Flotsam (15 page)

“Ruth,” Kern stammered, “life is overwhelming us. Another day like this and I’d become a romantic.”

The proprietor stopped them. “Have you any more of that perfume? I thought perhaps for my wife—”

Kern was alert at once. “It just happens that I have one more bottle with me, the last.” He pulled the second bottle out of his pocket. “But not on the same terms as before, my friend. You missed your chance. The price is twenty crowns—” he held his breath—“seeing it’s you!”

The proprietor made a lightning calculation. He had overcharged the captain thirty crowns for the champagne and pastry, so he would still be ten crowns to the good. “Fifteen,” he offered.

“Twenty.” Kern made a move to put the bottle away.

“All right then.” The proprietor brought a ragged bill out of his pocket. He decided to tell his beloved, the buxom Barbara, that the bottle had cost fifty. In that way he could avoid
buying her the hat she had been begging for all week, which was priced at forty-eight crowns. Two birds with one stone…

Kern and Ruth went to the hotel. They picked up Ruth’s bag and then went to the station. Ruth had become very quiet. “Don’t be sad,” Kern said. “I’ll be following you soon. In a week at the latest I’ll have to leave here, I’m sure of that. Then I’ll come to Vienna. Do you want me to come to Vienna?”

“Yes, come! But only if it’s best for you.”

“Why don’t you just say: Yes, come?”

She looked at him a little guiltily. “Doesn’t what I said mean more?”

“I don’t know. It sounded cautious.”

“Yes.” She suddenly looked sad. “That’s what it was—cautious.”

“Don’t be sad,” Kern said. “A while ago you were so gay.”

She looked at him helplessly. “Don’t pay any attention to me,” she murmured. “Sometimes I don’t make sense. Perhaps it’s because of the wine. Perhaps it’s the wine anyway. Come along, we still have a few minutes.”

They sat down on a bench in the park and Kern put his arm around her shoulders. “Be happy, Ruth. The other does no good. I know that sounds foolish, but it isn’t foolish for us. We bitterly need what little gaiety we can get. We especially.”

She looked straight ahead. “I’d like to be gay, Ludwig. I guess I’m serious by nature. I’d like so much to take things lightly and to make people happy. But what I say always turns out to be awkward and heavy.” She spoke the word angrily. And Kern suddenly noticed that tears were streaming down her cheeks. She wept without a sound, angry and helpless. “I don’t know why I’m crying,” she said, “I have no reason to,
especially now. But perhaps that’s why I’m crying. Don’t look at me—don’t look at me.”

“Darling, don’t,” Kern said.

She leaned forward and put her hands on his shoulders. He drew her to him and kissed her. Her eyes were closed and her mouth was shut savagely and stubbornly as though to refuse him.

“Ah—” She became calmer. “Do you know—” Her head dropped against his shoulder, her eyes remained closed—“Do you know …” Her mouth opened and her lips became as soft as a fruit.

They walked on. At the station Kern disappeared and bought a bunch of roses, silently blessing the man with the monocle and the proprietor of the Black Pig.

Ruth was filled with confusion when he presented her with the flowers. She blushed, and all the sadness left her face. “Flowers,” she said. “Roses! Why, I’m having a send-off like a movie star.”

“You’re having a send-off like the wife of an extremely successful businessman,” Kern declared proudly.

“Businessmen don’t give flowers, Ludwig.”

“Yes, they do. The youngest generation has revived the custom.”

He put her bag and the package of pastries in the luggage net. She got out with him. On the station platform she took his head in her hands and looked at him earnestly. “It was good that you were here.” She kissed him. “Now go, go on while I’m getting into the train. I don’t want you to see me cry again. Otherwise you’ll think that’s all I can do. Go—”

He didn’t go. “I’m not afraid of good-bys,” he said. “There
have been so many in my life. This is not good-by.” The train began to move. Ruth waved. Kern stood where he was until the train was out of sight. Then he went back. He had a feeling that the whole city had died.

At the entrance to the hotel he met Rabe. “Good evening,” Kern said, drawing out his package of cigarettes and offering them to him. Rabe recoiled and lifted his arm as though to ward off a blow. Kern looked at him in astonishment. “I beg your pardon,” Rabe said, greatly embarrassed. “That’s just a kind of—a sort of involuntary reaction—”

He took a cigarette.

For two weeks Steiner had been a waiter at the Green Tree Inn. It was now late at night. The proprietor had gone to bed two hours before.

Steiner lowered the shutters. “Closing time!” he said.

“Let’s have one more, Johann,” said one of the guests, a master carpenter, with a face like a cucumber.

“All right,” Steiner replied. “Barack?”

“No. No more of that Hungarian stuff. Let’s go to work on a good plum brandy.”

Steiner brought the bottle and glasses. “Have one yourself,” the master carpenter invited.

“Not tonight. Either I stop drinking right now or I’ll have to get drunk.”

“Get drunk then.” The master carpenter rubbed his knobbly face. “I’ll get drunk too. Just imagine: a third daughter. In comes the midwife this morning and says, ‘My congratulations, Herr Blau, on your third fine daughter.’ And I’d thought that surely this time it would be a boy. Three girls and no heir! Isn’t that enough to drive a man crazy? Isn’t that enough
to drive a man crazy, Johann? After all, you’re a human being, you must understand how I feel!”

“And how!” Steiner said. “Shall we use bigger glasses?”

The master carpenter struck the table with his fist. “You’re God-damned right, that’s the thing! Bigger glasses, that’s what we want! And to think it never occurred to me!”

They took bigger glasses and drank for an hour. By that time the master carpenter was badly mixed up and was lamenting the fact that his wife had borne him three sons. Clumsily he counted out the money and staggered away with his drinking companions.

Steiner cleaned up.

He poured himself another tumbler of brandy and tossed it off. His head was roaring. He sat down at the table and brooded. Then he got up and went into his room. He rummaged among his things, got out his wife’s photograph and looked at it for a long time. He had never heard from her. Nor had he written to her. Because he assumed her mail would be opened. He believed she had divorced him.

“Damn it!” He got up. “Maybe she’s been living with someone else for months and has forgotten all about me.” With a jerk he tore the photograph in two and tossed the pieces to the floor. “I’ve got to get out! If I don’t, this thing will drive me nuts. I am a man who lives by himself. I am Johann Huber. I’m not Steiner any more. All that’s over!”

He emptied another glass, then shut the place up and went out on the street. In the neighborhood of the Ring a girl accosted him. “Will you come with me, dearie?”

“Yes.”

As they walked along together the girl eyed him curiously. “You haven’t looked at me once.”

“Yes I have,” Steiner replied without lifting his eyes.

“I don’t think you have. Do you like me?”

“Yes. I like you.”

“You know what you want, don’t you?”

“Yes,” he said, “I know what I want.”

She pushed her arm through his. “What are you going to give me, my pet?”

“I don’t know. How much do you want?”

“Are you going to stay all night?”

“No.”

“How would twenty schillings be?”

“Ten. I’m a waiter. I don’t earn much.”

“You don’t look like a waiter.”

“There are people who don’t look like presidents of countries, still that’s what they are.”

The girl laughed. “You’re funny. I like funny people. All right, we’ll call it ten. I have a beautiful room. Just you wait. I’ll make you happy.”

“Will you?” Steiner said.

The room was a red plush-lined box, with plaster statues, and little crocheted covers over the tables and chairs. On the sofa sat a row of carnival dolls, Teddy bears and stuffed monkeys. Above them hung an enlarged photograph of a pop-eyed sergeant-major in dress uniform and waxed mustache.

“Is that your husband?” Steiner asked.

“No, the landlady’s dear departed.”

“She must have been glad to get rid of him, eh?”

“You have no idea!” The girl was slipping out of her blouse. “She still howls for him, he was such an amazing fellow. Capable, if you know what I mean.”

“Then why has she hung him in your room?”

“She has another picture in her own room. Bigger and
brighter. Of course only the uniform is brighter, you understand. Come and unhook me behind, will you?”

Steiner felt her firm shoulders under his hands. He was surprised. He knew from his time in the army what the flesh of whores was like—always somewhat too soft and gray.

The girl threw her blouse on the sofa. Her breasts were full and firm. They suited her strong shoulders and neck. “Sit down, my pet, and make yourself comfortable,” she said. “Waiters and our kind always have tired legs.”

She pulled her dress over her head.

“Damn it,” Steiner said. “But you’re beautiful.”

“Lots of people have told me that”—the girl carefully folded her dress. “If this won’t disturb you—”

“On the contrary, it does disturb me. It disturbs me a lot.”

She turned half around. “You’re always making jokes. You’re a funny fellow.”

Steiner looked at her.

“What makes you stare at me like that?” the girl said. “You’re enough to frighten a person. Jesus, just like a stabber. Haven’t had a woman for a long time, have you?”

“What’s your name?” Steiner asked.

“You’ll laugh—Elvira. It was one of my mother’s ideas. She was always trying to be refined. Come on to bed.”

“No. Let’s have something to drink,” Steiner said.

“Have you money?” the girl asked quickly.

Steiner nodded. Elvira went to the door, naked and unembarrassed. “Frau Poschnigg!” she shouted. “Something to drink.”

The landlady appeared as quickly as if she had been listening behind the door. She was a roly-poly person, tightly laced in black velvet. Her cheeks were red and her eyes glistened
like marbles. “We could give you champagne,” she said eagerly. “Like sugar!”

“Brandy,” Steiner said. “Plum brandy, pear brandy, Enzian, whatever you have.”

The women exchanged a glance. “Pear brandy,” Elvira said. “Some of the kind from the top shelf. It costs ten schillings, my pet.”

Steiner gave her the money. “Where did you get a skin like that?” he asked.

“Not one pimple, is there?” Elvira pirouetted in front of him. “Only redheads have skins like that.”

“Oh yes,” Steiner said. “That’s something I hadn’t noticed before—you have red hair.”

“I had my hat on, darling.”

Elvira took the bottle from the landlady. “Have one with us, Frau Poschnigg?”

“If I may?” The landlady seated herself. “You’re lucky, Fräulein Elvira!” she sighed. “Now look at me, a poor widow—always alone—” The poor widow gulped down the drink and immediately poured another. “Here’s your health, kind sir!”

She got up and glanced coquettishly at Steiner. “Well then, my very best thanks! And have a good time.”

“I think you might get somewhere with her, my pet,” Elvira remarked.

“Give me that tumbler,” Steiner said. He filled it and drank it down.

“Jesus.” Elvira looked at him anxiously. “You’re not going to start breaking things up, darling? This is expensive furniture, you know. It cost a lot of money, my pet.”

“Sit down here,” Steiner said. “Beside me.”

“Perhaps we better go out somewhere. To the Prater or into the woods.”

Steiner raised his head. He felt the brandy pounding behind his forehead, pounding against his eyeballs with soft hammer-blows. “Into the woods?” he asked.

“Yes, into the woods. Or into a cornfield. Now that it’s summer.”

“A cornfield—in summer? How’d you hit on a cornfield?”

“The way anyone would,” Elvira chattered hastily and anxiously. “Because now it’s summer, my pet! That is when you go into a cornfield sometimes, you know.”

“Don’t hide that bottle, I’m not going to wreck your room. You said a cornfield in summer?”

“Yes, of course, in summer, my pet; in winter, it’s too cold.”

Steiner filled his glass. “Damn it! How you smell—”

“Redheads all smell alike, my pet.”

The hammers beat faster. The room reeled. “A cornfield—” Steiner said slowly and heavily, “and the night wind—”

“Come to bed now, darling. Get undressed—”

“Open the window—”

“Why the window’s open, my pet. Come, I’ll make you happy.”

Steiner drank. “Were you ever happy?” he asked, staring at the table.

“Of course, often.”

“Oh, shut your mouth. Turn out the light.”

“Get undressed first.”

“Turn out the light.”

Elvira obeyed. The room became dark. “Come to bed, my pet.”

“No. Not to bed. Bed is something else. Damn it, not to bed!”

With unsteady hand Steiner poured brandy into his glass. His head was roaring. The girl crossed the room. She came to
the window and paused a moment, looking out. The pale glow from the street lights outside fell over her dark shoulders. Behind her head was the night sky. She raised her hand to her hair—“Come here,” Steiner said hoarsely.

She turned and came toward him softly and silently. She was like a ripe cornfield, dark and unknowable, with the scent and the skin of a thousand women, and of one. “Marie,” Steiner murmured.

The girl laughed low and tenderly. “Just see how drunk you are, my pet—my name is Elvira.…”