Grand Hotel

by Vicki Baum

  The door was open. I must not shut it. Nothing should be touched before the police arrive. Tomorrow it will be in the papers that I had a woman with me in the hotel. Mulle will find out all about it. The children, too. Yes, the children, too. My God, what will happen to me? Where will it end? Mulle will divorce me. She doesn’t understand things like that, not at all. But she will be entirely in the right if she divorces me, entirely. It should never have happened, never. How can I ever touch my children with these hands?

  He looked at his numbed and ink-stained hands. He had an intense longing to go to the bathroom and wash them, but he didn’t dare let the dead man out of his sight. Far, far away they were playing “Hello, My Baby.”

  I’ll lose my children, and I’ll lose my wife. The old man will throw me out of the firm for certain. He’d never keep me in the firm after a disgrace like this. And all because of that girl. Nothing else. Perhaps she was hand in glove with the man and enticed me into her room so that he could steal my money here meanwhile. That’s it. That’s what I’ll say at the trial. It was self-defense. He was going to shoot—

  Preysing bent forward, and for the thousandth time stared at the hands of the dead Gaigern. They were empty—the right convulsively clenched, the left bent limply at the wrist; in neither was there a weapon. Preysing went down on his hands and knees, and searched every inch of the carpet. Nothing. The revolver the man had threatened him with was nowhere to be found—or it had never existed. Preysing crawled back to his seat. He felt that he was going crazy. The solid foundation of his conventional life had given way beneath his feet ever since the moment when he had flung the ominous telegram on the table at the conference with the Chemnitz people, and ever since then he had been hurtling downwards from one misadventure into another. He felt, as it were, the rush of air in his ears, as he fell from his well-regulated life down into bottomless darkness. He had known men in the same position as he was now, men who’d made a slip, who’d done great things in the past and now were going begging in shabby suits from one office to another for a job. He saw himself turned adrift to walk the same rounds as they, unkempt, alone and discredited. His erratic blood pressure gave him throbbing pains in the back of his head and made his ears ring. Preysing was so crushed that for minutes at a time he longed to die of a propitiatory stroke. But nothing of the sort occurred. Gaigern remained dead, and he remained alive.

  “My God,” he groaned. “My God! Mulle, Babs, Pepsy. Oh, God.”

  He would have liked to bury his face in his hands, but he did not dare. He dreaded the darkness in the hollow of his hands.

  That’s how Kringelein found him when, shortly after two o’clock (the music had just stopped), he entered the room after a cautious knock on the door. Kringelein’s lips that night were dead white, but there was a feverish, gleaming red in his cheeks. He was in a strange state of elation, dignified and aloof, and he was very conscious of his perfect and impeccable appearance in his black jacket as well as his courteous savoir faire.

  “I came on the lady’s behalf,” he said. “I gather that something has happened here. I shall be glad to do anything I can for you, Herr Generaldirektor.”

  It was not until he had finished speaking that he looked down at the dead Gaigern. The sight did not shock him. He was merely surprised. For on the way from Room No. 70, the idea had come to him that all this could not be true, that Gaigern was still alive, that Preysing was no murderer, and that Flämmchen in his room was only dreaming, if indeed her being there at all was not itself a dream. But now he saw Gaigern actually lying there, just as Flämmchen was actually waiting for him in his room. He bent down over the dead man, touched by a rare brotherly warmth. Kneeling there beside him, he was powerfully moved by the same smell of lavender and scented Turkish cigarettes in which he had passed so unforgettable and so illuminating a day. Thank you, he thought, catching his breath in a sob.

  Preysing looked over at him with dazed and troubled eyes. “No one must touch him before the police come,” he said unexpectedly, as Kringelein stretched out his hand to close his friend’s eyes. Kringelein paid no attention to Preysing in his corner, as he performed the small solemn service. Flämmchen will do as much for me, he could not help thinking to himself. You look so happy. Are you all right? It is not that bad, is it? It won’t be very bad. And it won’t be long, not long.

  “Have you notified the police yet, Herr Generaldirektor?” he asked in a formal tone, when he was on his feet again. Preysing shook his head. “Would you like me to do it for you, Herr Generaldirektor? I am at your service,” he went on. Oddly enough, Preysing felt an immense relief now that Kringelein was in the room, politely expressing his readiness to carry out his wishes.

  “Yes. In a moment. Not now. Wait,” he whispered. It was not much different from the confusing orders with which he harassed his subordinates at the factory.

  “It will be imperative to let the old gentleman know of the occurrence. Would you like me to send a telegram to your esteemed family, Herr Generaldirektor?” Kringelein asked.

  “No, no,” Preysing answered in a quick, hoarse whisper, that sounded louder than a shout.

  “Then I should suggest in any case that you get yourself a lawyer. It is late at night certainly, but in such an exceptional case one might be able to phone a lawyer. You will undoubtedly be taken into custody. I am very willing to undertake this or anything else that may be necessary, Herr Generaldirektor, before I leave Berlin,” Kringelein continued. He was profoundly aware of acting a part in important events, and the carefully chosen words pleased him and seemed appropriate and adequate to the occasion. But his special politeness toward the spent and shattered general manager came from remarkable sources. He stood there, small but erect, the victor in an old battle of which Preysing till that day had known nothing. Nothing now was left of his rage and fear, his exasperation and impotence, of all those Fredersdorf feelings. Perhaps, too, he felt a touch of that peculiar and inexplicable admiration that one feels for someone who has done something evil; and in addition there was pity and a sense of superiority, and these made him polite.

  “You cannot leave Berlin,” Preysing whispered from his seat on the laundry basket. “Your presence will be required. I require you. There can be no question of your going away.” It sounded exactly like a harsh rejection of a request for a vacation. Kringelein could have smiled, but that it would have hurt him to do so while Gaigern lay outstretched and dead on the carpet with his head on the hard floor-boards. “You will be required as a witness. You must be here when the police arrive,” the general manager announced.

  “It will not take me long to give my testimony. In any case I am ill, and tomorrow I must leave for a cure,” Kringelein replied with dignity.

  “But you knew the man,” said Preysing quickly, “and the girl as well.”

  “The Baron was a friend of mine. The lady sought my protection immediately after the murder,” said Kringelein in proper journalistic phraseology. His narrow chest swelled with pride. He was equal to the occasion, he decided with satisfaction.

  “The man was a burglar. He stole my wallet. It must be on him now. I have not touched him.”

  Kringelein looked down at Gaigern. It seemed strange that he lay there without a word while they talked. And now Kringelein did smile in a vague, indefinable way. He shrugged his shoulders under the horsehair padding of his faultless new jacket. Possibly, he thought. Possibly he was a burglar. But is that so very important? What did a wallet matter in a world where thousands were earned, thousands were spent, and thousands won gambling?

  Suddenly Preysing woke from his absorption.

  “What brought you here, anyway? Who sent you? Fräulein Flamm?” he asked sharply. This was how Kringelein learned Flämmchen’s real name.

  “Quite so. Fräulein Flamm,” he replied. “She is in my room. She won’t go back to her own. She sent me to fetch her things, so that she can be dressed when the police come. She had nothing on at all when she fainted.” />
  Preysing considered this concise reply for some minutes.

  “They will question Fräulein Flamm,” he then said. It sounded like a cry of despair.

  “No doubt,” Kringelein said curtly. “It is to be hoped it will not take long. She is leaving with me tomorrow. I have offered her a position,” he added, and a suffocating sense of triumph and victory made his cheeks go pale. But Preysing was a man no longer, and he was very far from fighting over a woman. He had no idea what it meant to Kringelein that Flämmchen had left him and gone over to Kringelein. He knew nothing of this indescribable miracle, this ultimate and crowning moment.

  “Fräulein Flamm’s things are in her room, No. 72. The next door on the left,” he said. He tried to get up, but his knees failed him. His joints were numb and as if filled with sand. They refused to work. And still the dead man lay there on the floor . . .

  But Preysing struggled to his feet as Kringelein reached the door and he realized he was about to be left alone.

  “Wait—wait a moment,” he whispered in a hoarse suppressed cry. “Listen, Herr Kringelein. I have something more to say to you—before—before—we call the police. It’s about—it is about the lady. You’re going to take her with you when you go, you said? Wouldn’t it be—she’s in your room, you said?—would it not be possible to leave it at that? I mean—listen to me, Kringelein, as one man to another. I can face what has happened here. It was in self-defense— self-defense pure and simple. That’s bad enough; still, I can face it. But the other business will finish me. It will cause me utter ruin. Can’t we—do the police have to know about this affair with Fräulein Flamm? It would be perfectly simple. I only need to lock the door to No. 72 again. Fräulein Flamm spent the night with you. She knows nothing about it at all. Nor you either, Herr Kringelein. Then it is all in order. Everything will be all right. You won’t need to give evidence and Fräulein Flamm will not be interrogated. Herr Kringelein, you can understand me. You know my wife. You’ve known her almost as long as I have. And the old man, you know our old man. After all, you are one of us at the firm. There’s no need for me to waste words. My whole life hangs by a thread. I say it frankly. An idiotic affair like this over a woman is nothing. But it can mean ruin for me. Herr Kringelein, I love my wife. My life depends on her and the children,” he said, as though he were imploring Mulle herself. “You know the two girls, Herr Kringelein. If this business with Fräulein Flamm comes out at the trial, I shall lose everything. I shall have nothing left. I’m—I give you my word of honor that nothing, nothing whatever happened between us,” he whispered. It was only now he realized as much. “Help me, Kringelein. You’re a man too, like me. Take this affair on yourself. Pack your things and go away with the girl and say nothing. Leave all the rest to me. You’ve nothing to do but hold your tongue, and get Fräulein Flamm to do the same. That’s all. You can leave, go far away wherever you like. I’ll give you—listen to me, Herr Kringelein. We exchanged some unpleasant words this morning. Never mind. You do me an injustice, believe me, you do. There are always misunderstandings between management and staff, and there is no need to take it too seriously. We stand and fall together after all. We’re all in the same boat, my dear Kringelein. I’ll—I’ll give you—you’ll receive a check from me and go where you like. Now go into No. 72 and shut that door. Fräulein Flamm will hold her tongue and all will be well yet. If anybody asks her anything: she spent the whole night with you and knows nothing. She saw nothing and heard nothing. Herr Kringelein, I beg you, I beg you—”

  Kringelein looked at Preysing as he whispered rapidly and almost crazily. The white light from the seven bulbs of the chandelier cast black shadows on his face. It seemed to have caved in and was bathed in a cold sweat. His eyes were hollow, his newly shaven, unfamiliar upper lip quivered, his eyelids fluttered, his hair stuck to his lined forehead. His hands gave the impression of a sick and ailing man as he raised them and repeated: “I beg you, I beg you, I beg you—”

  Poor devil, Kringelein thought suddenly. The thought was utterly without precedent. It burst chains and broke down walls.

  “My fate depends on you,” Preysing whispered. He was begging for mercy and not ashamed to use the melodramatic word “fate.” And what about my fate, Kringelein thought meanwhile. But the thought passed, before it really took shape.

  “Sir, you overestimate my influence with the lady. If you wish to lie your way out, that is entirely your own affair,” he said coldly. “But I would recommend that you notify the police without further delay. Otherwise it will make a bad impression. I will now take Fräulein Flamm’s things to my room. Number 70—should you have need of me, sir. I will take my leave for the time being.”

  Preysing stood up. He conquered the helpless state of his legs and pulled himself up, but he immediately collapsed again. Kringelein sprang forward to support him. Poor devil, he thought again, poor devil.

  Preysing, resting his arm heavily on Kringelein, still hoping, said, “Herr Kringelein, I will not say another word about this affair with your absence on sick leave. I will make no inquiries as to how you procured the means for this escapade of yours. I will—when you return, I will see if you can’t be given a better position. I will do everything possible for you—”

  But at this, Kringelein just smiled. He smiled quite openly, easily without a trace of gratitude. “Thank you,” he said. “Many thanks for your kind intentions. It won’t be necessary.”

  He leaned Preysing against the wall and there he left him—with his broad and sagging shoulders propped against the wavy-patterned wallpaper of Room No. 71, looking like a man who had fallen into a glacial crevasse. In the passage only every other light was still on, and at the corner, the sign ATTENTION: STEP DOWN still warned in illuminated letters. The grandfather clock’s old-fashioned chime struck three times.

  At half-past three the night porter’s phone rang as he was nodding over the morning papers. “Hello,” he called into the black mouthpiece. “Hello, hello.” At first not a sound issued from the telephone. Then somebody cleared his throat, and finally a voice said: “Send the manager to me at once. Preysing. No. 71. And notify the police. Something has happened . . .”

  •

  The experiences people have in a large hotel do not constitute entire human destinies, full and completed. They are fragments merely, scraps, pieces. The people behind its doors may be unimportant or remarkable individuals. People on the way up or people on the way down the ladder of life. Prosperity and disaster may be separated by no more than the thickness of a wall. The revolving door turns, and what happens between arrival and departure is not an integral whole. Perhaps there is no such thing as a whole, completed destiny in the world, but only approximations, beginnings that come to no conclusion or conclusions that have no beginnings. Much that looks like Chance is after all really the Law of Cause and Effect. And much that goes on behind Life’s doors is not fixed like the pillars of a building nor preconceived like the structure of a symphony, nor calculable like the orbits of the stars. It is human, fleeting and more difficult to trace than cloud shadows that pass over a meadow. And anyone who attempts to give an account of what he has seen behind those doors runs the risk of balancing precariously on a tight rope between falsehood and truth . . .

  For example, there was the odd affair of the long-distance call from Prague shortly after twelve o’clock at night. A woman’s voice asked to be put through to Baron Gaigern, Room No. 69, and was duly connected. “Hello,” Grusinskaya said. She had just got into bed in Prague (a wretched bed in a famous but antiquated hotel). “Hello, hello, chéri, are you there?”

  And although Room No. 69 was already empty at this point, and although at this very moment in Room No. 71, two doors farther down the hall, that unfortunate incident occurred, because of which General Manager Preysing was kept in custody for three months and lost wife and children and all he had—in spite of this, Grusinskaya on her end of the telephone heard quite distinctly, even though faintly, a beloved vo
ice saying:

  “Neuwjada? You? My darling!”

  “Hello,” Grusinskaya said, “good evening, good evening, my dear. Aren’t you surprised that I should ring up? You have to please speak louder. There’s something wrong with the line. I have just come from the theater. It went well. It was splendid, an enormous success. They were crazy about me. I am very tired, but so, so happy. It is years since I danced as I did tonight. Oh, comme je suis heureuse! And you, do you think of me? I—I think of you every moment, only of you—I long for you. Tomorrow early we leave for Vienna. Will you be there? Speak—speak. Tell me. Hotel Bristol, tomorrow, Vienna. Can you hear? Why . . . hello, operator, operator, I’ve been cut off; I can’t hear anything . . . I want to know whether you will be in Vienna tomorrow. I’m expecting you. I’m having everything prepared for us at Tremezzo. Are you looking forward to it? Only fourteen days’ more work, and then we’ll be at Tremezzo. Do say something, just one word. I can’t hear you. —What? What did you say, operator? You said there was no answer from the Baron? Thank you. Then please give him a message. Say that he is expected tomorrow in Vienna. Tomorrow. Thank you.”

  This was the conversation between Grusinskaya and the empty Room No. 69. She was in bed in her hotel with her chin compressed in a rubber bandage, her eyes still hot with makeup and her heart filled and glowing with tenderness. “But indeed I love you. Je t’aime,” she murmured into the silent telephone, but the operator at the Grand Hotel had already cut off the connection.

  And then, right next door in Room No. 70, there is that moment, between four and five in the morning, when the drawn curtains were becoming gray and Flämmchen for the first time took Kringelein into her arms. It was that first sweet moment of tenderness when she was not selling herself but freely giving. Then for the first time she learned that it was not a mere pleasure, a meaningless gratification, that she had to give away, but something great—ecstasy, happiness, a complete fulfillment. She lay there like a very young mother and held the man in her arms like a child so that it could drink its fill. Her fingers rested in the hollow, between the sinews at the back of his neck, which illness and weakness had made. Everything is good now, thought Kringelein, no more pain. I am strong. Tired too, tired, but I’ll sleep. I’ve scarcely slept since I came here. What a pity time is so short. I don’t want to leave. I want to stay here. I don’t want to have to stop, now when everything is just beginning.