The Berlin Stories (34 page)

On the evening of the next day, I visited her at the nursing-home for the last time. She was to leave in the morning. She was alone and we sat together on the balcony. She seemed more or less all right now and could walk about the room.

“I told the Sister I didn’t want to see anybody to-day except you.” Sally yawned languidly. “People make me feel so tired.”

“Would you rather I went away too?”

“Oh no,” said Sally, without much enthusiasm, “if you go, one of the nurses will only come in and begin to chatter; and if I’m not lively and bright with her, they’ll say I have to stay in this hellish place a couple of extra days, and I couldn’t stand that.”

She stared out moodily over the quiet street: “You know, Chris, in some ways I wish I’d had that kid… It would have been rather marvellous to have had it. The last day or two, I’ve been sort of feeling what it would be like to be a mother. Do you know, last night, I sat here for a long time by myself and held this cushion in my arms and imagined it was my baby? And I felt a most marvellous sort of shut-off feeling from all the rest of the world. I imagined how it’d grow up and how I’d work for it, and how, after I’d put it to bed at nights, I’d go out and make love to filthy old men to get money to pay for its food and clothes… It’s all very well for you to grin like that, Chris… I did really!”

“Well, why don’t you marry and have one?”

“I don’t know… I feel as if I’d lost faith in men. I just haven’t any use for them at all… Even you, Christopher, if you were to go out into the street now and be run over by a taxi… I should be sorry in a way, of course, but I shouldn’t really care a damn.”

“Thank you, Sally.”

We both laughed.

“I didn’t mean that, of course, darling—at least, not personally. You mustn’t mind what I say while I’m like this. I get all sorts of crazy ideas into my head. Having babies makes you feel awfully primitive, like a sort of wild animal or something, defending its young. Only the trouble is, I haven’t any young to defend… I expect that’s what makes me so frightfully bad-tempered to everybody just now.”

It was partly as the result of this conversation that I suddenly decided, that evening, to cancel all my lessons, leave Berlin as soon as possible, go to some place on the Baltic and try to start working. Since Christmas, I had hardly written a word.

Sally, when I told her my idea, was rather relieved, I think. We both needed a change. We talked vaguely of her joining me later; but, even then, I felt that she wouldn’t. Her plans were very uncertain. Later, she might go to Paris, or to the Alps, or to the South of France, she said—if she could get the cash. “But probably,” she added, “I shall just stay on here. I should be quite happy. I seem to have got sort of used to this place.”

I returned to Berlin towards the middle of July.

All this time I had heard nothing of Sally, beyond half a dozen postcards, exchanged during the first month of my absence. I wasn’t much surprised to find she’d left her room in our flat: “Of course, I quite understand her going. I couldn’t make her as comfortable as she’d the right to expect; especially as we haven’t any running water in the bedrooms.” Poor Frl. Schroeder’s eyes had filled with tears. “But it was a terrible disappointment to me, all the same… Frl. Bowles behaved very handsomely, I can’t complain about that. She insisted on paying for her room until the end of July. I was entitled to the money, of course, because she didn’t give notice until the twenty-first—but I’d never have mentioned it… She was such a charming young lady–—”

“Have you got her address?”

“Oh yes, and the telephone number. You’ll be ringing her up, of course. She’ll be delighted to see you… The other gentlemen came and went, but you were her real friend, Herr Issyvoo. You know, I always used to hope that you two would get married. You’d have made an ideal couple. You always had such a good steady influence on her, and she used to brighten you up a bit when you got too deep in your books and studies… Oh yes, Herr Issyvoo, you may laugh—but you never can tell! Perhaps it isn’t too late yet!”

Next morning, Frl. Schroeder woke me in great excitement: “Herr Issyvoo, what do you think! They’ve shut the Darmstädter und National! There’ll be thousands ruined, I shouldn’t wonder! The milkman says we’ll have civil war in a fortnight! Whatever do you say to that!”

As soon as I’d got dressed, I went down into the street. Sure enough, there was a crowd outside the branch bank on the Nollendorfplatz corner, a lot of men with leather satchels and women with stringbags—women like Frl. Schroeder herself. The iron lattices were drawn down over the bank windows. Most of the people were staring intently and rather stupidly at the locked door. In the middle of the door was fixed a small notice, beautifully printed in Gothic type, like a page from a classic author. The notice said that the Reichspresident had guaranteed the deposits. Everything was quite all right. Only the bank wasn’t going to open.

A little boy was playing with a hoop amongst the crowd. The hoop ran against a woman’s legs. She flew out at him at once: “Du, sei bloss nicht so frech! Cheeky little brat! What do you want here!” Another woman joined in, attacking the scared boy: “Get out! You can’t understand it, can you?” And another asked, in furious sarcasm: “Have you got your money in the bank too, perhaps?” The boy fled before their pent-up, exploding rage.

In the afternoon it was very hot. The details of the new emergency decrees were in the early evening papers—terse, governmentally inspired. One alarmist headline stood out boldly, barred with blood-red ink: “Everything Collapses!” A Nazi journalist reminded his readers that tomorrow, the fourteenth of July, was a day of national rejoicing in France; and doubtless, he added, the French would rejoice with especial fervour this year, at the prospect of Germany’s downfall. Going into an outfitter’s, I bought myself a pair of ready-made flannel trousers for twelve marks fifty—a gesture of confidence by England. Then I got into the Underground to go and visit Sally.

She was living in a block of three-room flats, designed as an Artists’ Colony, not far from the Breitenbachplatz. When I rang the bell, she opened the door to me herself: “Hilloo, Chris, you old swine!”

“Hullo, Sally darling!”

“How are you?… Be careful, darling, you’ll make me untidy. I’ve got to go out in a few minutes.”

I had never seen her all in white before. It suited her. But her face looked thinner and older. Her hair was cut in a new way and beautifully waved.

“You’re very smart,” I said.

“Am I?” Sally smiled her pleased, dreamy, self-conscious smile. I followed her into the sitting-room of the flat. One wall was entirely window. There was some cherry-coloured wooden furniture and a very low divan with gaudy fringed cushions. A fluffy white miniature dog jumped to its feet and yapped. Sally picked it up and went through the gestures of kissing it, just not touching it with her lips: “Freddi, mein Liebling, Du bist soo süss!”

“Yours?” I asked, noticing the improvement in her German accent.

“No. He belongs to Gerda, the girl I share this flat with.”

“Have you known her long?”

“Only a week or two.”

“What’s she like?”

“Not bad. As stingy as hell. I have to pay for practically everything.”

“It’s nice here.”

“Do you think so? Yes, I suppose it’s all right. Better than that hole in the Nollendorfstrasse, anyhow.”

“What made you leave? Did you and Frl. Schroeder have a row?”

“No, not exactly. Only I got so sick of hearing her talk. She nearly talked my head off. She’s an awful old bore, really.”

“She’s very fond of you.”

Sally shrugged her shoulders with a slight impatient listless movement. Throughout this conversation, I noticed that she avoided my eyes. There was a long pause. I felt puzzled and vaguely embarrassed. I began to wonder how soon I could make an excuse to go.

Then the telephone bell rang. Sally yawned, pulled the instrument across on to her lap: “Hilloo, who’s there? Yes, it’s me… No… No… • I’ve really no idea… Really I haven’t! I’m to guess?” Her nose wrinkled: “Is it Erwin? No? Paul? No? Wait a minute… Let me see….”

“And now, darling, I must fly!” cried Sally, when, at last, the conversation was over: “I’m about two hours late already!”

“Got a new boy friend?”

But Sally ignored my grin. She lit a cigarette with a faint expression of distaste.

“I’ve got to see a man on business,” she said briefly.

“And when shall we meet again?”

“I’ll have to see, darling… I’ve got such a lot on, just at present… I shall be out in the country all day tomorrow, and probably the day after… I’ll let you know… I may be going to Frankfurt quite soon.”

“Have you got a job there?”

“No. Not exactly.” Sally’s voice was brief, dismissing this subject. “I’ve decided not to try for any film work until the autumn, anyhow. I shall take a thorough rest.”

“You seem to have made a lot of new friends.”

Again, Sally’s manner became vague, carefully casual: “Yes, I suppose I have… It’s probably a reaction from all those months at Frl. Schroeder’s, when I never saw a soul.”

“Well,” I couldn’t resist a malicious grin. “I hope for your sake that none of your new friends have got their money in the Darmstädter und National.”

“Why?” She was interested at once. “What’s the matter with it?”

“Do you really mean to say you haven’t heard?”

“Of course not. I never read the papers, and I haven’t been out to-day, yet.”

I told her the news of the crisis. At the end of it, she was looking quite scared.

“But why on earth,” she exclaimed impatiently, “didn’t you tell me all this before? It may be serious.”

“I’m sorry, Sally. I took it for granted that you’d know already… especially as you seem to be moving in financial circles, nowadays–— But she ignored this little dig. She was frowning,’deep in her own thoughts: “If it was very serious, Leo would have rung up and told me…” she murmured at length. And this reflection appeared to ease her mind considerably.

We walked out together to the corner of the street, where Sally picked up a taxi.

“It’s an awful nuisance living so far off,” she said. “I’m probably going to get a car soon.”

“By the way,” she added just as we were parting, “what was it like on Ruegen?”

“I bathed a lot.”

“Well, goodbye, darling, I’ll see you sometime.”

“Goodbye, Sally. Enjoy yourself.”

About a week after this, Sally rang me up: “Can you come round at once, Chris? It’s very important. I want you to do me a favour.” This time, also, I found Sally alone in the flat.

“Do you want to earn some money, darling?” she greeted me.

“Of course.”

“SplendidI You see, it’s like this….” She was in a fluffy pink dressing-wrap and inclined to be breathless: “There’s a man I know who’s starting a magazine. It’s going to be most terribly highbrow and artistic, with lots of marvellous modern photographs, ink-pots and girls’ heads upside down—you know the sort of thing… The point is, each number is going to take a special country and kind of review it, with articles about the manners and customs, and all that… Well, the first country they’re going to do is England and they want me to write an article on the English Girl… Of course, I haven’t the foggiest idea what to say, so what I thought was: you could write the article in my name and get the money—I only want not to disoblige this man who’s editing the paper, because he may be terribly useful to me in other ways, later on….”

“All right, I’ll try.”

“Oh, marvellous!”

“How soon do you want it done?”

“You see, darling, that’s the whole point. I must have it at once… Otherwise it’s no earthly use, because I promised it four days ago and I simply must give it him this evening… It needn’t be very long. About five hundred words.”

“Well, I’ll do my best….”

“Good. That’s wonderful… Sit down wherever you like. Here’s some paper. You’ve got a pen? Oh, and here’s a dictionary, in case there’s a word you can’t spell… I’ll just be having my bath.”

When, three-quarters of an hour later, Sally came in dressed for the day, I had finished. Frankly, I was rather pleased with my effort.

She read it through carefully, a slow frown gathering between her beautifully pencilled eyebrows. When she had finished, she laid down the manuscript with a sigh: “I’m sorry, Chris. It won’t do at all.”

“Won’t do?” I was genuinely taken aback.

“Of course, I dare say it’s very good from a literary point of view, and all that….”

“Well then, what’s wrong with it?”

“Its not nearly snappy enough.” Sally was quite final. “It’s not the kind of thing this man wants, at all.”

I shrugged my shoulders: “I’m sorry, Sally. I did my best. But journalism isn’t really in my line, you know.”

There was a resentful pause. My vanity was piqued.

“My goodness, I know who’ll do it for me if I ask him!” cried Sally, suddenly jumping up. “Why on earth didn’t I think of him before?” She grabbed the telephone and dialled a number: “Oh, hilloo, Kurt darling….”

In three minutes, she had explained all about the article. Replacing the receiver on its stand, she announced triumphantly: “That’s marvellous! He’s going to do it at once….” She paused impressively and added: “That was Kurt Rosenthal.”