The Berlin Stories (8 page)

“What was it like in London?” I asked. In spite of what he had said over the telephone, he didn’t seem in a particularly communicative mood.

“In London?” Arthur looked blank. “Ah, yes. London… To be perfectly frank with you, William, I was not in London. I was in Paris. Just at present, it is desirable that a slight uncertainty as to my whereabouts should exist in the minds of certain persons here.” He paused, added impressively: “I suppose I may tell you, as a very dear and intimate friend, that my visit was not unconnected with the Communist Party.”

“Do you mean to say that you’ve become a communist?”

“In all but name, William, yes. In all but name.”

He paused for a moment, enjoying my astonishment. “What is more, I asked you here this evening to witness what I may call my Conf essio Fidei. In an hour’s time, I am due to speak at a meeting held to protest against the exploitation of the Chinese peasantry. I hope you’ll do me the honour of coming.”

“Need you ask?”

The meeting was to be held in Neukölln. Arthur insisted on taking a taxi all the way. He was in an extravagant mood.

“I feel,” he remarked, “that I shall look back on this evening as one of the turning-points of my career.”

He was visibly nervous and kept fingering his bunch of papers. Occasionally he cast an unhappy glance out of the taxi window, as though he would have liked to ask the driver to stop.

“I should think your career has had a good many turning-points,” I said, to distract his thoughts.

Arthur brightened at once at the implied flattery.

“It has, William. It has, indeed. If my life were going to end tonight ( which I sincerely hope it won’t) I could truthfully say: ‘At any rate, I have lived….’ I wish you had known me in the old days, in Paris, just before the War. I had my own car and an apartment on the Bois. It was one of the show places of its kind. The bedroom I designed myself, all in crimson and black. My collection of whips was probably unique.” Arthur sighed. “Mine is a sensitive nature. I react immediately to my surroundings. When the sun shines on me, I expand. To see me at my best, you must see me in my proper setting. A good table. A good cellar. Art. Music. Beautiful things. Charming and witty society. Then I begin to sparkle. I am transformed.”

The taxi stopped. Arthur fussily paid the driver, and we passed through a large beer-garden, now dark and empty, into a deserted restaurant, where an elderly waiter informed us that the meeting was being held upstairs. “Not the first door,” he added. “That’s the Skittles Club.”

“Oh dear,” exclaimed Arthur. “I’m afraid we must be very late.”

He was right. The meeting had already begun. As we climbed the broad rickety staircase, we could hear the voice of a speaker echoing down the long shabby corridor. Two powerfully built youths wearing hammer-and-sickle armlets kept guard at the double doors. Arthur whispered a hurried explanation, and they let us pass. He pressed my hand nervously. “I’ll see you later, then.” I sat down on the nearest available chair.

The hall was large and cold. Decorated in tawdry baroque, it might have been built about thirty years ago and not repainted since. On the ceiling, an immense pink, blue and gold design of cherubim, roses and clouds was peeled and patched with damp. Round the walls were draped scarlet banners with white lettering: “Arbeiterfront gegen Fascismus und Krieg.”

“Wir fordern Arbeit und Brot.”

“Arbeiter aller Länder, vereinigt euch.”

The speaker sat at a long table on the stage facing the audience. Behind them, a tattered backcloth represented a forest glade. There were two Chinese, a girl who was taking shorthand notes, a gaunt man with fuzzy hair who propped his head in his hands, as if listening to music. In front of them, dangerously near the edge of the platform, stood a short, broad-shouldered, red-haired man, waving a piece of paper at us like a flag.

“Those are the figures, comrades. You’ve heard them. They speak for themselves, don’t they? I needn’t say any more. Tomorrow you’ll see them in print in the Welt am Abend. It’s no good looking for them in the capitalist Press, because they won’t be there. The bosses will keep them out of their newspapers, because, if they were published, they might upset the stock exchanges. Wouldn’t that be a pity? Never mind. The workers will read them. The workers will know what to think of them. Let’s send a message to our comrades in China: The workers of the German Communist Party protest against the outrages of the Japanese murderers. The workers demand assistance for the hundreds of thousands of Chinese peasants now rendered homeless. Comrades, the Chinese section of the I. A. H. appeals to us for funds to fight Japanese imperialism and European exploitation. It’s our duty to help them. We’re going to help them.”

The red-haired man smiled as he spoke, a militant, triumphant smile; his white, even teeth gleamed in the lamplight.

His gestures were slight but astonishingly forceful. At moments it seemed as if the giant energy stored up in his short, stocky frame would have flung him bodily from the platform, like an over-powerful motor-bicycle. I had seen his photograph two or three times in the newspaper, but couldn’t remember who he was. From where I sat, it was difficult to hear everything he said. His voice drowned itself, filling the large, damp hall with thundering echoes.

Arthur now appeared upon the stage, shaking hands hastily with the Chinese, apologising, fussing to his chair. A burst of applause which followed the red-haired man’s last sentence visibly startled him. He sat down abruptly.

During the clapping, I moved up several rows in order to hear better, squeezing into a place I had seen was empty in front of me. As I sat down, I felt a tug at my sleeve. It was Anni, the girl with the boots. Beside her, I recognised the boy who had poured the beer down Kuno’s throat at Olga’s on New Year’s Eve. They both seemed pleased to see me. The boy shook hands with a grip which nearly made me yell out loud.

The hall was very full. The audience sat there in their soiled everyday clothes. Most of the men wore breeches with coarse woollen stockings, sweaters and peaked caps. Their eyes followed the speaker with hungry curiosity. I had never been to a communist meeting before, and what struck me most was the fixed attention of the upturned rows of faces; faces of the Berlin working class, pale and prematurely lined, often haggard and ascetic, like the heads of scholars, with thin, fair hair brushed back from their broad foreheads. They had not come here to see each other or to be seen, or even to fulfil a social duty. They were attentive but not passive. They were not spectators. They participated, with a curious, restrained passion, in the speech made by the red-haired man. He spoke for them, he made their thoughts articulate. They were listening to their own collective voice. At intervals they applauded it, with sudden, spontaneous violence. Their passion, their strength of purpose elated me. I stood outside it.

One day, perhaps, I should be with it, but never of it. At present I just sat there, a half-hearted renegade from my own class, my feelings muddled by anarchism talked at Cambridge, by slogans from the confirmation service, by the tunes the band played when my father’s regiment marched to the railway station, seventeen years ago. And the little man finished his speech and went back to bis place at the table amidst thunders of clapping.

“Who is he?” I asked.

“Why, don’t you know?” exclaimed Anni’s friend in surprise. “That’s Ludwig Bayer. One of the best men we’ve got.”

The boy’s name was Otto. Anni introduced us and I got another crushing hand-squeeze. Otto changed places with her so that he could talk to me.

“Were you at the Sport Palace the other night? Man, you ought to have heard him! He spoke for two hours and a half without so much as a drink of water.”

A Chinese delegate now stood up and was introduced. He spoke careful, academic German. In sentences which were like the faint, plaintive twanging of an Asiatic musical instrument, he told us of the famine, of the great floods, of the Japanese air-raids on helpless towns. “German comrades, I bring you a sad message from my unhappy country.”

“My word!” whispered Otto, impressed. “It must be worse there than at my aunt’s in the Simeonstrasse.”

It was already a quarter past nine. The Chinese was followed by the man with fuzzy hair. Arthur was becoming impatient. He kept glancing at his watch and furtively touching his’ wig. Then came the second Chinese. His German was inferior to that of his colleague, but the audience followed the speeches as eagerly as ever. Arthur, I could see, was nearly frantic. At length, he got up and went round to the back of Bayer’s chair. Bending over, he began speaking in an agitated whisper. Bayer smiled and made a friendly, soothing gesture. He seemed amused. Arthur returned dubiously to his place, where he soon began to fidget again.

The Chinese finished at last. Bayer at once stood up, took Arthur encouragingly by the arm, as though he were a mere boy, and led him to the front of the stage.

“This is the Comrade Arthur Norris, who has come to speak to us about the crimes of British Imperialism in the Far East.”

It seemed so absurd to me to see him standing there that I could hardly keep a straight face. Indeed, it was difficult for me to understand why everybody in the hall didn’t burst out laughing. But no, the audience evidently didn’t find Arthur in the least funny. Even Anni, who had more reason than anyone present to regard him from a comic angle, was perfectly grave.

Arthur coughed, shuffled his papers. Then he began to speak in his fluent, elaborate German, a little too fast: “Since that day on which the leaders of the allied governments saw fit, in their infinite wisdom, to draw up that, no doubt, divinely inspired document known as the Treaty of Versailles; since that day, I repeat…”

A slight stir, as if of uneasiness, passed over the rows of listeners. But the pale, serious, upturned faces were not ironic. They accepted without question this urbane bourgeois gentleman, accepted his stylish clothes, his graceful rentier wit. He had come to help them. Bayer had spoken for him. He was their friend.

“British Imperialism has been engaged, during the last two hundred years, in conferring upon its victims the dubious benefits of the Bible, the Bottle and the Bomb. And of these three, I might perhaps venture to add, the Bomb has been infinitely the least noxious.”

There was applause at this; delayed, hesitant clapping, as if Arthur’s hearers approved his matter, but were still doubtful of his manner. Evidently encouraged, he continued: “I am reminded of the story of the Englishman, the German and the Frenchman who had a wager as to which of them could cut down the most trees in one day. The Frenchman was the first to try…”

At the end of this story there was laughter and loud applause. Otto thumped me violently on the back in his delight. “Mensch! Der spricht prima, wahr?” Then he bent forward again to listen, his eyes intent upon the platform, his arm round Anni’s shoulder. Arthur exchanging his graceful bantering tone for an oratorical seriousness, was approaching his climax: “The cries of the starving Chinese peasantry are ringing in our ears as we sit in this hall tonight. They have come to us across the breadth of the world. Soon, we hope, they will sound yet more loudly, drowning the futile chatter of diplomatists and the strains of dance bands in luxurious hotels, where the wives of armament manufacturers finger the pearls which have been bought with the price of the blood of innocent children. Yes, we must see to it that those cries are clearly heard by every thinking man and woman in Europe and in America. For then, and only then, will a term be set to this inhuman exploitation, this traffic in living souls….”

Arthur concluded his speech with an energetic flourish. His face was quite flushed. Salvo upon salvo of clapping rattled over the hall. Many of the audience cheered. While the applause was still at its height, Arthur came down from the platform and joined me at the door?. Heads were turned to watch us go out. Otto and Anni had left the meeting with us. Otto wrung Arthur’s hand and dealt him terrific blows on the shoulder with his heavy palm: “Arthur, you old horse! That was fine!”

“Thank you, my dear boy. Thank you.” Arthur winced. He was feeling very pleased with himself. “How did they take it, William? Well, I think? I hope I made my points quite clearly? Please say I did.”

“Honestly, Arthur, I was astounded.”

“How charming of you: praise from such a severe critic as yourself is indeed music to my ears.”

“I’d no idea you were such an old hand at it.”

“In my time,” admitted Arthur modestly, “I’ve had occasion to do a good deal of public speaking, though hardly quite of this kind.”

We had cold supper at the flat. Schmidt and Hermann were both out: Otto and Anni made tea and laid the table. They seemed quite at home in the kitchen and knew where everything was kept.

“Otto is Anni’s chosen protector,” Arthur explained, while they were out of the room. “In another walk of life, one would call him her impresario. I believe he takes a certain percentage of her earnings. I prefer not to enquire too closely. He’s a nice boy, but excessively jealous. Luckily, not of Anni’s customers. I should be very sorry indeed to get into his bad books. I understand that he’s the middle-weight champion of his boxing club.”

At length the meal was ready. He fussed round, giving directions.

“Will the Comradess Anni bring us some glasses? How nice of her. I should like to celebrate this evening. Perhaps, if Comrade Otto would be so kind, we might even have a little brandy. I don’t know whether Comrade Bradshaw drinks brandy. You’d better ask him.”

“At such an historic moment, Comrade Norris, I drink anything.”

Otto came back to report that there was no more brandy.

“Never mind,” said Arthur, “brandy is not a proletarian drink. We’ll drink beer.” He filled our glasses. “To the world revolution.”

“To the world revolution.”

Our glasses touched. Anni sipped daintily, holding the glass-stem between finger and thumb, her little finger mincingly crooked. Otto drained his at a gulp, banging down the tumbler heartily on to the table. Arthur’s beer went the wrong way and choked him. He coughed, spluttered, dived for his napkin.