The Road Back (20 page)

With my little seamstress I sail away on the one-step, and also come to the final round. To my surprise I see that Willy has just remained seated, he will not even try. I distinguish myself with a peculiar variant of the knee-bend and backward chassé that I have not shown off before, and the little girl is dancing like thistle-down. We carry off the second prize and share it between us.

Full of pride I go back to our table with the silver medal of the National Union for Dancing pinned on my chest.

"Willy, you old putty-head!" I say, "why didn't you have a cut at it, anyway? You might even have got the bronze medal!"

"Yes, that's right," says Karl supporting me, "why didn't you, now?"

Willy stands up, stretches himself, adjusts his swallowtail coat, looks down on us loftily and answers only the one word—"Because!"

The chap with the chrysanthemum then calls for competitors in the fox-trot. Only a few couples enter. Willy does not go, he strides out on to the floor.

"But he hasn't the faintest notion of it!" snorts Karl.

Fascinated, we hang over the backs of our chairs to see what he will do. The female lion-tamer is coming out to meet him. With a sweeping gesture he offers his arm. The orchestra begins.

On the instant Willy is transfigured. He has turned into a runaway camel with an attack of St. Vitus's dance. He leaps in the air and he limps; he skips and he circles; he lashes out with his legs and tosses his lady to and fro; then with a sort of pig's gallop he goes careering down the room, the lion-tamer not before, but beside him, so that she is giving an exhibition of the bent-arm hang from his outstretched right arm, while he has full liberty on his other side to do his worst, without having to worry lest he tread on her feet. Then he is an impersonation of a round-about, till his coat-tails stand off at right angles; next moment he sets off with fancy skippings slantwise across the dance floor, bucking like a billy-goat with pepper under its tail; he thunders and spins and rages, and finally winds up with a weird pirouette in which he whirls his lady high through the air.

Not a soul in the hall doubts but that he is watching a hitherto unknown, professional exponent of some super foxtrot. Willy had seen his chance and made the most of it. His victory is so convincing that after him there is a long pause, and then the second prize. He holds up the bottle of schnapps to us in triumph. But he has sweated to such an extent that the dye in his cut-away has run badly; his shirt and waistcoat are quite black, while his swallow-tail seems decidedly paler.

The competition is over, but the dancing continues. We sit round the table and drink up Willy's win. Only Albert is missing—wild horses would not drag him from his fair-headed girl.

Willy gives me a prod: "Say, you, there's Adele."

"Where?" I ask quickly.

He points with his thumb toward the throng on the dance floor. And sure enough there she is, waltzing with a tall, dark fellow.

"Has she been here long?" I ask—I should like to think she had witnessed our triumph.

"Came about five minutes ago," answers Willy.

"With the stork?"

"With the stork."

Adele, as she dances, carries her head tilted backward a little. One hand is on the dark fellow's shoulder. As I catch a glimpse of her face from the side my breath catches, so like is she under the shaded lights of the ballroom to my memory of those evenings of before the war. But from the front her face is fuller, and when she laughs it is quite strange to me.

I take a long pull from Willy's bottle. The little seamstress is just dancing by. She is slimmer and neater than Adele. I did not notice it in the fog the other night on the High Street, but Adele has grown now to a woman, with full breasts and stalwart legs. I cannot recall if she was like that before; probably I did not give it any attention then.

"Grown to a proper tough little bit, what?" says Willy, as if he had read my thoughts.

"Ach, you shut up!" I retort sourly.

The waltz is over. Adele is leaning against the door. I go over to her. She greets me, and goes on talking and laughing with her dark-haired chap. I stand there and look at her. My heart is beating fast, as if I were about to make a great decision.

"What are you looking at me like that for?" she asks.

"Oh, nothing," I say. "What about a dance?"

"Not this, the next one," she replies and goes off with her partner to the dance floor.

I wait for her and we dance a Boston together. I do my utmost and she smiles appreciatively:

"You learned to dance at the Front, of course."

"Not there exactly," I answer. "But we' won a prize just now."

She looks up quickly. "Oh! what a pity! we might have done that together—What was it?"

"Six gull's eggs and a medal," I reply, and the colour mounts into my hair. The violins are playing so softly that the shuffle of many footsteps can be heard.

"Anyway, we're dancing together now," I say. "Do you remember the evenings when we used to race along here one after the other from the Gym. Club?"

She nods. "Yes, we were rather childish in those days. But just look over there! the girl with the red dress—those loose blouses are the latest thing. Chic, don't you think?"

The violins relinquish the melody to the cello. Tremulous, like suppressed weeping, they quiver above the golden brown tones.

"The first time I spoke to you we both ran away," I say.
" June it was, on the old wall of the town—I remember it 
as if it were yesterday——"

Adele is waving to someone. Now she turns to me again.

"Yes, weren't we silly? And can you really dance the tango? The dark boy over there is a gorgeous tango dancer!"

I do not reply. The music is silent. "Would you care to come to our table for a bit?" I ask.

She looks across. "Who's the slim boy with the patent-leather shoes?"

"Karl Bröger," I answer. She sits down with us. Willy offers her a glass and makes some joke or other. She laughs and looks across at Karl. Off and on she shoots a glance at Karl's sleigh-horse—that is the girl with the latest-fashioned blouse. I observe her in astonishment, she is so changed— Has memory played me false here too, then? Did it grow and grow too, until it has outgrown the reality?—This rather loud girl sitting here at the table and talking much too much, is a stranger to me. But concealed under that manner must there not be, perhaps, someone that I do know better? Does a thing become so distorted then, just because one gets older?—Perhaps it is the years, I say to myself. It is more than three years now—she was sixteen then and a child; now she is nineteen and grown up——And suddenly I am conscious of the nameless sadness of Time that runs and runs on and changes, and when a man returns he shall find nothing again—Yes, it is a hard thing to part; but to come back again, that is sometimes far harder.

"What are you making such a long face about, Ernst?" asks Willy. "Got the gripes?"

"He is dull, isn't he?" says Adele laughing. "But then he was always like that. Why don't you be a bit frisky, Ernst? The girls like that much better than sitting around there like a sad pudding."

"So that is over," think I to myself; "so that is over too!" Not because she thinks me dull; not because she has altered—no, not for any of these things, but because I see now that it has all been in vain—I have been running about and about, I have knocked again at all the doors of my youth and desired to enter in there; I thought, surely it must admit me again, for I am still young and have wished so much to forget—but it fled always before me like a will-o'-the-wisp, it fell away without sound, it crumbled like tinder at my lightest touch. And I could not understand—Surely here at least something of it must remain? I attempted it again and again, and as a result made myself merely ridiculous and wretched. But now I know, I know now that a still, silent war has ravaged this country of my memories also; I know now it would be useless for me to look farther. Time lies between like a great gulf; I cannot get back. There is nothing for it; I must go forward, march onward, anywhere, it matters nothing, I have no goal.

I grip my schnapps glass tightly and look up. Yes, there is Adele still questioning Karl as to where one may best buy smuggled silk stockings—and the dance goes on as before, the orchestra is still playing the same waltz from the 
House of the Three Maidens
—and here I sit too, just as before on the same chair, and I breathe and am alive still. Was there no flash of lightning then that tore me away? Did no country suddenly founder and go down about me, leaving me only surviving, all else this moment perished and lost to me for ever?

Adele gets up and takes leave of Karl. "At Meyer and Nickel's then?" she says pleasantly; "You're sure they do deal on the quiet in all sorts of oddments? Then I'll go along there first thing in the morning. Good-bye, Ernst!"

"I'll come with you a little way," I answer.

Outside she shakes hands. "You mustn't come any farther, I'm being waited for here."

I know it is foolish and sentimental, but I cannot help it—I take off my cap and bow low to her, as if to take a long farewell—not of her, but of all the things that were before. She looks at me searchingly a moment. "You are really quite funny sometimes!" Humming she runs down the path.

The clouds have gone and night is standing clear over the town. For a long time I stand looking at it. Then I go back.

The first regimental reunion since we returned from the war is to take place in the main hall at Konersmann's. All the boys have been invited. It should be a great show.

Karl, Albert, Jupp and I arrive an hour too soon. We were so impatient to see all the old faces again.

In the meantime we sit in the lounge outside the main room and wait for the arrival of Willy and the others. We are just tossing for a round of Steinhäger gin, when the door opens and Ferdinand Kosole comes in. We are so taken aback at his appearance that the coin drops from our hands. He's in civvies!

Like most of us, he has till now been wearing his old uniform, but today in honour of the occasion he, has turned out in civvies, and now there he stands in a blue overcoat with velvet collar, a green hat on his head, and a butterfly collar and tie. It makes an utterly different man of him.

We have hardly recovered from our astonishment when Tjaden appears. He too is in civvies, also for the first time—a striped waistcoat, bright yellow shoes and a walking-stick with a silvered crook. With chin well up he comes strutting down the room. As he encounters Kosole he draws back. Kosole balks likewise. Neither has ever seen the other except in uniform. They look one another up and down for a second, then burst into roars of laughter. Each thinks the other in civilian togs too damned funny for anything.

"Why, Ferdinand, I always thought you were one of the toffs!" grins Tjaden.

"How do you mean?" says Kosole ceasing to laugh.

"Why, here!" Tjaden points to Kosole's overcoat. "Looks to me as if you'd bought it off a rag-and-bone merchant."

"Ass!" growls Ferdinand fiercely, turning away—but I see that he slowly turns red. I can hardly believe my eyes—he is actually upset! And when he thinks himself unobserved he surreptitiously examines the ridiculed coat. In uniform he would never have thought of such a thing; but now he is actually polishing out a couple of stains with the shiny cuff of his sleeve! Then he looks a long time across at Karl Bröger who has on a swagger new suit. He does not know I have been watching him. After a while he asks me: "What's Karl's father, do you know?"

"District judge," I answer.

"So—district judge, eh?" he repeats meditatively. "And Ludwig, what's his?"

"Income tax inspector."

He is silent a while. Then he says: "Well, I suppose you
won't be having anything more to do with me soon——"

"You're potty, Ferdinand," I reply.

He shrugs his shoulders doubtfully. I cannot get over my surprise. It is not merely that he looks different in these damned civilian clothes, but he has actually changed in himself, too. He wouldn't have cared a brass tack about it before—but now he is even taking the thing off and hanging it up in the darkest corner of the place.

"Too hot in here," he says sourly, when he sees me watching him. I nod.

"And your father?" he asks gloomily after a time.

"Bookbinder," I reply.

"Really?" He begins to revive. "And Albert's, what's his?"

"He's dead. But he used to be a locksmith."

"Locksmith!" he repeats joyfully, as though that were as much as to say the Pope himself. "Locksmith, eh? Why, that's grand. I'm a fitter myself. We will have been near colleagues then, as you might say, no?"