Wolf Among Wolves (101 page)

“As far as I can foresee, no. We should always have to deliver fifty tons of rye only.”

“Then let’s do it. We shall certainly never be able to rid ourselves of this nightmare more favorably.”

“Perhaps we ought to ask Prackwitz about it first,” proposed Studmann.

“Willingly. If you think so. Only—why? You have full authority.”

Women are the devil. At this moment there were certainly no legs in a conversation devoted to business, rent and currency. But when Frau Eva threw doubt on the necessity of consulting her husband, something dark and suppressed crept into the matter-of-fact discussion. It really sounded a little as if, to speak frankly, they were talking of a dying person.

“Yes,” said Studmann softly, “to be sure. Only, you both undertake the obligation to deliver in—December.”

“Yes. And—?” She did not comprehend.

“December! You will have, in all circumstances, to deliver in December. Fifty tons of grain. In all circumstances. A good two months yet.”

Frau von Prackwitz tapped a cigarette on the lid of the box. There was a small furrow between her eyebrows. For greater comfort she crossed her legs, without, however, thinking about it. Nor did Studmann notice it this time.

“You understand, madam,” he explained, “it would be a personal obligation of yours and your husband’s, not of the farm. You would have to deliver the fifty tons if—well, wherever you were.”

A long pause.

Frau von Prackwitz stirred. “Accept, Herr von Studmann,” she said vivaciously. “Accept in spite of that danger.” She shut her eyes; she was a beautiful, plump, fair woman, withdrawing into herself. She was like a cat, a cat who is happy, a cat on the hunt for mice. “If we lose the tenancy by December,” she said smilingly, “my father won’t leave
me
in the lurch. I should then take it over and deliver the fifty tons.”

Studmann sat like a lump of wood. Amazing tidings had reached his ears. These women!

Frau von Prackwitz smiled. She was not smiling at Studmann, but at something imaginary between the stove and the law shelves. Putting her hand out to him, she said: “And may I rely also on you not to leave me in the lurch, Herr von Studmann?”

Disconcerted, Studmann gazed at the hand. It is a large but very white woman’s hand with rather too many rings. He felt exactly as if he’d been hit on the head. What had she said? Impossible! She couldn’t have meant it like that. He was a donkey.…

“Donkey!” said she in a deep warm voice, and for one moment the hand gently touched his lips. He felt its fresh softness, perceived its scent, and looked up, crimson. He would have to turn things over in his mind—the position was difficult. Prackwitz was his old friend, after all. He encountered her look, in which was a blend of mocking superiority and tenderness.

“Dearest madam …” said he, confused.

“Yes,” she smiled. “What I have always wanted to ask you was—what actually is your Christian name?”

“My Christian name? Well, it’s a bit awkward … actually I don’t use it. I’m called Etzel; that is—”

“Etzel? Etzel? Wasn’t that—?”

“Correct!” he explained hurriedly. “Attila or Etzel, a prince of the Huns, who swept into Europe with his Mongolian hordes, robbing and murdering. About 450
A.D
. Battle on the Catalaunian Plain. ‘Savagery was as innate in him as dignity and sobriety.’ But, as I say, I make no use of it. It’s a sort of family tradition.”

“No, Etzel is quite impossible. Papa called his gander Attila. And what did your friends call you? Prackwitz always only says Studmann.”

“Like all the others do,” he sighed. “I’m not really suited to intimacies.” He turned a little red. “Sometimes I was called the Nursemaid. And in the regiment they called me Mummy.”

“Studmann, Nursemaid, Mummy.…” She shook her head with irritation, “Herr von Studmann, you really are impossible. No, I must find something else.”

“Dearest madam!” cried Studmann, enraptured. “Do you really mean that? I’m such a boring fellow, a pedant, a fussy old woman. And you—”

“Quiet,” she urged, shaking her head. “Wait. Don’t forget, Herr von Studmann, for the moment I have only asked you about your Christian name … nothing else.” She paused, supporting her head in her hands, armlets gently tinkling. She sighed, she made the most enchanting beginning to a yawn. She was altogether the cat which cleans itself, stretches, and does everything but look at the sparrow it is going to devour the next moment. “And then there is also the car.”

“What car?” He was confused again. Her transitions today were much too sudden for any sober-thinking man.

She pointed out of the window, though there was no car outside. But he understood. “Oh, the car! What about it?”

“He’s bought it,” she said.

“Oh?” He was thoughtful. “How much?”

“Seventeen thousand.”

Studmann made a gesture of despair. “Absolutely impossible!”

“And by installments?”

“Also.”

“Listen, Herr von Studmann,” she said with vigor, though a little sullenly. “In all circumstances you will go to Frankfurt tomorrow and obtain the money, but no more.”

“Certainly.”

“Whatever you may be told, you will go and fetch only that. Is it agreed?”

“Certainly.”

“You will hand over the money for the settlement of the rent to Herr von Prackwitz tomorrow evening. Do you understand? Herr von Prackwitz is to give my father the money himself. You understand?”

“Yes, certainly.”

“Wait. Prackwitz has planned a small journey for the day after tomorrow. Well, that’s nothing to do with us. He can pay the money over tomorrow evening. You understand me?”

“Not quite, but—”

“All right. If you only keep to what I say.… Herr von Prackwitz is to receive the money for the rent punctually—that’s enough. Perhaps you’ll ask for a receipt?”

“If you wish.” Studmann hesitated. “Prackwitz and I haven’t usually—”

“Of course not. But now!” She spoke sharply, stood up and gave him her hand. Once again she was the mistress of Neulohe. “Then
au revoir
, Herr von Studmann. I suppose I shan’t see you till after your trip to Frankfurt. Well, good business!”

“Thank you very much,” said Studmann, looking at her a little unhappily. There ought to be frankness, something positive discussed; but no, nothing! Etzel, and a hand kiss! Such things ought not to be done that way.

Shaking his head, Studmann set about composing an advertisement: “Hands wanted for potato digging …”

Outside blows the September wind, beginning to tear off and carry away the sere leaves. Something in Eva told her it was autumn and winter was coming. Her bearing is all the more erect, however. The wind pressed her clothes against her body. She felt its cool freshness on her skin. No, it’s not autumn for everybody, only for things ripe enough to die. She felt herself still young, and walked into the wind. She has made an experiment; she has encroached on Fate. Will Prackwitz pay the rent? Yes or no? Everything depends on that.

XII

Tranquil and in good spirits, Pagel made for the wood, after the gendarmes, on the hunt for convicts. No Rittmeister von Prackwitz could upset him now, by a long way. What a child the man was, a silly thoughtless child! Came back with a brand-new car and at once set about showing the young man he was master! But the young man didn’t care—he was glad to be in the woods; he had no wish to remain in the office with such a paltry employer. A queer fish, the governor! Damned rude to someone who could raise his finger any moment, point at the car and say: “Well—and my two thousand gold marks?”

Not that he would exactly do that. Studmann would take care that he got the money some day, when it was needed. There had been a time when one had said to the Rittmeister: “Oh, forget about the trash. I don’t want the money back at all.” Then the Rittmeister had flushed and excitedly spoken about “debts of honor.” Time had passed since then, however. One thought quite differently about money when stamps and boot repairs and cigarettes and laundry had to be paid for out of a small monthly sum, graciously conceded by the Rittmeister (although one really did nothing at all for it, of course!)—in other words, out of a miserable pocket money. In fact, a small installment of that debt would often come in very pat, these days. But, at the slightest hint of that kind now, the Rittmeister would flush again and cry out, offended: “But, Pagel, you know very well what my financial position is at present, man!”

Yet a brand-new car stood in front of his house. And one was ordered out like some mere lad. Undoubtedly a queer fish!

Thus preoccupied, Pagel strolled through the woods. He had no idea in what parts the gendarmes were beating; but so long as he steered for the potato field, he would find them.

For the moment he therefore continued and thought as he went. He was comfortable and content. It would be a great mistake to suppose he was angry with the Rittmeister. Not a bit! People could only be what they were. Idiots formed a splendid background for Petra. The more foolish others were, the clearer that girl stood out. And Wolfgang thought about her with deeply grateful tenderness, an emotion which grew constantly stronger; since he had heard from Minna that he was to be a father there was more joy than longing or desire in it. An odd feeling! It was a confounded long time, three months, ninety-four days exactly, before she would let him go to her. He thought about everything they had experienced together, how it had come about and what had happened next. It had been good! Strange. Living with Petra, he hadn’t really thought much about her. Gambling had been the chief thing. Now that he lived in Neulohe, he actually mainly lived at Madam Po’s. Strange! Did there ever really come a time in life when a man had the feeling that experience and awareness were one? When he felt: Now you are happy, in a manner you can never again experience in the whole of your life? In the very second of experience! Not like this, when it was only afterwards discovered: in those days I was happy! As happy as we always were—? No! It was strange and dangerous!

Pagel whistled thoughtfully. And considered whether the capture of convicts in a wood was aided by whistling, whether they would sneak off at the sound or make an attack upon him, to get his money, clothes and pistol. In a flash he saw Marofke’s face with its trembling baggy cheeks. But let the fellows come! he thought defiantly. Whistling louder, he grasped the pistol butt in his trouser pocket.

Yes, indeed! It was strange and dangerous, always to think of your sweetheart and compare her to all the others, and only in her favour. Once again Pagel asked himself if the image he now had of Peter was still true. Was she really pure gold? That couldn’t be true either. She must have faults, too, and if he looked for them, he easily found some. For instance, her tendency to silence if something didn’t suit her—if something annoyed her. He would ask her what was wrong? Nothing was wrong. But he could see, something was. He’d done something wrong. No definitely nothing. You had to talk to her for a full quarter of an hour. She could make you furious. Almost drive you insane with her eternal no! It was clear as clear. Well, there was a fault all right. In
any case, he’ll help her break this habit. A girl like Peter shouldn’t have any faults. As for himself, it was different. He had so many that it wasn’t even worth beginning to improve.

Pagel, busy with his thoughts, had long passed beyond the potato field into ever stranger and more remote parts of the wood. He had seen nothing of the convicts and nothing of the gendarmes either. Well, he would take a pleasant walk instead of joining in an idiotic hunt; for idiotic it must be, he decided. Woods upon woods, up and down, hour after hour, overgrown thickets, plantations of thousands of small straggling pines, high as a man, half as high again, hundreds and hundreds of acres, glens of fir so gloomy that even on the brightest day one hardly saw a foot in front—and the police were hoping in this wilderness to find five shrewd and desperate men whose intelligence would be concentrated on not letting themselves be found. Absolute nonsense! In the woods one really perceived how impossible the task was. He would go on alone, comfortably, instead of crawling around with the others among thorns and junipers.

But, turning the next corner, he exclaimed “Ah-ha!” and was no longer alone. A little man in a fur jacket was walking toward him, that is, walking was not quite the right word; he had a kind of quavering in his progress, a staccato. He, so to speak, yodeled somewhat with his legs. “Damned roots!” he said far too loudly, though there were none in that spot. And a pace in front of Pagel he stopped with so sudden a start that he almost fell over.

Wolfgang seized him just in time. “Ah-ha! Herr Meier,” he said smiling, “Germans don’t say ‘cognac,’ they say ‘brandy.’ ”

Meier’s small, reddened eyes contemplated his successor on the farm. Suddenly a gleam of recognition shone in them and, with a broad impudent grin, he screeched: “Oh, it’s you. I thought … Doesn’t matter. I’m a bit boozed. Seen my car anywhere?”

“What!” Pagel became suspicious. “Have you got a car, too, Herr Meier? What are you doing in our forest today with a car?”

“So you too say our forest now,” laughed Meier. “That seems to be the fashion here. The forester says my forest, the Rittmeister says my woods, his wife sometimes takes a little walk in her plantations, and the one it really belongs to, the old Geheimrat, he only talks about a few pine trees!”

Out of politeness Pagel laughed also. But the other’s presence here, particularly today, still seemed suspicious. “Where did you leave your car, Herr Meier?” he asked.

“If only I knew, blockhead that I am!” said Meier, thumping himself on the head. “So it’s not up that way, then?” Pagel shook his head. “Well, let’s go up here.” He seemed to take it for granted that Wolfgang would accompany
him, and this somewhat removed the suspicion that he might be an associate of the escaped convicts. Cheerful and fairly erect, he sauntered along, apparently glad to have found a listener.

“As a matter of fact, I’m a bit boozed, you know. I’ve been celebrating with a friend. Actually he isn’t a friend, but he thinks he is. Well, let the child have its pacifier. So I found myself here, I don’t know what it’s called, it was somewhere near. But I’ll find it all right. I’ve a marvelous memory for places.”