Holst had to go a long way off. There were no doctors left in the neighborhood, except one old bearded fellow who was always drunk and couldn’t be trusted. His only patients were referred to him by the Welfare Bureau.
Holst had to cross the bridges. In the end he had found someone, since a car stopped in front of the house at six. Was it an ambulance? What if they were going to take her somewhere? Frank ran to the window to try to see. He couldn’t make out anything apart from the two headlights.
Only two men came up the stairs. If they were going to take Sissy away, there would be orderlies with a stretcher.
He turned out the light so Holst wouldn’t know he was up. Perhaps out of decency, because it might look like a challenge. It wasn’t out of fear, at any rate. He wasn’t afraid of Holst. On the contrary, he would do nothing to avoid him.
The doctor was there a long time. They had replenished the stove, stoked up the fire, and must have put more water on to boil. Had Sissy gone to get her bag where he’d left it? Had she understood his gesture? If not, her father would have to make endless applications to get new ration cards, and even then they might not get them.
The doctor left after half an hour. Monsieur Wimmer should have left, too. He stayed. He was still there. It wasn’t until ten minutes to seven that he returned to his apartment.
So much for all those hours. After that, Frank slept. He slept so soundly he never noticed that they had moved his bed, with him in it, into the kitchen, by the stove, and had put a hot-water bottle at his feet.
The kitchen didn’t look directly onto the street. The only daylight came from the transom. Yet as soon as he opened his eyes, he knew that something was different. The stove was purring within reach of his hand. He had to raise himself up to see the alarm clock, which showed eleven. He recognized Bertha’s peasant voice in the next room.
“You’d better stay in bed, Frank!” said his mother, hurrying into the room. “We didn’t want to wake you to put you in a real bed, but I’m sure you’re running a fever.”
He didn’t have a fever, he knew that. It would be too easy to be sick. They could stick as many thermometers as they pleased in his mouth and rear end.
The snow was falling, thick, silent, so thick that you could hardly make out the windows across the street. Even in the kitchen the quality of the air was different.
“Why won’t you ever let people take care of you?”
He didn’t even answer.
“Come here, Frank.”
Since he was up and had put on his robe, she led him into the salon, where the rug was rolled up—they had been cleaning—and closed all the doors.
“I’m not going to warn you. You know I never have. I’m only asking you to listen to me. Believe me, Frank, it would be better if you didn’t show yourself today, in fact for several days. I sent Bertha to the market this morning. They almost refused to serve her.”
He wasn’t listening, and she understood the look he threw in the direction of the Holsts’ apartment. She hastened to reassure him. “It probably isn’t serious.”
Did she think he was in love, or feeling remorse?
“The doctor came this morning. He had an oxygen tank sent. She caught cold. Her father …”
Well? What was she waiting for? “Her father … ?”
“He won’t leave her. The tenants have got together to give them a little coal.”
They, of course, had two tons of it in the cellar, but nobody was going to touch their coal.
“When she’s better again, people will forget all about it. Even if it’s pneumonia, as they’re saying, it never lasts more than three weeks. Listen, Frank. Listen to me seriously for once. I’m your mother.”
“Oh, God!”
“This evening, or better still, tonight, since you have papers you’ve preferred not to tell me about but that everybody has seen …”
The green card! That worried her, too. She procured barely pubescent girls for the officers of the Occupation, but she was shocked because her son had this famous green card! But, since he had it, he might as well take advantage of it.
“It would be best if you went away for a few days and didn’t show yourself in the neighborhood. You’ve done that before. You have friends. You have money. If you need more, I can give you some.”
Why did she say that, since Minna must have told her about the roll of bills in his pocket? She had probably even looked at it when he was sleeping. That must also have terrified her. There was too much. You had to do something pretty dangerous to get that much.
“If you’d rather, I can find a quiet room for you. The friend I went out with yesterday keeps one for me to use, and she’d like nothing better than to have you there. I’ll come see you and take care of you. You need rest.”
“No!”
He wouldn’t leave the house. He knew exactly what was on his mother’s mind. He had gone too far, and she was panicking. As long as she quietly went about trafficking in girls, even for the officers, people despised her but didn’t dare say anything. They were satisfied with keeping their distance, turning their heads the other way when she came upstairs, leaving a space when she happened to stand next to them in line.
But this was more serious. There was a sentimental aspect that had excited the tenants: a little girl was sick, she might die, and worse still, she was poor.
Lotte was scared, pure and simple.
And Lotte, who was always so charming to someone like Otto, to officers who perhaps had had dozens of people shot or tortured, resented the fact he had gotten that green card, which she had never dreamed of for herself.
If only he hadn’t shown it to anyone!
The whole building was against them. Their victim was at their door, right at their door. Emotions had already been stirred by the search at the violinist’s the day before. People were already saying they had pistol-whipped the mother to keep her quiet.
Even if no one connected them with that business, tongues were wagging. The building wouldn’t be likely to forget anytime soon that Frank, a mere boy, had calmly passed through the police lines—one that housewives with children stuck in their unheated apartments weren’t allowed to pass—with a flash of his green card.
Lotte was afraid of Holst, too.
“Frank, I’m begging you to listen to me!”
“No.”
Too bad for her and the girls. He was going to stay. He wouldn’t run away in the night the way they were trying to make him do. He wouldn’t hole up with Kromer or a friend of his mother’s.
“You do as you please.”
“Yes.”
And now more than ever. From now on he’d do as he pleased, not bothering about anybody, and Lotte was going to find it out, and the others, too.
“Well, in any case, go get dressed. Someone may come.” It wasn’t a client who rang the bell a little later, just before noon. It was Chief Inspector Kurt Hamling, always cold and courteous, with that air of having dropped by for a neighborly visit. Frank was taking a shower when he arrived, but, as usual in the morning, all the doors were open and you could hear everything that was said in the apartment.
Among these was his mother’s stock phrase, “Don’t you want to take off your galoshes?”
Today it wasn’t an idle question. It was snowing heavily, and later on there would be a puddle of mud on the carpet in front of the armchair where the policeman sat.
“Thank you, but I just dropped in for a moment.”
“A little drink?”
He never said yes, but tacitly accepted. He remarked, “It’s getting milder. In a day or two the sky will clear up.”
You couldn’t be sure what sky he was talking about, but Frank wasn’t afraid of him; he slipped on his bathrobe and, almost defiantly, made his appearance in the salon.
“Well! I didn’t hope to find your Frank at home.”
“Why?” the latter asked aggressively.
“I was told you went to the country.”
�
�Me?”
“People talk, you know … And we have to listen to them, because that’s our job. Fortunately we only listen with one ear, otherwise we’d end up arresting everyone.”
“Too bad.”
“What?”
“That you only listen with one ear.”
“Why?”
“Because I’d like to be arrested. Especially by you.”
Lotte protested, “Frank, you know very well you can’t be arrested.”
She was really frightened, since she added, with a look of defiance at the chief inspector, “With the papers you have!”
“Exactly,” he insisted.
“What are you saying, then?”
“Just what I said.”
He poured himself a drink, touched glasses with Kurt Hamling. They both seemed to be thinking about the door across the hall.
“To your health, Inspector.”
“To yours, young man.”
Why did he keep coming back to the same issue?
“I really did think you were in the country.”
“I never meant to go.”
“That’s a pity. Your mother is a good woman, at heart.”
“You think so?”
“I know what I’m talking about. Your mother is a good woman, and you’d make a great mistake to doubt it.”
Frank snickered, “I doubt so many things, you see!”
Poor Lotte, who was futilely signaling for him to shut up. It was all beyond her. It was as though they were wrestling over her head. She didn’t get it, but she had enough intuition to realize that this was something like a declaration of war.
“How old are you, my boy?”
“I’m not your boy, but I’ll tell you I’m eighteen, almost nineteen. Allow me a question. You are, if I’m not mistaken, chief inspector?”
“That’s my official title.”
“How long have you been chief inspector?”
“I was appointed six years ago.”
“How long have you been with the police?”
“Twenty-eight years next June.”
“I could be your son, couldn’t I? I owe you respect. Twenty-eight years doing the same job, that’s a long time, Monsieur Hamling.”
Lotte was about to speak, to order her son to be quiet, since he was going too far and there was bound to be trouble. But Frank amiably filled the glasses, handing one to the inspector.
“To your health.”
“To yours.”
“To your twenty-eight years of good and loyal service.” They had gone pretty far. It would be hard to go on any longer like this, but even harder to turn back.
“Prosit!”
“Prosit!”
It was Kurt Hamling who beat a retreat.
“My dear Lotte, it’s time for me to go. Many people must be waiting for me at my office. Take care of this young man.”
He left, his back wide, his shoulders square, his big galoshes leaving a wet footprint on every stair.
He didn’t realize that he had just rendered Frank the greatest service he could: for several minutes, Frank hadn’t thought about the cat.
3
THE SCENE with Bertha took place on Thursday. It was almost noon and Frank was still asleep, since he had come home around four in the morning. That was the third time since Sunday. And the fact that he slept so late that it interfered with the housework may have contributed to the dispute. After it was over he never bothered to ask.
He had had a lot to drink. He had taken it into his head to steer two couples whom he had never met before around to all the nightspots, paying their way, each time taking the fat roll of bills out of his pocket. When the patrol arrested them as they were walking along the street singing, he had displayed his green card and the officers had let them go.
There was a new girl in the house who had arrived out of the blue, turning up alone with calm assurance. Her first name was Anny.
“Have you worked before?” Lotte asked her, examining her from head to foot.
“Do you mean have I slept with men? Don’t worry, I’ve had more than my share.”
And when Lotte asked her about her family, she replied, “What would you like me to say? That I’m the daughter of a general or a judge? Anyway, if I do have a family somewhere, they’re not going to give you any trouble, I promise.”
Compared to the others, all the others they had ever had, she seemed like a thoroughbred. She was very small, slender, and yet plump at the same time, with brown hair and golden skin without the slightest blemish. She made you think of a fine piece of goldsmith’s work. She was hardly eighteen but already a thorough bitch.
When she saw the others washing dishes, for instance, she immediately went to the salon and started reading one of the magazines she had brought with her. She did the same thing after dinner that evening. The following morning she said to Lotte, “I don’t suppose you expect me to be a house-maid in the bargain?”
Minna was beginning to work again, though it still caused her pain. But the clients almost always chose the new girl. Which was strange, in a way. Frank had climbed onto the table out of curiosity. She maintained a surprising dignity. It was the men who seemed degraded, to appear in a ridiculous or odious light. Frank could guess what she said, speaking without a smile, patiently, with absolute indifference.
“You want me to turn over? Higher? Lower? Is that right? And now?”
While they worked her, she would stare at the ceiling with her beautiful eyes, like those of an untamed animal. At one point her glance met Frank’s—she could see him in outline through the glass of the transom. For a long time he wondered if she really had seen him, since she hadn’t given a start or a sign of surprise. She just kept on, waiting, thinking of other things, until the man was satisfied.
“Does the boss make you spy on us?” she asked him a little later.
“No.”
“You just like to watch?”
“Not that either.”
She shrugged her shoulders. Because of her, Minna and Bertha had to sleep in the same bed, and Frank had once more taken possession of his cot in the kitchen. Tuesday evening he had gone into Anny’s room and she had said to him, “If you just want to get off, make it quick, since I suppose I have to do that for the boss’s son. But don’t think you can stay in my bed all night. I hate sleeping with people.”
Minna tried to make friends with her, but Anny spent all her time reading. As for Bertha, she was increasingly relegated to the role of maid, and she never said a word to the new girl, serving her sullenly, since Anny expected to be waited on. She even got them to help her wash and dry her hair.
Frank was asleep when the argument started. Like every morning, they had pushed his bed—with him in it—into the back room. Much later he heard an outburst of loud voices and recognized Bertha’s accent. He had never seen her angry before. And the words she was screaming were not part of her ordinary vocabulary, which was timid and polite.
“I’m fed up with this dump and I’m not going to stay another day. With all this dirty business, soon things are going to go wrong, and I don’t want to be here when they do.”
“Bertha!” Lotte said sharply. “Be quiet!”
“You can yell at me as loud as you want, but I wouldn’t if I were you. There are enough people in this building who have it in for you already who’d settle your hash if they dared.”
“Bertha, I order you …”
“Order me! Order me! Yesterday at the market a kid no bigger than that spit right in my face yet again, and it wasn’t for me, it was for you. I don’t know what’s keeping me from doing the same thing to you now!”
Would she have done it? Probably not. She was a girl who had kept her resentments bottled up for a long time, but now they were flooding out. She hadn’t heard Frank come into the kitchen behind her in his bare feet and pajamas. So she was shocked into silence, while she was glaring at Lotte and threatening to spit in her face, when she got slapped. The slap seemed to
come out of nowhere.
When she saw Frank, she set her jaw.
“You snot-nosed brat, why don’t you just try that again?” Lotte didn’t have time to interfere before two fresh slaps resounded, loud and distinct as at the circus. Suddenly Bertha threw herself at him, purple in the face, grabbing at him any which way, while he tried to hold her off.
“Bertha! Frank!”
Minna had fled into the salon while Anny, smoking a cigarette in a long ivory holder, leaned against the doorjamb, watching.
“A snot-nosed little bastard, that’s what you are, a little louse who thinks he can get away with anything because his mother runs a whorehouse! Dirty, filthy things that would make a whore blush … Let me go! Let go of me or I’ll yell loud enough to rouse the whole building! You won’t get rid of them with your gun or your damn papers once they’re after you!”
“Frank!”
He let her go. His cheek, where she had scratched him, was bleeding a little.
“Just wait till they get you cornered, that won’t be long. There won’t always be foreign soldiers in the country to protect you, you and everyone like you …”
“Come here, Bertha. I’ll settle up.”
“I’ll come when I’m good and ready! Let’s see what you do tomorrow morning with no one to make your coffee and empty your piss pots! And to think that I even brought you pork from my parents!”
“Come here, Bertha.”
She turned toward Frank again, her eyes shining, and spat at him by way of good-bye. “Coward! Dirty little coward! “
And yet it had been Bertha who was the most tender when he slept with her, with a tenderness that was almost motherly.
Bertha probably wouldn’t say anything. Yet Lotte was worried. She should have remembered that it wasn’t the first time. Dozens of scenes like this had taken place before, none of them with the least consequence. She listened when Bertha went downstairs with her bundle, trying to determine if she was speaking to other tenants or the concierge. It wasn’t likely, since Bertha was just as badly thought of as they were. Hadn’t the kid spit at her? If anything, it would be easier to take his anger out on her.
She could be seen waiting at the streetcar stop on the corner, perhaps already regretting what she’d done.
Dirty Snow Page 11
