She took my face in her hands. "Really?"
I nodded. Her shoulders shone green as in deep water. With a stifled cry she threw herself upon me, a wave, a shining, breathing soft wave that rose and extinguished everything.
She slept in my arms. I wakened often and looked at her. I thought the night could never come to an end. We were drifting somewhere the other side of time. It had all come so quickly, I could not realize it. I knew that for a man I could be quite a good comrade; but I could not imagine why a woman should love me. I thought it would probably be only this night, and believed that with waking it would all be over.
The darkness turned to grey. I lay quite still. My arm under Pat's head was asleep, I could not feel it any longer. But I did not stir. Only as she turned over and pressed herself against the pillow was I able to remove it. I got up very softly, cleaned my teeth noiselessly and shaved. I took
also some eau de cologne and rubbed it on my hair and shoulders. It was queer, so soundless in the grey room, with such thoughts, and outside the dark silhouettes of the trees.
As I turned I saw that Pat had opened her eyes and was watching me. I stopped.
"Come," said she.
I went to her and sat down on the bed.
"Is it all still true?" said I.
"Why do you ask?" said she.
"I don't know. Because it is morning, perhaps."
It grew lighter.
"Now you must give me my things," said she.
I took up the thin silk garments from the floor. They were so light and so little. I held them in my hand. Even this much makes all the difference, thought I. One who would wear things like this must be different. I should never comprehend it, never.
I gave her the things. She put her arm around my neck and kissed me. I held her tightly to me. "Pat," said I.
Then took her home. We did not talk much more. We walked side by side through the silvery dawn. Milk carts rattled over the cobbles and newspapers were being delivered. An old fellow was sitting asleep in front of a house. His jaw was chattering as if it would never stop. Cyclists rode past with baskets of bread. The smell of warm new bread filled the street. High above us an aeroplane moved across the blue sky.
"To-day?" I asked Pat outside the house door.
She smiled.
"About seven?" I asked.
She did not look the least tired. She was as fresh as if she had had a long sleep. She kissed me good-bye. I remained standing outside the house until I saw the light come on in her room.
Then I went back. On the way many things occurred to me that I should like to have said to her, many pretty words. I wandered through the streets thinking of all the things I might have said and might have done had I been other than I was. Then I went to the market. The wagons with vegetables, meat and flowers were already there. I knew that I could get three times as many flowers for the same money as in the shops. All the money I had on me I invested in tulips. They looked wonderful, perfectly fresh with drops of water still in their cups. I received a great armful. The seller promised to send them to Pat about eleven o'clock. She laughed at me as she promised it, and put in a fat bunch of violets as well.
"Now the lady will have her friend at least a fortnight," said she. "She has only to put an aspirin in the water now and then."
I gave her the money. Then I walked slowly home.
Chapter X
The Ford was standing finished in the workshop, and no new work had come in. We should have to get busy with something. Köster and I had gone to an auction to buy a taxi that was being sold. Taxis could always be sold again.
The place was a mews in the north of the city. Besides the taxi there was a lot of other stuff to be sold, some of which was standing in the yard: beds, rickety tables, a gilded cage with a parrot that said "Hallo, dearie!", a grandfather clock, some books, cupboards, an old dress suit, kitchen chairs, cooking utensils—all the pitiful equipment of a crumbling, broken life.
We arrived too early; the auctioneer was not there yet.
I was rooting about among the things for sale when I came on some old books—cheap, well-thumbed copies of the Greek and Latin classics with numerous manuscript notes in the margins. In the discoloured, battered pages were to be read no more the verses of Horace, the songs of Anacreon—only the cry of distress and despair of a life that was lost. To their owner, whoever he was, these books had been a haven of refuge; he had kept them to the last— and if he sent them here, it meant his life was finished.
Köster looked over my shoulder. "Pathetic, eh?"
I nodded. "These too, Otto," said I, pointing to the other things. "Kitchen chairs and wardrobes aren't sent here for fun."
We went to the car which was standing in a corner of the yard. The paint was chipped and worn in places, but the car was clean, even under the mudguards. A stocky little man with big, dangling hands was standing near by; he looked at us dully.
"Have you looked over the machine?" I asked Köster.
"Yesterday," said he. "It's a bit worn, but well looked after."
I nodded. "Seems so," said I. "It has been washed down only this morning, Otto. The auctioneer guys didn't do it, that's certain."
Köster shook his head and looked at the stocky figure.
"That'll be the owner. He was here yesterday. I saw him polishing the car."
"Damn it all," said I, "the man looks like a dog that has been run over."
A young man came across the yard towards the car. He was wearing a coat with a belt, and had a disagreeably smart appearance.
"This'll be the bus, I suppose," said he, half to us and half to the other man, tapping the bonnet with his cane. I saw the other man wince. "That's nothing, that's nothing," said the belted one loftily. "The paint's not worth a brass tack. Venerable old crock—ought to be in a museum, what?" He laughed loudly at his joke and looked to us for approval. We were not laughing. He turned to the owner. "What do you want for grandfather?"
The man swallowed hard but said nothing.
"Its price as scrap iron?" bleated the young man in high fettle. He turned to us again: "Are you gentlemen interested?" He lowered his voice: "Let's fix it between us. Buy it for nothing, turn it in again, and split the profits. No point in giving them money. My name, by the way, is Thiess—Guido Thiess of The Augeka."
He twirled his bamboo cane and winked at us knowingly. There are no secrets to this worm, thought I angrily; the silent figure by the car was troubling me.
"You know," said I aloud, "you oughtn't to be called Thiess."
"No?" said he, flattered. He was evidently used to being complimented on his sharpness.
"Yes," I went on. "Twerp, you ought to be called, Guido Twerp."
He started back. "Of course," he remarked at last, "two to one, of course—"
"If that's your trouble," said I, "I'll take you on alone whenever you like."
"Thanks," replied Guido frostily, "thanks very much"— and retired.
The stocky man with the troubled face just stood there staring at the car as if nothing signified any more.
"Let's not buy it, Otto," said I.
"If we don't, then your poodle, Guido, will," replied Köster. "We can't do anything to help the fellow."
"True enough," said I. "But a lot hangs on it—"
"Yes, but what doesn't a lot hang on these days, Bob?
You can be sure of this—it's a damned good thing for the owner we are here. He'll get a bit more for it. But I promise if the poodle doesn't bid, I won't either."
The auctioneer arrived. He was in a hurry; he had a lot to do, apparently. For him there were auctions by the dozen every day. With comprehensive gestures he started selling the pitiful junk. He had the cast-iron humour and matter-of-factness of one who deals daily in misery without ever himself being touched by it.
The things went for a few pence. Dealers bought most of it. They would lift a finger indolently whenever the auctioneer looked in their direction, or just shake their heads
. But from time to time another pair of eyes followed the auctioneer's glance, careworn eyes of a woman, eyes that watched the dealer's finger as if it had been the finger of God, full of hope and fear.
Three people bid for the taxi—first Guido, three hundred marks, a shameful underbid. The stocky man took a step forward. His lips moved, but without sound. For one. moment he looked as if he intended to join in the bidding. But the hand sank. He stepped back.
The next bid was four hundred marks. Guido went to four fifty. Then a pause. The auctioneer called for other bids. "No offers? Going for the first time . . . going for the second time . . ." The man by the taxi was standing with wide eyes and bowed head, waiting for the blow.
"One thousand," said Köster. I looked at him.' "It's worth three," he muttered. "I'm not going to see the chap slaughtered."
Guido was signalling frantically. He had forgotten the insult now it came to business. "Eleven hundred," he bleated, winking at us with both eyes at once. If he had had another one behind, he would have winked that as well.
"Fifteen hundred," said Köster.
"Fifteen hundred and ten," announced Guido perspiringly.
"Eighteen hundred," said Köster.
Guido touched bis forehead and abandoned the struggle. The auctioneer was hopping with excitement. Suddenly I thought of Pat. "Eighteen fifty," said I without quite meaning to do so.
Köster turned his. head in surprise, "I'll make up the fifty," said I hastily. "It's in aid of something—an investment."
He nodded.
The auctioneer knocked the car down to us. Köster paid immediately.
"What did I tell you?" said Guido, coming over as if nothing had happened. "We could have had it for a thousand marks. We bluffed the third chap out pretty soon."
"Hello, dearie!" shrieked a brazen voice behind him— the parrot in the gilded cage.
"Twerp," I added.
Guido shrugged his shoulders and vanished.
I went across to the owner of the car. A pale-faced woman was now beside him.
"Sorry . . ." said I.
"It's all right," he replied.
"We would sooner not have done it," said I. "But you would only have got less."
He nodded, twisting his hands.
"She's a good car," he burst out suddenly, tumbling over himself. "She's a good car, well worth the money, really she is; you haven't paid too much. It isn't the car so much —not at all. . . . It's . . ."
"I know," said I.
"And we don't get any of the money," said the woman; "it all goes."
"We'll soon come up again, Mother," said the man; "we'll come up again."
The woman did not answer.
"She grinds a bit changing from first to second," said the man, "but it's not a defect. She did that when she was new." He might have been talking of a child. "It's three years we've had her now, and she has never given the least trouble. You see, I was ill and then a bloke let me down —a friend . . ."
"A villain," said the woman with a grim face.
"Now, Mother," said the man and looked at her. "I'll come up again soon, Mother, now won't I?"
The woman did not answer. The man was wet with sweat.
"Give me your address," said Köster; "we may want a driver sometime, you never know."
The man wrote eagerly with his heavy, honest hands. I looked at Köster; we both knew it would need a miracle before we could offer anything. And there are no miracles these days. He would go under most likely.
The man talked and talked like a man in a high fever. The sale was over and we were now alone in the yard. He gave us some tips about starting it in winter. Again and again he kept going to the car. At last he was silent. "Now come, Albert," said the woman.
We shook hands with him, and they went. We waited until they were out of sight, and then started the car.
As we passed down the street we saw a little old woman with a parrot-cage in her arms warding off a group of children. Köster pulled up.
"Like a lift?" he asked her.
"In these days? I've no money to go gadding about in taxis!"
"You don't need any," said Otto. "To-day's my birthday and I am driving for fun."
She held on to her cage suspiciously. "But it will cost something afterwards?"
He reassured her and at last she got in.
"What did you buy the parrot for, Mother?" said I as she was getting out.
"For the nights," said she. "Do you think the food is very expensive?"
"No," said I; "but why for nights?"
"He can talk, you see," she replied, looking at me with clear aged eyes. "Now there will always be someone there who will talk."
"Ach, so," said I.
The baker came during the afternoon to collect his Ford. He looked grey and sour. I was alone in the yard. "Do you like the colour?" I asked.
"So so," said he and looked at it dubiously.
"The upholstery looks well."
"Certainly. . . ."
He still hung around, apparently unable to make up his mind to go. I expected him to try to screw something out of us—a jack, an ash-tray or some such.
But it proved otherwise. He shuffled about for some time, examining this thing and that thing; then he looked at me with his bloodshot eyes and said: "And just think— only a few weeks ago she was sitting there, alive and happy. . . ."
I was surprised to find him suddenly so sentimental, and guessed that the flashy little Jane he had with him last time was already beginning to get on his nerves.
"She was a good wife," he went on; "a jewel, I might say. She never wanted a thing. Ten years she wore the same coat. Blouses and so on she made all herself. And the housework—no maid."
Aha, thought I, the new one doesn't, that's obvious.
He told me how economical his wife had been. It was extraordinary how deeply the memory of money saved affected this skittles addict. She did not even let herself be photographed—cost too much. He had only one picture of the wedding group, and a few snaps.
That gave me an idea. "You ought to get somebody to paint a real slap-up portrait of her," said I. "Then you'd have something for always. Photographs fade in time. There's a painter up here who does that sort of thing."
I explained to him Ferdinand Grau's activities. He was at once suspicious, and supposed it would be very expensive. I assured him—if I went with him he would get a special price. He tried to escape, but I would not let him go, explaining that if he really were so fond of his wife, it oughtn't to be too much. At last he consented. I called up Ferdinand and primed him for the encounter, then drove with the baker to his house to get the photographs of his wife.
The dark person dashed out of the shop to meet us. She circled round the Ford. "Red would have been nicer, Puppi. But, you would have your own silly way."
"That'll do," said Puppi vexedly.
We went up to the parlour, the dark person following. Her quick eyes were everywhere. The baker was losing his nerve. He did not intend to look for the photographs under those eyes. "Now leave us," said he bluntly, at last.
She pouted. "A pretty gallant you are!"
Defiant, her breasts wagging beneath her tight-fitting jumper, she flounced out of the room. From a green plush album the baker now produced a couple of pictures and showed them to me. His wife as bride, himself beside her, with tilted, waxed moustaches—there she stood, laughing; then another, in which, thin, worn-out with work, with frightened eyes, she sat on the extreme edge of a chair. Two little pictures—one whole life.
Ferdinand Grau received us in a frock coat. He looked grave and dignified. That was part of his trade. He recognised that, for many mourners, respect for their grief was more important than the grief itself.
On the walls of the studio in gilt frames hung several imposing portraits in oil, and beneath them the tiny photographs from which they had been done, so that a customer might see at a glance what could be made of even the most faded snapshot.
Ferd
inand showed the baker around, inquiring which style he preferred. The baker in his turn asked if the prices were not according to size. Ferdinand explained that it was not so much a matter of superficial measurement as of treatment. Whereupon the baker at once expressed a preference for the biggest.
"You have very good taste," commented Ferdinand. "That is a portrait of the Princess Borghese. Eight hundred marks. Framed."
Three Comrades Page 14
