Nothing doing!
As usual I fill the holster on the hatrack with Luckies, Navy Cut and three Havanas … I’m spoiling Kracht! … I’ll give some to the housewives on my way to the messhall, to cheer them up! … and to all the moujiks! … and the pigs! … so there won’t be anything left in the cupboard! … as long as the Reichsgesund’s in Portugal or Keokuk … and doesn’t give a shit about us and our troubles! … here go the Luckies! … we empty our pockets! … and now the soup … I’m expecting them to ask me the news … how our two beat-ups are getting along … and our adventures out on the plain … how we’d made it back … they don’t ask me a thing … they talk about everything else … their work … silly details … they’d lost a receipt … a stamp was missing … the soup would be better with caraway seed … you’d think they’d be interested in the Revizor … he checks all their ledgers … not at all! … I take a chance … “he’s better!” nobody answers, their noses go down … they dont want to hear, and that’s that … the Rittmeister, I can understand … his masquerescapade … his gallop across the plain with bared saber … but the Revizor, a Reich official, conscientious, well behaved! a victim of provincial railroad stations and syphilitic furies! … I was waiting to see what Frau Kretzer … she’d recovered from her fit and come down to the mahlzeit … the champion gossip … would have to say … what kind of angel food she’d come up with … I prod her … I even provoke her …
“They’re better! … both of them!”
She neither … she doesn’t hear me! she asks me a question instead, nothing to do with my two old geezers …
“Are you coining too, Doctor?”
“Where?”
“To the Gypsy festival, of course!”
“Oh, I should think so! … me and my wife and my friend! … and my cat!”
Some little game! … I’ve got to nip it in the bud … and make it clear to every single one of them … and first of all to this furious blabbermouth and have them repeat it! … that well all be at the Tanzhalle! … not one of us left at the manor! … all at the Gypsy festival! … all three of us! … and a little more for good measure!
“Well have our fortunes told! I believe in it! … don’t you, Frau Kretzer?”
“Certainly! certainly, Doctor!”
Oh, it’s so funny! … not all that funny! … because I’m leading up to something … I turn to Kracht …
“Well go with you … won’t we, my dear friend?”
“Certainly! … certainly, Doctor!”
He can’t say no … I’ve upset the whole table with my talk about the plain and the two jugheads, and my health bulletin … all those people with their noses in their plates knew something … anyway they knew enough to keep quiet about anything more or less military … I know one thing myself, that I won’t go anywhere without Kracht … Leonard knows something too … but what? … Harras coming back? … seems doubtful … terrible liars these candlelight bandits … we’ll see … anyway at the Tanzhalle they’re not talking … though they certainly know plenty … something more afoot than this Gypsy entertainment, this “Morale Through Joy” Göbbelsfest … the farm’s not talking either, and Marie-Thérèse hasn’t been down to see us … I asked her … to come and see her brother … no! … which reminds me … the geography book … Lili’s found a beauty, it’s in the drawing room, waiting for me … I go in … an enormous book … all Brandenburg and Schleswig … the coasts, the seaports, the ocean bottom … just what I wanted … but it’s time for another mahlzeit … let’s go! … Kretzer dishes it out “Strength Through Joy” soup … two ladles each … I’m feeling frisky … my gag … I say it again … I make her laugh … deep and throaty … her special old-hyena laugh … but she doesn’t put on her act … insulting the big portrait … we’re out of luck … no big-time hysterics … take it from me: something’s cooking … better not hang around, they’ll hold us responsible … heil! heil! back to the drawing room … to our dear patients! our two part-time stiffs … the Revizor’s a little better … he’s even skying something … I come close … “he’s stopped breathing!” … he means the Rittmeister, his neighbor … I auscultate … he’s breathing, but by fits and starts … heartbeat weak and irregular … I’m afraid to give him a shot … I’ll wait …
“His skull must be split … what do you think? … they hit him on the head … hard! … twice a day! … ten of them … twenty!”
The Revizor’s a good deal better … he takes an interest in his surroundings …
“What’s that woman laughing about?”
He means Frau Kretzer … laughing! … through one … two … three walls …
That’s the head bookkeeper’s wife … she’s laughing about ‘Strength Through Joy’!” …
“Oh, the head bookkeeper …”
He’s thinking it over … I won’t give him any more cardiazol … he tells me his leg pains him … I look … the fibula … slight fracture … nothing I can do … “Herr Revizor, keep still … don’t move … well see in a few days …”
Words of comfort …
A reasonable sort, I think … not an old lunatic like the Uhlan, sallying forth to retake Berlin and make mincemeat of the Cossacks … a graying conscientious civil servant, nothing more … coming out to check the books … and he’d fallen in with those ferocious flossies … they hadn’t cut him into little pieces, but the will wasn’t lacking … and he knew it…
“You’re French?”
“Yes! … yes.”
“A refugee?”
“Yes!”
“They told me about you in Berlin …”
I don’t want to tire him … I want him to sleep …
Tomorrow … well talk tomorrow …”
Outside if s still the same, the Fortresses coming and going … they never stop … and boo-oom! … hyena Kretzer doesn’t stop either … she wants us to hear her, she knows we’re listening … Ach! ach! boom! the bombs make her laugh! … and what a laugh! … I’m telling you: through two three walls … us there with our gasping slaphappies, at least they leave us alone … but not really! not really! all of a sudden they all start roaring … the whole lot of them! a gale! downstairs …
But I’ve got things to do!
“Lili, the geography book! …”
It weighs a ton … she staggers under the weight …
“And the candle … and a pencil …”
“What are you going to do?”
“You’ll see!”
Perfectly simple … I’m going to copy it out like in school … in school it’s even easier, you trace … here I’m going to copy very carefully … of course I could tear out the page … or even two pages … all north and south Brandenburg … the coast … the cities … the railroads … all Mecklenburg and Schleswig … especially Rostock! … Warnemünde, the port … and Denmark opposite … I could cut it out … I doubt if she looks at her geography very often … or maybe she does … you never can tell … better copy it … I’d be more comfortable in the other drawing room … next door … the table’s bigger … we move the stuff … we spread it out … good! … I get down to work …
The mahlzeits are still roaring … we can hear them … about us? … probably! … who cares! … the main thing is the names, to spell them right … Nordenborg isn’t Nordborg … the Danish port … the boat from Rostock … I know this line, I’ve taken it in peacetime … Copenhagen-Berlin … but now? … maybe they don’t even go that way … Lili watches me at work … she doesn’t ask any questions … Le Vig’s sitting on the divan across the room … he doesn’t ask me any questions either, but he comments on every boom! on Berlin … it’s like an echo: “missed it! … missed it!” how does he know if they missed? … sometimes their aim is okay … anyway he looks up every time … he’s sitting there with his head down … he picks it up! … boom! “missed it!” … sleep was out of the question … I’d gone to see my two sluggies from the pampas … and a few final touches to my maps … es
pecially the small islands of the southern Baltic … Le Vig’s little observation … he goes right on … “missed it! … missed it!” … he asks me for the candle … some nerve! … there’s only one …
“Robert! Robert! shut up!”
“What about them? Can’t you hear them?”
He means the dining room … the bursts of laughter …
“Sap! They’re laughing at us!”
“And the old geezers? I suppose they’re crying?”
I’d better stow it … we’d go on all night …
“Hey, Ferdie, look at my forehead!”
That’s Le Vig … it must he five o’clock … I hadn’t slept much … they had maybe … I must have blown out the candle around two … or three … I’d finished copying my maps … what’s the matter with his forehead? … I light the candle … I look at his forehead … nothing! … maybe … a little red on one side … a finger mark …
“Where’d you do that?”
“Not me … those guys!”
“What guys? I’d have seen them! nobody’s been here!”
“I saw them! … you never see anything!”
His bug! apparitions!
“You must be Bernadette, son!”
“No, I’m not Bernadette, but I saw them!”
I never know if he’s making it up or if he really believes it … hallucinations or trying to get a rise out of me … either way it wouldn’t do me any good to contradict him … he’d smash everything… amazement is the best angle … ah? … I go … ah? … he tells me that while we were sleeping Léonard and the other guy came into the room, with Nicholas, the Russian giant … rummaged around … the sideboards and the cupboard … and snagged a lot of bottles … and split … but he barred the way … oh yes! … and there was a terrible struggle, and that’s where he got the red marks on his forehead …
“Yes, yes, Le Vig! I see them!”
I take a good look at him, he’s sick … well, overwrought …
“Ferdie, I’m in the middle of a dream … don’t bother me! … you’ll be in it too! … and Lili! and Bébert! … all four of us in a dream! … isn’t it lovely?”
“Marvelous! … I’m going to take a look at die cupboard …”
Yes, by golly! … somebody’s been rummaging … but who? … Léonard and Joseph? … I don’t think so … different visitors … but who? … Léonard and Joseph wouldn’t dare … I dont think … they’d rather send us … Le Vig there, from telling me about this battle in the dark, he’s all a-tremble … in a “theatrical state” … squinting like in his last movie … even worse, it seems to me … he usually gets these attacks early in the morning …
“My dream, Ferdinand! … my dream! I’ll take you both! … you’ll see it with different eyes! … the whole thing! you’ll see! …”
I’m so glad, Le Vig, it’ll be marvelous!” We needed a marvel! let him rave! … his nature … no use arguing … something had happened … but what? … I’ll never know … he’d calm down outside, in the fresh air … it must be pretty chilly out there …
“You know what, Ferdinand… I counted the booms! … you know how many?”
“No … tell me!”
“Two thousand two hundred and eighty-seven! … and don’t try to tell me different!”
“No! I wouldn’t dream of it!”
“No … I was wrong! three thousand four hundred and ninety-two!”
“Quite a figure!”
We’re outside … it’s cold all right … I could see he wasn’t any better … squinting even worse …
“Let’s go over to the farm.”
“What for?”
“See if there’s anything new … it’s possible, you know …”
“Okay, give me your arm, don’t let me go!”
I wasn’t very steady myself …
“Because, don’t you see, I’m happy! … because I know how many bombs!”
He’d have kept me there for hours telling me this figure and that figure … better get moving … but we hadn’t looked at our patients on the way out … we go back … they’re all right … I think … they seem to sleep by fits and starts … they breathe the same way … their fractures must wake them up … and then they drop back …
“Lili, you return the atlases … ask the old bag if she’s coming down … and if she’s going to the party …”
“Will you be long?”
“No, just there and back …”
“What for?”
“To see if they’ve gone.”
“Yes … good idea …”
I keep hold of Le Vig … he’s acting funny … funnier than usual … he’s mumbling … counting the echoes … he always had a lot of tics … now he’s jerking like a jumping jack … “in a dream” he said … one of his states … I’m in it too … and Lili! … we’d see … but dream or no dream, Le Vig’s got his suspicions … anyway, we go see Léonard … this visit of his with Joseph and the moujik … no, I don’t believe it … somebody’d been into the cupboard … definitely … but who? … the marks on Le Vig’s forehead? … maybe he bumped into something … doesn’t amount to much … wanted to stop them, he says … I can’t do anything for my two retired colonels … they’re groaning a bit … we’ll give them a shot when I get back, put them to sleep … we finally shove off … the park … Le Vig keeps mumbling … “I’m so happy!” … and he asks me: “aren’t you happy?” I set his mind at rest… “oh yes! yes!” … finally the kitchen … I knock, I knock some more … nobody! … or at Inge’s stairway either … we skirt the manure pit … at the barn I call out … no answer … only the hundred-odd pigs … grunting … maybe our scalawags are inside, maybe they’re just not answering … we tum around … the park again … back in the drawing room … Lili’s there already … with a message from Marie-Thérèse … we shouldn’t leave the house, shell bring us some cakes when she comes down to see her brother … Le Vig’s still squinting …
“Uncross those eyes! you can if you want!”
“No! … I can’t!”
“Still happy?”
“Yes! … you too?”
“Yes … you ham!”
I don’t say any more, I’d wake bun up … he claims to be dreaming … if that’s his story it’s all right with me … I decide we won’t go to the mahlzeit … well wait till this evening … I don’t want to see la Kretzer and listen to that laugh … not that I’m so terribly sensitive, but hysteria can bring on terrible scenes … which is just what this Frau wants! … we’ll finish our messkits here in the drawing room … the show is at eight, I’ll have to latch onto Kracht at half past seven, and then we won’t let him out of our sight … I don’t know why … I’m, nowhere near as gifted as certain people who can tell from the waves what the future is cooking … for better or worse … more reliable than coffee grounds or cards … births, boy, girl, first prize in the lottery, assassination, cancer, grade crossing … maybe I’m a wee bit intuitive, but no more … I’m too skeptical … but in the present case I’m not skeptical at all … the two cowflops with the candle had told us … even if they are two-timing skunks … we’ve been warned! … “not to budge” … well and good! … meanwhile another loaf of bread … Le Vig slices … still dreaming … we look out at the plain …
“Ferdie, you can’t imagine how happy I am … how about you, Lili?… do you believe me, pal?”
“In seventh heaven, my dear Le Vig! seventh heaven!”
Not quite so noisy over there in Berlin … but still plenty of light in the clouds … fire-pink and sulphur-yellow …
“How happy I am!”
He says it again …
“And I’m in seventh heaven, I repeat … we’re thrice blessed!”
Plenty of gulls … big flocks … and more flocks … they glide … and dive … the crows take a powder …
“Le Vig, you see this plain? … it’s infinite!”
“Infinite?”
“No … not infinite … from the
Somme to the Urals!”
I’m trying to get him to think …
“Oh yes! … you’re perfectly right! … but Ferdie, are you happy?”
It’s on his mind … and nothing else … time passes … we’ve scraped our messkits bare … over at the farm, I’m thinking, the cripple and his wife are laying out the future … hell! … we could always go over … and break the door down! … anyway, they weren’t the only ones that were questioning the decks … the housewives … behind their shutters! … and the Gypsy virtuosos! … Inge and her cripple were so deep in the cards that nobody could see them! … the grocery woman was an old hand … two three packs behind her “funny honey” … I can see that they wouldn’t be easy in their minds, but what if they’d been in our place! take Le Vig … underneath his battiness he knows … he’s just afraid to look things in the face …
“Lili … our old bag up there … is she laying out cards?
“She sure is! … doesn’t do anything else!”
I’d known it all along …
“That’s why she hasn’t come down … no time!”
“We mustn’t be late!”
There’d be a bit of a snack at the morale session … they’d said so at the mahlzeit… I’m not so sure … anyway we’d catch Kracht and hold on to him … sure I’m a sap, but the determined kind … not always, alas! … the times when hesitation got into me, I’m still repenting …
I hear steps in the vestibule … heading for the mahlzeit …
“Come on! let’s go!”
We’re on the dot … we’re first in fact … the table’s set … quantities of butterbrot … they’re spoiling us! … four piles of margarine-liverwurst sandwiches … not bad! … ah, here they come … our heiress, la Kretzer and her husband, the whole staff of the Dienstelle … not a one missing! … seems kind of strange … the whole lot! … and Kracht! good! guten tag! heil! maybe a trace of a moustache … starting it up again? … his Adolf mousetail? … no, I see he hasn’t shaved … caution? … bad humor? … no comment, if s none of my business … my business is the two blimps … suppose they kick in while I’m gone, there’s sure to be a stink, what I should have done, and so on … I go right to the point … in a loud voice … I want them all to hear me …
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