“Wasn’t it you who bought that ticket to Canada from me?” Little P. asked again. His glazed eyes shone with lack of comprehension.
Jastrau kept on shaking his head.
But at last a light seemed to dawn on Little P. He smiled happily at Jastrau and tapped him on the arm with his index finger.
“Well,” he exclaimed, still staring, “then it was somebody else I sold it to!” He looked as if he had just solved a picture puzzle. “And here I’ve been going around telling everybody that you went on a trip. Hee hee.”
Morocco, Jastrau thought with a start. Unconsciously, he raised his hand to his lip as if to stroke an invisible mustache. Morocco was what Editor Iversen had said. So the rumor had spread that quickly.
At that moment the little waiter came walking briskly over to the table accompanied by a big, muscular waiter from the restaurant. They made their way straight to Kjær’s chair.
“Now, you must get up to your room, Herr Kjær.”
Kjær lifted his drooping head. It resembled an old man’s. For a fraction of a second he seemed to realize what was going on, and he nodded.
The two waiters lifted him from his chair as if he were a cripple. He staggered along between them, peering around dully with near-sighted eyes. But suddenly his eyes flashed, his cheeks puffed up as if he might be choking, and his bulky frame swayed toward the left so that it looked as if the little waiter might be crushed beneath his weight.
Jastrau gave a start, and with eyes half closed waited to see Kjær drop dead then and there.
“My cane,” Kjær gasped, half swooning.
Still supporting him, the little waiter reached out for a heavy, gnarled walking stick that hung on a peg.
Kjær grasped it with an unconscious desperation, and his thick hand bulged as it closed around it. He set it down hard on the floor, drew up his colossal bulk, and began to hobble off on three legs. The waiters followed along cautiously on each side, ready to grab him if it should prove necessary, and the invalid procession disappeared.
“Herr Kjær is punctual,” Little P. observed cynically in a croaking voice. “It’s now four-thirty.”
The thick-set Lundbom sighed from behind the bar. “Yes, yes, it’s a pity, because otherwise he’s a fine person.”
His sad fish-eyes looked as if they were ready to pop out of his head.
“Is he drunk already?” asked Jastrau. His heart had been palpitating so that he had grown pale.
“Oh, he’ll be down here again later in the evening,” replied Little P. He was quite unconcerned, and waved his pale hand disparagingly. “That’s the way he is every day, as regular as clockwork. But then, Lundbom’s cocktails are pretty stiff. Gin and absinthe. Incidentally, won’t you have one with me?”
Jastrau looked at him awkwardly. “No, I’m not drinking any more,” he said, and then added, “Not whiskey, that is.”
He heard himself say it with astonishment. What was this he was doing? With a feeling of dismay he sensed a deep abyss opening before him. His oath, as he had formulated it, included only whiskey, so there was a flaw in it, a crack that appeared without a sound and that grew bigger and bigger. Yes, but of course the idea had been to forswear liquor of every sort. The idea—yes, certainly that had been the idea. But the idea must have lost its force. An oath consisted of words, magic phraseology, and whatever lay outside the scope of the words was not comprehended in the curse. Witchcraft was very pedantic.
“It’s not whiskey, maestro. It’s only absinthe and gin,” said Little P. laughing.
“No, no. When one gets a look at Kjær—”
“Oh, Kjær. But he’s a drinking man, and that’s something very different,” Little P. said, beginning to feel offended. “So what do you say we have a cocktail? We can play matches to see who pays.”
He took some matches out of the matchbox holder and handed Jastrau three of them.
“But I have to get something solid into my stomach,” Jastrau objected.
“And so do I, for that matter, maestro. Let’s play to see who pays for a couple of beef tartar smørrebrød.”
Jastrau protested weakly. In the meantime, the little waiter had heard their conversation, and he appeared with the menu.
“May I help Herr Jastrau off with his topcoat?” asked the waiter as he bent over Jastrau’s shoulder.
“No,” came the unequivocal answer.
“What?” said Little P., taken aback. Then he suddenly began laughing uproariously. “Hee hee—still in evening clothes, hee hee. So that’s the way it is. Then, by God, you do need a Lundbom cocktail.”
Jastrau cringed before Little P.’s knowing look. Here he sat, for all the world as if he had a sign across his chest. Thanks for the beer. With a distorted expression on his face, he shifted his position so that he was not facing Little P. directly and burrowed himself deeper into his topcoat.
A moment later two cocktail glasses and their green contents stood before them.
“Skål.”
How easy it was to be a coward and circumvent his oath. Was it conscious on his part? Had he been so calculating? But how soothingly it obliterated his troubles and his feeling of debasement. He forgot the crumpled shirt front, his befouled evening clothes, his fool’s costume. The tension was gone, everything seemed brighter. Nothing to worry about for the next hour. And then, then he would telephone home.
“But I’m not drinking any whiskey,” he confided to Little P.
Little P. smiled and held out a clenched fist. And surreptitiously Jastrau made haste to hide a single match in his hand. Then he was ready.
“How many?” asked Little P.
“Three.”
“One.”
They opened their hands simultaneously. Little P. had two matches in his hand, Jastrau one.
“They’re yours.” Little P. laughed maliciously and shoved the checks over to him.
Then they began to play for the smørrebrød.
It was much easier to gamble than to argue. “Six.” “Four.” “Hee hee, there I fooled you again, maestro. Now, hadn’t we better taste the cocktails? Look, don’t they resemble the water in the Atlantic? I’d say they do, although—oof—that reminds me of Canada.” And Little P. shuddered sensitively in his black jacket.
A pleasant ambience now. The phonograph droned on. The ventilator hummed. An atmosphere of coziness pervaded the place. A group of regular customers came in and sat on the tall stools along the bar. Broad backs, heavy around the hips. Greetings for Lundbom in Swedish. They were the insurance crowd, who always came at five o’clock. Fine people. “Hello, Charley.” “Good old boy.” “Have you been playing around with the girls?” “No, I’m the virtuous sort—my only vice is drinking.” The last remark was followed by exuberant laughter.
Yes, everything was dandy. The records changed quickly on the phonograph.
Then the smørrebrød arrived, and it was necessary to give serious thought to the subject of snaps.
Jastrau leaned back, half deafened by the noise but enjoying the lightheaded condition he was in. There was a shimmering luster to the brass bar fittings, the glass, and the highly polished woodwork. It was like looking at a calm sea. But storm clouds could suddenly loom up above the mirror-like surface and just as suddenly disappear. One moment he wanted to rest, let everything slide, and then suddenly he felt like swinging into action, being hostile, then friendly, and then he would suddenly forget again. It made no difference how he felt or what he did—neither thoughts or actions had any consequences. He was lifted up into another world in which the American melodies from the phonograph were the stuff of which life was made. “I’ll sing a little tune.”
“This is better than Canada,” said Little P., feeling very much at home.
“Do you think so?” asked Jastrau, squinting at Little P., for now he was suddenly aware that he really despised this anemic count, this little pip-squeak. The only reason he sat there with him was that he did not dare telephone home. That was all. He had to
sit with somebody. But he could pay him in the same coin, he could.
“Oof, yes!” Little P. shuddered again. “Because they say that over there in the Dominion of Canada a person has to work. My old man heard about that, and so I was to be deported. Oof!”
“Yes, I should say so. Oof!”
“But thank God it didn’t turn out that way. Do you remember how homesick I felt that night? It struck me as soon as the taxi turned off there by the Freedom Statue. But that’s so depressing, all that. Shouldn’t we have another snaps?”
“Well, all right.”
“Shall we play for them?”
“No. In that case I’d rather buy them. But incidentally, I ought to phone my wife.”
“Hee hee,” sniggered Little P. “Is it duty that’s calling, as the popular saying goes?”
“Yes, it is, you little pip-squeak!” Jastrau burst out spitefully. He leaned over the table so threateningly that Little P. became frightened. “It’s duty, all right, damn it. And you needn’t laugh. Wait until you get married. Then you won’t be able to sit here any longer and play matches for drinks. Then you’ll be dragged home by the ears, my boy.”
“Is that what’s happening to you?” Little P. asked pointedly. He had to defend himself and strike back. But there was a worried look in his glassy eyes.
“To me? No.” And Jastrau stopped, as if he was not sure whether he was unhappily married or not. “No, no. But nevertheless it’s not right. No it isn’t.”
And then he was conscious of a feeling of friendliness surging up within him. He grew confidential, as if he wanted to caress Little P. and gain his sympathy, and the eyes grew calm in the small bird-like head as Little P. sat back and patiently began to listen.
“She’s all right,” Jastrau went on under a burning compulsion to confide in someone. “But, I tell you, the only ones who get any benefit out of marriage are the children; all the grown-ups get is trouble. And my wife might be all right if only she weren’t married to me. That’s the trouble, that’s the way things are. She wants to keep house, wear fine clothes, be admired, you understand, put on parties—and I, what do I want? At any rate, not that—no, not that. And so—yes, it’s the truth—I often catch myself wishing that the whole thing would fall apart, the sooner the better, before I lose my mind.”
He spoke frantically. Saliva trickled out of his mouth. Without thinking, he grabbed the bottle of akvavit and poured himself one glass, two glasses, three glasses, and drank them.
“Hadn’t we better have a whiskey to wash your marriage down, maestro?” said Little P. with a triumphant smile. But at the same time, he looked up from the table and began to stare.
Jastrau had an uncomfortable feeling that someone was standing behind him, and he turned around suddenly.
It was Bernhard Sanders, dark, tall, erect, and wearing the same stylish raglan coat that Jastrau had seen him in the year before. It was now somewhat shabby and wet.
“I thought I recognized your voice,” remarked Sanders. A sarcastic smile played over his dark, gypsy-like features. His face was a replica of Lenin’s well-known countenance.
Jastrau looked at him reluctantly.
“I don’t usually come to fashionable places such as this,” Sanders apologized with a note of scorn in his voice. “But today Steffensen got some money from home that left him feeling short-changed, so in righteous indignation he invited me in for a whiskey and soda.”
He smiled with a superior air.
“Steffensen—is he here?” Jastrau peered suspiciously at Sanders. Why was he smirking so? Had he overheard the conversation? Or—yes, that was obviously it—he had learned about his night in the lockup. Steffensen, of course, had told him about it, for Steffensen must know about it. He had been with him that night.
“I believe you remember him, Little P.,” said Jastrau. “I—”
“Hm-m,” said Little P., showing a lack of interest and wrinkling his nose as if he detected a bad odor.
“I hope you’ll excuse me a moment. I want to talk to him.”
Little P. waved his hand in a tolerant gesture.
Jastrau got up, staggering a little, and went with Sanders to the other end of the room. He had to find out what Steffensen could remember—yes, he had to.
Steffensen was sitting over in a corner. He was leaning back so that his long bony head rested against the wall and his cap was tilted up. His jacket was darkened by the rain.
“Whew,” Jastrau said as he sat down. “Yes, I’m on the town.”
Steffensen sat up straight, looking serious. A trace of a smile lit up his hard, glassy eyes as he took account of the way Jastrau was dressed. “Ha, wearing a dressing gown,” he laughed.
Jastrau stiffened, then drew the topcoat lapels closer around his neck so that they would not see his white tie.
“Won’t you have a highball with us?” Steffensen went on, laying a newspaper aside. Jastrau got a glimpse of Professor Geberhardt’s picture on the page that was turned up, and suddenly he felt strangely disturbed.
“Well, I suppose Sanders is drinking highballs too,” he observed awkwardly, so that it sounded like a sarcasm.
“I’m not a slave to alcohol,” Sanders replied with dignity. “And I have no reason to avoid it as far as I personally am concerned.”
“So that’s the way it is,” Jastrau said in the same sarcastic tone.
“No, that’s not the way it is,” Sanders went on, his voice becoming more intense. “Another consideration is that from a social point of view prohibition is the only proper thing, and when the revolution and the new order of society comes along I’m going to propose it and work to put it into effect. Naturally.”
“Naturally,” Steffensen said, making a wry face.
Sanders was irritated. “Nevertheless, I never go stumbling around the bars here in town and shooting off my mouth about my private affairs!” he exclaimed in his own melodious but scornful way. His dark eyes were flashing fire.
Jastrau drew himself up.
“What business is it of yours?”
“None whatsoever,” replied Sanders in a tone of moral indignation. “But I can’t help being in on the secret when you sit here in a barroom and sound off about it. And if you want my honest opinion, I find it a dirty business.”
“What’s that you’re saying?” Jastrau felt dizzy. He was not clear-headed enough to understand what was going on.
“Yes, it’s an indecent way to treat your wife.” Steffensen was enjoying himself immensely.
“Did you invite me over here to bawl me out?” Jastrau was gasping for breath.
“We didn’t invite you over here for anything,” Sanders replied.
“Then I’ll be damned if I’m going to sit here any longer.”
“The honor is all ours,” said Sanders, getting up and bowing ironically.
Pale with indignation, distracted, yet with a flash of painful awareness, Jastrau made sure he upset his chair with a crash as he got up and made his way back to Little P.
The little waiter came running in alarm, but immediately regained his composure.
Little P. was all smiles and welcomed him with open arms.
“We have to have some whiskey and soda,” Jastrau groaned. His eyes were two thin slits.
“Shall we play for them?”
And immediately they began the match game.
But Jastrau lost every time. He was too preoccupied. From time to time he would fume with rage. That Sanders should have dared to treat him so! The muddle-headed moralist! What concern was it of his? “None.” “Two.” “Hee hee—none. Who can keep his wits about him in this place?” And now he had to make that phone call. God knows what Johanne was thinking. Had she been sitting at home and waiting all day long? He ought to call her. Yes, he ought to call. But no doubt his voice was too thick. Johanne would be able to tell at once that he was drunk. It was undoubtedly unwise to call just then. And reason prevailed.
“One.”
“None.”
“Well, you finally won, maestro. That’s good.”
And reason prevailed. Hour after hour passed, and later they moved over into the restaurant and had dinner, which they also played for. But the lighting there was too glaring. There were too many white tablecloths to dazzle the eyes, too many bright sober faces with clear expressions, an altogether too intense light that was like sunshine on ice and snow. Although they sat discreetly in a corner, everyone stared at Jastrau, who would not remove his topcoat.
There was no relief until they were again ensconced in the bar with its subdued tones of brown and red, its low tables, and the monotonous phonograph providing a background for the chattering customers.
Here they would have their last whiskey of the evening together.
In the meantime, the dinner had buoyed Jastrau up. He felt courageous and ready for what he had to do. Now it would happen, and when he had drained his glass he got up, had the phonograph shut off, and went to the telephone. He suddenly realized his heart was beating violently. So he was not altogether ready. But he had already made the call. Now it would happen. Otherwise nothing would ever come of it.
It was she who answered.
“Is it you Ole?” She sounded both weary and disdainful.
“Yes,” he replied hoarsely.
“How could you do such a thing?” He could hear that she raised her head in angry pride.
“What, what do you mean—?”
“I know all about it.”
“Yes, but what?” Jastrau began to work himself into a temper. But he was sitting there in the barroom where everybody could hear him.
“No, never mind,” came the mournful yet haughty reply. “We can talk about that some other time. Now I’m going home to my parents—tonight.”
“Do you want—?” He cut himself short.
A loud clamor sounded from another part of the barroom.
“I can hear that you’re in a bar,” she said. “And yes, I want a divorce,” came the answer over the telephone.
And Oluf—the boy? Jastrau wanted to ask. But the words stuck in his throat. And he stared out into the smoke-filled room and the crowd of noisy customers.
Havoc Page 28
