Wolf Among Wolves (22 page)

While Leo Gubalke scrubbed his pinkish fat till it was crimson, he reflected once again how he could so wangle it as to fulfill his frequently expressed desire for a transfer to indoor duties. There were various ways and means of achieving this, even when opposed by superiors; for instance, cowardice—but, of course, cowardice could not be entertained for a moment. Or excitability, to get rattled—but Oberwachtmeister Gubalke would never, of course, lose his self-control in front of people in the street. One could also become too particular, report every trifle, drag everybody to the police station—but that would not be fair to his colleagues. Or one might commit a serious error, some colossal blunder which would compromise the police and delight some of the newspapers—this would certainly disqualify him for outdoor work. But he was too proud of his uniform and the force to which he had belonged for so long.

He sighed. If one considered the matter closely, the world was surprisingly full of obstacles for a man who believed in order. Hundreds of things which the less scrupulous did every day were out of the question for him. On the other hand, he had the pleasurable feeling, without which a man could not live, that he was not only keeping the world in order, but was in harmony with it himself.

Gubalke carefully wiped the tin tub till the last drop of water was soaked up, and then hung it on its hook in the lavatory. He also wiped the kitchen floor, although the few splashes would dry all the same in the disquietingly close atmosphere. Then he buckled on his belt and, last of all, donned the shako. As always, Leo Gubalke examined himself in a kitchen mirror about the
size of the palm of your hand; and, as always, he confirmed that he couldn’t see clearly in this whether the shako was being worn in the way prescribed by the regulations, or not. And thus to the dark corridor in front of the big mirror. It was annoying to switch on the electric light for such a short period (the consumption of current was said to be highest at the moment of switching on), but what could one do?

At twenty minutes to four he was ready—at one minute to four Oberwachtmeister Leo Gubalke would report for duty. He went downstairs. He had on one white glove, the other was held loosely in his hand. And now he approached the doorway and Petra Ledig.

The girl was leaning against the wall, her eyes closed. When she had asked Ernst to bring some rolls and he had gone to fetch them, she was possessed by an overwhelming vision of their proximity. She thought she could smell their freshness; something of their wholesome taste entered her stale and weary mouth. She had to swallow, and choked.

Again it grew black inside her head, her limbs yielded as if they had no firmness, her knees gave way; there was a continual trembling in arms and shoulders. Oh, please do come! Please do come! But, imprisoned in her torment of hunger, she did not know whom she was longing for—servant or lover.

Oberwachtmeister Gubalke had naturally to stop and have a look. He knew the girl by sight, for she lived in the same house as he did, although in the back part, and officially he knew nothing to her detriment. Still, she was lodging with a woman who occasionally harbored prostitutes, and she lived, unmarried, with a young man who apparently had no occupation but gambling—a professional gambler, if one could go by women’s gossip. All in all there was no reason to be either severe or lenient, and the officer watched her impartially.

She had had too much to drink, of course; but she was near her room and she would, somehow, get upstairs. Moreover, his spell of duty did not start till four; he need not have seen anything, which was all the easier as this was not his beat; neither had she noticed him. And Gubalke was about to go away when a violent fit of retching threw her body forward. He saw straight into the opening of the overcoat—and looked away.

This wouldn’t do. He couldn’t overlook this; all his clean and orderly life rose in revolt. Tapping the sick girl’s shoulder with his gloved finger, the Oberwachtmeister said: “Well, Fräulein?”

His calling, which had made the policeman skeptical of his fellow-beings, had also undermined confidence in the validity of his own observations. Till now the Oberwachtmeister had believed the girl to be dead drunk, and her dress, or rather state of undress, confirmed this belief. No girl who attached
the slightest value to what was seemly about or around herself could go like this into the street.

But the look she gave him when he tapped her shoulder, that burning yet sane glance as of a creature in torment who spurns her torment—that glance dispelled any idea of drunkenness. In quite a different tone he asked: “Are you ill?”

She leaned against the wall, seeing but dimly the uniform, shako, and his ruddy full face and reddish stubby beard. She was not sure who was speaking to her, what she was to answer, to whom she should answer. But perhaps an orderly man, who has to struggle all day and every day with a disorderly world, understands better than anyone what proportions disorder can attain. From a few answers uttered with difficulty the Oberwachtmeister had quickly built up a picture of the state of affairs; he understood that she was only waiting for a couple of rolls, that the girl then intended to go to Uncle’s round the corner, who would certainly help her out with a dress, and that she would then look up some of her chap’s friends or relatives (she had the fare in her hand)—in short, that the scandal would in all probability be removed in a few moments.

The Oberwachtmeister gathered all this, found it reasonable, and was just about to say, “All right, Fräulein, I will let it pass for once,” and report for duty, when he was painfully struck by the thought: When would he actually arrive at the station? A glance at his wrist-watch showed that it was three minutes to four. Under no circumstances could he be at the station before a quarter past four, and he would thus be a quarter of an hour late for duty, and with what excuse? That he had, without taking any official action, gossiped for a quarter of an hour with an improperly dressed female? Impossible; everybody would think that he had overslept.

“I’m sorry, Fräulein,” said he officially. “I can’t let you go about like this. You must come along with me first.”

Gently but firmly he placed his gloved hand on her upper arm and gently but firmly led her into the street where it had been impossible for him to let her go unofficially. (Order often brings the paradoxical in its wake.)

“Nothing will happen to you, Fräulein,” he said soothingly. “You haven’t done anything wrong. But if I let you go alone in the street like this it might become a public nuisance or worse, and then you will have committed an offense.”

The girl went with him willingly. Nothing about the man who was leading her in a not unkind manner made her uneasy, although he wore a uniform. The Petra Ledig who had been, not so very long ago when she was walking the streets without a permit, unreasonably afraid of every policeman, now observed that, at close range, policemen were not alarming, but even fatherly. “They haven’t provided for such a contingency in the police station,” he was saying, “but
I will see that you get something to eat at once. The men in the registration department are usually not very hungry, and I shall get hold of a piece of bread and butter there.” He laughed. “Someone else’s piece of stale bread and butter in a crumpled sandwich paper isn’t too bad. When I bring my girls something of that kind they get quite excited about it.”

“Yes,” said Petra. “I was always pleased when Herr Pagel used to bring me some.”

At the mention of Herr Pagel the Oberwachtmeister put on his official face. Though men had to stand together, particularly against women, he did not approve of this young gentleman, who among other things was said to be a gambler. He intended—but he would not tell the girl—to investigate the conduct of this young swell. Herr Pagel seemed not to be behaving very correctly, and it would do such a ne’er-do-well good if he realized that someone had an eye on him.

The Oberwachtmeister had fallen silent and stepped out smartly. Willingly enough the girl followed him, glad to get away from being stared at. And the two vanished toward the police station. In vain the manservant, Ernst, comes with his rolls; in vain Frau Pagel’s maid, Minna, makes her inquiries; in vain there sets out from Dahlem a luxurious Maybach with a lady and a blind child. In vain, too, is Wolfgang Pagel in a final quarrel with his mother.

For the present Petra Ledig has been removed from all civilian influence.

II

Without any particular haste Wolfgang Pagel had walked from the villas of the rich at Dahlem through the crowded streets of Schöneberg to the old West End—quite a walk. In many of the streets there was hardly a pedestrian; they were abandoned and as if dried up by the sun. At other times he passed along roads full of traffic, swarming with people, and he, the aimless, was carried along by those with a purpose.

Above hung a blanket of vapor made of the heat and exhalations of the city. Walking along Dahlem’s avenues of trees he had cast a clearly-defined shadow, but the more he mingled with the crowd the more his shadow paled, until it was gray and indistinguishable from the granite setts. His shadow was extinguished not only by the seething crowd surrounding him and by the ever higher and narrower housewalls, but by the blanket of vapor growing thicker and the sun, paler. The heat continuously poured into the overheated town, completely obliterating his shadow.

No clouds could yet be seen. Perhaps they lurked behind the rows of houses, crouched under the hidden horizon, ready to ascend and pour forth fire, thunder and flood, Nature’s unavailing incursion into an artificial world.

But Wolfgang Pagel walked no faster, for all that. At first he had set forth without a definite goal, merely because he felt he could no longer sit in that lordly kitchen. But when at last the object of his pilgrimage became clear, he went no quicker. He had always been easy-going, slow by nature and by habit; before he replied to a question he liked to make a gesture with his hand, since that postponed the answer a little.

And he was walking slowly now—it postponed the decision a little. In the kitchen, during the conversation with the blind child, he had still been of the opinion that he must leave the responsibility for Petra to others, because he himself could not help her. To help a girl without clothes or food, and in debt, could only mean one thing—money—and he had none. But then it had struck him that he did have money, if not in coin then in what was equally valuable. To put it concisely, von Zecke had presented him with an idea: he owned a painting. This painting, Young Woman at a Window, indisputably belonged to him. He remembered his mother telling him before he went to the Front: “This painting now belongs to you, Wolf. At the Front you must always remember that Father’s finest picture is waiting here for you.”

Wolfgang did not like this picture, but it had a market value. He would not oblige Zecke; there were art dealers in plenty who would gladly take a Pagel, and he decided to approach a big dealer in Bellevuestrasse. There they would certainly not lower themselves to cheat him, since a Pagel was a good proposition without that.

He would receive for the picture numerically an unheard-of sum, hundreds of millions, probably (perhaps even a milliard), but he wouldn’t touch a penny of it; not one note was to be changed. He would go on foot to Georgen-kirchstrasse—that little bit extra wouldn’t mean much to one who had walked from Dahlem into town. No, not one note should be changed. He would overwhelm his waiting Petra with the whole enormous sum.

Pagel walked through the scorching town of Berlin without haste, without stopping, running over his plans time after time, for there were various aspects to be considered. Most of all he thought about the moment when he would count out on the table an immense sum in notes; or, better still, he would let them rain down on the girl in bed so that she would be entirely covered by the money, covered with money in that filthy den. Often he had day-dreamed of this moment, imagining that it would be his winnings. Well, it would be instead money from the sale of his father’s painting. Money gained by gambling—snatched so to speak from the three birds of prey—that would have been better still. However,
that
idea was now definitely finished with; he would think of it no more.

So he marched on, Wolfgang Pagel, ex-second lieutenant, ex-gambler, ex-lover. Again, he had done nothing, only gone, gone from here to there, and back again. In the morning he did go, and made plans, but only these last ones were the right ones. His were the most excellent of intentions, and therefore he could walk without hurrying. He was completely satisfied with himself. He would sell a picture, turn it into money, and give the money to Peter—magnificent! Not for one moment did it occur to him that money might perhaps mean nothing to his Peter. He was bringing money, a lot of money, more money than she had ever had in her life—could a man do more for his girl? The world rushed on, the dollar rose, the girl starved—but he walked at his ease, for what he proposed to do was as good as done. He wasn’t in any hurry, there was time for everything: we have always muddled through somehow.

He turned into Tannenstrasse, a blind alley. A few steps more and he unlocked the front door and ascended the familiar stairs to his mother’s flat. There was no change: the porcelain name plate on the door, older than himself, with the missing corner which he himself had knocked off with a skate very long ago; the habitual odor in the corridor, its dark chests, oak cupboards, temperamental grandfather clock, and high up on the walls his father’s sketches seeming to float above the dark world as bright as clouds. But the splendid asters in the two china-blue vases on the old-fashioned mirror-table were an innovation, and when Wolfgang looked more closely he found a note from his mother. “Good day, Wolfgang,” he read. “There is coffee in your room. Make yourself comfortable. I had to go out urgently.”

For a moment he was taken aback by this greeting. From Minna’s reports he knew that his mother expected him every day, every hour almost—but this was too much—he had pictured her as hopeful rather than assured. It entered his mind not to touch the coffee but to take the painting and go; yet he did not fancy that either—it was too much like a thief in the night. He shrugged his shoulders and the pale man in the greenish mirror opposite did likewise; a trifle embarrassed, Wolfgang smiled at himself, screwed up the note and dropped it into his pocket. His mother, missing it, would guess that he was here—and look for him. The sooner the better.