Wolf Among Wolves (129 page)

Frau Eva herself opened the door. She had changed greatly in the last weeks. Her daily trips with their harrowing senseless hopes, their apathetic returns, the agonizing uncertainty day in day out, to which the worst certainty would have been preferable—all this had laid its mark on her features. Her eye, formerly so amiable and feminine, had now a dry burning glance. But it was not only this. Now that she no longer took care of herself or ate regularly, her skin had become flabby.… Formerly she had been able to laugh pleasantly, a woman in harmony with herself and the world; her voice had sweetness and vibration. Now it sounded as if her throat were parched. Her angry eyes examined him. “I am very sorry, Herr Pagel, but I can’t possibly put up with it. I have heard today that you are having affairs with women and taking advantage of your position to force girls …”

Oh, the poor transformed woman! “I’m very sorry.” Oh, no. She was furious. This woman who only a few weeks ago had been ready to close a smiling eye to everything must now revenge her daughter on men. Everything was dirty wherever she looked; but she wouldn’t put up with it in her neighborhood!

Pagel smiled; wrinkles appeared in the corners of his eyes. He couldn’t understand how a woman prostrate with anxiety for her family could still lend an ear to gossip.… Smilingly he shook his head. “No, madam,” he said, “I’m quite sure that I’m having no affairs with women.”

“But I was told so!” she cried. “You have …”

“Why should we listen to lies?” he asked, still amiably. “Seeing that I have no affairs with women whatever? I’d really rather we didn’t talk about such things, madam.”

Frau Eva made an impatient gesture. Some hatred or fury was driving her to tell that young fellow to his face what she had heard about him. And she wished to hear explanations, excuses—most of all a confession.

Pagel, however, swung round; he had understood why this conversation was taking place in the hall. Yes, Sophie Kowalewski stood where the kitchen stairs went down into the basement. She made to hide herself, but it was too late. Doubtless it was she who had phoned. “Come out, Sophie,” he called. “You’re the only one from whom I’d like to hear the story. Please relate in front of madam what you did so that you wouldn’t have to dig potatoes.”

Frau Eva flushed and made a gesture to stop him. But Pagel had walked toward the girl, not at all fiercely, but pleasantly. “Now, Sophie,” he said. “Come, my girl, talk, talk! Or better still, let madam see how you tried to show me your knees.”

And then it was shown that Sophie Kowalewski was not complete, either in goodness or in evil. She had slipped up and fallen into bad ways—beautiful, wrong, but not even really that bad. She hadn’t the courage even for her malice; she was cowardly. She screamed, ran down the kitchen stairs, and a door slammed.

Pagel turned back. He now showed nothing more of a bragging unconcern, but spoke in explanation, almost in excuse. “As a matter of fact, I had told her to appear early tomorrow for the potato harvest. Her laziness is a bad example to the village.”

Frau von Prackwitz looked at him. The flush of anger and shame had left her face, but not completely. Something remained, a hint of a healthier color. No, life—despite everything—was not just old, ugly and stale, it could still also be young, fresh and clean. Almost apologetically she said: “I’ve taken on Sophie here in the house. She offered, and I was in such a quandary. But please do come in, Herr Pagel.” She led the way, a little disconcerted. Shouldn’t she be ashamed? Her lack of belief, her doubt—they were so ugly compared to his belief and rectitude. “I didn’t know the circumstances,” she explained.

“Sophie will certainly be better suited to housework than to potato digging. The main thing is that she shouldn’t idle around any longer.”

“But to make up for it I have dismissed Black Minna,” reported Frau Eva guiltily. “The woman’s so ghastly.”

Pagel’s mouth had shut tightly; the lazy one got the good situation and the diligent, who worked herself to death, had to return to the icy potatoes. But there was no sense in arguing about it with Frau Eva. The good-looking Sophie pleased her better. “I’ll employ Minna, with your permission, in the Manor,” he proposed. “It’s very neglected, and some time or other the old people will be coming back.”

“Yes, do that, Herr Pagel! I’m so grateful to you. That will certainly be the best solution.” She looked at him almost guiltily. “You’re not angry with me about just now?”

“No. No. But perhaps you will be, when I tell you that I was here in your room a few hours ago,” he said a little embarrassed. “I was looking for a particular letter. I didn’t want to read it or anything, I only wanted to see if it was there. Then by mistake I read the note “Write to Father” on your notepad. I felt a despicable spy; but I wasn’t doing it for myself …”

“Why then? You only needed to ask me.”

“It is,” he said, annoyed and rubbing his nose, “a rather difficult case. I had intended to tell you that the forester had become bedridden and that we therefore had to write to the Geheimrat, which we will. However, it would be a fraud. The forester really is ill, but we needn’t worry about the forest on that account.”

“And what has actually happened?” she asked.

“Well, that’s the point. I’ve given my word not to tell anybody, including yourself. I had to,” he said more emphatically, “otherwise I would have learnt nothing.”

“But what happened then?” she asked uneasily. Was she always to expect new worries? She got up and walked up and down. “Can’t you tell me anything at all, Herr Pagel?”

“I should like to ask you something, madam. Has your father written to you since his departure?”

“Yes.” So it’s something to do with Father, she thought, but her tone was lighter. She didn’t take it seriously.

“Have you replied?”

“No,” she said curtly. He noticed that even the memory of the letter annoyed her. She looked at him expectantly, but he didn’t ask anything else. He seemed to have said all that he wanted to say. Finally, she decided: “Herr Pagel, I will tell you. Papa demands that I divorce the Rittmeister. He has always wished it. But can I? Can I desert him like that? Does one desert a friend in distress? Had he been in health or if I was anyway sure that he could live without me, then yes. But like this—no! Now definitely not! For better, for worse, as they say in the English marriages. I’m like that. Especially for the worse, explicitly for the worse!” Her face twitched. “Oh, Herr Pagel, I know you tried this evening to bring him back to the world. Of course, you would do that. How can something like that occur to an attendant?! I was very angry at first; you must see yourself that the poor fellow’s an invalid. Then I thought, Well, it was meant kindly. But all my father wants is for me to leave him, put him in some asylum, appoint a guardian. But we’ve lived together almost twenty years, Herr Pagel!”

“He said, ‘Oh God!’ ”

“Yes, I heard him. It doesn’t mean anything. He no longer knows what he’s saying. But you’re still young. You have hope. Oh, when I now drive round the country and see the people walking along the highroads in the frightful weather! There are so many of them, not only tramps. This terrible time makes everyone restless. This morning, there was such an icy rain, I saw two young people. The man was pushing a very old pram, and the woman was walking beside it talking to the child. I thought, My Violet is perhaps tramping round like that, but she has no child to whom she can speak, no one! Oh, Herr Pagel, what am I to do?”

“Hope,” he said.

“Ought I to? Is it right, for her sake, even to still wish she is alive? Isn’t it merely selfishness for me to hope she is still alive? Oh, I never cease to wish to find her, and at the same time I shudder from it. Herr Pagel, it’s now over four weeks she’s been away!”

“She has no will of her own,” he said softly. “One day she will find it again, and then she’ll come back.”

“Isn’t it so? You say that too? She’s still asleep. She’s still fast asleep! If you’re asleep, fast asleep, you don’t feel anything. Yes, she will come back unchanged. She will wake up in her room and believe that nothing has happened and that she went to sleep the evening before.” Frau Eva was radiant and young again. Hope and her unquenchable will to life have awoken her. She’s young again—life has abundant gifts ready for her. “I will tell you something else, Herr Pagel,” she whispered, with a glance at the door. “I’m not searching for them alone; there’s someone else, too. He stopped my car; a man with a bloated face, wearing a bowler hat—perhaps you know him?”

“Yes, I know him.”

“Don’t tell about him!” she exclaimed. “I don’t want to know. He stops my car, asks no questions, gives no greetings, only says: ‘Drive there, or there!’ Then I see him again, on some road or other in some little town; he, too, is always on his way somewhere. He only shakes his head when I look at him and goes on … Herr Pagel, if I don’t find her, he will! They talk so much about love, but hate is far stronger.”

“Yes. That man hates evil. His hate urges him on without rest.”

“It’s over four weeks now that
he’s
been with Violet; he must provide for her somehow or other.” This mother abominated the wretch who had made her daughter miserable, but because he permitted the girl to live she did not like to think of his falling into the hands of that pitiless fat man.

Pagel stood up. “Madam, at least don’t worry about the Geheimrat. For the moment nothing will happen. Something has intervened. Plans do exist.…”

“Yes, we’re supposed to leave this place.”

“But they can’t be carried out for the moment. If anything happens, I’ll let you know.”

He looked at her thoughtfully for a moment. Then he added, “You needn’t trouble your father with a letter either. As you can’t do what he wants anyway, you could do just as well not to write him.”

“Thank you, Herr Pagel. Thank you for everything.” She gave him her hand, smiling at him. “It has done me good to talk to you.”

And with that sudden, inexplicable woman’s transition, she said, “And now, Herr Pagel, you must do me a favor too.”

“Yes, please,” he said, “gladly.”

“Don’t put up with this wretched woman Backs anymore! It’s said you eat with her and that she’s always sitting with you in the office. Oh, don’t be angry with me, Herr Pagel!” she cried hastily. “I’ve absolutely no mistrust for you. You simply haven’t noticed that the girl is in love with you.…”

“Amanda Backs is not in love with me, Madam,” said Pagel. “I only do her good because she’s been left on the shelf. What’s more, she does me good. Life in Neulohe is sometimes a bit too much for a young man like me. I sometimes like to have someone around with whom I can exchange a word.”

“Oh, God, Herr Pagel!” she cried, genuinely shocked. “I really didn’t mean that. I only meant Backs, because she’s with that Meier—and he really is horrible.…”

Pagel looked at her, but she didn’t notice. She really noticed nothing; she saw absolutely no parallels.

In the hall outside the clock struck midnight.

“Well, Herr Pagel,” she said earnestly, “see that you get to bed now. It’s really too late for you. I can believe that the work here is often a bit too much for a single person. Have a thorough sleep for once. Let the laborers manage for a bit alone; I’m agreeable to anything. Good night, Herr Pagel, and my best thanks again.”

“Good night, madam. I have to thank you.”

“A thorough sleep, then, without fail!” she called out after him.

Pagel smiled to himself in the dark. He didn’t hold it against her; in many respects this clever, alert woman was a child. By work, she always meant something like schoolwork. You can’t do much about it, but a teacher can occasionally grant a whole day free and then the children are happy! She had not yet understood (and probably never would) that life, that every day, has its tasks which no one is spared.

In the office building above, a white shadow appeared in the window. The faithful concierge was checking up on him.

“Everything shipshape, Amanda,” murmured Pagel in her direction. Sophie had put herself out in vain. “Go to sleep, get warm, and wake me tomorrow morning early at half past five—but with a coffee.”

“Good night, Herr Pagel” was heard from above.

IX

The next morning this takes place in front of the Villa:

Frau Eva is already in the car, giving Oskar directions, when the front door opens and out steps the Rittmeister, followed by his attendant. He walks with a queerly stumbling gait to the car. The attendant remains standing at the top of the steps.

Like a guilty child the Rittmeister asks: “May I drive with you, Eva?”

Frau Eva throws an astonished glance at the attendant, who nods emphatically.

“But, Achim!” she cries, “won’t it be too much for you?”

He shakes his head. His eyes are full of tears, his mouth trembles.

“Oh, Achim! Achim—I’m so happy indeed. All will be right again, you see. Sit down next to me. Herr Schümann, please help the Rittmeister into the car. Oskar, fetch another rug, the fur one. Herr Schümann, you must then go at once to Herr Pagel and tell him; he’ll be so pleased.”

The car starts. The Rittmeister makes an apologetic gesture. “Sorry, Eva,” he says quietly. And again with much effort, “I can’t speak properly yet. I don’t quite understand, but.…”

“But what do you need to speak for, Achim?” she says, taking his hand. “Surely, as long as we are together, everything will be easier?”

He nods vigorously.

Chapter Fifteen
The Last Does Not Remain Alone

I

Soon it would be December. With storms of ice, snow and sleet the year was approaching its end. The last of the potato diggers had fled—a great blow—ten thousand hundredweight and more were still in the earth. Angry shame seized Pagel when he saw the leaves rotting in the fields and thought that, while people were dying of hunger in the towns, the potatoes themselves were rotting underground.

I have done a lot of things wrong, he thought. But how the devil could I have known better? Nobody told me, and I had so much to do I couldn’t think a day ahead. I ought to have had the potatoes taken straight to the station; then we should now have the little bit of money which is always lacking. Stored in the clamps they are threatened by frost and thieves, and won’t be saleable till spring. And who will have this place then?