The Hustler: The Story of a Nameless Love From Friedrichstrasse (2 page)

He would probably have remained seated longer, if the behavior of those sitting next to him had not driven him off. Young boys and girls were laughing loudly and shrieking as if they were alone here. Their words and gestures were so frankly vulgar that he soon got up again, disgusted.

As he did so, his glance fell on a opening in the buildings opposite, and he needed no confirmation as he told himself that this must be the “Passage.”

*

He had read about it too. In other books. It was the notorious Passage, the meeting place of a certain segment of the Berlin population at all times of day and night. He was not curious, for he knew he would not find there what he was seeking—and wanted to seek until he found it. Yet he wondered about it and, walking over, was not surprised to find the entrance populated by young chaps in age from seventeen to twenty. With a cursory glance he scanned their faces, which seemed to him partly worn-out and greedy, partly crude and common. He noticed that his glance immediately received an understanding response from some of them. Without concerning himself further with their invitations, he walked into the hall and was surrounded by a mass of humanity.

The hall, though high, appeared to him neither beautiful nor light. The window goods were mostly shabby compared with those he had just seen. These windows were full of cheap trifles and had no elegance. The public here was also not elegant.

In front of one shop a mass of people was shoving and crowding.

He threw his glance over their shoulders to the brightly lit window and recoiled immediately, wanting to laugh out loud. For what he saw were pictures—”paintings”—of such fascinating richness of color and intoxicating beauty that they numbed the eye. This young, supernaturally handsome officer on whose breast snuggled his bride, sobbing with the grief of parting, while she fastened violets on his uniform that was already so very blue; this noble, old man in a slouch hat and full beard, with still-fiery eyes in his foolish sheep face; and then, there in the background, this Germania—the grand woman with sword and shield. It was overpowering! And the crowd did not budge or waver!

Holy smokes! he thought as he walked on, and an amused smile passed over his usually so serious face. If
that
is the taste of the Berliners!

He already had enough of this famous Passage but what he yet saw only made him leave all the faster. All around the sides figures were standing, suspicions-looking and not very likeable. Obviously they were bums and idlers, hard-up or shabby-elegant, who killed time here or carried on their dirty transactions. And again everywhere, remarkably many young faces lurked, as if waiting, yet squeezed into corners and shop fronts as if they did not wish to be seen.

He wanted out and pressed faster through the stream of humanity.

*

And then it happened:

In front of him, walking as hastily as he and obviously driven by the same wish to reach quickly the exit on the other end, was a boy of fifteen or sixteen years. His clothing—a crude, ill-fitting suit and heavy boots—did not agree with his light walk and his whole tender, still undeveloped figure. From his slender shoulders rose a thin neck with brown hair at the back. Oddly drawn against his will and suddenly at a loss, the young man was unable to take his gaze from the boy’s neck. In his wish not to lose the boy from sight and to see the face those shoulders bore, he shoved himself more quickly through the crowd.

They vanished, the shoulders—disappeared. He walked faster still and saw them again ahead of him just where the exit opened up.

He saw the boy pause indecisively, take off his new straw hat, and dry his hot forehead with a handkerchief balled into a dirty lump, which he removed from his pocket.

He must, he must see this face! Three steps farther and he was standing close in front of him.

The boy looked up. A pained expression of fright came over his features. Then abruptly the boy turned with a violent movement and, running more than walking, went over the sidewalk, across the street, and vanished across the way into the swarm of pedestrians, running and running as if pursued.

The young man stood transfixed. The spot where the boy had just stood was empty. The people around him pushed and crowded, and shoved him away.

Another face popped up close in front of him, a young, impudent face staring into his with an importunate grin, challenging and boldly questioning him. Was this one of the rude fellows from the entrance, who had followed him here?

Disgusting!—disgusting!—he thought, and scared the fellow away with an indignant gesture. His first feeling had been to cross the street and follow the strange boy. His second: impossible!

He was gone now—vanished there on the other side!

*

There was nothing left to do but walk on.

Still hesitant, he turned to the right into a quiet street and slowly walked down it.

His heart was beating. He felt himself trembling, like after a sudden scare. But why and from what? What had just happened? Nothing at all.

He visualized quite clearly the small, pale face, which for a fraction of a minute, for only a second, had popped up before him.

He saw it with complete clarity: the gray-blue eyes which had looked up at him with an expression—yes, but with what expres-sion?—of fear?—no, not exactly of fear, but with a visible alarm and obvious fright. He saw the full, red lips—the upper one had twitched so oddly—and the blond, almost brown, disheveled hair across the hot forehead—a small, shy face, scared by something!

He stopped and laid his hand over his eyes, as though to enable himself to recall the boy’s face more clearly. But in vain—he could remember no more. The second had been too fleeting. He let his hand fall again.

Then, still on the same spot, he felt a sudden pain. In his forehead? In his chest? It had already passed as he walked on.

But his thoughts continued to work, and as always when he was lost in thought he kept his head sunk as he walked along the street.

What had happened—why had he run away so suddenly? Why had he run away from him?

And—he could not get away from it—with what kind of expression had the boy looked up at him? Fright, no doubt, but there was something else in it. Something plaintive, begging, as if the boy were saying, “Leave me in peace! What have I done to you all that you won’t leave me in peace? Just what do you want from me?”

He could not make head nor tail of it—of the whole affair. Only one thing remained certain: the boy had obviously been a decent sort. A boy, strange to the area, who had strayed into the Passage, noticed where he was, and had wanted to escape as quickly as possible! That was quite clear. It was like that and not otherwise!

But from him, precisely from him, the boy would have no need to run. Certainly not. He smiled bitterly. He would have done nothing to him. Again he felt that momentary slight pain, whose origin he did not know or even where it was.

He walked on. He did not know where he was or how late it was.

He found himself back at Potsdamer Platz and his hotel, dined poorly somewhere in the neighborhood, and went to bed early.

But again and again he saw the small, pale face before him and how it had looked up at him. And though he told himself, “What is this strange boy to you, whom you will never see again!” he was able to drive it away.

He saw it as he undressed. He even took it into his dreams on his first night in this strange metropolis.

Why had he run away from him?

3

When the boy who had arrived in Berlin the day before was awakened toward noon by a rough knocking and a raw voice that roared through the door, suggesting that he finally get up, he stared around at first at his strange surroundings, drunk with sleep. Then his first move was to reach under his pillow, where he had put his money yesterday evening before going to sleep. It was still there.

He washed himself scantily and dressed.

Somewhat later, he was standing on the street with no idea of what region he was in.

But his first feeling was one of intense hunger. Since his train trip yesterday he had eaten only a couple of rolls. After wandering some streets, he ventured into a still empty bar.

There he thought it over.

The main thing now was to find Max.

He again pulled out a dirty, crumpled calling card and read for the hundredth time what he knew by heart: Skalitzer Strasse 37, c/o Hampel.

“Where is Skalitzer Strasse?” he inquired of the proprietor when leaving. Near the Silesia Train Station, he was told. He should take a 48 and then ask a green.

He knew neither what the number 48 meant, nor what a “green” was.

It would probably be best to inquire along the way.

This he did, at first hesitantly and timidly, then with increasing courage. He was directed correctly and falsely—or simply left standing—and after a walk of almost two hours he finally arrived, not in the vicinity of the train station—from where, he was told, it “should not be far away”—but in a large square with a brown church and a water basin formed by a canal. Finally, also on the square, he found Skalitzer Strasse.

He stood for a long while in front of the house with number 37. Maybe Max would come out presently. That would be fine. But Max did not appear, so he finally decided to go through the courtyard to the back of the house. An old woman directed him to Max’s flat—upstairs, to the right. Up there was indeed the name Hampel on a metal plate. He had hardly shyly rung the bell, when the door was thrown open and a shabby, untidy woman holding an infant at her half-naked breast appeared.

“Who do you want? Max Friedrichsen?”—and a flood of verbal abuse poured over the disconcerted boy, from which he gathered only that Max had lived there, that he had skipped out without paying, and finally that he had “hauled those guys up here,” and that if he, yes
he,
didn’t get out right away, then she would have the police called to arrest him, for he too was certainly one of the “queer boys” and looked just like one.

Then the crying of other children sounded in the background, the door was slammed, and the boy was glad to be able to steal down the stairs again. That was really a frightful woman. Compared with her, the farmer women who shopped in the store in his village, raising beastly outcries when they thought they were being cheated of a penny, were the purest angels!

He was actually trembling. Then with the thought that he did not know where to look to find Max, he became entirely discouraged. He was on the verge of tears. What was he to do here—without him!

The best thing was to go right back home and take whatever he got. To do that, he had to go back to the train station where he had arrived yesterday. With tired feet he set out to retrace his path. He now had some experience in asking his way and he now also looked at the people first. That he could ride there still did not occur to him.

Dead tired, he finally arrived in late afternoon—down street after street and always new ones—at the Stettin Train Station. He was about to go up the stairs when the thought came to him to eat his fill first. He still had enough money for that.

This time he found a decent pub and a seat in a corner, where no one paid attention to him. After several sandwiches and a glass of beer his situation no longer seemed quite so desperate. While paying, he saw that he still had a good deal of money, more than twenty marks. He immediately ordered another glass of beer and remained seated.

He thought the situation over. He had enough for another couple of days. If forced to return home after all, then he at least wanted first to see more of Berlin. And maybe he would find Max yet. Berlin was big, but not so big that you might not find someone you were looking for in two days.

For today, however, he had to sleep again, tired as he was from the long walk and even more from the unaccustomed beer.

So he walked up to the train station, fetched his box, and then searched the side streets for a hotel. One stood beside another. He only had to choose.

He then also found a room, a small and narrow one in which there was not much more than a bed, but it cost only one mark fifty for the night, which an old waiter in a black, greasy tailcoat immediately took.

Again the boy sank at once into the deep and dreamless sleep of his healthy youth.

*

Why had he come to Berlin from his village? For he had come into the world in a village: as the child of a mother who had made off soon after his birth and was roaming the world (if she was still alive) and of a father, who—one of many guests on the estate where his mother was employed—had taken her, then thrown her aside (but otherwise was supposed to have been a distinguished gentleman).

Grandparents had to rear him as well as they could. He grew, attended the village school, and became apprenticed to a merchant. The whole day he emptied sacks, filled bags, weighed, and sold them—presumably for four years as an apprentice and then also for the rest of his life.

He never left the village, and so his life had passed uneventfully up to the day of Max Friedrichsen’s return. Max was another village boy with whom he sat on the same school bench, with whom he was later confirmed. One day, all of a sudden, Max vanished from the village. Then, just as unexpectedly, Max reappeared around Christmas and by his appearance set the village boys into a state of astonishment, wonder, and giddy delight.