The Black Obelisk (8 page)
Gerda smells of lily of the valley. "Oh, let go of me!" she says.
"This won't get you anywhere with that redhead. That's what you're trying for, isn't it?"
"No," I lie.
"You oughtn't to have noticed her at all. But you had to keep on staring over at her and then you suddenly start this ridiculous comedy with me. What a beginner you are!"
I still try to keep the false smile on my face; the last thing I want is for Erna to notice what's going on. "I didn't arrange this," I say lamely. "I didn't want to dance."
Gerda pushes me away. "Evidently you're a cavalier as well. Let's stop. My feet hurt."
I wonder whether to explain that I did not mean it that way; but who knows what would come of it? Instead I keep my mouth shut and follow her back to the table, head high, but plunged in shame....
Meanwhile, the alcohol has taken effect. Georg and Riesen-feld are calling each other
du
.
Riesenfeld's first name is Alex. In another hour at most he will invite me, too, to call him
du
.
Tomorrow morning, of course, it will all be forgotten.
I sit there rather dejected, waiting for Riesenfeld to get tired. The dancers drift past, borne by the music on a lazy current of noise, bodily proximity, and herd instinct. Erna, too, comes by, provocatively ignoring me. Gerda jabs me in the ribs. "Her hair is dyed," she says, and I have the sickening feeling that she is trying to comfort me.
I nod and become aware that I have had enough to drink. Finally Riesenfeld shouts for the waiter. Lisa has left; now he wants to go too.
It takes a while before we are finished. Riesenfeld actually pays for the champagne; I'd expected that we would be stuck with the four bottles he has ordered. We say good-by to Willy, Renée de la Tour, and Gerda Schneider. The place is closing anyway; the musicians are putting away their instruments. Everyone crowds around the exit and the hat-check counter.
Suddenly I am standing beside Ema. Her cavalier, at the hat-check counter, is wrestling with his long arms to get her coat. Erna measures me icily. "I would catch you here! That's something you probably didn't expect!"
"You catch me?" I say, taken aback. "I've caught you!"
"And in what company!" she goes on as though I had not spoken. "With dance-hall girls! Don't touch me! Who knows what you've caught already!"
I have made no move to touch her. "I'm here on business." I say. "And you? How do you come to be here?"
"On business!" she laughs cuttingly. "Business here? Who's dead?"
"The backbone of the state, the man with small savings," I reply, considering myself witty. "He gets buried daily, but his memorial is not a cross—it's a mausoleum called the Stock Exchange."
"To think that I trusted such a worthless loafer!" she says as though I had made no reply. "It's all over between us, Herr Bodmer!"
Georg and Riesenfeld are at the counter fighting for their hats. I realize that I have been tricked into defending myself. "Listen," I hiss. "Who told me this very afternoon that she could not go out because she had a raging headache? And who is hopping around here with a fat profiteer?"
Erna gets white around the nose. "Vulgar poetaster!" she whispers as though spewing vitriol. "You probably think you're superior because you can copy dead men's poems, don't you? Why don't you learn instead to make enough money to take a lady out in proper style! You with your walks in the country! To the silken banners of May!' Don't make me sob with pity!"
The silken banners are from the poem I sent her this afternoon. I reel inwardly; outwardly I grin. "Let's stick to the subject," I say. "Who is leaving here with two honest businessmen? And who with a cavalier?"
Erna looks at me big-eyed. "You expect me to go out on the streets at night by myself like a bar whore? What do you take me for? Do you think I intend to allow myself to be accosted by any loafer? What are you thinking of anyway?"
"You oughtn't to have come here at all in the first place!"
"Indeed? Just listen to that! Giving orders already! Forbidden to leave the house while the gentleman goes gallivanting! Any more commands? Shall I darn your socks?" She laughs cuttingly. "The gentleman drinks champagne, but seltzer and beer were good enough for me, or a cheap wine of no vintage!"
"I didn't order the champagne! That was Riesenfeld!"
"Of course! Always the innocent, you miserable failure of a schoolteacher. Why are you still standing here? I'll have nothing more to do with you! Stop molesting me!"
I can hardly speak for rage. Georg comes up and hands me my hat. Erna's profiteer also appears. They go off together. "Did you hear?" I ask Georg.
"Part of it. Why are you fighting with a woman?"
"I didn't intend to get into a fight."
Georg laughs. He is never entirely drunk, even after pouring it down by the bucket. "Never let them get you into it. You always lose. Why do you want to be right?"
"Yes," I say. "Why? Probably because I'm a son of the German soil. Don't you ever get into arguments with women?"
"Of course. But that doesn't keep me from giving good advice to my friends."
The cool air hits Riesenfeld like a hammer tap. "Let's call each other
du
,"
he says to me. "After all, we're brothers. Exploiters of death." His laugh is like the barking of a fox. "My name is Alex."
"Rolf," I reply. I wouldn't dream of using my real first name for this drunken, one-night brotherhood. Rolf is good enough for Alex.
"Rolf?" Riesenfeld says. "What a silly name! Have you always had it?"
"Since my military service Tve had the right to use it on leap years. Besides, Alex is nothing special."
Riesenfeld staggers a bit. "It doesn't matter," he says generously. "Children, it's been a long time since I've felt so fine! Could we get some coffee at your place?"
"Of course," Georg says. "Rolf is a first-class coffee cook."
We wobble through the shadows of St. Mary's to Hacken-strasse. In front of us paces a lonely wanderer with a storklike gait. He turns in at our gateway. It is Sergeant Major Knopf, just returning from his tour of inspection of the inns. We follow him and catch up just as he is urinating against the black obelisk beside the door. "Herr Knopf," I say, "that's improper conduct!"
"At ease," Knopf mutters, without turning his head.
"Sergeant Major," I repeat, "that's improper conduct! It's disgusting! Why don't you do it in your own house?"
He turns his head briefly. "You want me to piss in my parlor? Are you crazy?"
"Not in your parlor! You have a perfectly good toilet in your house. Use it! It's only about ten yards from here."
"Drivel!" Knopf replies.
"You're soiling the trade-mark of our firm. Besides, you're committing sacrilege. That's a tombstone. A holy object."
"Not till it's put in the cemetery," Knopf says and stalks off to the door of his house. "Good night to all of you, gentlemen."
He makes a half-bow at random, striking his forehead against the doorpost. Growling, he disappears. "Who was that?" Riesenfeld asks me, while I look for the coffee.
"Your opposite. An abstract drinker. He drinks without imagination. He needs no help at all from outside. No wishful fantasies."
"That's something too!" Riesenfeld takes his place at the window. "Just a hogshead for alcohol then. Man lives by dreams. Haven't you found that out yet?"
"No. I'm too young."
"You're not too young. You're just a product of the war— emotionally immature and with too much experience in murder."
"
Merci
,"
I say. "How's the coffee?"
Apparently the fumes have cleared. We are now back to formal terms of address. "Do you think the lady over there is already home?" Riesenfeld asks Georg.
"Probably. It's all dark."
"That could be because she hasn't come back yet. We can wait a few minutes, can't we?"
"Of course."
"Perhaps we can get our business out of the way in the meantime," I say. "All that's needed is a signature to the contract. Meanwhile I'll get some fresh coffee from the kitchen."
I go out, giving Georg time to work on Riesenfeld. This sort of thing goes better without witnesses. I sit down on the steps outside. From Wilke's carpenter shop come peaceful snores. Heinrich Kroll must still be there, for Wilke lives elsewhere. The national businessman will get a fine shock when he wakes up in a coffin. I debate whether to wake him up, but I'm too tired and it's already getting light—let the shock serve that fearless warrior as an icy bath to strengthen him and reveal to him the end result and aim of any war. I look at my watch, waiting for Georg's signal, and then stare into the garden. Morning is rising silently from the blossoming trees as though from a soft bed. In the lighted second-story window of the house opposite stands Sergeant Major Knopf in his nightgown taking a last gulp from the bottle. The cat rubs against my legs. Thank God, I say to myself, Sunday is over.
A woman in mourning slips unobstrusively through the gate and stands irresolute in the courtyard. I go out. Someone shopping for a small tombstone, I think, and ask: "Would you like to look at our exhibition?"
She nods, but then says immediately: "No, no, that's not really necessary."
"You can look around at leisure. You don't have to buy. If you like I'll leave you alone."
"No, no! It's just—I simply wanted—"
I wait. Pressure has no place in our business. After a while the woman says: "It's for my husband—"
I nod and continue to wait. At the same time I turn toward the row of little Belgian headstones. "These are very much in demand," I say finally.
"Yes—It's just that—"
She breaks off again and looks at me almost beseechingly. "I don't know whether it's permissible—" she finally forces herself to say.
"What, to put up a tombstone? Who could possibly forbid that?"
"The grave is not in the churchyard—"
I look at her in surprise. "Our pastor will not allow my husband to be buried in the churchyard," she says softly and quickly with averted face.
"But why not?"
"He committed—because he did violence to himself," she bursts out. "He took his own life. He could not stand it any longer."
She stands there staring at me. She is still frightened by what she has said. "You mean because of that he may not be buried in the churchyard?" I ask.
"Yes. Not in the Catholic cemetery. Not in consecrated earth."
"But that's nonsense!" I say angrily. "He should be buried in doubly consecrated earth. No one takes his own life except in despair. Are you quite sure that's right?"
"Yes. Our pastor says so."
"Pastors talk a lot. That's their business. Where is he to be buried then?"
"Outside the cemetery. On the other side of the wall. Not on the consecrated side. Or in the municipal cemetery. But that won't do at all! All sorts of people are buried there."
"The municipal cemetery is more beautiful than the Catholic one. And there are Catholics buried there too."
She shakes her head. "He was pious," she whispers. "He must—" Her eyes are suddenly full of tears. "He can't possibly have remembered that this way he would not be allowed to lie in consecrated earth."
"He probably didn't think about it at all. But don't grieve at what your pastor says. I know thousands of very pious Catholics who lie in unconsecrated earth."
She turns to me. "Where?"
"On the battlefields in Russia and France. They lie there all together in mass graves, Catholics and Jews and Protestants, and I don't think it makes a bit of difference to God."
"They fell in battle. But my husband—"
Now she is weeping openly. In our business tears are taken for granted, but these are different. Besides, the woman is a little bundle of straw; she looks as though the wind could sweep her away. "Very likely at the last minute he repented," I say just to say something. "In that case everything is forgiven."
She looks at me. She is so hungry for a bit of comfort. "Do you really think so?"
"I certainly do. Of course the priest would not know. Only your husband knows. And he cannot tell you now."