Wolf Among Wolves (19 page)

Sleepily, sensually, through half-closed eyes, she searched the bailiff’s face. “Well, why are you looking like that?” she demanded. “At mixed bathing I wear nothing else. Don’t be stupid.” She studied his face.

“Mamma ought to see us both here.…”

He struggled with himself. The sun burned madly, vibrated, dazzled. Now she stretched herself again and he made a step toward her. “Vi, oh, Vi.”

“Why, oh why?” she laughed. “No, no, Herr Meier, you’d better stand nearer the ladder.” And now she was the daughter of the house again. “You’re funny. You seem to imagine things. I have only to call out and Mamma’s at her window.” Then, when she saw that he obeyed her: “You needn’t send carriages to the station today. Probably tomorrow morning to meet the first train. But Papa will telephone again.”

A moment ago she had understood quite well, the cheeky bitch. Had only wanted to exhibit herself and torment him. But wait, I’ll get you yet.

“Why don’t you gather in the harvest?” asked the young girl who was to be eloped with and secretly married.

“Because the laborers have to sheave it first.” Rather surly.

“And if there’s a storm and it all gets wet, Papa will be in a terrible temper.”

“And if I bring in the crop and there’s no storm, he’ll also be in a temper.”

“But there will be a storm.”

“One can’t be certain.”

“But I know.”

“So Fräulein wishes me to get the crop in?”

“Not at all.” She laughed boisterously, her full bosom positively jumping in her bathing dress. “So that you could blame me afterward if it doesn’t suit Papa! No, blunder as much as you like, but don’t put the blame on others.”

She looked at him with an air of benevolent superiority. This flapper of fifteen years was amazingly impudent. Why? Because she happened to be born a von Prackwitz, heiress of Neulohe—for no other reason.

“Then I can go, Fräulein?” asked Black Meier.

“Yes, be sure and don’t neglect your work.” She had rolled on one side and looked at him mockingly.

He moved off.

“Hi, Herr Meier,” she called.

“Yes, Fräulein?” There was nothing he could do about it.

“Are you carting manure?”

“No, Fräulein.”

“Then why do you smell so queer?”

It took him quite a while to grasp that she meant his perfume. Then, without a word, but red with fury, he turned round and descended the ladder as quickly as he could.

What a bitch! One oughtn’t to have anything to do with such a bitch. The Reds were quite right—against the wall with the whole insolent rag, tag, and bobtail! Aristocracy be damned! Insolence, impudence, nothing but arrogance.…

He was down the ladder, walking away with short, furious legs. Then a voice sounded again, a voice from heaven, the voice of the young lady: “Herr Meier!”

He started, full of fury—and again he couldn’t do anything about it. “Yes, Fräulein?”

Her voice was very ungracious. “I’ve told you three times you’re not to shout like that. You’ll wake Mamma.” Then, impatient: “Come up again.”

Meier climbed the ladder once more, full of bile. Yes, hopping up and down like a tree frog, with you calling the weather. But wait till I get you. I’ll jilt you and leave you with a baby, without a penny. Nevertheless he stood smartly upright. “Please, Fräulein?”

She was no longer thinking of showing her body off, but was reflecting, although she had practically decided. Only she was uncertain how to tell him. In the end she said as innocently as possible, “You’re to deliver a letter for me, Herr Meier:”

“Yes, Fräulein.”

Suddenly it was in her hand. Whence she had taken this longish envelope of blue paper was a mystery; as far as one could judge at Meier’s distance it was unaddressed.

“You’re going this evening to the village?”

He was utterly taken by surprise and quite uncertain of himself. Was this merely conversational, or did she know something? That, however, was impossible.

“I don’t know. Perhaps I will. If you wish it, Fräulein, certainly.”

“A gentleman will ask you for a letter. Hand it over.”

“What gentleman? I don’t understand.”

Suddenly she became exasperated. “You needn’t understand anything. You’re simply to do as I tell you. A gentleman will ask you for the letter and you’ll give it to him. That’s quite simple, isn’t it?”

“Yes, Fräulein,” he said. But it sounded rather feeble—he was so much wrapped up in his own thoughts.

“Then that’s everything, Herr Meier.” And she handed him the letter. He could hardly believe it, but he held the letter in his hand, a weapon against her. You wait, my little lamb. Any more of your sauce. He pulled himself together. “It shall be done, Fräulein.”

And again he descended the ladder.

“I should say so,” her voice challenged him from above. “Or else I shall tell Grandpa and Papa who it was started to burn down the wood.”

The voice stopped. Meier paused midway, so as not to miss a word. There! And that was that! “Burn down.” A shot in the heart. Bravo! Splendid for fifteen years old. She had a future before her.

“And the Herr Lieutenant doesn’t like jokes, either,” added the voice—and now he heard her fat, lazy flesh rolling over on the other side, the deck chair groaning. Fräulein Violet von Prackwitz yawned comfortably up there while Herr Bailiff Meier got on with his work.

Right you are, he told himself, that’s O.K. by me.

But he did not get on with his work immediately. Deep in thought he trotted along to his room, the letter in the outside pocket of his linen jacket and his hand on its smooth surface all the time. He must feel that he had really got the letter, that it was there, this letter which he would straightway read. She had said little enough, the artful bitch, but she had said enough for him. Quite enough. So she knew the Lieutenant, that mysterious, somewhat raged but overbearing gentleman who convened nocturnal meetings at the village magistrate’s, and before whom Forester Kniebusch stood to attention. And she had met this Lieutenant between twelve and three today, or else she could not have known about the fire.

If, therefore, this Lieutenant nodded in such a friendly way to Herr Bailiff Meier, it was not because he thought Black Meier so much more efficient than that old slacker Kniebusch, but because he knew that Meier had already been chosen for go-between. The Lieutenant, it seemed, knew his way about in Neulohe. A secret agreement of long standing.

You have gone far, you two, thought Meier. I can picture it all. And when I’ve read the letter—you’re a fool, nevertheless, you proud silly goose. Do you think I shall hand it over without having a look at what you’ve written? I want to know, and then I’ll consider what to do. Perhaps I’ll tell the Rittmeister—what’s
a bit of a forest fire against that? You won’t have me by the short hairs on that matter. But I don’t think I’ll say anything to the Rittmeister after all. You’re so silly that it never occurs to you that a fellow like the Lieutenant will jilt you. You need only look at him, of course, to see that. Then I’ll be there—no, my child, I don’t mind. I don’t take offense. It’s not much fun and a lot of trouble to break in young horses—it’s better they should know their paces first. You shall pay me then for every impertinent, arrogant word, for every “Yes, Fräulein”—and for this letter above all. How does one open letters? With steam, I’ve heard, but how can I quickly manage that in my room? Well, I’ll try to open the flap with a knife, and if the envelope gets spoiled I’ll take one of my own. Yellow or blue—he’ll hardly notice which.…

He reached the office. Without even taking off his cap he sank into the chair at the desk. Putting the letter on the worn ink-stained baize, he stared at it. He was damp with sweat, his body was limp, his mouth parched. He was utterly exhausted. He could hear the hens clucking in the farmyard, the dairymen clattering with pails and milk cans in the cow barn. He should think so—high time for milking!

The letter lay before him, the flies buzzed monotonously; it was unbearably close. He wanted to look at the barometer on the wall (perhaps a storm would come after all) but he didn’t look up. It was all the same to him!

The letter, the clean blue rectangle on the stained baize. Her letter.

Lazily, carelessly, he seized the paper knife, drew the letter nearer, and put both down. He wiped his sweating hands on his jacket.

Then he took the paper knife and slowly, one might say luxuriously, inserted the blunt point into the small gap under the flap. His gaze was intent; a light, satisfied smile hovered about his thick lips. Yes, he could open the letter. By careful pushing, lifting, pressing, he loosened the carelessly stuck flap and saw a corner of the writing. There were tiny fibers which did not want to yield—but at the same time he saw Vi as he had just seen her on the deck chair … She stretched her body, her plump white flesh quivered … she threw up her arms and tiny curls glistened in the armpits.…

Black Meier groaned.

He was staring at the letter which he had opened meantime—but he was absent, half a mile away on a flat sun-baked roof—flesh to flesh, skin to skin, hair to hair. “Dearest!”

A wave subsided, shining with the colors of beautiful, living human flesh lit up by the evening sun.… Black Meier groaned again. “Well, I never,” he wondered. “That bitch must have made me quite crazy. But it’s the heat as well.”

The envelope had opened without tearing. It would not be necessary to gum the flap—Fräulein Violet had fastened it so carelessly. Well, let us read it.… But first he wiped his hands on his jacket—they were wet with perspiration again.

He drew the paper out of the envelope and unfolded it. The letter was not very long but, for all that, it was full of meat.

Dearest! My dearest darling! My only one! You have only just gone and again I am quite crazy about you. I tremble all over and vibrate, so that I have to shut my eyes over and over again. Then I see you. I love you
sooo
much. Papa definitely does not come home today, so I will wait for you between eleven and twelve at the pond by the swan-house. See to it that the silly meeting is finished by then. I am longing so terribly for you.

100,000,000 kisses and even more. I press you to my heart which beats quite madly.

Yours
, VIOLET.

“God,” said little Meier and stared at the sheet. “She really loves him. Loves him so with three o’s and yours underlined. A kid still wearing her nappies! He’ll play her up. Well, all the better.”

He copied the letter on the typewriter, meticulously counting the noughts in the sum of kisses. (“Sheer inflation—she’s up to date”) and refastened the envelope.

The copy he put into Volume 1900 of the
District Gazette
, the letter itself in his coat pocket. And now he was completely satisfied. And quite ready to carry on with the farming. He looked at the barometer. It had again dropped a little.

Would there be a storm? Should he get in the crop? Nonsense, she was talking rubbish.

He went out to his mowing machine.

VII

“I thought you would look me up today, my poor Mathilde.”

Frau von Anklam, over seventy, the white-haired and shapeless widow of a major general, had emerged with difficulty from the easy-chair in which she was passing her afternoon nap. She held her visitor’s hand in hers and looked compassionately and anxiously out of her large brown eyes, still beautiful. At the moment she spoke in a dramatic manner, as if at a death; but she could also speak in another key—that of the regimental commander’s wife who keeps the ladies of the regiment in order and propriety.

“We’re getting old, but our burdens don’t lighten. Our children tread on our laps when they are young. Later, on our hearts.”

(Frau von Anklam had never had children. Nor could she bear with them.)

“Come, sit on the sofa, Mathilde. I’ll ring—Fräulein will bring us coffee and cake. Today I sent out for a Hilbrich cake; he still has the best. Only it isn’t worthwhile for myself alone—forty thousand marks in fares, you understand, forty thousand! Robbers, that’s what they are. Yes, Fräulein, pastry and coffee, very strong—my cousin has had bad news. Yes, dear Mathilde, I’ve been sitting in my chair and thinking about things. Fräulein thinks I’ve been sleeping, but of course I haven’t. I hear every sound in the kitchen, and when a plate’s broken in the washing-up I’m there at once. Does your Minna break much, too? It’s still the old Nymphenburg china which Grandfather Kuno received on his diamond wedding from the dear late Emperor—there’s enough left for an old woman, but one has to think of one’s heirs. I really promised it to Irene, but lately I’ve not been sure. Irene has such strange views about the bringing-up of children. Perfectly—how shall I describe it?—revolutionary.”

“And the news is absolutely true, Betty?” asked Frau Pagel, erect and slender. However sympathetic a close relative might be, it could not be told from her face and behavior that she had wept.

“The news? What news? Oh,
the
news. But dear Mathilde, when
I
especially wrote to you about it.” This rather as commander’s wife, but yet sympathetic. “Certainly it’s true. Eitel-Fritz happened to be there and read it with his own eyes. The banns, they call it, don’t they? Not that I know what business he had there, of course. I was so excited that I didn’t ask him. But you know Eitel-Fritz, he’s so original, he goes to the oddest places.
Attention! La Servante!”

Fräulein appeared with the tray and the coffee set of Nymphenburg china from grandfather’s diamond wedding. The ladies became silent. Without a sound, Fräulein, elderly and mouse-gray, laid the table.

She was always “Fräulein”—all these changing faces were nameless at Frau Major General von Anklam’s. Fräulein set the table, and Fräulein darned. Fräulein read aloud and Fräulein described something; above all, Fräulein listened. Fräulein listened from morn till even. Stories of regimental ladies long dead and forgotten (“I told her: ‘Dear child, I decide what tact is’ ”); stories of children long ago in possession of their own children (“And then the sweet little angel said to me”); stories of relatives long alienated; tales of promotion and dismissals; of orders and decorations; of wounds; of marriage tangles and divorces—the rag, tag, and bobtail of a life spent entirely in gossip and tittle-tattle about intimate, the most intimate, things.