The Berlin Stories (24 page)

Frl. Schroeder was silent. I concluded, lamely— “Because of his having to go off at such short notice, you see…”

She didn’t look up. There was a muffled sound, and a large tear fell on to the face of a card on the table before her. I felt like crying, too.

“Perhaps…” I was cowardly. “It’ll only be for a few months. He may be coming back….”

But Frl. Schroeder either didn’t hear or didn’t believe this. Her sobs redoubled; she did not attempt to restrain them. Perhaps Arthur’s departure was merely the last straw; once started, she had plenty to cry about. The rent and taxes in arrears, the bills she couldn’t pay, the rudeness of the coalman, her pains in the back, her boils, her poverty, her loneliness, her gradually approaching death. It was dreadful to hear her. I began wandering about the room, nervously touching the furniture, in an ecstasy of discomfort.

“Frl. Schroeder… it’s all right, really, it is… don’t… please….”

She got over it at last. Mopping her eyes on a corner of the table-cloth, she deeply sighed. Sadly, her inflamed glance moved over the array of cards. She exclaimed, with a kind of mournful triumph: “Well, I never! Just look at that, Herr Bradshaw. The ace of spades… upside downl I might have known something like this would happen. The cards are never wrong.”

Arthur arrived back from the travel bureau in a taxi, about an hour later. His hands were full of papers and illustrated brochures. He seemed tired and depressed.

“How did you get on?” I asked.

“Give me time, William. Give me time… I’m a little out of breath….”

Collapsing heavily into a chair, he fanned himself with his hat. I strolled over to the window. The detective wasn’t at his usual post. Turning my head to the left, I saw him, however, some way farther down the street, examining the contents of the grocer’s shop.

“Is he back already?” Arthur enquired.

I nodded.

“Really? To give the devil his due, that young man will go far in his unsavoury profession… Do you know, William, he had the effrontery to come right into the office and stand beside me at the counter? I even heard him making enquiries about a trip to the Harz.”

“Perhaps he really wanted to go there; you never know. He may be having his holidays soon.”

“Well, well… at all events, it was most upsetting… I had the greatest difficulty in arriving at the extremely grave decision I had to make.”

“And what’s the verdict?”

“I much regret to say,” Arthur regarded the buttons on his boot despondently, “that it will have to be Mexico.”

“Good God!”

“You see, dear boy, the possibilities, at such short notice, are very limited… I should have greatly preferred Rio, of course, or the Argentine. I even toyed with China. But everywhere, nowadays, there are such absurd formalities. All kinds of stupid and impertinent questions are asked. When I was young, it was very different… An English gentleman was welcome everywhere, especially with a first-class ticket.”

“And when do you leave?”

“There’s a boat at midday tomorrow. I think I shall go to Hamburg to-day, on the evening train. It’s more comfortable, and, perhaps, on the whole, wiser; don’t you agree?”

“I daire say. Yes… This seems a tremendous step to take, all of a sudden. Have you any friends in Mexico?”

Arthur giggled. “I have friends everywhere, William, or shall I say accomplices?”

“And what shall you do, when you arrive?”

“I shall go straight to Mexico City (a most depressing spot; although I expect it’s altered a great deal since I was there in nineteen-eleven). I shall then take rooms in the best hotel and await a moment of inspiration… I don’t suppose I shall starve.”

“No, Arthur,” I laughed, “I certainly don’t see you starving!”

We brightened. We had several drinks. We became quite lively.

Frl. Schroeder was called in, for a start had to be made with Arthur’s packing. She was melancholy at first, and inclined to be reproachful, but a glass of cognac worked wonders. She had her own explanation of the reasons for Arthur’s sudden departure.

“Ah, Herr Norris, Herr Norris! You should have been more careful. A gentleman at your time of life ought to have experience enough of these things…” She winked tipsily at me, behind his back. “Why didn’t you stay faithful to your old Schroeder? She would have helped you, she knew about it all the time!”

Arthur, perplexed and vaguely embarrassed, looked questioningly to me for an explanation. I pretended complete ignorance. And now the trunks arrived, fetched down by the porter and his son from the attics at the top of the house. Frl. Schroeder exclaimed, as she packed, over the magnificence of Arthur’s clothes. Arthur himself, generous and gay, began distributing largess. The porter got a suit, the porter’s wife a bottle of sherry, their son a pair of snakeskin shoes which were much too small for him, but which he insisted he would squeeze into somehow. The piles of newspapers and periodicals were to be sent to a hospital. Arthur certainly gave things away with an air; he knew how to play the Grand Seigneur. The porter’s family went away grateful and deeply impressed. I saw that the beginnings of a legend had been created.

As for Frl. Schroeder herself, she was positively loaded with gifts. In addition to the etchings and the Japanese screen, Arthur gave her three flasks of perfume, some hair-lotion, a powder-puff, the entire contents of his wine-cupboard, two beautiful scarves, and, amidst much blushing, a pair of his coveted silk combinations.

“I do wish, William, you’d take something, too. Just some little trifle….”

“All right, Arthur, thank you very much… I tell you what, have you still got Miss Smith’s Torture Chamber? I always liked it the best of those books of yours.”

“You did? Really?” Arthur flushed with pleasure. “How charming of you to say so! You know, William, I really think I must tell you a secret. The last of my secrets… I wrote that book myself!”

“Arthur, you didn’t!”

“I did, I assure you!” Arthur giggled, delighted. “Years ago, now… It’s a youthful indiscretion of which I’ve since felt rather ashamed… It was printed privately in Paris. I’m told that some of the best-known collectors in Europe have copies in their libraries. It’s exceedingly rare.”

“And you never wrote anything else?”

“Never, alas… I put my genius into my life, not into my art. That remark is not original. Never mind. By the way, since we are on this topic, do you know that I’ve never said goodbye to my dear Anni? I really think I might ask her to come here this afternoon, don’t you? After all, I’m not leaving until after tea.”

“Better not, Arthur. You’ll need all your strength for the journey.”

“Well, ha, ha! You may be right. The pain of parting would no doubt be most severe….

After lunch, Arthur lay down to rest. I took his trunks in a taxi to the Lehrter Station and deposited them in the cloakroom. Arthur was anxious to avoid a lengthy ceremony of departure from the house. The tall detective was on duty now. He watched the loading of the taxi with interest, but made no move to follow.

At tea, Arthur was nervous and depressed. We sat together in the disordered bedroom, with the doors of the empty cupboards standing open and the mattress rolled up at the foot of the bed. I felt apprehensive, for no reason. Arthur rubbed his chin wearily, and sighed: “I feel like the Old Year, William. I shall soon be gone.”

I smiled. “A week from now, you’ll be sitting on the deck in the sun, while we’re still freezing or soaking in this wretched town. I envy you, I can tell you.”

“Do you, dear boy? I sometimes wish I didn’t have to do so much travelling. Mine is essentially a domestic nature. I ask nothing better than to settle down.”

“Well, why don’t you, then?”

“That’s what I so often ask myself… Something always seems to prevent it.”

At last it was time to go.

With infinite fuss, Arthur put on his coat, lost and found his gloves, gave a last touch to his wig. I picked up his suitcase and we went out into the hall. Nothing was left but the worst, the ordeal of saying goodbye to Frl. Schroeder. She emerged from the living-room, moist-eyed.

“Well, Herr Norris…”

The doorbell rang loudly, and there was a double knock on the door. The interruption made Arthur jump.

“Good gracious! Whoever can that be?”

“It’s the postman, I expect,” said Frl. Schroeder. “Excuse me, Herr Bradshaw….”

Barely had she opened the door when the man outside it pushed past her into the hall. It was Schmidt.

That he was drunk was obvious, even before he opened his mouth. He stood swaying uncertainly, hatless, his tie over one shoulder, his collar awry. His huge face was inflamed and swollen so that his eyes were mere slits. The hall was a small place for four people. We were standing so close together that I could smell his breath. It stank vilely.

Arthur, at my side, uttered an incoherent sound of dismay, and I myself could only gape. Strange as it may seem, I was entirely unprepared for this apparition. During the last twenty-four hours, I had forgotten Schmidt’s existence altogether.

He was the master of the situation, and he knew it. His face fairly beamed with malice. Kicking the front door shut behind him with his foot, he surveyed the two of us; Arthur’s coat, the suitcase in my hand.

“Doing a bunk, eh?” He spoke loudly, as if addressing a large audience in the middle distance. “I see… thought you’d give me the slip, did you?” He advanced a pace; he confronted the trembling and dismayed Arthur. “Lucky I came, wasn’t it? Unlucky for you…”

Arthur emitted another sound, this time a kind of squeak of terror. It seemed to excite Schmidt to a positive frenzy of rage. He clenched his fists, he shouted with astonishing violence: “You dirty tyke!”

He raised his arm. He may actually have been going to strike Arthur; if so, I shouldn’t have had time to prevent it. All I could do, within the instant, was to drop the suitcase to the ground. But Frl. Schroeder’s reactions were quicker and more effective. She hadn’t the ghost of an idea what the fuss was all about. That didn’t worry her. Enough that Herr Norris was being insulted by an unknown, drunken man. With a shrill battle-cry of indignation, she charged. Her outstretched palms caught Schmidt in the small of the back, propelled him forwards, like an engine shunting trucks. Unsteady on his feet and taken completely by surprise, he blundered headlong through the open doorway into the living-room and fell sprawling, face downwards, on the carpet. Frl. Schroeder promptly turned the key in the lock. The whole manœuvre was the work of about five seconds.

“Such cheek!” exclaimed Frl. Schroeder. Her cheeks were bright red with the exertion. “He comes barging in here as if the place belonged to him. And intoxicated… pfui!… the disgusting pig!”

She seemed to find nothing particularly mysterious in the incident. Perhaps she connected Schmidt somehow with Margot and the ill-fated baby. If so she was too tactful to say so. A tremendous rattle of knocks on the living-room door excused me from any attempt at inventing explanations.

“Won’t he be able to get out at the back?” Arthur enquired nervously.

“You can set your mind at rest, Herr Norris. The kitchen door’s locked.” Frl. Schroeder turned menacingly upon the invisible Schmidt. “Be quiet, you scoundrel! I’ll attend to you in a minute!”

“All the same…” Arthur was on pins and needles, “I think we ought to be going…”

“How are you going to get rid of him?” I asked Frl. Schroeder.

“Oh, don’t you worry about that, Herr Bradshaw. As soon as you’re gone, I’ll get the porter’s son up. Hell go quietly enough, I promise you. If he doesn’t, he’ll be sorry….”

We said goodbye hurriedly. Frl. Schroeder was too excited and triumphant to be emotional. Arthur kissed her on both cheeks. She stood waving to us from the top of the stairs. A fresh outburst of muffled knocking was audible behind her.

We were in the taxi, and half-way to the station before Arthur recovered his composure sufficiently to be able to talk.

“Dear me… I’ve seldom made such an exceedingly unpleasant exit from any town, I think…”

“What you might call a rousing send-off ” I glanced behind me to make sure that the other taxi, with the tall detective, was still following us.

“What do you think he’ll do, William? Perhaps he’ll go straight to the police?”

“I’m pretty sure he won’t. As long as he’s drunk, they won’t listen to him, and by the time he’s sober, he’il see himself that it’s no good. He hasn’t the least idea where you’re going, either. For all he knows, you’ll be out of the country tonight.”

“You may be right, dear boy. I hope so, I’m sure. I must say I hate to leave you exposed to his malice. You will be most careful, won’t you?”

“Oh, Schmidt won’t bother me. I’m not worth it, from his point of view. He’ll probably find another victim easily enough. I dare say he’s got plenty on his books.”

“While he was in my employ he certainly had opportunities,” Arthur agreed thoughtfully. “And I’ve no doubt he made full use of them. The creature had talents—of a perverted kind… Oh, unquestionably… Yes….”

At length it was all over. The misunderstanding with the cloakroom official, the fuss about the luggage, the finding of a corner seat, the giving of the tip. Arthur leant out of the carriage window; I stood on the platform. We had five minutes to spare.