Wolf Among Wolves (8 page)

“Oh,” said Wolfgang lightly, and recovered himself. “If Petra’s breakfast comes along, the wedding will come along as well.” He glanced at the girl, who did not move.

“You’ll have to stand in line at the pawnshop and Grunewald’s a long way,” said the Thumann woman. “I’m always hearing about the wedding, but I’d prefer to see it.”

“It’s all right,” cried Petra and got up. “You can be sure about the money and about the wedding, too. Come, Wolf, I’ll help you pack the things. We’ll take the small suitcase; then the man will only have to glance at it to see everything is there as usual. He ought to know it well by now.” And she smiled at him.

Frau Thumann looked keenly from the one to the other, like a wise old bird. Immensely relieved, Wolfgang cried: “Peter, you’re splendid. Perhaps I can really get it through by half-past twelve. If I find Zecke at home, he’ll certainly lend me enough to take a taxi.…”

“Certainly,” replied the Thumann woman for Petra. “An’ then she gets out of bed and into the registry office with a man’s overcoat on and nothing beneath. We’re very clever, aren’t we?” she flashed out. “I’m tired of hearing about it, and what’s worse, there’s no end to the silly little geese who believe you fellers when you tell such yarns. And I know the girl. She’ll sit about the kitchen pretending to help me, but she won’t want to help me, not a scrap; only wants to keep an eye on the kitchen clock, and when half-past twelve comes she’ll say: ‘I feel he’s coming, Frau Thumann.’ But he won’t turn up; he’ll probably be with his high-born pal, and they’ll be having a quiet drink an’ smoke. If he’s got it in his head at all, it’ll be: ‘They marry people every day, anyhow.’ And what don’t happen today needn’t happen tomorrow by a long chalk!”

And thereupon the Thumann woman shot a devastating look at Wolfgang and a contemptuous, pitying one at Petra, made a flourish with the chamber pot which was period, exclamation and question mark combined, and closed the door. The two stood there, hardly daring to look at each other, for, however one might regard the landlady’s outburst, it was not pleasant.

Finally Petra said: “Never mind, Wolfgang. She and all the others can say what they like; it doesn’t affect the issue. And if I was in a tearful mood a moment ago, forget it. Sometimes one feels quite alone, and then one is afraid and would like to be reassured.”

“And now you don’t feel alone, Peter?” asked Wolfgang, oddly moved. “Now you don’t need reassurance?”

She looked at him, forlorn and confused. “Oh, you are with me.…”

“But,” he urged, “perhaps Madam Po is right. At half-past twelve I’ll be sitting and thinking: ‘One can be married any day.’ What do you think?”

“That I trust you,” she cried and lifted her head and looked at him confidently. “And even if I didn’t, what difference would that make? I can’t tie you down. Marriage or no marriage—if you want me everything is all right, and if you don’t …” She broke off, smiled at him. “Now you’ve got to hurry, Wolf. Uncle closes at twelve for lunch, and perhaps there’s really a line.” She handed him the suitcase, she gave him a kiss. “Good luck, Wolf.”

He would have liked to say something, but could not think what.

So he took the case and went.

Chapter Three
Hunters and Hunted

I

At Neulohe Manor the little bailiff Meier, nicknamed Black Meier, was so tired out by eleven or twelve in the morning that he could have fallen into bed as he was, in coat and leggings, and have slept till next day. He sat, however, and nodded drowsily in the long dry grass at the edge of a rye field, well hidden from view by a group of pine trees.

He had been up since three o’clock that morning, handing out the fodder in the steaming stables, supervising the feeding, watching the milking, looking to the cleaning of the cattle. At four o’clock he had got in the rapeseed, which must be carted in the morning dew, so that it does not droop. At a quarter to seven, standing, he had swallowed a cup of coffee and some food. And from seven onward the usual routine. Then a message had come from the rye field that both reaping and binding machines had broken down. He had hurried thither with the smith, had tinkered with the machines; now they were rattling again; still rattling—how tired he was! He was tired not only because of yesterday: now he was also tired from today. How he would like to drop asleep, bask in the sun! But before twelve he had to be in the sugar-beet field to see whether the overseer, Kowalewski, and his gang were doing the hoeing properly and not scamping the work.

Meier’s bicycle lay in the ditch a few yards away. But he was too lazy to get on it; he simply couldn’t. His limbs and especially his throat felt as if they were smothered by a thick layer of fatigue. When he lay quite still this fatigue rested more lightly on him, so to speak, but if he moved only a leg, it irked as if made of bristles.

He lit a cigarette, puffed at it contentedly and gazed at his dirty and worn-out shoes. He needed new ones, but the Rittmeister was an unapproachable man, and 500,000 marks was an unheard-of salary for a bailiff. If he waited for the dollar rate on the first of the month, perhaps he would not even be able to have the shoes soled. There were many things needed on Neulohe Estate—two more on the staff, for instance—but the Rittmeister was a great man and had discovered that he could do everything himself. The hell he could! Today
he had gone to Berlin to fetch harvesters; in any case he couldn’t rout a poor bailiff out of his morning nap. One was curious what sort of people he’d bring back with him. That is, if he brought any at all! Oh, damn—!

Meier lay back, his cigarette slipped into the corner of his mouth, and he pushed his trilby hat over his eyes as protection against the burning sun.… The women in the beet field could pickle themselves with their Kowalewski, for all he cared; they were a cheeky lot. Kowalewski, though, had a smart daughter; one would not have thought it of him. She ought to come from Berlin here for a holiday again; he could manage her all right. How warm it was! As hot as an oven. If only there was no storm! Otherwise all the crops, would get soaked, and he would have to clear up the mess. They ought to have got them in before, of course, but the Rittmeister was a great man and a weather prophet besides. “It won’t rain, don’t bring in the crops, selah!”

Thank God, the reaping and binding machines were still clattering, and he could go on lying here. But he mustn’t fall asleep or he wouldn’t wake up before evening, and the Rittmeister would hear about it at once and tomorrow he’d be thrown out. That wouldn’t be too dreadful; at least one could sleep one’s fill for once.

Yes, indeed, that Kowalewski girl wasn’t bad; she was sure to be up to her tricks in Berlin. But Amanda, Amanda Backs was by no means a back number either. Little Meier turned on his side, at last having repressed the uncomfortable thought that the Rittmeister had not actually said that the crops should not be brought in, but rather that one should be guided by the weather.

No, Meier did not want to think of that now; he preferred to think of Amanda. He felt more alive, drew his knees up and grunted with pleasure. This caused the cigarette to drop out of his mouth but it didn’t matter; he didn’t need a cigarette, he had Amanda. Yes, they called him Little Meier, Black Meier—and when he looked at himself in the mirror he had to admit they were right. Big, round, yellowish owl’s eyes looked from behind thick lenses; he had a flat nose, blubber lips, ears that stuck out and a forehead hardly two inches high—as far as that goes, the man himself was hardly five feet.

But that was just it: he looked so odd, so grotesque, had such a comically ugly mug, that the girls were all keen on him. When he had been still quite new at Neulohe and Amanda and her girl-friend had passed him, the friend said: “Amanda, you’ll need a step to reach up to him.” But Amanda had replied: “That doesn’t matter, he has such a sweet kisser.” That had been her way of declaring love; the girls here were like that, impudent and of a divine casualness. Either they were keen on you or they weren’t, but in any case they didn’t make a fuss about it. They were grand.

Look at yesterday evening when Amanda had climbed through his window—as a matter of fact he wasn’t keen himself, he was too tired and the mistress had rushed out of the bushes! Not the Rittmeister’s lady—she would only have laughed, being herself not a bad sport—but the old lady, the mother-in-law, from the manor house. Any other girl would have shrieked or hidden herself or called on him for help; not so Amanda. He could remain out of it and be amused. “Yes, madam,” Amanda had said quite innocently. “I only want to check up the poultry accounts with the bailiff; he never has any time during the day.”

“And you climb through his window for that!” the old lady, who was very pious, had shrieked. “You shameless creature.”

“But the house is already locked up,” Amanda had replied.

And as the old lady still hadn’t got her bellyful and couldn’t see that she was no match for the young of today, even with the help of religion and morals, Amanda had simply added: “This is my free time, madam. And what I do in my free time is my own business. And if you can find a better poultry maid for such low wages—but you won’t find one—then I can leave, of course; but not till tomorrow.”

And she had insisted that he shouldn’t shut the window. “If she wants to stand there and listen, let her stand there, Hans dear. It’s all one to us, and perhaps she gets some pleasure out of it. After all, she didn’t get her daughter in solitary prayer.”

Little Meier sniggered and pressed his cheek against his arm as if he were feeling the soft but firm body of his Amanda. Such a sport! She was just the right sort for a poor devil and bachelor. No soft stuff about love, faithfulness and marriage, but good at her work and ready with her tongue; so downright and free-spoken that sometimes she made you wince. But this was not surprising when you came to consider that she had grown up in the four years of war and the five years afterward.

“If I don’t snatch my food myself I don’t get any. And if I don’t smack you, you’ll smack me. Always stand up for yourself, young man, even against that old woman. She’s had her good times—why shouldn’t I have mine, just because they started a potty war and an inflation? It’s enough to make a cat laugh. After all, if I die, then as far as I’m concerned the world’s at an end. And she’ll have to squeeze out the tears which she’ll shed over my grave as a good girl; and as for the tin wreath which she’ll slap on my worm-chest, I shan’t be able to buy myself anything with it, and therefore we’d better be happy while we can. What do you say, Hans dear? Be sorry for the old woman and gentler with her? Well, who’s been kind to me? They were always boxing my ears, and if my nose bled,
so much the better. And when I cried a bit I was told: ‘Shut up or you’ll get a few more where that came from.’ No, Hans, I wouldn’t say anything if there was any sense in it, but it’s just as silly and idiotic as my hens who lay eggs for our pleasure and then in the end are thrown into the stewpan. Not me, thank you! If you like it, do; but don’t ask me.”

The girl was right. Little Meier laughed once more and fell into a deep sleep and would have slept on till the evening dew—blow the work, blow the Rittmeister—if it hadn’t suddenly become extremely hot and even suffocating.

Starting up—no longer with a weary movement but leaping onto both feet—he saw that he had been lying in the midst of the excellent beginnings of a forest fire. Through the voluminous stinging smoke he saw a figure jumping about and stamping and beating out the flames; and he himself was jumping now, and stamping and beating them down with a fir branch, shouting: “It’s burning nicely.”

“Cigarette!” said the other man, and went on extinguishing the fire.

“I might have been burned to death,” laughed Meier.

“And no loss either.”

“Sez you,” cried Meier, coughing with the smoke.

“Shut up, man,” ordered the other. “To be suffocated isn’t fun, either.” And the two with all their might continued to put out the fire, the bailiff straining his ears in the direction of his two reaping and binding machines, to hear if they were still rattling. For it would not have been pleasant for him if people had noticed anything and told the Rittmeister.

Contrary to all expectations, however, they were carrying on their work, which in other circumstances would have annoyed the bailiff, for it showed that the fellows were drowsing in their seats and leaving not only the work but also the thinking to the horses, and, that, as far as they were concerned, the whole manor of Neulohe, with all its buildings and eight thousand acres of forest, might have burned down. On returning, they would have gazed at the ashes of the stables as if witchcraft had been responsible. But this time Meier did not get annoyed; he was happy about the ongoing clatter and about the subsiding smoke.

At last Meier and his rescuer faced each other, rather out of breath, across a blackened patch as big as a room. The rescuer looked a little neglected, with a flutter of reddish whisker round nose and chin; he had keen blue eyes, was still young, and dressed in an old gray tunic and trousers, although with a handsome yellow leather belt and an equally handsome holster. And there must be something—not merely lollipops—in it, that is, in the holster, for it swung so heavily.

“A cigarette?” asked the incorrigible Meier and held out his case, for he felt that he, too, should do something for his rescuer.

“Hand us one, comrade,” said the other. “My paws are black.” “Mine, too,” laughed Meier, and he fished out a couple between the tips of his fingers. Smoking, the two sat down comfortably in the grass under the scanty shade of fir trees a little way from the charred spot. They had learned enough from their recent experience for one to use an old stump as an ash tray, and the other a flat stone.

The man in field gray inhaled a few times, stretched his limbs, yawned unceremoniously and said, profoundly: “Yes … Yes …”

“Things are not too good,” agreed Meier.

“Not too good? Lousy,” exclaimed the other, screwing up his eyes to look at the country quivering in the heat. Seeming utterly bored, he flung himself on his back in the grass.