Young Adolf

by Beryl Bainbridge

  Alois leapt to his feet and throwing the towel into the hearth went to the basement door.

  ‘You’re off, then,’ said Mary O’Leary with satisfaction.

  ‘Tell Frau Hitler,’ shouted Alois, ‘that I was driven into the night by my demented brother.’ He ran up the area steps to the street.

  Adolf was left alone with the women. He felt it impolite of Meyer to have deserted him, particularly after accepting the gift of the library book. To his knowledge, Alois had given Meyer nothing. He said haltingly to Bridget, when she returned: ‘Did they not think to include me?’

  ‘They’ve gone drinking,’ said Mary O’Leary. ‘You haven’t the capacity. One more drink and you’d fall in the Mersey.’ She was speaking no more than the truth. He was still walking unsteadily.

  Adolf wasn’t unduly upset at remaining behind. Despite its squalor, the warm kitchen, still fragrant with the smells of meat and pudding, reminded him of home. He preferred the company of women, even such doubtful specimens as the hirsute Mary O’Leary. While outwardly she treated him with contempt, he sensed her protectiveness towards him: she didn’t want him drowned. And now, Mrs Prentice was laying a pack of cards on the table. He would enjoy a game of cards. At the Männerheim, one long cold winter, they had played almost every evening. The stakes weren’t high – a cup of coffee, yesterday’s newspaper, the loan of an extra blanket for two nights. Sometimes he’d won.

  He sat expectantly at the table.

  ‘Couldn’t you keep an ear on the baby?’ asked Bridget, wanting him out of the way.

  He pretended he hadn’t understood. He wasn’t a nursemaid. To his disgust, he found that Mrs Prentice merely intended to indulge in fortune telling. Yet he stayed where he was, held by the absurd anxiety on Bridget’s face as Mrs Prentice shuffled the pack. She dealt a king of clubs and a hand of hearts and diamonds. Bridget smiled with relief.

  Adolf could make little sense of anything that was said. The women nudged each other and could hardly speak for laughing. Once Mrs Prentice dropped a card to the floor and Mary O’Leary picked it up. When she saw that it was the ace of spades she screamed piercingly and let it fall on the table as though it had burnt a hole in her palm. She herself refused to have her fortune told, shaking her head violently and flapping her arms in the air at the suggestion. Hadn’t she suffered enough?

  Bridget asked Mrs Prentice to deal the cards to Adolf. She looked at him enquiringly. He shrugged – there was no harm in it. The red cards predominantly spread before him denoted wealth and happiness. He would also know splendid health.

  ‘Good, good,’ he cried, inordinately pleased at this ridiculous prophecy. Often he had stomach cramps. Ever since the death of his mother he had been frightened of dying in pain. Not only would he have money but his path through life would be strewn with broken hearts. He himself wouldn’t give a dickey bird. Tall nordic maidens, built like trees, would fall at his feet. They would die for him, blow their brains out for him.

  When Bridget had passed on this extraordinary information, he glanced suspiciously at Mrs Prentice. She was obviously being sarcastic. He too had drawn the king of clubs, but it no longer signified a dark stranger. In his case the card stood for Alexander the Great. He was startled that she knew of such a name. Of all the kings in the pack, according to Mrs Prentice, he alone held the globe in his fingers.

  Adolf said he must go upstairs. He had a fearful headache. To suggest he was tired wouldn’t go down well with the women. He’d done very little. While they’d washed up he’d been crouched over the drain in the backyard.

  He thanked Bridget and Mary O’Leary for the dinner and bowed stiffly in the direction of Mrs Prentice. He was outraged at the way she had continually referred to him as a portion of meat – either a sausage or a chicken leg or a lamb chop. It was a mercy, he thought, she lacked her teeth.

  When he had climbed to the second floor and lain down on the couch, the room heaved up and down. He stretched his hand to the floor to steady himself. He thought of Meyer’s son in an open boat, attempting to cover his men’s boots with a woman’s petticoat, hearing the Ragtime end and the strains of an Episcopal hymn floating out across the water as the Titanic dipped her bow.

  He couldn’t think how Alois could consume such quantities of alcohol and live.

  22

  Three days into the New Year, Adolf started work at the Adelphi Hotel. There being no vacancy in the sculleries or laundry rooms, he was given a pale grey uniform with a high collar edged in green braid and told to make himself useful in the main lounge and foyer. As the third under-manager was busy and the second under-manager spoke no German, Adolf’s duties and obligations were explained to him by a Swiss pastry chef of advanced years. He could carry luggage, deliver telegrams, take orders for morning coffee and afternoon tea – but not for whisky sodas – and be sent into the town on discreet errands. He was warned that if he was caught using the front entrance of the hotel or seen spitting in the corridor he would immediately be dismissed and have his wages forfeited for the week concerned. If he was found stealing food from the kitchens he would be handed over to the police. At all times he must be clean and tidy and keep his fingernails ready for inspection. Had he understood? If it hadn’t been for Alois and his predictable comments, Adolf was inclined to quit there and then. Haughtily he nodded his assent.

  The instant he stepped through the pass-door into the body of the hotel, he was in his element. His feelings were those of the natural swimmer who, until that moment, hadn’t known the exact location of the river. Sinking into the carpet of dusky pink that rolled a hundred feet across the marble floor, he floated between islands of small tables and elegant sofas to the foyer beyond. Apart from his beloved Opera House in Vienna, he had never seen so beautiful an interior. For once Alois had spoken the truth. Built to accommodate passengers in transit for the Atlantic run, the hotel itself with state rooms panelled in mahogany – Gymnasium and Café Parisien, Mary Pickford Saloon and companionways railed in shining brass – resembled a luxurious ocean liner. In the vast lounge hung with mirrors the Venetian chandeliers trembled as below stairs in the boiler room they stoked the furnaces night and day to raise steam in the Turkish bath.

  No sooner had Adolf reached the flight of marble steps that led down into the foyer, than a gentleman making for the glass doors of the smoking room hailed him and pressing a coin into his hand told him to buy a certain newspaper. Inquiring of a page boy where he might find such an item, Adolf was pointed into the street and shown a kiosk below the level of the cab rank. Having purchased the newspaper, Adolf was about to run up the steps past the commissionaire when he remembered he must use the side door. Running, he climbed the hill, entered the tiled corridors and sprinting through what he took to be the pass-door found himself in the kitchens. In this hell-hole of noise and heat and preparation he frantically sought redirection. A youth in a soiled apron apathetically led him down a further maze of corridors. Hurtling at last through swing doors, Adolf emerged into the lounge, sped panting across the carpet and entered the smoking room. He was given a sixpenny tip for his pains and, on muttering his thanks to the generous gentleman who stood before him, was addressed in his mother tongue, heavily accented:

  ‘My name is Monsieur Dupont. Play fair by me and I will not disappoint you. Each morning I require the same newspaper. I desire it to be delivered at precisely nine o’clock, when I shall be in the Mauve Breakfast Room. At four o’clock you will fetch the afternoon edition. At that hour I shall be either in my suite on the first floor, or in the lounge. I prefer my newspaper to be folded into three sections, like so.’

  Nodding, though he had not cared for the word ‘fetch’, Adolf promised he would do his best.

  ‘I like your style,’ said M. Dupont who, in a grey morning suit and black silk tie, was every inch the gentleman. ‘I believe myself to be a good judge of character. You’re a man to rely on.’

  Pale with gratitude, his face tinted blue and gold from the refle
ction of the stained-glass windows, Adolf left the smoking room and hung about the foyer. He was annoyed with himself for having been so eager to oblige, running like a rabbit up hill and down dale; and yet in his hand he held the rewards of such servility. His mind boggled at the thought of the money he might earn if he fetched regularly for M. Dupont. At the end of the week he would hand over every penny of his tips and wages to Alois; he couldn’t wait to see the astonishment on his brother’s supercilious face. With this first sixpence, however, he resolved to buy Pat a small clockwork train.

  As it happened, when Adolf arrived at the kiosk at five to four he realised he must use a portion of the sixpence if he was to purchase the newspaper at all. Upon returning to the hotel and arriving in the lounge gasping for breath, he found M. Dupont seated at a round table enjoying a pot of tea and a dish of muffins.

  M. Dupont took the folded newspaper, thanked him, and reminded him of the need for punctuality.

  ‘Nine o’clock, sharp,’ he repeated. ‘Not a second before or later.’

  Annoyed that M. Dupont, despite his earlier claims, had proved to be a disappointment, and ashamed to loiter lest it should seem he was begging, Adolf walked away.

  In the evening, when Alois asked him if he had received any gratuities, he replied huffily that as he supposed he was to be paid wages for the work he was doing he didn’t expect to be given tips. Indeed he would refuse them, if offered.

  The following morning at nine he again paid for M. Dupont’s newspaper. In return M. Dupont thanked him.

  By mid-afternoon Adolf was thoroughly annoyed with himself. He wondered if he should seek the advice of the head porter.

  He had just made up his mind to confront M. Dupont and ask him outright for the penny-halfpenny needed to purchase the afternoon edition, when M. Dupont appeared on the steps of the foyer and beckoned him. Drawing him to one side, he slipped a shilling into his hand and a large key.

  ‘Go to my suite,’ he said. ‘In the entrance hall you will see a brown paper parcel on a chair. Take the parcel to No. 89, Pitt Street and ask for Mr Brackenberry. Deliver it personally into Mr Brackenberry’s hands. Then return the key to me. I shall be in the Turkish bath.’

  ‘And the newspaper?’ said Adolf. ‘Shall I also bring the newspaper?’

  ‘No,’ M. Dupont said. ‘I won’t need the newspaper today.’

  Pitt Street, Adolf found, was in the Chinese quarter of the city, below the unfinished cathedral. No. 89 was a Chinese provision store situated next door to a laundry. Thinking there was perhaps some mistake, he walked up and down outside for several minutes, watched by four Lascar seamen who sat barefooted on the steps of the house opposite. Clutching his parcel he entered the shop and retreated instantly, overcome by the smell of dried fish. An elderly Chinaman stared down at him inscrutably from a first-floor window.

  ‘Herr Brackenberry,’ called Adolf nasally, holding his hand over his nostrils.

  The Chinaman withdrew and closed the window.

  Nonplussed, Adolf was about to return to the hotel when a stout man with a cut over one eye came out of the store.

  ‘Brackenberry,’ he announced abruptly.

  Adolf held out the parcel.

  ‘Know anything?’ said the man, not taking it.

  Adolf stared at him.

  ‘Righty-ho,’ cried the stout man and making up his mind he snatched the parcel from Adolf’s hand and doubled back inside the store.

  The Lascar seamen rose from the steps, humming like mosquitoes.

  As Adolf walked away from No. 89 he was aware of the little brown men padding along the pavement in pursuit. Only when he had turned into the genteel respectability of Rodney Street did they cease to follow him. Glancing nervously over his shoulder he watched them standing in a row, no bigger than children, watching his departure.

  M. Dupont was lying half-naked on an Egyptian couch inlaid with brass. Groaning, he asked Adolf what Brackenberry had looked like.

  ‘Battered,’ said Adolf. ‘His brow was slashed by a knife.’

  ‘Mon Dieu!’ cried M. Dupont, starting up from the couch in alarm. Sweat oozed from the folds of his belly.

  Hastily Adolf assured him it was an old wound.

  ‘How tall?’ demanded M. Dupont, impatiently.

  Adolf described a large man of some weight, wearing a checked motoring coat.

  ‘That’s him,’ said M. Dupont, relaxing. ‘Did he say anything?’

  ‘Nothing I understood,’ confessed Adolf, and he laid the key to M. Dupont’s suite on the mosaic floor of the Turkish bath.

  ‘One shouldn’t take too much notice of appearances,’ remarked M. Dupont, closing his eyes. ‘Things are never as they seem.’

  ‘You don’t have to tell me,’ Adolf said. ‘Only recently a dear friend of mine mentioned that his son, to all intents and purposes a man, was to be seen in a lifeboat dressed as a woman. The fact that Herr Brackenberry was living next door to a Chinese laundry doesn’t make me necessarily conclude that he was a laundryman.’

  ‘Who the devil are you?’ asked M. Dupont, opening his eyes in alarm.

  Adolf assured him he was a penniless student, forced by his stingy half-brother to seek employment.

  ‘That’s enough,’ cried M. Dupont testily. ‘I must be allowed to perspire in peace.’

  23

  Before sitting down to supper, Adolf presented Bridget with a threepenny bunch of violets.

  Pleased, she placed them in a jam jar in the centre of the table.

  Adolf hinted that if he were in charge of management at the hotel he would think of a more efficient system of serving light refreshments in the lounge. ‘I have run miles,’ he complained. ‘From table to cash desk and back again. I’m allowed to serve tea and accept payment but I’m not authorised to carry loose change in my pocket. I have to dash the entire length of the room to prise the necessary coppers out of the cashier behind the swing doors.’

  ‘You don’t have to dash,’ cried Alois, who wasn’t due at the hotel until nine o’clock. ‘There’s no need to be dramatic.’

  ‘Indeed I have to,’ snapped Adolf. ‘I have been told that unless I hurry customers may leave the hotel either without paying or without signing the appropriate chit of paper.’

  ‘You know nothing of the problems,’ Alois said. ‘Nothing at all. One day at the Ritz in Paris, every waiter with ten shillings’ worth of change in his purse made as one man for the exit and was never seen again.’

  ‘My point exactly,’ shouted Adolf. ‘Only I am referring to the guests, not the waiters. Under the present system, my work is time-consuming and exhausting. I’m continually on the trot.’

  Bridget, seeing that Alois was growing red in the face with indignation, remarked that it was obvious that Adolf was a success at the hotel. She looked admiringly at the violets.

  ‘Moderately, yes,’ agreed Adolf. ‘I have been in a position to do someone a small favour.’ He explained how M. Dupont had given him his key and how he had gone to the first floor suite and collected a parcel which he had later delivered to luxurious business premises somewhere in the region of the Cotton Exchange.

  ‘Didn’t they tell you the rules?’ demanded Alois. ‘You aren’t allowed inside the rooms. What was the fellow’s name?’

  Adolf refused to give him any more information. Alois should mind his own business. He had been told he might be sent on discreet errands. It would be far from discreet to divulge the name of the guest concerned.

  ‘You’ll be seen,’ threatened Alois. ‘And reported. There are house detectives permanently on duty in the corridors.’

  Adolf said he had seen no one in the corridors and in any case, as long as he refrained from spitting, he had nothing to fear.

  ‘You’re a bloody fool,’ shouted Alois. ‘You are wet behind the ears.’

  24

  For the rest of the week Adolf continued to buy M. Dupont his newspaper, morning and afternoon. Some days he was neither paid nor tipped, on others he re
ceived a shilling. As his rate of tipping had increased, he felt he was breaking even.

  On the Friday he was again approached by M. Dupont and given the key to the upstairs suite. Again he delivered a brown paper parcel, somewhat larger and rattling as he carried it, to the scarred Mr Brackenberry in Pitt Street.

  This time, upon returning to the Turkish bath, he was urged to take a florin from the pocket of M. Dupont’s towelling robe. He was tempted to grovel on the wet tiles out of gratitude.

  His working day, which began at six-thirty in the morning and ended at five-thirty in the evening, was further prolonged on the Saturday when he was ordered by the under-manager to stay until midnight. Two waiters were off sick and a third had been taken into custody the previous day for secreting a chicken in aspic under his bowler hat. Though tired, Adolf was glad to oblige, for it meant he would be in the hotel at the same time as Meyer.

  He hadn’t realised that he would also be working with Alois. It irritated and offended him to watch his brother, a napkin over one arm, deferentially emptying ash trays into a paper bag.

  ‘Go away,’ cried Alois, seeing Adolf in the doorway of the smoking room. ‘You have no right in here.’

  ‘I go where I please,’ retorted Adolf. ‘I’m not bolted to the floor.’

  However, he left almost at once, not liking to observe his brother performing such a degrading task. It gave him no pleasure to think that old man Hitler, who at Alois’s present age had been rising fast in the civil service, would turn in his grave to know that his eldest son was a part-time salesman of razor blades and a cleaner of ashtrays. It’s different for me, thought Adolf: I know where I’m going – though at that moment he was merely carrying a plate of ham sandwiches towards a party of naval gentlemen seated in the far corner of the lounge.

  He was further disillusioned later in the evening when, having been sent into the Lilac Supper Room to deliver a cablegram, he saw Meyer on a raised dais, wearing a paper hat and accompanying on his violin a young woman who, dressed as if for sun-bathing, was singing a song about a policeman.