The Berlin Stories

by Christopher Isherwood

  “What’s this for?” I asked.

  “Oh, that?” said Arthur hastily; he seemed very much disconcerted. “That’s merely the catalogue number from the sale where I originally bought it. It must have been there all the time . . . Anni, my love, do you think you and Otto would be so very kind as to carry some of the things into the kitchen and put them in the sink? I don’t like to leave Hermann too much to do in the morning. It makes him cross with me for the rest of the day.”

  “What is that ticket for?” I repeated gently as soon as they were outside. “I want to know.”

  Arthur sadly shook his head.

  “Ah, my dear William, nothing escapes your eye. Yet another of our domestic secrets is laid bare.”

  “I’m afraid I’m very dense. What secret?”

  “I rejoice to see that your young life has never been sullied by such sordid experiences. At your age, I regret to say, I had already made the acquaintance of the gentleman whose sign-manual you will find upon every piece of furniture in this room.”

  “Good God, do you mean the bailiff?”

  “I prefer the word Gerichtsvollzieher. It sounds so much nicer.”

  “But, Arthur, when is he coming?”

  “He comes, I’m sorry to say, almost every morning. Sometimes in the afternoon as well. He seldom finds me at home, however. I prefer to let Schmidt receive him. From what I have seen of him, he seems a person of little or no culture. I doubt if we should have anything in common.”

  “Won’t he soon be taking everything away?”

  Arthur seemed to enjoy my dismay. He puffed at his cigarette with exaggerated nonchalance.

  “On Monday next, I believe.”

  “How frightful! Can’t anything be done about it?”

  “Oh, undoubtedly something can be done about it. Something will be done about it. I shall be compelled to pay another visit to my Scotch friend, Mr Isaacs. Mr Isaacs assures me that he comes of an old Scotch family, the Inverness Isaacs. The first time I had the pleasure of meeting him he nearly embraced me. ‘Ah, my dear Mr Norris,’ he said, ‘you are a countryman of mine.’ ”

  “But, Arthur, if you go to a moneylender you’ll only get into worse trouble still. Has this been going on for long? I always imagined that you were quite rich.”

  Arthur laughed.

  “I am rich, I hope, in the things of the Spirit . . . My dear boy, please don’t alarm yourself on my account. I’ve been living on my wits for nearly thirty years now, and I propose to continue doing so until such time as I am called into the, I’m afraid, not altogether approving company of my fathers.”

  Before I could ask any more questions, Anni and Otto returned from the kitchen. Arthur greeted them gaily and soon Anni was sitting on his knee, resisting his advances with slaps and bites, while Otto, having taken off his coat and rolled up his sleeves, was absorbed in trying to repair the gramophone. There seemed no place for myself in this domestic tableau and I soon said that I must be going.

  Otto came downstairs with a key to let me out of the house door. In parting, he gravely raised his clenched fist in salute:

  “Red Front.”

  “Red Front,” I answered.

  Chapter Six

  One morning, not long after this, Frl. Schroeder came shuffling into my room in great haste, to tell me that Arthur was on the telephone.

  “It must be something very serious. Herr Norris didn’t even say good morning to me.” She was impressed and rather hurt.

  “Hullo, Arthur. What’s the matter?”

  “For heaven’s sake, my dear boy, don’t ask me any questions now.” His tone was nervously irritable and he spoke so rapidly that I could barely understand him. “It’s more than I can bear. All I want to know is, can you come here at once?”

  “Well . . . I’ve got a pupil coming at ten o’clock.”

  “Can’t you put him off?”

  “Is it as important as all that?”

  Arthur uttered a little cry of peevish exasperation: “Is it important? My dear William, do please endeavour to exercise your imagination. Should I be ringing you up at this unearthly hour if it wasn’t important? All I beg of you is a plain answer: Yes or No. If it’s a question of money, I shall be only too glad to pay you your usual fee. How much do you charge?”

  “Shut up, Arthur, and don’t be absurd. If it’s urgent, of course I’ll come. I’ll be with you in twenty minutes.”

  I found all the doors of the flat standing open, and walked in unannounced. Arthur, it appeared, had been rushing wildly from room to room like a flustered hen. At the moment, he was in the sitting-room, dressed ready to go out, and nervously pulling on his gloves. Hermann, on his knees, rummaged sulkily in a cupboard in the hall. Schmidt lounged in the doorway of the study, a cigarette between his lips. He did not make the least effort to help and was evidently enjoying his employer’s distress.

  “Ah, here you are, William, at last!” cried Arthur, on seeing me. “I thought you were never coming. Oh, dear, oh dear! Is it as late as that already? Never mind about my grey hat. Come along, William, come along. I’ll explain everything to you on the way.”

  Schmidt gave us an unpleasant, sarcastic smile as we went out.

  When we were comfortably settled on the top of a bus, Arthur became calmer and more coherent.

  “First of all,” he fumbled rapidly in all his pockets and produced a folded piece of paper: “Please read that.”

  I looked at it. It was a Vorladung from the Political Police. Herr Arthur Norris was requested to present himself at the Alexanderplatz that morning before one o’clock. What would happen should he fail to do so was not stated. The wording was official and coldly polite.

  “Good God, Arthur,” I said, “whatever does this mean? What have you been up to now?”

  In spite of his nervous alarm, Arthur displayed a certain modest pride.

  “I flatter myself that my association with,” he lowered his voice and glanced quickly at our fellow passengers, “the representatives of the Third International has not been entirely unfruitful. I am told that my efforts have even excited favourable comment in certain quarters in Moscow . . . I told you, didn’t I, that I’d been in Paris? Yes, yes, of course . . . Well, I had a little mission there to fulfil. I spoke to certain highly placed individuals and brought back certain instructions . . . Never mind that now. At all events, it appears that the authorities here are better informed than we’d supposed. That is what I have to find out. The whole question is extremely delicate. I must be careful not to give anything away.”

  “Perhaps they’ll put you through the third degree.”

  “Oh, William, how can you say anything so dreadful? You make me feel quite faint.”

  “But, Arthur, surely that would be . . . I mean, wouldn’t you rather enjoy it?”

  Arthur giggled: “Ha, ha. Ha, ha. I must say this, William, that even in the darkest hour your humour never fails to restore me . . . Well, well, perhaps if the examination were to be conducted by Frl. Anni, or some equally charming young lady, I might undergo it with — er — very mixed feelings. Yes.” Uneasily he scratched his chin. “I shall need your moral support. You must come and hold my hand. And if this,” he glanced nervously over his shoulder, “interview should terminate unpleasantly, I shall ask you to go to Bayer and tell him exactly what has happened.”

  “Yes, I will. Of course.”

  When we had got out of the bus on the Alexanderplatz, poor Arthur was so shaky that I suggested going into a restaurant and drinking a glass of cognac. Seated at a little table we regarded the immense drab mass of the Praesidium buildings from the opposite side of the roadway.

  “The enemy fortress,” said Arthur, “into which poor little I have got to venture, all alone.”

  “Remember David and Goliath.”

  “Oh, dear, I’m afraid the Psalmist and I have very little in common this morning. I feel more like a beetle about to be squashed by a steam-roller . . . It’s a curious fact that, since my e
arliest years, I have had an instinctive dislike of the police. The very cut of their uniforms offends me, and the German helmets are not only hideous but somehow rather sinister. Merely to see one of them filling in an official form in that inhuman copy-book handwriting gives me a sinking feeling in the stomach.”

  “Yes, I know what you mean.”

  Arthur brightened a little.

  “I’m very glad I’ve got you with me, William. You have such a sympathetic manner. I could wish for no better companion on the morning of my execution. The very opposite of that odious Schmidt, who simply gloats over my misfortune. Nothing makes him happier than to be in a position to say — I told you so.”

  “After all, there’s nothing very much they can do to you in there. They only knock workmen about. Remember, you belong to the same class as their masters. You must make them feel that.”

  “I’ll try,” said Arthur doubtfully.

  “Have another cognac?”

  “Perhaps I will, yes.”

  The second cognac worked wonders. We emerged from the restaurant into the still, clammy autumn morning, laughing arm in arm.

  “Be brave, Comrade Norris. Think of Lenin.”

  “I’m afraid, ha, ha, I find more inspiration in the Marquis de Sade.”

  But the atmosphere of the police headquarters sobered him considerably. Increasingly apprehensive and depressed, we wandered along vistas of stone passages with numbered doors, were misdirected up and down flights of stairs, collided with hurrying officials who carried bulging dossiers of crimes. At length we came out into a courtyard, overlooked by windows with heavy iron bars.

  “Oh dear, oh dear!” moaned Arthur. “We’ve put our heads into the trap this time, I’m afraid.”

  At this moment a piercing whistle sounded from above.

  “Hullo, Arthur!”

  Looking down from one of the barred windows high above was Otto.

  “What did they get you for?” he shouted jocularly. Before either of us could answer, a figure in uniform appeared beside him at the window and hustled him away. The apparition was as brief as it was disconcerting.

  “They seem to have rounded up the whole gang,” I said, grinning.

  “It’s certainly very extraordinary,” said Arthur, much perturbed. “I wonder if . . .”

  We passed under an archway, up more stairs, into a honeycomb of little rooms and dark passages. On each floor were wash-basins, painted a sanitary green. Arthur consulted his Vorladung and found the number of the room in which he was to present himself. We parted in hurried whispers.

  “Goodbye, Arthur. Good luck. I’ll wait for you here.”

  “Thank you, dear boy . . . And supposing the worst comes to the worst, and I emerge from this room in custody, don’t speak to me or make any sign that you know me unless I speak to you. It may be advisable not to involve you . . . Here’s Bayer’s address; in case you have to go there alone.”

  “I’m certain I shan’t.”

  “There’s one more thing I wanted to say to you.” Arthur had the manner of one who mounts the steps of the scaffold. “I’m sorry if I was a little hasty over the telephone this morning. I was very much upset . . . If this were to be our last meeting for some time, I shouldn’t like you to remember it against me.”

  “What rubbish, Arthur. Of course I shan’t. Now run along, and let’s get this over.”

  He pressed my hand, knocked timidly at the door and

  went in.

  I sat down to wait for him, under a blood-red poster advertising the reward for betraying a murderer. My bench was shared by a fat Jewish slum-lawyer and his client, a tearful little prostitute.

  “All you’ve got to remember,” he kept telling her, “is that you never saw him again after the night of the sixth.”

  “But they’ll get it out of me somehow,” she sobbed. “I know they will. It’s the way they look at you. And then they ask you a question so suddenly. You’ve no time to think.”

  It was nearly an hour before Arthur reappeared. I could see at once from his face that the interview hadn’t been so bad as he’d anticipated. He was in a great hurry.

  “Come along, William. Come along. I don’t care to stay here any longer than I need.”

  Outside in the street, he hailed a taxi and told the chauffeur to drive to the Hotel Kaiserhof, adding, as he nearly always did:

  “There’s no need to drive too fast.”

  “The Kaiserhof!” I exclaimed. “Are we going to pay a call on Hitler?”

  “No, William. We are not . . . although, I admit, I derive a certain pleasure from dallying in the camp of the enemy. Do you know, I have lately made a point of being manicured there? They have a very good man. Today, however, I have a quite different object. Bayer’s office is also in the Wilhelmstrasse. It didn’t seem altogether discreet to drive directly from here to there.”

  Accordingly, we performed the comedy of entering the hotel, drinking a cup of coffee in the lounge and glancing through the morning papers. To my disappointment, we didn’t see Hitler or any of the other Nazi leaders. Ten minutes later, we came out again into the street. I found myself squinting rapidly to right and left, in search of possible detectives. Arthur’s police obsession was exceedingly catching.

  Bayer inhabited a large untidy flat on the top floor of one of the shabbier houses beyond the Zimmerstrasse. It was certainly a striking enough contrast to what Arthur called “the camp of the enemy,” the padded, sombre luxurious hotel we had just left. The door of the flat stood permanently ajar. Inside, the walls were hung with posters in German and Russian, notices of mass meetings and demonstrations, anti-war cartoons, maps of industrial areas and graphs to illustrate the dimensions and progress of strikes. There were no carpets on the bare unpainted floor-boards. The rooms echoed to the rattle of typewriters. Men and women of all ages wandered in and out or sat chatting on upturned sugar-boxes waiting for interviews; patient, good-humoured, quite at home. Everybody seemed to know everybody; a new-comer was greeted almost invariably by his or her Christian name. Even strangers were addressed as Thou. Cigarette smoking was general. The floors were littered with crushed-out stubs.

  In the midst of this informal, cheerful activity, we found Bayer himself, in a tiny shabby room, dictating a letter to the girl whom I had seen on the platform at the meeting in Neukölln. He seemed pleased but not especially surprised to see Arthur.

  “Ah, my dear Norris. And what can I do for you?”

  He spoke English with great emphasis and a strong foreign accent. I thought I had never seen anybody with such beautiful teeth. Indeed, his teeth and Arthur’s were both, in their different ways, so remarkable that the two sets might have been placed side by side, as classic contrasts, in a dental museum.

  “You have been already to see them?” he added.

  “Yes,” said Arthur. “We’ve just come from there.”

  The girl secretary got up and went out, closing the door behind her. Arthur, his elegantly gloved hands resting demurely in his lap, began to describe his interview with the officials at the Polizeipraesidium. Bayer sat back in his chair and listened. He had extraordinarily vivid animal eyes of a dark reddish brown. His glance was direct, challenging, brilliant as if with laughter, but his lips did not even smile. Listening to Arthur, his face and body became quite still. He did not once nod, or shift his position, or fidget with his hands. His mere repose suggested a force of concentration which was hypnotic in its intensity. Arthur, I could see, felt this also; he squirmed uneasily on his seat and carefully avoided looking Bayer in the eyes. Arthur began by assuring us that the officials had treated him most politely. One of them had helped him off with his coat and hat, the other had offered him a chair and a cigar. Arthur had taken the chair, the cigar he had refused; he made a considerable point of this, as though it were a proof of his singular strong-mindedness and integrity. Thereupon, the official, still courteous, had asked permission to smoke. This Arthur had granted. There had followed a discussion, cross-
examination, disguised as chat, about Arthur’s business activities in Berlin. Arthur was careful not to go into details here. “It wouldn’t interest you,” he told Bayer. I gathered, however, that the officials had politely succeeded in frightening him a good deal. They were far too well informed. These preliminaries over, the real questioning began. “We understand, Mr Norris, that you have recently made a journey to Paris. Was this visit in connexion with your private business?”

  Arthur had been ready for this, of course. Perhaps too ready. His explanations had been copious. The official had punctured them with a single affable inquiry. He had named a name and an address which Mr Norris had twice visited, on the evening of his arrival and on the morning of his departure. Was this, also, a private business interview? Arthur didn’t deny that he had had a nasty shock. Nevertheless, he had been, he claimed, exceedingly discreet. “I wasn’t so silly as to deny anything, of course. I made light of the whole matter. I think I impressed them favourably. They were shaken, I could see that, distinctly shaken.”

  Arthur paused, added modestly: “I flatter myself that I know how to handle that particular kind of situation pretty well. Yes.”

  His tone appealed for a word of encouragement, of confirmation, here. But Bayer didn’t encourage, didn’t condemn, didn’t speak or move at all. His dark brown eyes continued to regard Arthur with the same brilliant attention, smiling and alert. Arthur uttered a short nervous cough.

  Anxious to interest that impersonal, hypnotic silence, he made a great deal of his narrative. He must have talked for nearly half an hour. Actually, there wasn’t much to tell. The police, having displayed the extent of their knowledge, had hastened to assure Mr Norris that his activities did not interest them in the least, provided that these activities were confined to foreign countries. As for Germany itself, that, of course, was a different matter. The German Republic welcomes all foreign guests, but requires them to remember that certain laws of hospitality govern guest as well as host. In short it would be a great pity if the German Republic were ever to be deprived of the pleasure of Mr Norris’s society. The official felt sure that Mr Norris, as a man of the world, would appreciate his point of view.