Three Comrades Read online

  He drank a great gulp and looked at me with his immense, blue eyes, that sat in his lined face like a piece of the sky. "Never want to know too much, Bob. The less a man knows the simpler it is to live. Knowledge maketh free —but unhappy. Come, drink with me to simplicity, to stupidity and to the things that belong to it—to love, to faith in the future, to the dream of happiness; to magnificent stupidity, to the paradise lost. . . ."

  He sat there, heavy and massive, suddenly sunk back into himself and his drunkenness, like a lonely hill of unassailable melancholy. His life had gone to pieces, and he knew that he would never assemble it again. He lived in his big studio and had a relationship with his housekeeper. The woman was tough and coarse; Grau, on the other hand, despite his great body, was sensitive and unstable. He could not get away from her and he probably did not care. He was forty-two years of age.

  Though I knew he was only drunk, I felt a slight shudder to see him so. He did not come often; he generally drank alone in his studio. That soon gets one down.

  A smile passed over his face. He pressed a glass into my hand.

  "Drink, Bob. And save yourself. Think on what I've said to you."

  "Right, Ferdinand."

  Lenz opened the gramophone. He had a pile of Negro records and played several—about the Mississippi, cotton picking, and sultry nights on the blue, tropical rivers.

  Chapter VI

  Patricia Hollmann lived in a big, yellow block of flats removed from the street by a narrow verge of grass. In front of the entrance was a lamp. I parked the Cadillac directly under it. In the flickering light she looked like an immense elephant of molten, black lacquer.

  I had still further perfected my wardrobe. To the tie I had added a new hat and a pair of gloves. I was also wearing Lenz's ulster, a marvellous brown affair of finest Shetland wool. Thus armed, I hoped to dispel forever any first unfortunate impression of drunkenness.

  I blew the horn. Immediately, like a rocket ascending, lights flashed on at five windows, one above the other. The lift started humming. I watched it descend like a bright skep lowered out of the sky. The girl opened the door and came quickly down the steps. She had on a short fur jacket and a close-fitting brown skirt.

  "Hello!" She offered her hand. "I am so glad to get out. I have been at home all day."

  I liked the way she shook hands—with a grip more powerful than one would expect. I hate people who offer a limp hand like a dead fish.

  "Why didn't you tell me sooner?" I replied. "I might have called for you at midday."

  "Have you so much time, then?" she asked laughing.

  "Not exactly. But I might have arranged to get off."

  She took a deep breath. "Wonderful air—it smells of spring."

  "You can have all the air you want," said I. "What about going out into the country, by way of the forest? You see I have a car." Casually I indicated the Cadillac, as if it were an old Ford.

  "The Cadillac?" Surprised, she looked at me. "Is it yours?"

  "For this evening, yes. Other times it belongs to our workshop. We've been working on it and mean to make the deal of our lives with it."

  I opened the door. "What do you say if we drive to the 'Bunch of Grapes' first and have something to eat?"

  "Eat certainly, but why the 'Bunch of Grapes'?"

  I looked at her puzzled. The "Bunch of Grapes" was the only decent restaurant I knew.

  "It's open," said I. "That's all I know about it. And I think we have a duty toward the Cadillac."

  "Duties are irksome," she replied. "The 'Bunch of Grapes' is sure to be steep and boring. Let's go somewhere else."

  I stood at a loss. My ideas for a serious evening were vanishing into thin air. "Then you must suggest something," said I. "The other places I know are a bit slapdash. I don't think they would suit you."

  "How do you know?"

  "Can see that—"

  She looked at me quickly: "Well, we could try."

  "All right." I definitely gave up my entire programme. "Then I do know somewhere, if you're not easily shocked. We'll go to Alfons'."

  "Alfons' sounds very good," she replied; "and I'm not easily shocked this evening."

  "Alfons runs a beer garden," said I; "an old friend of Lenz's."

  She laughed. "Lenz has friends everywhere, I guess."

  I nodded. "He makes them easily. You saw that with Binding."

  "Yes, indeed," she replied. "It was like lightning."

  We drove off.

  Alfons was a heavy placid fellow. Prominent cheekbones . . . Small eyes . . . Shirt sleeves rolled up . . . Arms like a gorilla. . . . Anyone he didn't want in his pub he threw out himself—including members of the Fatherland Sports Union. For really difficult guests he kept a hammer under the counter. The place was conveniently situated; close by the hospital. It saved Alfons transport charges.

  With a hairy hand he wiped over the bright deal table.

  "Beer?" he asked.

  "Whisky, and something to eat," said I.

  "And the lady?" asked Alfons.

  "The lady will also have a whisky," said Patricia Holl-mann.

  "That's the stuff!" remarked Alfons. "There are pork chops with sauerkraut."

  "Killed by yourself?" I asked.

  "Certainly."

  "But the lady would probably prefer something a bit lighter, Alfons."

  "Not seriously," protested Alfons. "Let her have a look at the chops first."

  He got a waiter to show a portion. "Was a wonderful sow," said he. "Took two firsts."

  "That's the stuff," replied Patricia Hollmann to my amazement, with as much assurance as if she had been in the racket for years.

  Alfons winked. "Two portions then?"

  She nodded.

  "Fine! I'll go and choose them myself."

  He went off to the kitchen.

  "I take back my doubts about the place," said I. "You have taken Alfons by storm. Choosing them himself—usually he does that only for very old customers."

  Alfons returned. "I've thrown in a fresh sausage as well."

  "Not a bad thought," said I.

  Alfons looked at us benevolently. The whisky arrived. Three glasses. One for Alfons.

  "Well, pros't!" said he. "May our children have rich parents."

  We touched glasses. The girl did not sip, she tipped it down.

  "That's the stuff," said Alfons and sloped back to the counter.

  "Did you like the taste of the whisky?" I asked.

  She shook herself. "A bit powerful. But I couldn't let Alfons down."

  The pork chops were the goods. I ate two large portions and Patricia Hollmann cheered me on. I thought it grand the way she joined in and found her feet in the place without any trouble. And without any fuss she drank yet a second whisky with Alfons. He winked to me secretly that he thought she was all right. And Alfons was a connoisseur. Not exactly as regards beauty and culture; more for kernel and content.

  "When you are married," said I, "you might teach Alfons to recognize one or two of his human weaknesses."

  "Certainly," she replied. "He looks as if he had none."

  "But he has." I pointed to a table beside the bar. "There."

  "What? the gramophone?"

  "Not the gramophone. Choral singing. Alfons has a weakness for choral singing. No dances, no classical music—only choirs. Male choirs, mixed choirs—everything on those records there is a choir. There—you see, here he comes."

  "Like it?" asked Alfons.

  "Like mother makes," I replied.

  "The lady too?"

  "The best pork chops in my life," declared the lady boldly.

  Alfons nodded satisfaction. "Now I'll play you my new record. Make you open your eyes."

  He went to the gramophone. The needle scratched and a male choir lifted up its voice, singing with immense gusto "Silence in the Forest." It was a damned noisy silence.

  From the first onset the whole place was still. Alfons could be dangerous if anyone showed irreverenc
e. He stood at the counter, his hairy arms propping his chin. His expression changed under the influence of the music. He looked almost dreamy—dreamy as a gorilla can. Choral singing had an extraordinary effect on him; it made him as soft and sentimental as a calf. When he was younger and even more quick-tempered his wife used to keep one of his favourite records always ready on the instrument, so that if he should get dangerous and appear with the hammer she could switch on the needle; then he would lower the hammer, and listen and calm. It was unnecessary now: his wife was dead and her portrait, by Ferdinand Grau, for which Ferdinand always had free table here, hung over the bar—and besides, Alfons was older and colder.

  The record ran out. Alfons came over.

  "Wonderful," said I.

  "Especially the first tenor," added Patricia Hollmann..

  "Exactly," observed Alfons showing signs of recovery. "You know something about it I see. The first tenor is in a class by himself."

  We were standing out on the pavement. The street lamps outside the pub cast restless lights and shadows up into the labyrinth of branches of an old tree. The twigs already had a shimmer of green and in tbe flickering uncertain light from below the tree appeared even bigger and taller, as if its top were lost in the gloom up there—like some enormous, outstretched hand, in an immensity' of desire grasping the sky.

  Patricia Hollmann gave a slight shiver.

  "Are you cold?" I asked.

  She turned up her collar and tucked her hands into the sleeves of her fur jacket. "It's only momentary. It was pretty warm in there."

  "You are too lightly clad," said I. "It is still cold at night."

  She shook her head. "I don't like wearing heavy things. It will be nice when it gets really warm again. I can't bear cold. At any rate not in the town."

  "It is warmer in the Cadillac," said I. "I took the precaution of bringing a rug."

  I helped her into the car and spread the rug over her knees. She drew them high up. "Grand! Now I'm quite warm. Cold makes you miserable."

  "Not only cold." I turned to the wheel. "Now shall we go for a jaunt?"

  She nodded. "I'd like it."

  "Where to?"

  "Just slowly along the road. It doesn't matter where."

  "Right."

  I started the engine and we drove slowly and planless through the city. It was the hour when the evening traffic was at its thickest. We slipped almost inaudibly through, the engine ran so sweetly. The car might have been a ship gliding soundlessly along the gay canals of life. The streets drifted by—bright doorways, lights, rows of street lamps, the sweet mild evening effervescence of life, the gentle fever of the lighted night, and, over all, between the roofs of the houses, the great, iron-grey sky, against which the city flung its light.

  The girl sat silent beside me; brightness and shadow through the window glided across her face. I glanced at her occasionally; she reminded me again of the evening when I had first seen her. Her expression had become graver, she appeared stranger than before, but very beautiful; it was the same expression that had moved me then and had not let me go. It seemed to me as if there were in it something of the secret of quietness that things have that are near to nature—trees, clouds, animals—and occasionally a woman.

  We had reached the quieter streets of the suburbs. The wind grew stronger. It seemed to be driving the night before it. At a large square, about which little houses were sleeping in little gardens, I stopped the car.

  Patricia Hollmann made a movement as if she were awakening.

  "It's lovely, that," said she after a while. "If I had a car, I would drive about slowly like that every evening. There is something unreal in gliding along so noiselessly. One is awake and dreaming at the same time. I can imagine that one would not want, then, any human being of an evening—"

  I took a packet of cigarettes from my pocket. "One needs something of an evening, eh?"

  She nodded. "Of an evening, yes. It is a queer thing, when it turns dark."

  I tore open the packet. "They are American cigarettes, do you like them?"

  "Yes, better than any."

  I gave her a light. For an instant the warm, close light of the match illumined her face and my hands, and suddenly I had a mad feeling as if we had belonged to one another a long time.

  I lowered the window to let out the smoke.

  "Would you like to drive a bit now?" I asked. "I'm sure you'd find it fun."

  She turned toward me. "I'd like to; but I can't."

  "You really can't?"

  "No. I've never learnt."

  I saw my chance. "But Binding might have shown you long ago," said I.

  She laughed. "Binding is too much in love with his car. He won't let anybody near it."

  "That is just stupid," I continued, glad to be able to give Fatty one. "I'll let you drive, certainly. Come on."

  I threw all Köster's warnings to the wind and got out to let her take the wheel. She got excited. "But I tell you I really and truly can't drive."

  "Sure, you can," I replied. "Only you don't know it yet."

  I showed her how to change gear and work the clutch. "So," said I then, "now away you go."

  "One moment!" She pointed to a solitary bus crawling along the road. "Shouldn't we let that by first?"

  "Certainly not." I swiftly slipped the gear and let in the clutch.

  "Heavens!" cried Patricia Hollmann. "It's going."

  "That's what it was built for. Only no fear. Give it plenty of gas. I'll watch it."

  She was gripping the steering wheel desperately tight and looking apprehensively along the road. "My God, we are going pretty fast, aren't we?"

  I glanced at the speedometer. "You are doing now, just twenty-five kilometres. That is in reality twenty. A good speed for a long-distance runner."

  "It feels like eighty to me."

  After a few minutes the first fear was overcome. We were driving along a wide, straight road. The Cadillac reeled a bit now and then as if we had cognac instead of petrol in the tank, and occasionally ran suspiciously near the curb, but gradually it went quite well, and with the result I had anticipated—I got the upper hand, for we now suddenly had the relationship of pupil and teacher, and I made the best of it.

  "Mind," said I, "there's a policeman over there."

  "Should I stop?"

  "It's too late now."

  "And what happens if he catches me? I haven't a driver's license."

  "Then we both go to gaol."

  "Good heavens!" Alarmed, she felt for the brake with her foot.

  "Gas!" I called. "Gas! Step on it hard. We must go proudly and swiftly by. Boldness is the best rule against the law."

  The policeman took no notice of us at all. The girl sighed with relief.

  "I never knew before that traffic police could look like fire-spitting dragons," said she when we had put him a few hundred yards behind us.

  "They only do that when you drive around them." I slowly put on the brake. "So, now here's a fine empty byroad. We are going to practise now, properly. First of all, starting and stopping."

  Patricia Hollmann stalled the engine several times. She unbuttoned her fur coat. "It is making me hot! But I must learn it."

  She sat eager and attentive, watching first what I did. Then with excited little cries she took her first corners and was as afraid of approaching headlights as if they had been the devil, and as proud when she had successfully passed them. Soon there arose in the little space dimly lighted by the lamp in the switchboard a feeling of comradeship, which springs up quickly where technical, matter-of-fact things are concerned; and after half an hour, when we changed places and I drove back, we were as familiar with one another as if we had unbosomed our whole life histories.

  In the neighbourhood of Nikolaistrasse I stopped the car again. We were directly under a red movie advertisement. The asphalt gleamed a pale purple. On the curb shone a big black spot.

  "So," said I. "Now.we have honestly earned a glass of something to drin
k. Where should we do that?"

  Patricia Hollmann considered a moment. "Let us go again to that lovely bar with the sailing ship," she suggested.