The Drinker (7 page)

13

The most disagreeable thing about my present predicament was that I was standing in the street practically without a penny. I couldn’t go home, where I had at least some small change in my bureau, because I was obliged to assume that as soon as they noticed my absence the doctors would go looking for me there, and make their report to Madame Magda. It was too late to go to the bank, it shut two hours ago. Just as I was looking at my watch, it occurred to me that I owned not only it, but also a heavy gold signet ring and quite a solid wedding ring, moreover, which, after my scene with Magda this morning, had lost all real significance. So I was not entirely without means, and I boldly directed my steps towards the narrow dirty lane that led through the “shed district.”

This colony had grown around an old army camp in the depression years following the World War. The former army huts had been changed but not beautified by all kinds of ramshackle additions and reconstructions. In between stood little red brick houses which were already collapsing before they had been properly finished. I went hesitantly along this lane, myself unsure what I was doing or looking for here, when, at a window in one of these little brick houses, the familiar red sign caught my eye, advertising accommodation. I stepped closer and read, sure enough, that there was a comfortably furnished room to let to a respectable gentleman. There was no doorbell. I stepped through the open door and immediately found myself in a kitchen filled with steam from boiling washing. I couldn’t see anyone, so I loudly called “Hallo!” and out of the steam appeared a tall, bent, but still quite young man, with a yellow pallor, a soft beard, and lightish brown hair which had a golden sheen above the forehead. This man looked at me with some surprise and in a soft voice, he very politely asked what he could do for me.

“I would like to see the room that’s to let.”

“For yourself?” asked the man, rubbing his hands and coughing slightly. I said, yes.

“It’s no room for a gentleman. It’s not fine enough for a gentleman. It’s a room suitable for a working-man, sir.”

“Show it me, anyway,” I insisted.

He went silently before me, up a stairway, across an unfinished floor, and opened the door of a little one-windowed room with sloping walls—an attic really. Its interior was almost exactly like Elinor’s primitive room, and involuntarily I went across to the window to see whether there was a sloping shed roof here too, to offer the possibility of escape in the event of a surprise visit. No, the shed roof was missing, but instead there was an absolutely astonishing view over my native town. It lay before me, a little below, with its red-brown roofs, its three pointed church spires and the round-headed tower of the Town Hall; the green-bordered river wound through it, disappearing here and shining out again there, and as my eyes followed its course, I saw in the distance, out among the green of the fields and gardens, veiled in a blue mist, a roof, my roof.

“It’s a lovely view,” I said after a while.

The man behind me coughed.

“A working man,” he said, “doesn’t ask about the view. He asks if the bed’s good, and that’s a good bed, sir.”

“What does the room cost?” I asked.

“Seven marks a week,” said the man, “and we change the sheets once a week.”

“I’d like to eat here too,” I said. “I want to live here undisturbed for two or three weeks, in absolute quiet. I have some work to do, some writing. I shall hardly leave the house, can that be arranged? I don’t make many demands.”

“Our food is too simple for you, sir,” said the man. “But I can have meals sent over from the pub, if that’s all right for you.”

“All right,” I said, “I’ll take the room. My trunk is coming tomorrow. Have some supper sent over,” and I sat down at the table.

“I’ll have to ask for a little deposit, sir,” said my landlord, and he pulled his fingers till the joints cracked. “We’re poor people, sir …”

“Sit down,” I said to my landlord. “Ah, I see there’s a glass over there on the wash-stand. I wonder if you’d be good enough to bring it over, please.”

My landlord did so, and at my repeated invitation, he sat down at the table.

“What’s your name?”

“Lobedanz,” he answered, “It’s a rather funny name …”

“I don’t care whether your name is funny or not,” I said patronisingly, “let’s drink your health.”

I poured his glass half full—despite his protests—and kept hold of the bottle.

“I can drink out of the bottle for once,” I said laughingly. “We’ve all done that in our young days.”

He smiled feebly and took a little sip, while I drank deeply.

“I must ask you, Herr Lobedanz,” I said easily, “to have a bottle of brandy sent over with the supper. But no rubbish please. The best they have in stock.”

I saw his lips move and guessed what he was going to say.

“About that deposit—I ought to tell you that I decided on this work quite suddenly.” I caught my landlord’s glance, as he looked thoughtfully at my open brief-case, which was quite empty. I laughed.

“Well, I’ll tell you the truth, Herr Lobedanz. All that stuff about the work I want to do here in absolute peace and quiet is rubbish of course. The fact of the matter is I had a serious row with my wife this afternoon. And in order to scare her a bit I want to disappear for a week or two. You understand, I want to bring her to her senses.”

Herr Lobedanz nodded.

“I want to let her see what it’s like without a husband.”

Herr Lobedanz nodded again.

“She’s got to learn how useful, how indispensable I am!”

Again Herr Lobedanz nodded and then he said in his soft, almost whispering voice: “Even so, sir, I can’t take you without a deposit. We’re very poor people here in the ‘shed district’, sir, and supper from a good pub and a bottle of best brandy costs a lot of money.”

“You’ll have all the money you want tomorrow Herr Lobedanz,” I said persuasively. “I’ll go and draw some money from my bank at nine tomorrow morning.”

“No,” said my landlord, “I’m sorry, sir, I’d like to have you as a lodger, an educated man who wants to frighten his wife a bit in a gentlemanly way. We beat our wives, it’s simpler and cheaper.”

“Well, yes, yes,” I laughed, a little embarrassed, “but I don’t know whether I would come off best in a fight with my wife. I’m afraid she’s the stronger.”

I laughed again and drank.

“But since you’re so keen on a deposit, I’ll give you a ring as security.”

I took the signet ring and the wedding ring off the third finger of my right hand. I hesitated for a moment, then handed the wedding ring to Lobedanz.

“I’d like you to keep this as security till tomorrow morning, and not get rid of it.”

Herr Lobedanz took the ring from my hand.

“We’re very poor people, sir,” he said again in his whispering voice. “We’ve hardly got three marks in the house. But I could pawn the ring with a safe man I know, and we could redeem it again tomorrow afternoon.”

“All right, all right,” I said, suddenly bored and irritated by all these formalities. “But see to it that the food and the brandy gets sent over quickly, especially the brandy. You can see the bottle’s nearly empty, and a man needs to drown his sorrows, you know.”

“It will be very quick, sir,” whispered my landlord, and he shut the door. I threw myself on the bed and drank. That is how I made the acquaintance of Lobedanz, the lowest scoundrel and hypocrite I ever met in my life.

14

I had firmly resolved that night to go home, pack a case with clothes, linen, shaving things, and to take what money was in my bureau. For I really intended to live in hiding for a few weeks at Lobedanz’s. I had the idea of curing myself of the drinking habit in peace and quiet; the first day I would drink the usual amount, the following day one-third less, and so on, until in a week or two I could appear before Magda and the doctors and say “What do you want with me?”

I thought it quite possible that Magda would surprise me at my nocturnal packing, but I didn’t shrink from meeting her, no, I even wanted to. In the silence of the night, undisturbed, I would be able to tell her a few home-truths about her despicable behaviour in setting the doctors so slyly on to a man to whom, after all, she has been bound in marriage for fifteen years. She had broken off the comradeship between us, and I became more and more certain that she was only trying to have me put away, so as to get hold of my property. I was going to tell her all this to her face.

Unfortunately nothing came of my fine plan. Again, alcohol played me a dirty trick. Not that it plunged me into a stupefying dreamless sleep, as had occasionally happened before, so that I missed the proper time; no, on this occasion, I had a much worse experience: my body refused to serve me, my stomach went on strike. Though with some aversion, I had dutifully eaten part of the supper which had been brought in—it was quite nice—and afterwards I had drunk heavily. I had lain down on the bed and, in a half-sleep I was awaiting the time for my departure. Then my stomach began to heave. I was obliged to get up and vomit endlessly, in agonising pain. My whole body was covered in sweat, my hands and knees were trembling, my heart beat loudly and uncertainly as if at any moment it would stop. There were tears in my eyes, lights flickered in front of them, veils seem to float through my brain, often I was almost unconscious. At last I lay on my bed again, nearly dead with exhaustion, seized with an insane fear; was the end near? So soon, already? I hadn’t been drinking for very long, and not at all excessively. Did one become a drunkard so quickly? No, I didn’t want to die yet! I had regarded this period of drunkenness merely as a passing phase; I had been convinced that I could give it up at any time without harming myself—and now was everything to come to an end already? No, it was impossible! I would get well again, soon, perhaps by tomorrow; there must have been another reason for that gall-bitter vomiting! Surely it was something I ate for supper!

It is strange that at the worst stage of the poisoning, I had not the slightest notion of giving up alcohol. On the contrary, I anxiously avoided any thought of it. It couldn’t be the cause, I couldn’t give it up! It was my only true friend in all this abandonment and degradation. And hardly had I recovered a little, hardly had my heart and my breathing become calmer, than I reached out for the bottle again, and drank anew, to summon the dreams, to summon forgetfulness, to enter again into that sweet oblivion in which one knows neither sorrow nor joy, in which one has neither past nor future.

For a while the schnaps did its duty: I lay there relaxed and faintly happy. Then the vomiting caught me again, an even more agonising retching sickness, since there was nothing left in my stomach but a few mouthfuls of schnaps.

So I passed the night between drinking and vomiting. In the end I was concentrating all my will and all my strength just on keeping back the vomit for as long as possible, so that the alcohol would have a few minutes to work its way through the mucous membranes of my stomach into my body, before a new bout of retching drove it out. It was such a pity about that lovely schnaps!

At last, towards morning, I fell into a restless exhausted sleep through which flitted the images of wild agonising dreams.

Lobedanz woke me up. He stood in the doorway and remarked with a cough that it was nine o’clock, should he bring the coffee? I told him indignantly that I didn’t want coffee, he was to bring me another bottle at once.

Without taking any notice of my words, he began tidying up the wild disorder of my room. He opened the windows, and the fresh air and sunshine streamed in. Exhausted, weak, defenceless, I blinked into the light.

“Hurry up, Lobedanz,” I angrily implored. “I’ve emptied this bottle. See that I get a new one straight away!”

“You wanted to go to your bank at nine, sir,” Lobedanz reminded me in his soft, whispering way. “It’s nine now.”

“I can’t go now,” I said angrily. “You can see that I’m ill, Lobedanz. I’ll go tomorrow, or this afternoon. Now fetch me some schnaps.”

“Then I’ll have to sell the ring, sir,” said Lobedanz. “The pawnbroker would only lend me fifteen marks on it. If I sell it, I’ll get twenty-five marks.”

“Twenty-five marks!” I cried indignantly. “That ring cost ninety marks new!”

“It’s an old ring now, and the pawnbroker’s got to live, sir,” whispered Lobedanz impassively. “If I can sell the ring for twenty-five marks, the brandy will soon be here.”

“And how can fifteen marks be gone already?” I cried in exasperation. “One supper and a bottle of schnaps, that doesn’t come to fifteen marks!”

“And the room-rent, sir?” asked Lobedanz. “Isn’t a poor man like me to have anything? By the way, I’ll have to charge you twelve marks for the room, sir.… I know, I know,” he said, and again he cracked his joints in a particularly loud and disgusting way, “I said seven marks and I’m a man of my word. But you make a lot of work, sir, and you’re ruining the room, and you go to bed in your clothes and shoes and that spoils the sheets. It all costs money, and we’re very poor people …”

“You’re a lot of thieves!” I shouted furiously. “You can go to the devil! I’m moving!”

“Very good sir,” said Lobedanz, and went away.

But of course he was the winner. After a while I got up, tormented by thirst, and went groaning down the stairs, calling him. (He let me call for a long time). And I cajoled him, and gave him permission to sell my wedding ring for twenty-five marks—and then, at last, after a long, long agonising wait, I got a new bottle of brandy, and again I could drink and vomit, drink and vomit. So out of one day grew a second and a third and a whole row of days and I never once left the room at Lobedanz’s.

15

During this first week which I spent with Lobedanz, both of my rings, my gold watch and my brief-case passed into his possession. I am quite convinced that the pawnbroker was merely an imaginary person, and that the one who actually acquired my valuables was that “very poor man” Lobedanz himself. What I got in return was absurdly little. Perhaps twelve to fourteen bottles of schnaps, at four marks a bottle (incidentally, the quality he brought was always poor), and now and then a little food. For I ate hardly anything. Whenever I happened to glance in the mirror now, I would observe my face with a sort of cruel voluptuousness. Covered with days-old bristles, it looked bloated yet emaciated, positively burnt-out. “That’s the way to destroy oneself,” I said triumphantly. And immediately I thought of Magda again, and how shocked she would be if she could see me in this condition, and how I would fling it in her face that she, and she alone, was the shameful cause of this transformation!

My health changed much during this time. Of course, I did not give another thought to the cure I had planned. I drank as much as I could get into my stomach. Usually, it was on strike, and I had a great deal of trouble to get the required amount down; at other times, for some unknown reason, it was quite willing to swallow and keep down whatever it got. Those were the good times. Then I sat at the window, with the bottle always close by me; I sang old folk-songs and
wanderlieder
softly to myself, and I looked out over the town below me, over to the house which lay far away in the blueish mist, and which was mine. Then I would wonder what Magda was doing just now; and at these times I was firmly convinced that I loved her as much as ever, and that it was she who had betrayed our love. Then I imagined how, one day, I would return home, healthy and bright; somehow, by some secret but quite lawful means, I had come into possession of a lot of money, and made everybody glad, and everyone admired me, and they all lived happily ever after.

From such childish dreams, Lobedanz would wake me roughly enough. He made it clear that I should get neither drink nor lodging from him unless I produced some more money at once.… We became involved in an endless quarrel, on his side, always polite, quiet, insinuating, on mine, rude, with passionate outbursts that ended almost in floods of tears. But it did not help in the least to keep reproaching him for the usurious prices at which he availed himself of my belongings, giving me little, almost nothing, in return. He sheltered behind the pawnbroker who just would not give more, he swore up hill and down dale that he had not made a penny out of me up to now, and still maintained that I must get money or move out. Yes, and now he even made dark insinuations that the police might be very interested in people of my sort, and that it was not permitted to take up residence without reporting to them, and that this was making it dangerous for him. At that time, I paid no attention to such threatening talk. But I knew that I would have to get some money, for the gentle Lobedanz was as hard as flint.

The only thing I got out of him was another bottle of brandy on tick, to make me fresh for my night expedition. I had just had one of my good days, that is, a day when my body was on good terms with alcohol; that was a bit of luck. On another day, it would have been impossible for me to undertake such a trip. I knew that I could not go to the bank any more: I was sure that they had been notified of my disappearance, and advised that, if I did turn up, no payments were to be made to me without previous consultation. So I would have to break into my own house. The thought of meeting Magda was not so pleasant—now that such a meeting was almost certain—as it had been a week ago, when I had only dreamed of her. But it had to be. I thrust the brandy bottle into my trouser pocket—the gentle Lobedanz had refused me the return of my brief-case—and started on my way. It was shortly after midnight. Lobedanz let me out of the house and whispered that it was very dark. I should be particularly careful when crossing the bridge over the river.

“I’ll wait up for you, sir,” he whispered, “however late it may be. I’ll have a bottle ready for you. And then, sir,” he whispered still softer, “then, sir, if you’ve still got any jewellery or silver—I’ve got a dealer on hand who pays very decent prices, not like that twister—just bring whatever you can and I’ll look after you all right.”

“That’s the way to catch simpletons,” I thought, and was simpleton enough not to withhold my appreciation from Lobedanz for being so clever as to keep a bottle of brandy ready as a reward for my return. Of course, I had quite different plans, of which he had no inkling.

Walking was much easier for me than I had expected. I felt hardly any need for drink. I was rather excited. I well remember how, all the long way, I tried anxiously not to think of what lay ahead of me. I recited to myself, over and over again, all the poems I knew by heart from my schooldays; and in spite of that, I found myself between one verse and the next, talking to Magda or wondering which suitcase would be the best one to take.

At last, after nearly three-quarters of an hour’s walking, I arrived at the garden gate of my villa. Shortly before, one o’clock had struck from the town’s three steeples. I closed the gate softly behind me, and avoiding the gravel-path, made my way across the grass round my house. Everything lay quiet and dark. For a long time, I stood under Magda’s bedroom window, and thought I heard her quiet breathing; but it was only my own heart beating loud and restless within my breast. When I came to think that here I stood by my own house, within five yards of my own wife, like a penniless stranger in the night, unwashed and unshaven for a week, such a wave of self-pity swept over me that I burst into bitter tears. I wept long and painfully. I would have liked to get into Magda’s room and let her console me, but in the end, the schnaps again proved the best comforter. I drank long and deeply. My grief calmed down. I fought back an inclination to sleep for a while, and returned to the front of the house.