get over it. And don't be fool enough to bolt off to the police – or I'll kill you, now or in ten years' time.'

He laughed curtly, nodded, and then: ‘Clear off home!' he commanded.

And before she understood what was happening he had gone.

In a first-floor room of a house in Jägerstrasse, a swarthy, thickset man in shirt and trousers walked up and down whistling the ‘Marseillaise', his leather-shod feet lightly treading the linoleum floor. Now and again he went to the window and looked into the street, which also caught something of the disturbance that reigned on Unter den Linden on this first morning of mobilization. The man shook his head, went on lightly whistling, but continued to walk up and down.

The door was jerked open and on the threshold stood Erich Hackendahl, panting and flushed.

‘Well?' enquired the swarthy, thickset man.

‘Mobilization!'

The man, taking his waistcoat from the chair and putting it on, continued to look at Erich. ‘That was to be expected,' he said slowly. ‘But mobilization doesn't mean war.'

‘But, Herr Doctor,' cried Erich, still breathless, ‘all the people are so enthusiastic. They were singing “Now praise we all our God”. I sang as well, Herr Doctor.'

‘Why shouldn't they be enthusiastic?' asked the Herr Doctor, slipping on his jacket. ‘It's something new. And probably their glorious Kaiser has spoken again about gleaming arms and enemies all over the world …'

‘But no, no! Nothing of the kind,' shouted the young man. ‘You're quite wrong. A policeman came out of his cabin, an ordinary bobby, and announced the mobilization. It was magnificent.'

‘He's a great impresario, your hero-emperor. Now he's putting on
some old Prussian simplicity, copying Frederick the One and Only. But, Erich, surely you realize you've been taken in – you know his love of pomp and circumstance. And now all of a sudden just this policeman! It's all humbug.'

‘But it wasn't humbug when we were singing,' countered the lad.

‘And didn't you look at the singers? They weren't the people, my boy, they weren't the workers who create the wealth but the fat bourgeoisie, and when they thanked their God for the mobilization they were really thanking Him for the big profits they smell in the offing, the biggest of all profits, war profits derived from their brother's corpse …'

‘Shame, shame, Herr Doctor! You weren't present. Those people weren't thinking of business, they were thinking of Germany threatened by Russia, France, perhaps even by England.'

‘Just think a bit, Erich,' said the swarthy man. ‘You have a good brain and you might use it! If we mobilize now, doesn't it mean we threaten the others, and the workers on the Neva and the Seine feel they're threatened at the same time, but now by us?'

Erich stood perplexed. ‘The others …'

The man smiled. ‘Now you want to say that the others started it – just like children complaining about one another to their mother. But we're no longer children. The worker, Erich, has no other fatherland but that of the working class of the entire globe.'

‘But Germany …'

‘Germany even today is a land where the worker has no rights. “Work and obey” is the password here. The German worker has only one friend in the world and that is the French worker, the Russian worker. Shall he shoot these?' Impetuously: ‘There are 110 Social Democrats in the Reichstag – we're not going to grant war credits, we shall refuse. In our persons almost one-third of the German people refuses also.'

‘I was standing near the Schloss. I heard them singing, I joined in, too, and the workers joined in. Nothing bad could have inspired us to that.'

‘But it is something bad! You're intoxicated, Erich, intoxicated with evil. You don't know what a war means, when one mother's son kills or mutilates some other mother's son.'

‘And do you know what a war means?'

‘I do. From my youth I have fought for the workers. That's a war, too – every day we have our dead and wounded … But I know what I'm fighting for, which is that the German worker and with him the workers of the world should have a little more happiness, a little more comfort. What are you fighting for? Tell me.'

‘For the defence of Germany.'

‘But what is your Germany? Does it give its sons a home and daily bread, or even the right to a job? Is the worker to defend his bed infested with bugs or the policeman who dissolves his meetings? He can have all that anywhere else in the world, without Germany.'

‘What you say must be wrong. I can't put it into words, but I feel it. Germany is something more than that. And if the workers really only had flea-ridden beds, as you say, in Germany they would be happier with them among Germans than in a completely different world.'

They stood silently for a while. In the streets the shouts and the rejoicings rose and fell, rose and fell like waves on a shore …

The big man moved as in a dream. ‘You must go, Erich,' he said quietly. ‘I can't have you here any longer.'

Erich made a movement.

‘No, I'm not sending you away in anger. But I'm a Social Democrat and I can't have a warmonger as secretary. That's impossible. When you came to me in such a pitiable state four or five weeks ago, I thought I could help you. You would be one of us, part of the great movement of workers' liberation …'

‘You were very good to me, Herr Doctor,' faltered Erich.

‘You had done wrong, Erich, and you wanted to do worse – lie down in the mud deliberately and perish. I knew your alert, critical mind which made you dissatisfied with a comfortable home, and you seemed to me a rebel – we need rebels.'

Erich made a hasty movement, thought for a moment, and said nothing.

‘You want to say you're still a rebel. But you're not one, when you fight to defend the bad existing social order. You want to join up, don't you? A volunteer?'

Erich nodded defiantly. ‘I feel that the people want this war, not only me.'

‘Really! And I thought we were defending ourselves! Anyway, we Social Democrats didn't want it. We'll vote against the government and the war credits. The workers throughout the whole world will too – and your war will be finished!'

And he snapped his fingers.

But Erich shouted: ‘No, war will not be finished – and you will vote for it. You haven't even yet seen the people. You sit in offices and on party committees, but the people, the people …'

‘But Erich, we don't want to part in anger. You'll be going home now … Here,' he unlocked his desk, ‘here are the four hundred and eighty marks you brought with you – return them to your sister. And here are eighty marks for your father. You can take them with an easy mind. It is roughly what I intended as your salary, and you have earned it honestly.' And, more quietly, he added: ‘I was always pleased to see you here.'

‘You're very kind, Herr Doctor.'

‘No, I'm not kind to you, I oughtn't to let you go into this … adventure. But I've no time to argue and struggle with you. This war has to be prevented – that's my struggle.'

They stood silent for a moment.

‘Goodbye for the present, Erich.' This was in a friendly tone.

‘For the present, Herr Doctor,' said Erich in a low voice.

For the first time in weeks the Hackendahl family sat in its totality round the supper table. And old Father Hackendahl had been as mild as he could as he looked round the table. All had been properly forgiven and forgotten, and no unpleasant questions asked. What peace had sundered, war now brought together.

Sophie, too, had come home, straight from hospital, to see what changes war had brought to the Hackendahl family.

‘So Otto is joining up tomorrow morning,' reported Hackendahl with satisfaction, ‘and they'll probably take Erich too when he volunteers. Sophie, I suppose you expect to go to the Front even though you're only a probationer.'

‘What about me?' cried Heinz. ‘You say “No”, Father, but I say they'll take me. Every man's needed.'

There was a general laugh and Hackendahl said: ‘We should indeed be in a bad way if we needed children like you. Thank God, that's not necessary yet. But what about me, eh?'

‘You, Father? What do you mean?'

‘Well, I shall volunteer, of course.'

‘But you're an old man, Father.'

‘Old? Only fifty-six. What you can do I can.'

‘But your business, Father! The cabs!'

‘What do I care about the business? The Fatherland comes first. No, children, that's settled. I'll join up.'

‘Father always said that he couldn't take a day off because the business couldn't manage without him,' wailed Frau Hackendahl. ‘And now he's able to go to the war.'

‘Well, you'll have to look after the business, that's all, Mother.'

They all laughed.

‘I mean it seriously. Who's going to take the place of the men who go to the Front? The women, of course! It'll be all right, Mother, Eva will help you. Eh, what's the matter, Eva, sitting there pale and not saying a word?'

‘Nothing, Father. It's the heat and the crowds …'

‘Father,' interrupted Heinz, ‘won't there be a chance for me? How long do you think the war will last?'

Old Hackendahl laughed. ‘You young rascal! Six weeks – at the most till Christmas – and then you'll be thirteen. No, we'll be celebrating Christmas at home as usual. With modern weapons …'

Thus the jolly scene continued. But old Hackendahl failed to notice that he alone spoke, and that the others were strangely silent.

Erich, his head bent, sat at the table. Yes, he was home again with everything forgiven and forgotten, and the money paid back. Tomorrow he would see his headmaster and enquire about his school report and leaving examination, and then become a soldier. Now as of old he was sitting in the midst of his family and one hour of it had been enough to depress him, the faces so familiar and so boring, his mother's eternal complaining, the way old Hackendahl used his
knife, Otto who never smelled of anything but the stables – oh, it was all like a chain dragging on his leg.

While working at the lawyer's he had been quite unable to understand how he, Erich, had made himself a common thief in order to obtain wine and women. Now that he was at home again he understood only too well: he had done it to get away from this stuffy petit-bourgeois atmosphere. Was the war which Father was talking about so vulgarly and foolishly (‘We'll give them a good hiding, those red-trousered Frenchies!'), was it the same war he had spoken about to the lawyer? No, this sort of thing, this home, these people, couldn't be defended – they were not Germany, they had to be destroyed.