Three Comrades Read online

  Then I took up the receiver once more and spoke to Köster.

  "Have you got the tickets still, Otto?"

  "Yes."

  "Good. I'm coming to the fight then."

  Afterwards we wandered a long time through the city. The streets, though lit, were deserted. Electric signs glowed; lights burned in the shop windows to no purpose. In one were naked wax dummies with painted heads. They looked ghostly and perverted. Next door was a sparkle of jewellery. Then a department store, floodlit, standing out white like a cathedral, its show windows foaming with gay-coloured silks. Pale, half-starved figure's were crouched outside a picture house; and alongside, a ham-and-beef shop spread its splendours: canned fruits piled high into tin towers, peaches bedded in wadding, fat geese strung on a line like so much washing, loaves of brown bread among highly seasoned ham sausages, and, central in it all, gleaming pink and pale yellow, liver patties and sliced salmon.

  We sat down on a seat near the park. The night was cool and the moon stood like an arc lamp over the roofs of the houses. It was already past midnight. Workmen repairing the tram lines had pitched a tent on the pavement hard by. The bellows hissed and showers of sparks rained down upon the solemn, bowed figures. Alongside stood cauldrons of tar smoking like field-kitchens.

  We sank into a brown study.

  "Queer sort of day, Sunday, Otto."

  Köster nodded.

  "One is glad when it's over," said I meditatively.

  Köster shrugged his shoulders. "Perhaps it is that one is so used to the routine that one finds the little bit of freedom disturbing."

  I turned up my coat collar. "Doesn't say much for the life we lead, Otto."

  He looked at me and smiled. "There was less to be said for it a few years ago, Bob."

  "True," I agreed. "Still . . ."

  The acid light of the pneumatic drill squirted green over the asphalt. The workmen's shelter with its inner glow looked like a cosy little country to itself.

  "Do you think the Cadillac will be ready by Tuesday?" I asked.

  "Perhaps," said Köster. "Why?"

  "I was just wondering. . . ."

  We stood up and turned homeward. "I've been a bit snarled-up to-day, Otto," said I.

  "Everybody is now and then," said'Köster. "Sleep well, Bob."

  "Good night, Otto."

  In my room I continued to sit awhile. Suddenly I did not like the place any more. The chandelier—hideous— the light so glaring; and the armchairs, threadbare: the linoleum, utterly dreary; the wash stand—you could never invite any decent person here, I thought. Not a woman certainly. A prostitute from the International at the most.

  Chapter III

  On Tuesday morning we were sitting in the courtyard in front of the workshop having breakfast. The Cadillac was finished. Lenz was holding a sheet of paper in his hand and looking at us with an air of triumph. He was our advertising manager and had just read out to us an ad which he had composed for the sale of the car. It began with the words "Luxury. Take your holidays in the sunny South," and was a cross between a love song and a hymn.

  Köster and I were silent awhile. One needed time to recover from such a deluge of flowery fancy. Lenz supposed we were overcome.

  "The thing has poetry and punch, eh?" he said proudly. "In times of realism be romantic, that's the trick. Opposites attract."

  "Not where money is concerned," I replied.

  "People don't buy automobiles to save money, my boy," explained Gottfried superiorly. "They buy them to lay out money; and that's where romance starts, at any rate for a businessman. For the majority of people it even stops there. What do you say, Otto?"

  "Well, you know—" began Köster cautiously.

  "Why waste time talking, Otto," I interposed. "That's an ad for a watering place or a beauty cream, not for a motor car."

  Lenz opened his mouth.

  "Just a moment," I went on. "You think we're prejudiced, I suppose. Well, let me make you an offer—we'll ask Jupp. There speaks the voice of the people."

  Jupp was our only employee, a lad of fifteen, who had a sort of apprentice job with us. He served the petrol pump, got our breakfast, and cleared up at night. He was small, covered with freckles, and had the largest outcrop of ears I have ever known. Köster declared that if Jupp should ever fall out of an aeroplane he would come to no harm. His ears would enable him to glide safely to earth.

  We called him up. Lenz read him the advertisement.

  "Would you be interested in such a car, Jupp?" asked Köster.

  "A car?" demanded Jupp.

  I laughed. "Of course a car," growled Lenz. "What do you think, a hippopotamus?"

  "Has it synchronized gears, fluid flywheel, hydraulic brakes?" enquired Jupp, unmoved.

  "Muttonhead, it's our Cadillac, of course," snorted Lenz.

  "You don't say!" retorted Jupp, grinning from ear to ear.

  "There you have it, Gottfried," said Köster. "That's modern romance."

  "Go back to your pump, Jupp, you damned son of the twentieth century."

  Grumbling, Lenz vanished into the office again—to give to his advertisement just so much technical detail as was compatible with the preservation of its poetic swing.

  A few minutes later Inspector Barsig appeared in the door of the courtyard. We received him with great deference. He was engineer and surveyor for the Phoenix Motor Insurance Company—an important man for getting a line on repair jobs. We stood well with him. As engineer he was keen as the devil and let nothing pass, but as collector of butterflies he was as soft as butter. He had a large collection and we had once given him a big moth that flew into our workshop one night. When we presented him with the thing he turned quite pale with excitement. It was a death's-head, of extreme rarity apparently, that was still wanting from his collection. He had never forgotten that, and ever since had seen to it that we got our fair share of any jobs that were going. In exchange we caught for him every moth we could lay hands on.

  "A vermouth, Herr Barsig?" asked Lenz politely, who had come to the surface once more.

  "No alcohol before sundown," replied Barsig. "A fixed rule with me."

  "Rules have to be broken, or the observance gives no pleasure," explained Lenz, filling a glass. "To the future of the privet hawk moth, the peacock butterfly, and the fritillaries!"

  Barsig wavered a moment.

  "Put it that way and I can't say no," said he, taking the glass. "But in that case we must drink also to the small ox-eye." He smiled in an embarrassed way. "You'll be pleased to hear I've discovered a new variety. With pectinate antennae."

  "Good heavens!" exclaimed Lenz. "Hats off! So now you are a pioneer and will be in all the histories!"

  We drank another to the pectinate antennae. Barsig wiped his moustache.

  "I have good news for you, too. Come round and fetch the Ford. The management has agreed you can have the repairs."

  "Fine," said Köster. "We can do with it. And what about the estimate?"

  "Approved too."

  "No cuts?"

  Barsig closed one eye. "They were inclined to be difficult at first. But in the end . . ."

  "A glass to the Phoenix Insurance," said Lenz and poured out another round.

  Barsig rose to go.

  "It's a queer business," said he as he was leaving.

  "You remember the woman who was in the Ford? She died a couple of days ago. Very slight injuries, only cuts. Loss of blood apparently."

  "How old was she?" asked Köster.

  "Thirty-four," replied Barsig; "four months gone. Insured for twenty thousand marks!"

  We set off at once to fetch the car, which belonged to a master baker. The chap had been half drunk and had run into a wall in the dark. Only his wife was injured; he didn't get so much as a scratch.

  He looked in at the garage while we were making the car ready to take it away. Fat shoulders and bull neck, head bent forward slightly, sagging, he stood watching us for some time without saying a word. What wit
h the unhealthy, pallid grey face that bakers have, in the gloom he looked like a great melancholy weevil. He came forward slowly.

  "When will it be done?" he asked.

  "In about three weeks," replied Köster.

  The fellow pointed to the hood. "That's thrown in, of course?"

  "I don't follow you," said Otto. "It's not damaged that I can see."

  The master baker made a gesture of impatience. "I didn't say it was. What I mean is, I want a new hood. I take it this is a good cop for you? We understand one another, I suppose?"

  "Not in the least," replied Köster.

  He understood only too well. The chap wanted to get a new hood, for which the insurance company was not liable, out of us. We argued the toss for some time, but the fellow threatened to cancel the job and get an estimate from some more obliging firm. Finally Köster gave in. He would not have, had we not been in sore need of the job.

  "You see, so why not at the beginning?" said the baker with a cunning smile. "I'll look round in a few days' time to choose the material. Beige, I think. Soft colour."

  We drove off. When we were outside, Lenz pointed to the seat of the Ford. There were large black stains on it. "The blood of his wife. And he swindles a new hood out of it! 'Beige,' by God! 'Soft colour!' Hats off! I wouldn't put it past him to have claimed insurance for two. Didn't Barsig say the woman was pregnant?"

  Köster shrugged his shoulders. "I suppose he would say business is business, and the one thing has nothing to do with the other."

  "Maybe," said Lenz, "but, you know, there are people who can draw real comfort out of misfortune. Anyway, it's going to cost us fifty marks off our takings."

  In the afternoon I made a pretext to go home. I had an appointment around five o'clock with Patricia Hollmann, but I said nothing about that at the workshop. Not that I wanted to conceal it; but it struck me all at once as rather unlikely.

  She had given me as the meeting place a certain café. I did not know it; I only knew it was a small, elegant affair. Unsuspecting I went in. But I started back in horror as I entered. The room was full to overflowing with jabbering women. I had landed into a typical dames' teashop. With some difficulty I succeeded in snaffling a table which had just been vacated. Uncomfortably I glanced around. Besides myself there were only two other men there, and I did not like the look of them.

  "Coffee, tea or chocolate?" asked the waiter, whisking several cake crumbs off the table onto my suit with his serviette.

  "A large cognac," I replied.

  He brought it. But he brought with him at the same time a bevy of coffee drinkers in search of a place, headed by a female athlete of uncertain age wearing a woeful-looking hat.

  "Four? This way, please," said he, and indicated my table.

  "One moment—" I answered. "This table is taken. I'm waiting for someone."

  "Not allowed, sir," said the waiter. "No seats can be reserved at this hour."

  I looked at him. Then I looked at the athlete, now standing close by the table and clutching the arm of a chair. I saw her face and gave up at once all thought of further resistance. Not with a set of howitzers would one have deterred this person in her determination to take possession of the table.

  "Anyway you can bring me another cognac, eh?" I growled at the waiter.

  "Very well, sir. Another large one?"

  "A very large one, see!"

  "Certainly, sir." He bowed. "It is a table for six persons, you see, sir," said he apologetically.

  "Very good. Only bring the cognac."

  The athlete appeared to belong to a temperance club as well. She glared at my schnapps as if it were stinking fish. To annoy her I ordered another and glared back. The whole business suddenly struck me as absurd. What did I want here? And what did I want with the girl? I didn't know even if in all the hubbub and jabber I should recognize her anyway.

  Vexed, I tipped down my cognac.

  "Salut," said somebody behind me.

  I started up. There she stood, laughing. "You've begun in good time."

  I put the glass that I still had in my hand, down on the table. I was suddenly bewildered. The girl looked entirely different from what I remembered. Among the multitude of café-eating, well-fed women she looked like a slim young Amazon, cool, radiant, sure and unapproachable.

  "That will never go with us," thought I, and said: "And where did you spring from so mysteriously? I've been watching the door all the time."

  She pointed over to the right. "There's another entrance over there. But I am late. Have you been waiting long?"

  "Not at all. Two or three minutes at the most. I've only just arrived myself."

  The coffee club at my table had become quiet. I felt the appraising glances of four sober matrons on my back. "Shall we stay here?" I asked.

  With a swift glance the girl surveyed the table. Her mouth twitched. She looked at me with amusement. "Cafés are all alike, I'm afraid."

  I shook my head. "They are better when they are empty. This place is a devil of a hole, it gives one an inferiority complex. We would do better to go to a bar."

  "A bar. Are there bars open in broad daylight then?"

  "I know one," said I. "They are peaceful at any rate. If you like that—"

  "Oh, do I?"

  I looked at her. I could not for the moment decide how she meant that. I had nothing against irony if it was not against me; but I always had a bad conscience.

  "All right, let's go then," said she.

  I beckoned the waiter. "Three large cognacs," bawled the bird of ill omen in a voice as if he would settle accounts with a guest in the grave. "Three marks thirty."

  The girl turned round. "Three cognacs in three minutes? Good going."

  "That includes two from yesterday," I explained hastily.

  "What a liar!" hissed the athlete at the table behind me. She had kept silence long enough.

  I turned and bowed. "Happy Christmas, ladies." Then I went quickly.

  "Have you been quarrelling?" asked the girl when we were outside.

  "Not specially. I merely have an unfavorable effect on ladies in good circumstances."

  "Me too," she replied.

  I looked at her. She appeared to me as from another world. I simply could not imagine what she was or how she lived.

  In the bar I was on surer ground. Fred, the mixer, was standing behind the counter in the act of polishing the big cognac swill glass, as we entered. He greeted me as if he were seeing me for the first time and had not had to take me home only two nights ago. He was trained in a good school and had a vast experience behind him.

  The room was empty except for one table where, as usual, sat Valentin Hauser. I knew him from the war; we had been in the same company. He once brought me a letter to the front line because he supposed it was from my mother. He knew I was expecting one, for my mother had recently undergone an operation. But he was mistaken—it was merely an advertisement for a new warm trench cap made from stinging-nettles. On his way back he had been hit in the leg.

  Shortly after the war Valentin had come into a little money, and had been drinking it ever since. He considered it his duty to celebrate his good luck in having come out alive. It was nothing to him that that was now several years ago. One could never celebrate it enough, he used to explain. He was one of those with an uncanny memory of the war. The rest of us had forgotten many things; but he remembered every day and every hour.

  I saw that he had already had a good deal, for he was sitting vacantly in his corner, completely submerged. I raised my hand.

  "Salut, Valentin."

  He looked up and nodded. "Salut, Bob."

  We sat down in a corner. The mixer came.

  "What will you drink?" I asked the girl.

  "A Martini perhaps," she replied. "A dry Martini."

  "Fred is a specialist in that," said I.

  Fred permitted himself a smile.

  "The usual for me," said I.

  The bar was cool and dark, with a sme
ll of spilled gin and cognac—a rooty smell, as of juniper and bread. From the ceiling hung a wooden model of a sailing-ship. The wall behind the bar was faced with copper. The dimmed light from a sconce cast red reflections in it as if some subterranean fire were mirrored there. Of the smaller wrought-iron brackets on the wall only two were lighted—one near Valentin and another by us. They had yellow parchment shades made from old maps and looked like narrow illuminated sections of the world.