Every Man Dies Alone (34 page)

Her dressmaker hadn’t been rich, but she had been bombed just the same. Hetty Haberle tried to find out from a policeman what had happened to her. The policeman regretted that he was unable to help her. Perhaps she could ask at the local police station, or the nearest air raid protection office?

But Hetty lacked the peace of mind to do that. However sorry she felt for her dressmaker, and however much she wanted to learn about her fate, she now felt she had to go home. Whenever she saw something like this, she felt the need to go home. She had to check whether things were still all right there. It was foolish, she knew, but she couldn’t help it. She first needed to see with her own eyes that nothing had happened there.

Unfortunately something had happened to the little pet shop at the Königstor. Nothing tragic by any means, but still it shook Frau Haberle, and more profoundly than other things she had experienced of late. Frau Haberle found the grating down and a note with the silly legend that never failed to annoy her: “Back soon.” And underneath that: “Frau Hedwig Haberle.”

To have her name on that note, to have her own good name associated with such sloppiness and laziness, offended her almost as much as the breach of trust of which Enno was guilty. He had crept off behind her back, and he would have reopened the shop behind her back, and not have breathed a word to her of his deception. On top of everything it was so stupid of him, because it was almost inevitable that one of her regulars would ask her, “How come you were shut yesterday afternoon? Did you have to go out, Frau Haberle?”

She enters her flat through the back. Then she pulls up the grating and unlocks the door. She waits for the first customers to arrive, but no, she doesn’t really want even one to come now. To be so betrayed behind her back—never once in the years of her marriage with Walter was there ever anything like this. They always trusted each other, never let each other down. And now this! She hadn’t given him the least cause to behave so.

The first customer comes and is served by her, but when Hetty opens the till to make change for a twenty-mark note, she finds it empty. There was plenty of change there when she left, around a hundred marks. She masters herself, gets some money out of her purse, gives the lady her change, there, done. The bell over the door rings.

Now she wants to shut up shop and be all alone. It occurs to her—all the while she continues to serve customers—that in the past few days she has occasionally had the sense that there was something wrong, that the daily takings ought to have been higher than it seemed they were. At the time she had quickly dismissed such thoughts from her mind. What would Enno do with the money in any case? He never left the house, and he was always under her watchful eye!

But now she remembers the bathroom out on the landing, and that he has smoked more cigarettes than he can have brought with him in his little case. He must have found someone in the house who had agreed to get him cigarettes on the black market, for cash, without coupons, behind her back! How low and how mean! She would have loved to provide him with cigarettes—he only had to open his mouth and ask!

In the ninety minutes or so till Enno’s return, Frau Haberle struggles with herself. Over the past few days, she has reaccustomed herself to the presence of a man about the house, to not being alone any more, to having someone to look after, someone she is fond of. But if the man is as he appears to be, she must surely root the love out of her heart! Better to be alone than live with permanent suspicion and fear. She can hardly pop out to the greengrocer’s any more without being afraid of being cheated by him in some way.

And then it occurs to Hetty that she has also had the impression of things not being the way she left them in her linen closet. No, she must, she must send him packing—today, however difficult it feels. Later on, it will only be more difficult.

But then she remembers that she is a woman past her best, and that this might be her last chance of escaping a solitary old age. After this experience with Enno Kluge, she will hardly feel able to try again with some other man. After this terrifying, catastrophic experience with Enno!

“Yes, we’ve got mealworms in again. How many would you like,

Madam?”

Half an hour before closing, Enno walks in. It’s indicative of the state of her mind that only now does it occur to her that it’s not safe for him to go out on the street, with the Gestapo looking for him! Up till this moment she hasn’t been able to think like that, so preoccupied has she been with his betrayal of her. But what use are all the precautions in the world if he just runs off whenever she goes out? Maybe all that business with the Gestapo was just deception anyway? Who knows, with such a man!

He has noticed, of course, from the raised shutters, that she’s back in the shop earlier than expected. He walks in off the street, carefully makes his way through the line of customers, smiles at her as if nothing has happened, and says, as he disappears into the parlor, “I’ll be back in a jiffy to help out, boss!”

And he is back, and very quickly too, and then, to keep her dignity in front of the customers, she has to speak to him, give him instructions, act as if nothing were amiss—and all this when her entire world has collapsed! But she doesn’t let on; she even responds to his feeble little jokes, which he makes in unusual quantity today, and only when he starts to go to the cash register does she say, sharply, “If you don’t mind, I’ll look after that myself!”

He jumps slightly at that and looks at her with a shy sidelong glance—like a dog, yes, just like a beaten dog, she thinks. Then his hand feels its way into his pocket, a smile appears on his face, and yes, he’s already over the shock.

“At your orders, boss!” he barks, and scrapes his heels together.

The customers laugh at him, the funny little fellow playing soldiers, but she doesn’t feel like laughing just now.

Then the shop shuts. For another hour and a quarter they continue to work together, busy with feeding and watering and tidying up, both of them in near silence after she has failed to respond to his latest series of jests.

Hetty is in the kitchen, making supper. She is making fried potatoes, real lovely fried potatoes, with bacon. She got the bacon from a customer in exchange for some old cheese. She had been looking forward to surprising Enno with something good for supper, because he likes good things. The potatoes are turning a fine golden yellow.

But then all at once she turns off the gas under the pan. All at once, she is impatient to clear the air. She goes into the parlor, leans against the Dutch stove, somber and grim, and asks, almost menacingly, “Well?”

He is sitting at the table, at their supper table, which he has laid for both of them, humming away to himself as he always does.

At that menacing “Well?” he jumps, and then he stands up and looks across at her dark form.

“Yes, Hetty?” he says. “Is supper ready soon? I’m really famished.”

She feels like hitting him, this man who supposes she will pass over such a betrayal in silence! He must feel mighty sure of himself, this fellow, merely no doubt because he has spent the nights in her bed! She is furious: she feels like giving him a good shaking and beating and then repeating the dose.

But she gets a grip on herself and says “Well?” again, but this time more menacingly still.

“Ah, I get it, Hetty!” he says. “You mean about the money.” He reaches into his pocket, and pulls out a bundle of notes. “Here, Hetty, here are 210 marks—I took 92 out of the till.” He laughs a little sheepishly. “My contribution to the household, if you like.”

“How did you come by so much money?”

“This afternoon there was the big race in Karlsbad. I got there just in the nick of time to place a bet on Adebar. Adebar to win. I like betting on horses. I know quite a bit about racing, Hetty.” He says it with a rare touch of pride. “I didn’t place all ninety-two, just fifty The odds were…”

“And what would you have done if your horse hadn’t won?”

“Adebar was a cert to win—it’s a meaningless question.”

“But what if he hadn’t won?”

Now it’s his turn to feel superior to the woman. He smiles as he says, “Listen, Hetty, it’s clear you don’t know much about racing, and I know all there is to know. And if I say Adebar to win, and put 50 marks on him…”

She interrupts him. She says angrily, “You gambled with my money! I won’t have that! If you want money, tell me—I don’t want you
working for me just for bed and board. But you don’t help yourself out of the till without my permission! Understand?”

The unwontedly sharp tone completely unhinges him. In a plaintive tone—she knows he is about to burst into tears, and she is already dreading the tears—in a plaintive tone he says, “How can you talk to me like that, Hetty? As if I were just your employee! Of course I’ll never take money out of the till again. I just thought it would make you happy if I made some money so easily. I was sure he would win!”

She doesn’t even respond to such nonsense. The money is secondary to her; what matters is the breach of trust. If he thinks she’s upset about the money, more fool him! She says: “And you simply shut up shop here, so that you could go and bet on the race?”

“Yes,” he says. “You would have had to shut it, if I hadn’t been there!”

“And you knew you were going to shut it when I went away this morning?”

“Yes,” he says, stupidly. Only quickly to correct himself, “No, I mean no, otherwise I would have asked you for permission. It only occurred to me when I passed the little bookie’s shop on the Neue Königstrasse, you know. I read the odds as I was passing, and when I saw Adebar at such long odds, that decided me.”

“I see!” she says. She doesn’t believe him. He already had it in mind before he walked her to the subway. She recalls him sitting over the paper for a long time this morning, and doing some calculations on a scrap of paper even when the first of the day’s customers were in the shop. “I see!” she says again. “So you just go for a stroll in the city, when we’ve agreed that because of the Gestapo, it’s best that you don’t go outside at all?”

“You let me take you to the subway, though!”

“We were together. And I told you then it was strictly an experiment! It’s not the same as running around half the day in the city. Where did you go?”

“Oh, this little bar I used to frequent earlier. No one from the Gestapo ever goes in there, just bookies and bettors.”

“Who all know you! Who can tell anyone who asks, We saw Enno Kluge at such and such a time!”

“But the Gestapo know I have to be somewhere. Only they don’t know where. The bar is a long way away—it’s over in Wedding. And there wasn’t anyone I knew there who would give me away!”

He talks enthusiastically and good-heartedly; if you listen to him, he’s completely within his rights. He doesn’t even understand how
deeply he’s shaken her faith in him or what a struggle she’s having with herself. Taken money—to please her. Shut the shop—she would have done the same. Gone to a bar—but a long way away, in Wedding. The fact that she had feared for her love he failed completely to understand. It never even crossed his mind!

“Well now, Enno,” she asks, “is that all you have to say? Or is there anything else?”

“What else could I say, Hetty? I can see you’re cross with me, but it doesn’t seem to me like I’ve done a whole lot wrong!” And there they were, the dreaded tears. “Oh, Hetty, I just want you to be nice to me, like you were before! I promise to ask your permission before I do anything in future! Just be nice to me! I can’t stand it when you’re like this…”

But this time neither tears nor pleas could move her. There was something wrong about them. She was almost disgusted by the weeping man in front of her.

“I need to think about all this, Enno,” she said toughly. “You don’t seem to understand how much you’ve shaken my trust in you.”

And she walked past him to the kitchen, to see to the potatoes again. So, she had had her showdown with him. And what had been the upshot? Had she clarified the situation, or made a decision any easier?

Not a bit! All it had done was show her that this man had no sense of guilt, that he lied wildly when the situation seemed to him to demand it, and that he cared not a whit about who he lied to.

No, a man like that wasn’t the man for her. She had to finish with him. Of course she couldn’t put him out on the street tonight. He seemed not even to know what he was guilty of. He was like a puppy dog who has chewed up a pair of slippers and has no idea why his master is beating him.

No, she had to give him a day or two’s grace, so that he could find himself new lodgings. And if he fell into the hands of the Gestapo—well, it wouldn’t be her concern. He took his own chances—and over a bet! No, she must free herself of him, she would never be able to trust him again. She must live alone, from now on till her death! And at that thought, she felt a chill.

In spite of the chill, she says to him, when supper is over, “I’ve thought it all over, Enno, and we must break up. You’re a nice man, and a dear man, but your view of the world is very different from mine, and in the long run we’re not compatible.”

He looks blankly at her, as she makes up a bed for him on the sofa, to lend credence to her words. At first he cannot believe his ears, and then he starts whimpering: “Oh, God, Hetty, you can’t mean it! When we love each other the way we do! You surely can’t want to drive me out onto the street, and into the arms of the Gestapo!”

“Ach!” she says, trying to calm herself with words of her own. “The thing with the Gestapo can’t be so bad as all that, otherwise you would hardly have spent half the day running around the city!”

He falls to his knees. He really does, he drops to his knees in front of her. Fear has made him mindless. “Hetty! Hetty!” he wails and cries. “Do you want to kill me? You have to keep me here! Where am I supposed to go? Ach, Hetty, won’t you love me just a little bit, I’m so unhappy…”

Wailing and crying, a little puppy dog whimpering with fear!

He tries to clasp her legs, he reaches for her hands. She breaks away, runs to the bedroom, and bolts the door. But all night she has to listen to him banging against the door, trying the handle, whimpering and imploring…