Wolf Among Wolves (91 page)

“Perhaps it’s really that,” agreed Frau Eva, adding cautiously: “As a matter of fact, she’s always with young Pagel and the tone between them seems to me rather familiar. Do you think there is anything in that?”

“Anything in what?” Studmann looked up from his wage lists a little distractedly. If he used the sick-benefit column for writing down the net wages then he would have to use the disability column for the health contributions. The disability column was too narrow for all this wealth of noughts; he would use the wage-tax column instead. And now it turned out that the wages book was much too narrow. You would have to have a kind of atlas-sized wage list, including all the world’s longitude lines. What a damn mess! And nothing balanced. The orderly Studmann looked at his disorderly wage list with a stern, discouraged face.

“Herr von Studmann!” cooed Frau von Prackwitz with a dove-like softness that would have frightened any man, as if he received an electric shock, “I was just asking you whether you had any doubts about young Pagel.”

Studmann looked startled, just as was proper.

“Oh, I beg your pardon, Frau von Prackwitz, I’m terribly sorry! I was so preoccupied with these wretched lists. They get worse and worse, I can’t make them balance anymore. And I’m beginning to realize that it’s useless tormenting myself with them. I suggest that we only pay round sums now; for instance, a milliard for every married man. It’s true we would be paying a little over, but I can’t see any other way of doing it.” He looked at Frau Eva, thoughtful and worried.

“Agreed,” she said tranquilly. “And now that the money questions are settled, do you mind paying some attention to my worries as a mother? To my doubts about young Pagel?”

Studmann turned very red. “Frau von Prackwitz, I am a silly ass in some ways. When I get involved in something you can’t do anything with me. I’ll explain it to you.…”

“No, please don’t, my dear Studmann!” cried Frau Eva in despair. “I don’t want explanations, but an answer! Sometimes,” she said pensively, “you are astonishingly like Achim, although you are such contrasts. With him I get no answer because of his hastiness, from you I get none because of your thoroughness. The result for me is the same: I still don’t know whether I ought to be worried about Herr Pagel.”

“Of course not,” declared Studmann hurriedly and guiltily. “Quite apart from the fact that Pagel is a man of honor, he is also perfectly harmless.”

“I don’t know,” said Frau Eva doubtfully. “He is very young. And he’s more or less in thoroughly high spirits now, looking really happy the last few weeks. I’ve noticed it, and a young girl will notice it, too.”

“That is so, isn’t it?” said Studmann, looking pleased. “He has quite recovered. I’m proud of my success. When he came from Berlin he was a wreck, ill, dispirited, lazy—almost ruined. And now? Even the convicts look cheery when they catch sight of him.”

“And my Violet, too!” said Frau Eva drily. “You are not exactly giving me a proof of the young man’s harmlessness.”

“But, Frau von Prackwitz!” cried Studmann in reproach. “He’s in love. Only a man in love is so pleased, so gay, so contented with everything. Anyone can see that. Why, even I can see it, a dry man of figures like myself.” He flushed slightly under her gently mocking glance. “When he came here he thought the affair was over. He was gloomy, without life. No, I didn’t ask him anything, I didn’t want to. I think that discussions about love are pernicious, because …”

Frau Eva coughed warningly.

“But the affair seems to have got straightened out again, he receives and writes letters, he is as merry as a bird, he works with a will—he would like to embrace the whole world.”

“But not my Vi, if you please!” cried Frau Eva with determination.

II

Yes, Wolfgang Pagel was writing and receiving letters. And Studmann was right in saying that Wolfgang’s new pleasure in life was bound up with these letters, although not a line had come from Petra or had been written to her. Despite everything, happy. Despite everything, ready for action. Despite everything, expansive and all-embracing. Despite everything, patient with the child Violet.

When old Minna had received the young master’s first letter from the postman, and had recognized the handwriting, her limbs had trembled so much that she had to sit down. And then she became quite calm.

I mustn’t frighten the old lady like this, she thought. She doesn’t eat anymore, doesn’t drink anymore, doesn’t do anything; just sits there and thinks. And when she believes I’m not looking she takes out the note which he left when he fetched his things, and in which he said that he was now going to work properly and wouldn’t write before he’d found his feet again. And now he’s written.

She looked at the letter mistrustfully. But perhaps there were only silly things in it which would upset his mother. Minna became more and more doubtful. And perhaps he only wanted money again, because he was in a fix somewhere. She turned the letter round, but on the back were only stamps.… The writing was quite neat, Wolf used to write much worse. And it was in ink, not scribbled off in a hurry. Perhaps there was good news in it.

For a moment Minna thought of opening the letter secretly and, if it was too bad, of answering it herself. Wolfi was also her child in a way. But if it was good news, let his mother be the first to enjoy it. “Oh, it can’t be anything bad!” And thereupon she stood up from her chair, calm, determination restored.

And she placed the letter under the newspaper so that nothing of it could be seen, and when Frau Pagel had sat down sadly at the breakfast table, she left her post at the door—against all habit—mumbled something about “market” and disappeared, deaf to the calls of her mistress. And she actually did dash to the market, where she purchased a trout for 900,000,000 marks. Her mistress would at last have an appetite again.

When she returned, Frau Pagel was already on the look-out for her, her eyes sparkling as they had not sparkled in the last eight weeks.

“Silly old goose!” she greeted her faithful servant. “Do you really have to run away, so that I haven’t anyone to say a word to? Yes, the young master has written, he’s in the country now, on a large farm, something like an apprentice. But he has rather a lot of responsibility, I don’t understand anything about it—you must read it yourself, the letter’s on the table. He’s getting on well and he sends his regards to you and it’s the first letter, since I don’t know how long, in which he writes nothing about money. With the inflation I really couldn’t blame him if he did; even if he still had the money from the picture it would be worth nothing now. He writes ever so cheerfully, he has never written so cheerfully before; there must be a lot of queer people there, but he seems to get on with everybody. Well, you’ll read it yourself, Minna; why should I tell you all of it? But he doesn’t want to stay on the farm even though he does like it; he writes that it is like a sort of sanatorium. I’m not to mind, and if he really has become a taxi driver, I’m not to try and change his mind. But I’m not going to answer him, I’ve not forgotten how you told me that I made everything too easy for him. Yet it was you who always gave him sweets whenever he howled, you old know-all! I think that you should reply first and then we can see whether he gets sulky and hurt again. In that case he won’t be cured yet. And, Minna, he wants some information. I don’t agree with it, no, I don’t agree with it at all, but I shan’t say anything again, so you can take this afternoon off and make inquiries. And this evening write to him at once; if we post the letter today he’ll get it tomorrow. But perhaps it’s a country post there, in which case he’ll get it a day later. Besides, I might write a line, perhaps, after all.…”

“Madam,” said Minna, “madam—if you don’t sit down at once and eat your egg and at least two rolls I won’t read the letter or reply this evening.… This is really absolute foolishness: first you don’t eat because of sorrow and then you eat nothing because of joy. Yet you expect Wolfgang to be a calm and sensible person!”

“Stop it, Minna, you drive anyone crazy with all your talk!” said Frau Pagel. “Read the letter. I’m eating now.”

However, although Frau Pagel ate a really good breakfast, and also did every justice at midday to the 900,000,000 mark trout, her reply to Wolfgang
was not written that day. The information he requested was not so easy to obtain; the trail from Georgenkirchstrasse to Fruchtstrasse was not so easy to discover. Minna had to make many a journey to the registration offices, spend many an hour patiently waiting for information, questioning and being questioned, before she at last found herself in front of the large plank fence on which (alongside the usual scribblings of children—“Whoever reads this is daft”) was painted in large white letters “Emil Krupass, widow: rags, bottles and bones.”

“Here?” Minna asked herself doubtfully. “They’ve sent me to the wrong place again!”

She peered through the gateway into the large yard, which certainly did not look very inviting with its mountains of rusty old iron, its multitude of dirty bottles and its heap of burst mattresses. “Look out!” shouted a young scamp dashing into the yard with a dog-drawn barrow, missing her by a hair’s-breadth.

Minna followed him hesitatingly. But on her asking at a shed for Fräulein Ledig she was answered readily: “She’s by the rags. Over there at the back—the black hut!”

Poor thing! thought Minna. I suppose she must be finding it hard to scrape up a bit of a living. It was frightfully dirty in the old hut, and the stink was even more frightful. With a feeling of comfort she thought of her pretty clean kitchen. And if Petra was really stuck in here, she was three times as sorry for her. “Fräulein Ledig!” she shouted into the gloom where figures crouched and dust whirled, making her cough.

“Yes?”

She wore a bluish-green overall and looked queerly changed, but there was still the simple clear face.

“Lord, Petra, child, is it really you?” said Minna staring at her.

“Minna!” cried Petra in joyful surprise. “Have you really found me then?”

(And neither had an inkling that they were suddenly using the informal “du” with each other, which they’d never done before. But that’s life: There are people who only notice how much they like each other when they meet again, after not having seen each other for a long time.)

“Petra!” And Minna, of course, at once blurted out: “Look at you! You aren’t—?”

“Yes, I am,” she smiled.

“When?”

“At the beginning of December, I think,” replied Petra.

“I must write and tell Wolfi about it at once!”

“You are not to tell him about it in any circumstances!”

“Petra,” said Minna imploringly, “you’re not angry with him, are you?” Petra merely smiled. “You don’t bear him a grudge, do you? I would never have thought it of you.” They regarded each other silently for a while in the dusty rag hut, where women monotonously sorted the rags. They looked critically, as if they wanted to see how much the other had changed. “Come out of the bad air, Petra. We can’t talk here.”

“Is he outside?” Petra thought of what Ma Krupass had once said, that she would run to him if he were standing on the other side of the street. She did not want to. Minna looked at Petra guardedly. Suddenly she knew that it was of no little importance what sort of stepdaughter she would have been. Wolfgang’s mother had already born enough sorrow.

“Do you want us to stand till we take root in this muck and filth?” cried Minna, stamping her foot. “If he
is
outside he won’t bite you!”

Petra turned pale. But she said firmly: “If he’s outside then I am not going out. I promised.”

“You won’t go out, eh? That’s a nice thing. You won’t go to the father of your child? Whom do you promise such things to?”

“Oh, do be quiet, Minna.” This time it was Petra who stamped her foot. “Why is he sending you, then? I thought he would have become a bit different, but that’s the way he always was. If he found anything unpleasant to do, he got others to do it.”

“You mustn’t excite yourself so, Petra. That can’t be good for it.”

“I’m not excited in the least!” said Petra, growing ever angrier. “But can you expect anyone not to be annoyed if he never learns anything and never changes? I suppose he’s crept under his mother’s skirts again. It’s all just as Ma Krupass said it would be.”

“Ma Krupass?” asked Minna jealously. “Is that the widow whose name is on the fence outside? Do you tell her all the doings of our Wolfi? I would never have thought it of you, Petra!”

“One must have someone to talk to,” said Petra firmly. “I couldn’t go on waiting for you. What’s he doing now?” And she motioned with her head toward the street.

“So you are really afraid of him and don’t want to see him?” said Minna, terribly angry. “After all, he is the father of your child!”

But suddenly it seemed as if some thought had wiped all doubt, all fear and worry from Petra’s face. Its former clear character traits were apparent again; in times of greatest distress at Madam Po’s Minna had never seen that face look either angry or tearful. And there was the old tone in her voice, the old ring. It was
the ring of the old bell—trust, love, patience. Petra quietly took Minna’s shaking hand between her own and said, “You know him, too, Minna, you saw him grow up, and you know that one can’t be angry with him when he laughs and cracks his jokes with us poor women.… Your heart goes out to him straight away, you feel happy and think no more of anything he might have done to you …”

“Yes, God knows!”

“But, Minna, now he’ll have to be a father and think of others. It mustn’t just be that everyone should look happy when he is there; he must help in sharing troubles and work and also put up with an angry face sometimes, instead of running off at once for the day. And Ma Krupass is right, I’ve thought of it hundreds of times these past weeks: he must become a man before he can be a father. At present he’s merely a child whom we’ve all spoiled.”

“You are right, Petra, God knows.”

“And if I stand here with you and go all hot and cold, it isn’t because I’m angry or bear him a grudge or want to punish him! If he came in here, Minna, and gave me his hand and smiled at me in his old way, I know that the first thing I’d do would be to hug him, I’d be so happy. But, Minna, that must not be. I’ve realized that I mustn’t make things so easy for him again. In the first hour it would be wonderful, but in the next I should be thinking: Is my child to have such a spoiled darling for its father, one for whom I have no proper respect? No, Minna, God forbid! Even if I have to run away from here, run away from him and from my own weakness! I promised Ma Krupass and myself: he must first be something. Even if it’s only something quite small. And anyway I don’t want to see him at all for six months.” She paused for a moment. “But now he’s again crept under the skirts of you old women!”