The Black Obelisk (45 page)

"Your wife has just done a splendid bit of business. If she sells the mourning clothes tomorrow, she will make a profit of several billion through the inflation—especially if the material hasn't been paid for."

"No, we haven't paid for it yet!" cry the quartet.

"Then you should be happy, Herr Knopf! While you've been ill the dollar has been rising fast. Without knowing it you've made a profit in your sleep."

Knopf pricks up his ears. He knows about the inflation because schnaps has become constantly more expensive. "Well, a profit," he mutters. Then he turns to his four ruffled sparrows. "Have you bought a tombstone for me too?"

"No, Father!" cry the quartet in relief—with a warning glance at us.

"And why not?" Knopf screeches furiously.

They stare at him.

"You geese!" he shouts. "Then we could sell it too! At a profit, eh?" he asks Georg.

"Only if it had been paid for. Otherwise we'd simply take it back."

"That's what you think! Then we'd sell it to Hollmann and Klotz and pay you out of the proceeds!" The sergeant major turns back to his brood. "You geese! Where's the money? If you haven't paid for the cloth, you still have the money! Bring it here!"

"Come on," Georg says. "The emotional part is over. The financial part is no concern of ours."

He is mistaken. A quarter of an hour later Knopf is standing in our office. A penetrating smell of schnaps surrounds him. "I've found out everything," he says. "Lies won't help you. My wife has confessed. She bought a tombstone from you."

"She didn't pay for it. Remember that. Now you don't have to take it."

"She bought it," the sergeant major declares threateningly. "There are witnesses. Don't try to crawl out! Yes or no?"

Georg looks at me. "All right. But it was an inquiry rather than a purchase."

"Yes or no?" Knopf snorts.

"Because we've known each other so long, let it be as you like, Herr Knopf," Georg says to quiet the old man.

"All right then. Give it to me in writing."

We look at each other. This worn-out martial skeleton has learned fast. He is trying to outsmart us.

"Why in writing?" I ask. "Pay for the stone and it's yours."

"Be silent, you betrayer!" Knopf shouts at me. "In writing!" he screeches. "For eight billion! Much too much for a piece of stone!"

"If you want it, you must pay for it immediately," I say.

Knopf fights heroically. It takes us ten minutes to defeat him. He produces eight billion of the money he has taken from his wife and pays. "In writing, now!" he growls.

He gets it in writing. Through the window I see the ladies of his family standing in their doorway. Timidly they look over at me and make signs. Knopf has robbed them of their last measly million. Meanwhile, he has been handed his receipt. "So," he says to Georg. "And now what will you pay me for the stone? I'll sell it."

"Eight billion."

"What? You double-dealer! Eight billion is what I have paid myself. What about the inflation?"

"The inflation is here. Today the stone is worth eight and a half billion. I pay you eight as the purchase price. We have to make a half-billion profit on the sale."

"What? You usurer! And I? Where's my profit? You'll just pocket that, eh?"

"Herr Knopf," I say. "If you buy a bicycle and sell it again an hour later, you won't get the full purchase price back. That's one of the facts of business; our economy rests on it."

"The economy can kiss my ass!" the incensed sergeant major declares. "A bicycle that has been bought is a used bicycle, even if you haven't ridden it. But my headstone is new."

"Theoretically it's used too," I say. "Speaking in a business way. Besides, you can't ask us to take a loss simply because you're still alive."

"Frauds! That's what you are!"

"Just keep the headstone," Georg advises him. "It's a good investment. Some time or other you'll have use for it. No family is immortal."

"I'll sell it to your competitors. To Hollmann and Klotz if you don't give me ten billion for it immediately!"

I pick up the telephone. "Come on, we'll save you the trouble. Here, call them up. Number 624."

Knopf becomes uncertain and refuses. "The same sort of shysters as you! What will the stone be worth tomorrow?"

"Perhaps a billion more. Perhaps two or three billion."

"And in a week?"

"Herr Knopf," Georg says. "If we knew the dollar exchange in advance we wouldn't be sitting here haggling with you about headstones."

"It's easily possible that you will be a trillionaire in a month," I explain.

Knopf considers this. "I'll keep the stone," he growls finally. "Too bad I've paid for it already."

"We'll buy it back any time."

"You'd like that, wouldn't you! I wouldn't dream of it without making a profit! I'll keep it as a speculation. Give it a good place." Knopf looks anxiously out of the window. "Perhaps it will rain."

"Rain doesn't hurt headstones."

"Nonsense! Then they're no longer new! I demand that mine be kept in the shed. On straw."

"Why don't you put it in your house?" Georg asks. "Then it will be protected from the cold during the winter."

"You're completely crazy, aren't you?"

"Not in the least. There are lots of admirable people who keep their coffins in their homes. Holy men, principally, and South Italians. Some even use them for beds. Wilke upstairs always sleeps in his giant coffin when he has drunk so much that he can't get home."

"It won't work!" Knopf decides. "The women! The stone is to remain here. Untouched! You'll be responsible! Insure it! At your own expense!"

By now I have had enough of this military tone. "How about holding a review every morning?" I inquire. "See to it that the polish is first class, that the tombstone is precisely lined up with the ones in front, that the base is properly drawn in like a belly, that the bushes around are standing at attention, and, if you insist, Herr Heinrich Kroll can report every day in uniform. He would certainly enjoy that."

Knopf looks at me somberly. "The world would be a better place if there were more Prussian discipline in it," he replies, and belches frighteningly. The smell of Roth schnaps is pervasive. The sergeant major has probably had nothing to eat all day. Knopf belches again, this time more softly and melodiously, stares at us for a while while with the pitiless eye of a full sergeant major in retirement, turns around, almost falls, catches himself, and then wavers purposefully out of the courtyard toward the left—in the direction of the first inn, in his pocket his family's remaining billions.

Gerda is standing in front of her gas ring, making cabbage
roulades
.
She has a pair or worn-down green bedroom slippers on her feet and a red checked kitchen towel draped over her right shoulder. The room smells of cabbage, fat, powder, and perfume; outside, the red leaves of the wild grapevine swing in front of the window, and autumn stares in with blue eyes.

"It's nice that you came again," Gerda says. "I'm moving out of here tomorrow."

"You are?"

She stands unconcernedly in front of the gas ring, confix dent of her own body. "Yes," she says. "Does that interest you?"

She turns around and looks at me. "It does interest me, Gerda," I reply. "Where are you going?"

"To the Hotel Walhalla."

"To Eduard?"

"Yes, to Eduard."

She shakes the pan with the cabbage
roulades
.
"Have you anything against that?" she asks presently.

I look at her. What can I have against it? I think. I wish I did have something against It! For a moment I am tempted to lie, but I know she will see through me. "Aren't you staying on at the Red Mill?" I ask.

"I finished up there long ago. You didn't bother to find out, did you? No, I'm not going to continue. People starve in our profession. But I'll stay in this city."

"With Eduard," I say.

"Yes, with Eduard," she repeats. "He's turning the bar over to me. I'll be the barmaid."

"And you'll live in the Walhalla?"

"I'll live in the Walhalla, upstairs under the rafters, and 111 work in the Walhalla. I'm not as young as you think; I have to look for some kind of security before I find myself with no more engagements. Nothing came of the circus either. That was just a last try."

"You can go on finding engagements for years, Gerda," I say.

"You don't know anything about that. I know what I'm doing."

I glance at the red vine leaves swinging in front of the window. For no reason I feel like a shirker. My relationship with Gerda has been no more than that of a soldier on leave, but for one of every pair it is always something different.

"I wanted to tell you myself," Gerda says.

"You wanted to tell me it's all over between us?"

She nods. "I play fair. Eduard is the only one who has offered me something secure—a job—and I know what that's worth. I'm not going to cheat." She laughs suddenly. "Farewell to youth. Come, the cabbage
roulades
are done."

She puts the plates on the table. I look at her and am suddenly sad. "Well, how is your heavenly love affair getting on?" she says.

"It's not, Gerda. Not at all."

She serves the meal. "The next time you have a small affair," she says, "don't tell the girl anything about your other loves. Do you understand?"

"Yes," I reply. "I'm sorry, Gerda."

"For God's sake, shut up and eat!"

I look at her. She is eating calmly and matter-of-factly, her face is clear and firm, she has been used from childhood on to living independently, she understands her existence and has adjusted herself to it. She has everything I lack, and I wish I were in love with her and that life were clear and foreseeable and one always knew what one needed to know about it—not very much but that little with certainty.

"You know, I don't want much," Gerda says. "I grew up among blows and then was thrown out. Now I have had enough of my profession and I'm going to settle down. Eduard is not the worst."

"He is vain and stingy," I declare and am at once angry at myself for having said it.

"That's better than being slovenly and extravagant, if you're going to marry someone."

"You're going to get married?" I ask in amazement. "Do you really believe that? He'll exploit you and then marry the daughter of some rich hotel owner."

"He hasn't promised me anything. I just have a contract for the bar, for three years. In the course of those years he will discover that he can't get along without me."

"You have changed," I say.

"Oh, you sheep! I have just made up my mind."

"Soon you will join Eduard in cursing at us about those coupons."

"Do you still have some?"

"Enough for another month and a half."

Gerda laughs. "I won't curse. Besides, you paid for them properly at the time."

"It was our one successful financial transaction." I watch Gerda as she clears away the plates. "I'll turn them all over to Georg," I say. "I'll not be coming to the Walhalla any more."

She turns around. She is smiling, but her eyes are not. "Why not?" she asks.

"I don't know. It's the way I feel. But perhaps I shall, after all."

"Of course you'll come! Why shouldn't you?"

"Yes, why not?" I say dispiritedly.

From below come the subdued tones of the player piano. I get up and walk to the window. "How fast this year has gone!" I say.

"Yes," Gerda replies, leaning against me. "Idiotic!" she murmurs, "when once you find someone you like, it has to be somebody like you, somebody who just doesn't fit." She pushes me away. "Now go—go to your divine love—God, what do you know about women?"

"Not a thing."

She smiles. "Don't try to either, baby. It's better this way. Now go! Here, take this with you."

She gets a medal and gives it to me. What's that?" I ask.