The Hustler: The Story of a Nameless Love From Friedrichstrasse (28 page)

Even his attempts at joking were new, as he now sat beside him and passed his hand over his hair:

“Are you still angry with me about Potsdam?” Even these words, with which he had always been able to make him angry, were now not so meant, and were just said to cheer him up a bit, so that his only answer was:

“Oh, my poor boy!”

Thus it turned into night and bedtime, the day came to an end, and for both of them it was as if they had never spent a more beautiful and happier day together.

*

In the night, when they separated with a last goodnight kiss—Gunther to sleep on the sofa and Hermann in his bed—in the night he heard a soft voice beside him:

“I want to be with you, Hermann.”

He lifted up to him the small, light form in the much-too-long shirt, which reached down to his naked feet.

And in that night, as they lay in close embrace—Gunther with his arms around the neck of his friend, and the man with his around Gunther’s nape—in this night the boy gave himself to him as never before, not in a sensual frenzy, but rather under the clumsy words of bashful love, which thinks only about making happy the one that is loved.

6

It was almost eight already when they released their arms from one another. They had to hurry for Hermann to be at his office on time. He would come late at any rate, but would not be the only one today, on the third day of the holiday.

The morning was gray and frosty. The wind had died down. The snow lay firm and hard.

While they drank coffee and Gunther put on his dry but stiff and hard things, they discussed the day.

As soon as Hermann came from work—since he wanted to take off early, at three-thirty—they wanted to meet. Where? Well, the best place was again at the bridge. They wanted to go to their old pub—their regular pub—to eat and then look for a room or some kind of lodging for the coming nights.

He gathered together his unfinished work. Gunther wanted to go out first and he let him out.

They walked to the first men’s shop they came to in the next street. It had just opened and the salesmen, feeling the effect of the two holidays, were cross and unfriendly to the early customers.

A suit was picked out in haste. It fit badly, but there was no other there. Then a warm, wool shirt, underwear, and a hat. Finally, in the nearest shoe store, a pair of shoes. Everything in a hurried rush.

Then Gunther was newly dressed, from head to foot. He himself had insisted that the cheapest possible things be bought: “At the beginning, until I have work.”

The old rags were not even kept.

Then it was farewell until afternoon. The streets were empty. Everybody appeared today to be getting out of bed later.

A hasty questioning and answering:

“But till then, what will you do?”

He need not worry at all, Gunther assured him. He would sit somewhere safe, in a pub or in a cinema, where it was warm. And then at three he would be at the Adonis Lounge to see his friend.

“But you won’t go inside, for heaven’s sake?”

“No, of course not.” He would just station himself in the vicinity, so as to be able to observe the entrance, from which his friend would come out precisely at three as he had promised. And first he would look up and down the street, to see if all was safe. But at that time, when the lounge would have just opened, no police had ever been there.

Hermann pressed money for his meal for today in his hand.

He saw how Gunther hesitated. He knew Gunther had yet another wish.

“If it’s not enough, just say so!” he pressured him.

“No, it’s really much too much. But, Hermann, if you will be so good—and it’s the last time—give me something for my friend too. You see, he really did rescue me in the night and yet doesn’t have anything himself.”

He was thinking of someone else! This he would never have done before, thought Hermann, and he fulfilled his wish with inner joy.

The street was completely empty of people. It was high time for him to go.

An indefinable fear rose in him. He bent over.

“Gunther, my darling, I implore you, be careful! Don’t do anything stupid! Think—”

The thin arms were laid around his neck.

“Be completely calm, Hermann, I’ll be quite careful. I’m not doing any more stupid things.”

They kissed quickly.

How cold his lips were again!

Then Graff tore himself loose: “Alright, at three-thirty on the bridge.”

At the corner he looked around once more. The boy was still standing there on the same spot, looking after him. How badly the suit fit! He waved to him, and it seemed to him as if he smiled sadly.

How small he looked! So pitiable, so shy and fearful! So entirely changed! His poor boy!

And again the indefinable fear rose up in him.

He wanted to go back—to say something else. Anything—he did not know himself what—only just a last word.

But he forced himself to walk on.

*

They were to see one another only once more.

PART FIVE 

1

At the office he saw that, in spite of his lateness, he was still one of the first. He was angry at himself. He need not have hurried so much.

Hardly had he begun to work when fear again rose up in him. He laid down his pen.

Everything had been wrong again.

They should not have separated today. He should not have let him from his side for one minute today at any cost.

What if something befell him?

In vain he sought to calm himself.

What could happen? In the few hours? What indeed could happen to him? He was surely no longer the person he had been, the unconcerned boy who lived from one day to the next! This terrible experience had entirely transformed him. Gunther himself now lived in perpetual fear. He had seen that.

He worked on wearily.

Toward noon he could stand it no longer.

He abruptly asked a colleague to substitute for him. He had a headache and had to go home.

“Hangover from yesterday,” said the man, groaning himself, “understandable. Just go on and sleep it off.”

Outside it occurred to him that he must go to the bank first and withdraw some money. The expenses had eaten up the entire amount that he had taken out in advance for the month. On the way to the bank a new thought came to him:

“Withdraw the total amount right away! It must be about two thousand. Take it and go away with him this very evening, leave everything behind (what was there indeed to leave behind?). Go away with him, abroad, look for some kind of work there. Live with him and never leave him again! Only in this way will you be safe with him, only thus can he be entirely yours!” And he fantasized further: “Early tomorrow we could be in Munich, by evening in Switzerland, then in Italy, in safety, in peace and happiness. Yes, Italy, there it’s cheap and lovely—nice and warm.”

Then he saw himself how completely insane all that was.

He withdrew only two hundred marks—oh, it had not been two thousand for a long time!—and stood again in the street, unsure what he should do now until three o’clock.

His inner unrest became ever greater.

Why had he let him go? Why had he gone to the office at all? Why this eternal consideration for others, this damned, idiotic conscientiousness!

Must he, then, ever and always do things backwards? Always just the wrong thing! Would he never get smart!

“Not a step should I have let him take from me, not the smallest step!” He said it to himself again and again, already half despairing.

And the fear that he knew so well gripped him again, this bewildering, paralyzing fear, and drove him through the cold and empty streets. He found quiet nowhere, not in the pastry shop, where he sat before a cup of coffee, and not in the restaurant, where he tried to choke down a bite.

By two o’clock he was already on the bridge where he had so often stood, waiting, as now, for him. He knew Gunther could hardly arrive before three-thirty, if he met the other boy at three and then hurried here.

The bridge was deserted. Today it seemed that not a person had gone to work. The dark water of the Spree was covered with floating chunks of ice. The Reichstag building stood like a pale, gray shadow against the white winter sky.

As he stood there he felt how paralyzed with terror he was.

It was now three.

All at once he knew that waiting here was entirely in vain! He distinctly felt that he would not come. Not because he did not want to come—because he was unable to come.

Again—he knew not what—something terrible had happened.

He would not come. They had him again!

He stood there, no longer waiting for his arrival, only for the appointed time to arrive—because it had been agreed that he was to be here.

It turned four o’clock.

His hands were like ice. His heart was like ice.

*

Meanwhile, Gunther had been in a cinema on “the Mint” (Munzstrasse), which was full to bursting, despite the early hour, and one could cut the air with a knife. He only wanted to sit in the warmth and hardly looked at the pictures.

Then, on his way back about two o’clock, he had eaten something—two garlic sausages, a couple of dry rolls, and a glass of beer. He wanted to cut down expenses. He wanted to report proudly to his friend how economical he had been and to account for every penny. He still had almost two marks of the three he had received; and still the whole ten marks that he wanted to give the other boy—right away!

It was almost three when he arrived in Elsasserstrasse, close to the Adonis Lounge. Carefully he looked around. But there was nothing suspicious to be see far and wide.

He stationed himself opposite, on the other side of the street, and looked across.

The lounge was open. This he could tell from the rolled-up shutters and the lights, which in the dark bar on a gloomy day were lit early. Except for a couple of boys he did not know, no one went in. No one came out.

It was already past three. Why did his comrade not come?

Oh well, he might at least walk over.

He did, carefully, and stationed himself beside the entrance in order to see the one he was waiting for as soon as he came out. That way he could keep an eye on both sides of the street and make off if anyone he did not trust should approach. Inside, except for the couple of boys and the proprietor, there could be no one.

His feet were freezing in the new and too-narrow shoes. He shifted from one to the other.

Why did he not come!

No, he would not go inside in any case, even if he froze here outside.

But how long should he stand here, when Hermann was certainly already waiting on the bridge?

He would have preferred to go. If the other boy did not come, it was his own fault.

He had kept his promise.

Just as he was about to turn and go, the door opened and the awaited boy appeared.

But not alone: At his side was a tall, strong man with a brown mustache that hung over his red face and with piercing eyes. He held his comrade securely by the hand.

Arrested! Gunther wanted to run away as fast as he could.

But he had not yet turned, when behind the two popped up another, a small, round-bellied man with a face he knew. And already he was holding him with a quick grip on his wrist—that pressure of two iron fingers, which he likewise knew—saying in a friendly tone:

“And here we also have right off the other one. You can just come along, sonny. Didn’t I tell you we would see one another once again!”

2

At ten minutes past four, Hermann Graff left his place on the bridge and strode briskly toward his goal in the north. Not to his house. He turned instead toward the Weidendamm Bridge and walked up Friedrichstrasse to the Oranienburg Gate.

Only here did he stop indecisively.

Early today, when they got up, he had once again had Gunther precisely name the lounge and the street where he wanted to meet this comrade at three o’clock: the Adonis Lounge on Novalis-Strasse.

He easily found the street. But where in it was the lounge?

He walked up to the nearest patrolman and asked. The man looked at him in astonishment, as if he had not rightly heard, and seemed to draw himself up.

Then, however, he carried out his duty. He raised his right hand and with its white glove pointed down the street and ut-tered—as if in the future to have no more such questions—only: “Number twenty.” With that he majestically turned away.

Graff now easily found the lounge. It was a pub with one window, not distinguished in any way from thousands and thousands of others.

He had never been in such a pub. He had no idea what took place in it.

But he was at the right place. “Adonis Lounge” was spelled in large, white letters on the plate-glass entrance.

It must be open. Light came from inside.

He opened the door, threw back a curtain, and was in a small front room, bordered on the right by a large bar.

In a corner, opposite the entrance, stood a tall stove. At several small tables were seated forms hard to recognize in the dim light of the room, but apparently juveniles.

He hesitated a moment. Then he walked up to the bar where an old man, apparently the proprietor, was busy, tipped his hat, and asked:

“Excuse me, does a young man named Gunther not patronize your place?”

Before the old man could turn around and answer, the questioner was surrounded by boys who had jumped up from their tables. They were without exception young lads from sixteen to perhaps nineteen years old. Six or seven.

They had heard the name and outdid one another in offering information.

“Gunther? The one with the Count?”

“Do you mean Chick?”

“But he hasn’t frequented this place for a long time now.”

“Shut your trap, what do you know! You do mean Gunther, don’t you, the one from the Passage, with the sports jacket?”

They were all shouting in confusion. However, they were all more or less agreed that Gunther had not been there for a long time and the third speaker, therefore, had been correct.

Hermann did not know what he was to do under this storm of information.

But then, a small runt with a lean, freckled face shoved himself eagerly between all of them, as if through their legs, then looked up at him excitedly and said eagerly and definitely:

“I know where he is!”

But he obviously did not want to reveal his knowledge in front of the others, who were standing around the newcomer still filled with greedy curiosity.

He took hold of his arm and drew him into the larger room lying farther toward the back.

Doing it, he chattered eagerly on: “I know where he is and I’ll tell you. But let’s sit down first. Here.”

The others remained behind.

This back room was much larger than the front room, still empty of guests, and barely illuminated.

A young waiter in a white apron followed in their footsteps and asked what they wished. The little boy, after a quick glance at the guest, who only nodded as if everything were entirely indifferent to him, ordered.

They were sitting in an almost dark corner.

Graff still spoke not a word. He just looked at his companion.

The boy began: He knew Gunther. He knew him well. “I just now saw him. Just a half hour ago when I arrived. Just as I wanted to go in, they were standing in front of the door. The cops and Gunther. From there they took him away. It’s all up with him—him and another, bigger boy. There were two of them. One held him like this”—he made a motion around his wrist—”that’s how they took him away. And he had on an entirely new suit.”

His listener did not yet quite understand. “All up with him”? The “cops”? He only felt: The worst has happened! And this little chap knew about it.

The waiter—Justav—returned, bringing beer, coffee, and pastry.

“Have you maybe a cigarette?”

No, he had no cigarettes on him. But they must surely have them here? Ten? Yes, as many as he wanted. (If the waiter would only go away again!)

Finally the cigarettes arrived and now they were left in peace. The other boys had sat down again in their places around the stove. The guest had made his choice and could not be disturbed. That was a sacred rule here.

The little boy had to tell again what he knew, and he did it eagerly.

His listener understood: they had caught Gunther; he was taken back; everything was at an end!

He was not astonished. He was hardly surprised. He was not even shocked. It was as though he felt nothing. His heart was like ice.

The little boy, who saw how the stranger (never before seen here or elsewhere) spoke not a word, but only continued to look at him, and he talked on and on:

It was really unheard of bad luck! Formerly the cops had never come so early. Not once before had they been here so early. But this was probably connected only with that blackmail and attempted murder on Christmas evening, and they were looking here for someone who was supposed to be connected with it. Well, to be sure, they had not found him here. The other boys, however, who were here every day, were, of course, all known to them. They didn’t even question them further. Only the boy who had escaped from the institution and was just on the point of leaving, him they had an opportunity to pick up. And then, too, poor Chick, who was standing outside, and with whom, as he had related, he had gotten away on Christmas evening.

He ended:

“But that Chick, too, had to be standing outside just when they came out. Such bad luck!”

The little boy was finished.

“Where is he now, then?” the boy heard a hoarse voice beside him ask. While he had already downed his coffee and pastry despite his long narration and was already on his fourth cigarette, the man had still not touched his glass of beer. Chick must really mean a lot to him!

“Where? Well, first to the Alex police station once again and then back to where he had come from.”