The Berlin Stories (49 page)

“No. Not in the least… But why did you choose me for your experiment?”

“Your voice was very hard as you said that, Christopher. You are thinking that you despise me.”

“No, Bernhard. I’m thinking that you must despise me… I often wonder why you have anything to do with me at all. I feel sometimes that you actually dislike me, and that you say and do things to show it—and yet, in a way, I suppose you don’t, or you wouldn’t keep asking me to come and see you… All the same, I’m getting rather tired of what you call your experiments. Tonight wasn’t the first of them, by any means. The experiments fail, and then you’re angry with me. I must say, I think that’s very unjust… But what I can’t stand is that you show your resentment by adopting this mock-humble attitude… Actually, you’re the least humble person I’ve ever met.”

Bernhard was silent. He had lit a cigarette, and now expelled the smoke slowly through his nostrils. At last he said: “I wonder if you are right… I think not altogether. But partly… Yes, there is some quality in you which attracts me and which I very much envy, and yet this very quality of yours also arouses my antagonism… Perhaps that is merely because I also am partly English, and you represent to me an aspect of my own character… No, that is not true, either… It is not so simple as I would wish… I’m afraid,” Bernhard passed his hand, with a wearily humorous gesture, over his forehead and eyes, “that I am a quite unnecessarily complicated piece of mechanism.”

There was a moment’s silence. Then he added: “But this is all stupid egotistical talk. You must forgive me. I have no right to speak to you in this way.”

He rose to his feet, went softly across the room, and switched on the wireless. In rising, he had rested his hand for an instant on my shoulder. Followed by the first strains of the music, he came back to his chair before the fire, smiling.

His smile was soft, and yet curiously hostile. It had the hostility of something ancient. I thought of one of the Oriental statuettes in his flat.

“This evening,” he smiled softly, “they are relaying the last act of Die Meistersinger.”

“Very interesting,” I said.

Half an hour later, Bernhard took me up to my bedroom door, his hand upon my shoulder, still smiling. Next morning, at breakfast, he looked tired, but was gay and amusing. He did not in any way refer to our conversation of the evening before.

We drove back to Berlin, and he dropped me on the corner of the Nollendorfplatz.

“Ring me up soon,” I said.

“Of course. Early next week.”

“And thank you very much.”

“Thank you for coming, my dear Christopher.”

I didn’t see him again for nearly six months.

One Sunday, early in August, a referendum was held to decide the fate of the Briining government. I was back at Frl. Schroeder’s, lying in bed through the beautiful hot weather, cursing my toe: I had cut it on a piece of tin, bathing for the last time at Rügen, and now it had suddenly festered and was full of poison. I was quite delighted when Bernhard unexpectedly rang me up.

“You remember a certain little country cottage on the shores of the Wannsee? You do? I was wondering if you would care to spend a few hours there, this afternoon… Yes, your landlady has told me already about your misfortune. I am so sorry… I can send the car for you. I think it will be good to escape for a little from this city? You can do whatever you like there—just lie quiet and rest. Nobody will interfere with your liberty.”

Soon after lunch, the car duly arrived to pick me up. It was a glorious afternoon, and, during the drive, I blessed Bernhard for his kindness. But, when we arrived at the villa, I got a nasty shock: the lawn was crowded with people.

I was really annoyed. It was a dirty trick, I thought. Here was I, in my oldest clothes, with a bandaged foot and a stick, lured into the middle of a slap-up garden-party! And here was Bernhard in flannel trousers and a boyish jumper. It was astonishing how young he looked. Bounding to meet me, he vaulted over the low railing: “Christopher! Here you are at last! Make yourself comfortable!”

In spite of my protests, he forcibly removed my coat and hat. As ill-luck would have it, I was wearing braces. Most of the other guests were in smart Riviera flannels. Smiling sourly, adopting instinctively the armour of sulky eccentricity which protects me on such occasions, I advanced hobbling into their midst. Several couples were dancing to a portable gramophone; two young men were pillow-fighting with cushions, cheered on by their respective women; most of the party were lying chatting on rugs on the grass. It was all so very informal, and the footmen and the chauffeurs stood discreetly aside, watching their antics, like the nursemaids of titled children.

What were they doing here? Why had Bernhard asked them? Was this another and more elaborate attempt to exorcise his ghosts? No, I decided; it was more probably only a duty-party, given once a year, to all the relatives, friends and dependents of the family. And mine was just another name to be ticked off, far down the list. Well, it was silly to be ungracious. I was here. I would enjoy myself.

Then, to my great surprise, I saw Natalia. She was dressed in some light yellow material, with small puffed sleeves, and carried a big straw hat in her hand. She looked so pretty that I should hardly have recognised her. She advanced gaily to welcome me: “Ah, Christopher! You know, 1 am so pleased!”

“Where have you been, all this time?”

“In Paris… You did not know? Truthfully? I await always a letter from you—and there is nothing!”’ “But, Natalia, you never sent me your address.”

“oh, i didr “Well, in that case, I never got the letter… I’ve been away, too, you know.”

“So? You have been away? Then I’m sorry… I can’t help you!”

We both laughed. Natalia’s laugh had changed, like everything else about her. It was no longer the laugh of the severe schoolgirl who had ordered me to read Jacobsen and Goethe. And there was a dreamy, delighted smile upon her face—as though, I thought, she were listening, all the time, to lively, pleasant music. Despite her obvious pleasure at seeing me again, she seemed hardly to be attending to our conversation.

“And what are you doing in Paris? Are you studying art, as you wanted to?”

“But of course!”

“Do you like it?”

“Wonderful!” Natalia nodded vigorously. Her eyes were sparkling. But the word seemed intended to describe something else.

“Is your mother with you?”

“Yes. Yes….”

“Have you got a flat together?”

“Yes….” Again she nodded. “A flat… Oh, it’s wonderful!”

“And you go back there, soon?”

“Why, yes… Of course! Tomorrow!” She seemed quite surprised that I should ask the question—surprised that the whole world didn’t know… How well I knew that feeling! I was certain, now: Natalia was in love.

We talked for several minutes more—Natalia always smiling, always dreamily listening, but not to me. Then, all at once, she was in a hurry. She was late, she said. She’d got to pack. She must go at once. She squeezed my hand, and I watched her run gaily across the lawn to a waiting car. She had forgotten, even, to ask me to write, or to give me her address. As I waved goodbye to her, my poisoned toe gave a sharp twinge of envy.

Later, the younger members of the party bathed, splashing about in the dirty lake-water at the foot of the stone stairs. Bernhard bathed, too. He had a white, strangely innocent body, like a baby’s, with a baby’s round, slightly protruding stomach. He laughed and splashed and shouted louder than anybody. When he caught my eye, he made more noise than ever—was it, I imagined, with a certain defiance? Was he thinking, as I was, of what he had told me, standing in this very place, six months ago? “Come in, too, Christopher!” he shouted. “It’ll do your foot good!” When, at last, they had all come out of the water and were drying themselves, he and a few other young men chased each other, laughing, among the garden trees.

Yet, in spite of all Bernhard’s frisking, the party didn’t really “go.” It split up into groups and cliques; and, even when the fun was at its height, at least a quarter of the guests were talking politics in low, serious voices. Indeed, some of them had so obviously come to Bernhard’s house merely to meet each other and to discuss their own private affairs that they scarcely troubled to pretend to take part in the sociabilities. They might as well have been sitting in their own offices, or at home.

When it got dark, a girl began to sing. She sang in Russian, and, as always, it sounded sad. The footmen brought out glasses and a huge bowl of claret-cup. It was getting chilly on the lawn. There were millions of stars. Out on the great calm brimming lake, the last ghost-like sails were tacking hither and thither with the faint uncertain night-breeze. The gramophone played. I lay back on the cushions, listening to a Jewish surgeon who argued that France cannot understand Germany because the French have experienced nothing comparable to the neurotic post-War life of the German people. A girl laughed suddenly, shrilly, from the middle of a group of young men. Over there, in the city, the votes were being counted. I thought, of Natalia: She has escaped—none too soon, perhaps. However often the decision may be delayed, all these people are ultimately doomed. This evening is the dress-rehearsal of a disaster. It is like the last night of an epoch.

At half-past ten, the party began to break up. We all stood about in the hall or around the front door while someone telephoned through to Berlin to get the news. A few moments’ hushed waiting, and the dark listening face at the telephone relaxed into a smile. The Government was safe, he told us. Several of the guests cheered, semi-ironical but relieved. I turned to find Bernhard at my elbow: “Once again, Capitalism is saved.” He was subtly smiling.

He had arranged that I should be taken home in the dicky of a Berlin-bound car. As we came down the Tauentzienstrasse, they were selling papers with the news of the shooting on the Biilowplatz. I thought of our party lying out there on the lawn by the lake, drinking our claret-cup while the gramophone played; and of that police-officer, revolver in hand, stumbling mortally wounded up the cinema steps to fall dead at the feet of a cardboard figure advertising a comic film.

Another pause—eight months, this time. And here I was, ringing the bell of Bernhard’s flat. Yes, he was in.

“This is a great honour, Christopher. And, unfortunately, a very rare one.”

“Yes, I’m sorry. I’ve so often meant to come and see you… I don’t know why I haven’t….”

“You’ve been in Berlin all this time? You know, I rang up twice at Frl. Schroeder’s, and a strange voice answered and said that you’d gone away, to England.”

“I told Frl. Schroeder that. I didn’t want her to know that I was still here.”

“Oh, indeed? You had a quarrel?”

“On the contrary. I told her that I was going to England, because, otherwise, she’d have insisted on supporting me. I got a bit hard up… Everything’s perfectly all right again, now,” I added hastily, seeing a look of concern on Bernhard’s face.

“Quite certain? I am very glad… But what have you been doing with yourself, all this time?”

“Living with a family of five in a two-room attic in Hallesches Tor.”

Bernhard smiled: “By Jove, Christopher—what a romantic life you lead!”

“I’m glad you call that kind of thing romantic. I don’t!”

We both laughed.

“At any rate,” Bernhard said, “it seems to have agreed with you. You’re looking the picture of health.”

I couldn’t return the compliment. I thought I had never seen Bernhard looking so ill. His face was pale and drawn; the weariness did not lift from it even when he smiled. There were deep sallow half-moons under his eyes. His hair seemed thinner. He might have added ten years to his age.

“And how have you been getting on?” I asked.

“My existence, in comparison with yours, is sadly humdrum, I fear… Nevertheless, there are certain tragicomic diversions.”

“What sort of diversions?”

“This, for example–—” Bernhard went over to his writing-desk, picked up a sheet of paper and handed it to me: “It arrived by post this morning.”

I read the typed words: Bernhard Landauer, beware. We are going to settle the score with you and your uncle and all other filthy Jews. We give you twenty-four hours to leave Germany. If not, you are dead men.

Bernhard laughed: “Bloodthirsty, isn’t it?”

“It’s incredible… Who do you suppose sent it?”

“An employee who has been dismissed, perhaps. Or a practical joker. Or a madman. Or a hot-headed Nazi schoolboy.”

“What shall you do?”

“Nothing.”

“Surely you’ll tell the police?”

“My dear Christopher, the police would very soon get tired of hearing such nonsense. We receive three or four such letters every week.”

“All the same, this one may quite well be in earnest… The Nazis may write like schoolboys, but they’re capable of anything. That’s just why they’re so dangerous. People laugh at them, right up to the last moment….”

Bernhard smiled his tired smile: “I appreciate very much this anxiety of yours on my behalf. Nevertheless, I am quite unworthy of it… My existence is not of such vital importance to myself or to others that the forces of the Law should be called upon to protect me… As for my uncle he is at present in Warsaw….”

I saw that he wished to change the subject: “Have you any news of Natalia and Frau Landauer?”

“Oh yes, indeed! Natalia is married. Didn’t you know? To a young French doctor… I hear that they are very happy.”

“I’m so glad!”

“Yes… It’s pleasant to think of one’s friends being happy, isn’t it?” Bernhard crossed to the waste-paper basket and dropped the letter into it: “Especially in another country….” He smiled, gently and sadly.

“And what do you think will happen in Germany, now?” I asked. “Is there going to be a Nazi putsch or a communist revolution?”

Bernhard laughed: “You have lost none of your enthusiasm, I see! I only wish that this question seemed as momentous to me as it does to you….”

“It’ll seem momentous enough, one of these fine mornings”—the retort rose to my lips: I am glad now that I didn’t utter it. Instead, I asked: “Why do you wish that?”