The Hustler: The Story of a Nameless Love From Friedrichstrasse (20 page)

When he awoke in the morning—alone—the stranger was gone, and with him his suitcase (his beautiful leather suitcase!), his light summer suit, and all but his last pair of shoes. In their place were hanging the rags the stranger had worn. The old waiter, in his usual and indifferent way, knew nothing and denied any responsibility. Why did he bring such crooks in with him!

Gunther, however, was again out in the street, and wearing everything he now owned: the sport jacket with knee-pants, and in his pocket a couple of marks from yesterday’s table money, given in appreciation of his tale of the Count by a captivated john who was receptive to such exciting stories.

Playing the cavalier for fifty marks a night was now out, and he had to return again to the Adonis Lounge, drinking and going with the occasional guests, even if it was only to pick up the five marks that had become the rule there.

With this he had come full circle. It was the old life: sleeping and loafing by day, carousing and sex at night.

But neither the days nor the nights pleased him anymore.

In a certain respect a change had taken place in him. He washed himself more often and more thoroughly (when this was possible), cleaned his nails (which he would never have dreamed of doing before), and he even went around with the thought of buying himself a toothbrush, to get rid of this awful taste in his mouth in the mornings (for naturally the toiletry kit with its beautiful things had likewise long since gone the way of all flesh).

He now often sat apart from the others and brooded to himself; he did not let himself be drawn into everything that came along, as before; and he felt for the first time a certain disgust at the life which he had so quickly been pushed into again. He did not feel well.

He had never liked this life, never really liked it. He had gone along with it because he had no alternative.

He had had to take part in the dissolute drinking bouts, he had listened to the smutty jokes and joined in the laughter, but mostly without understanding and not really with the boundless delight of the others, who never got enough of hearing and passing on obscenities. What certain gentlemen wanted and desired (which, for that matter, was also taboo among the other boys and seldom tolerated), he had always refused, and they had never brought him to it, not even through the greatest promises and flatteries. What he himself had felt had never gone beyond a very weak superficial stimulus.

Certainly, among the now rather considerable number of gentlemen he had met there were one or two who were attracted by his particular kind of conduct, which distinguished him from the other boys. They were attracted by what (apart from moods natural at his age and occasional outbursts of anger, which quickly dissipated again) was this constant, quiet passionlessness of his nature and assumed that more was behind it. But when they then had to see that basically it was only indifference and dullness, they soon gave him up again and turned to the others, who were more vivacious, full of life, and entertaining.

Until now no one had ever taken a deeper interest in him.

It would hardly have been possible for anyone to do so, for at the core of his being, he was without interests. He read, at most, dime novels, never a book, never even a newspaper. He almost never took part in a conversation as soon as it went beyond that one, eternal subject; he mostly kept silent or listened with boredom. The only thing still able to captivate him was the moving pictures of the cinema: the more thrilling, the more exciting, the more impossible—all the better.

He had (like his Count) tired blood in his veins. That came from his father. What made him so indifferent to his life, indifferent to life altogether, must have come from the mother he never knew, the former maidservant; only, he did not have the robustness that allowed her to make her way in the world (if she was still living).

Certainly, however, the feelings that sometimes now tormented him came from instincts inherited from his father’s side. What the Count had noticed (not without a secret self-satisfaction in his own insight, which had quickly proven correct, and a quite unusual interest, even if it was never shown or expressed): his sure fitting into a completely new atmosphere, into the atmosphere of wealth and exterior pomp—that, like his slender hands and feet, his walk and entire bearing, was part of his heredity, a part blocked but coming to light again.

It was a part of his heredity that was quickly absorbed again by that other part from his mother, yet not without leaving a residue behind.

He no longer liked his life, and wanted another. But what could that be? It was a difficult question.

He did not think of work. Out of the question. Who of them worked? He had to go to the lounge, take to the street. The struggle with the next day was an ever new, never resting one.

He also went again to the Passage. That was always a matter of chance, but still mostly not without result.

*

On one of those days, on an afternoon, he saw him here again, the man who—according to Atze’s repeated assertion—”had loved him,” the one with the five marks (with whom he had been in Potsdam).

What was
he
doing here?

He did not recognize him at first, and only saw him because he suddenly felt a glance touch him: a strange, half frightened, half sad and serious look.

He recognized him again by this look.

He separated himself from the others he had been standing with around the entrance for a half hour already and followed him.

Naturally the man didn’t love him any more. He had long had another. Or he was looking for another here.

But what if he tried it yet another time?

He needed five marks so much. Not a john the whole day.

He couldn’t do more than chase him away.

No, he wouldn’t chase him away. He would probably leave him standing and walk on.

He followed him, but at a certain distance—just enough not to lose sight of him.

He was not really sure of himself. He did not possess the impudence of the other boys, who immediately chatted up each man.

The man would have to look around and see him. Then he would go up to him and ask if he still remembered him.

But he did not look around.

With sunken head, as if heavy thoughts were oppressing him—just like that earlier time—he was walking his path toward the street in the north.

He surely did not recognize you again, even though he looked at you, the boy thought, and followed him farther.

Finally they were at the street. Gunther recognized it again. He stopped and looked down it after him.

The man who “had loved him” vanished into the last house.

8

He turned and walked what now seemed to him a very long path back to Unter den Linden. So, nothing came of it.

But he still had to have money today. It was Monday and nothing was happening at the Adonis Lounge.

Thus he let his eye travel over Unter den Linden, looking boldly into the eyes of the passing gentlemen he supposed were “so” or “could be so”—the boys acquired a remarkably sharp eye for this—and finally remained standing at a shop window where a small, rotund man, who had doubtless just looked at him, then had turned around and walked closely past him, now stood as if waiting for him while observing the display.

He positioned himself beside him, likewise apparently interested in looking over the things in the shop window.

The small man looked at him from the side, smiling encouragingly, it seemed to him. Then he slowly walked to the middle promenade, where he stopped again.

Doubt was no longer possible. Naturally something was up. He likewise crossed over. When he was close to the man, he heard the usual remark:

“Well, lad, out for a bit of a walk too?”

He followed to the other side of the street. But there, by the houses, he suddenly felt himself gripped on the wrist with two iron fingers by the man who was now standing close beside him, and he heard a voice beside him say:

“Just come along, my boy!”

The voice was no longer friendly, as it had been before when he asked if he were out for a walk, but was sharp and commanding.

He tried to free himself, but could not. The iron pressure on his wrist only became more painful. He was drawn into the entrance of a house.

There he tried to flare up:

“You? Who are you? And what do you want from me?”

But the small man only quickly flipped his coat collar back a moment. The boy saw enough: a cop!

“Don’t be so fresh!” the cop spoke again. “And show me your papers!” The pressure on his wrists loosened somewhat.

It occurred to him just in time what Atze had said:

“Just don’t become fresh! There’s no point in it. Always act as if you don’t know nothing from nothing.”

His papers? He had them. He always had them with him. They were false, but were papers. He pulled them out.

The policeman checked them over slowly and carefully. Then something about them seemed to capture his attention.

With a nasty smile on his beardless mouth he gave them back and said:

“I’ll let you off for today. But don’t let me catch sight of you here again, you young scamp, you!” And while he was sharply eyeing across the street again, he added, already half walking away:

“I’ll recognize you again! You can count on it. We’ll see one another yet another time!” Leaving the boy standing, he hurried across the street with the small, quick strides of his short legs, obviously after a new and more important victim.

Gunther rubbed his aching wrist. Arrested! Him!

Then he made a wide arc around the Passage.

On that evening in the lounge there was absolutely nothing to be done with him.

At first he sat for an hour alone in a corner and brooded. Whoever came too close was rebuked, “Oh, leave me in peace!” And when Saxon sat next to him and said comfortingly, “Chick, what’s the matter with you? Are you sick?” he would have liked to box his ears.

He ate a sandwich and slept in his hotel, paying beforehand with the last of his money.

*

He did not fall asleep immediately, as he usually did. He lay awake for a long time and tossed about. He could not get the day’s meeting out of his head. For the first time he saw this acquaintance in a different light than before. He was really a quite nice person, always clean and well dressed, he seemed to have money, and he did have a permanent position (even if he did not know where).

And he had really been mean to him, that time in Potsdam. To run away and even to take money, when nothing had happened!

Of course the other had also acted stupid. He must have seen, if he had eyes in his head, who he was—not a boy who was looking for work, but for something entirely different. How he had believed everything right off, even that story about the uncle!

But perhaps he simply had no desire that evening, and everything was to come the next day. Such things happened. Everything happened.

Well, now he knew who he was, he: Gunther.

And now it was over. For otherwise, he would surely have turned around toward him at least once, to see if he was following him. But no, not a single time. It was as if he had not seen and recognized him at all.

Atze had so firmly asserted the man loved him.

There must have been something to it, for otherwise he would not have waited all those days, almost a whole week, every day on the bridge.

He did say, too, that he loved him. It was precisely that which had made him so angry that morning.

No, it was over. He would no doubt be able to love only respectable boys, not such as he was.

But then why had he looked at him so sadly? He should have been quite indifferent to him now.

Was he angry at him? His look had been so strange, so . . . so serious. But not angry.

No, he wasn’t angry. If he had been angry, he would have hauled him out of the Passage and called him to task for having run away and for the twenty marks (and then have immediately received the right answer).

He was not indifferent and also not angry.

Too bad that it was over!

Once he, Gunther, had wanted a relationship with him. Now he wanted it again.

It would have been just the thing that he now needed so badly: a good friend to take care of him, support him, and at the same time leave him his freedom. How would it be if he did attempt it once again?

But then he, Gunther, had to begin it.

Lying no longer helped.

He had to win him over.

And a slight suspicion of the truth began to dawn: What if he had started something that time (or even earlier) and had not waited? Many wanted that too, and were otherwise not satisfied. Had he not heard often enough (and not only from Atze—from him again and again) that he should be more accommodating?

He wanted by all means to try once more.

He now knew exactly where he lived. He also knew when he came from his job for home. Around five. So a quarter or half hour later he had to be on his way.