Iron Gustav (47 page)

‘Yes, Henri,' she replied absent-mindedly. ‘It's all right.'

Then there was silence again.

Erich returned from one of his mysterious errands, the embodiment of brotherly love. From the hall strange sounds were heard, sometimes shrill, sometimes soft, and Heinz almost jumped out of his chair. Then he remembered that this must be the violinist tuning his instrument …

In what was almost a whisper his brother reported that the servants had left. ‘They have leave of absence till tomorrow. Minna will clear the table when we've finished, then she'll go too.'

‘Good,' said Tinette. ‘We're ready. Do you want anything more?'

Erich looked over the dishes as if he were considering what he would like. Suddenly he made a gesture. ‘Thanks, no more … May I show you to your room, my dear Fräulein?'

That
girl, thought Heinz, walks like a queen. No, rather as you walk in a dream, when the body loses all weight and you feel you can fly. She walks like that.

Tinette and Heinz were alone.

‘What's the meaning of all this?' he asked almost belligerently, in an attempt, and a vain one, to exorcize the spell which bound him.

‘Yes, we must seem very mysterious,' said Tinette and laughed. Then she got up and led the way into the hall.

A big, flaming, very bright fire burned in the fireplace. At quite a distance from it stood three chairs – the table in front of the fireplace had been taken away – and the huge Persian carpet in its soft colouring was like a summer field.

‘Sit down, Henri,' said Tinette, pointing to one of the chairs.

He sat down.

She stood beside him. Again he saw that enigmatic smile which seemed to dwell in the expression of her eyes. Her fingers closed round his wrist, felt for his pulse.

‘Is your heart beating too?' she whispered. ‘Feel how mine beats!'

She guided his hand to her breast, which was warm and sweet; remote and mysterious was the beating of that other heart … He shut his eyes. There was that song again, the magic song of his own blood, with which the whole world seemed to be joining in.

‘I'm going now, Madame,' said Minna.

Heinz opened his eyes. The maid was standing by the door, her face expressionless.

‘All right, Minna,' said Tinette. She kept his hand on her breast; the mysterious smile still dwelled in her eyes. ‘Don't forget to lock the front door. Goodnight, Minna.'

‘Goodnight, Madame.'

Minna had gone. Tinette put his hand gently on the arm of the chair. ‘Where's Erich?' she whispered.

Going to the middle chair, she sat down, leaning forward and fixing her eyes on the flames. Now and then a piece of wood fell with a thud into the grate and the flames leaped up in brightness, casting radiance on a face which seemed to shine from within – the most beautiful face in the world.

I
shall never love any woman like this again, thought Heinz. And in this moment I love her more than ever.

Erich was back. He glanced at his brother and Tinette, both gazing into the fire from chairs widely separated, and he smiled. ‘She's coming.'

‘Splendid, my friend,' replied Tinette, without looking up.

Heinz turned round. ‘I wish you'd explain,' he said crossly, ‘the meaning of all this. Who's coming? Why have the servants been sent away? Why all this secrecy?'

‘Didn't Tinette tell you?' Erich was pretending to be surprised. But good liar that he was, his lying was still sometimes clumsy.

Heinz noticed immediately. ‘Go on, pretend!' he said ungraciously.

‘I consider it very charming of Tinette,' replied Erich, imperturbably courteous, ‘to want to give you so pleasant a surprise. But it's nothing mysterious, Bubi. I can tell you all about it. My dear boy' – he bent down close to Heinz and whispered as though he didn't want even Tinette to hear – ‘my dear boy, you're to have a wonderful experience. The young lady you saw just now is the most beautiful, gifted and celebrated dancer in Berlin. And she's going to dance just for the three of us … She dances Chopin, Bubi!'

Heinz looked flabbergasted. Was that all? Then why this secrecy? Dancing to him meant nothing more than the kind of trotting up and down which he had seen in nightclubs recently. ‘All right, Erich,' he said. ‘Charming of you! Now I understand why she wanted no more roast beef.'

Erich made a furious gesture.

Heinz sat back in his chair and looked with a superior, challenging gaze at his brother, who now no longer appeared friendly but very angry.

‘You still don't understand,' said Erich. ‘She doesn't just dance like that … But—' He broke off and again looked at Heinz secretively.

‘But?' he asked provocatively, feeling that, despite everything, his brother had still not told him all, and really was keeping a secret.

‘But, well, she dances …' began Erich hesitantly.

‘It's time!' a voice suddenly called from Tinette's chair.

‘It's
time!'

Tinette was lying back in the soft hollow of her chair, her mouth half opened and her eyes tight shut. It looked as though she were asleep – as if she were talking in her sleep.

‘Time!' she called a third time, almost singing, but what it was time for, that she didn't say.

‘Yes, it really is,' said Erich. ‘Excuse me, Bubi, but you'll see for yourself now. Perhaps Tinette too will—' He did not finish the sentence but sat down in the chair on the other side of hers, out of sight. It was quite still in the large hall, though occasionally a log in the fireplace crackled, sending up very red sparks.

Heinz, though annoyed, nevertheless found himself sharing the expectancy shown by the others. To dance, all well and good. But neither Erich nor Tinette would make such secretive preparations for a bit of dancing. Servants were to leave the house, and Tinette would also … Erich had said.

He was just about to speak when he heard the violinist (the blind violinist) playing … but just listened. Clear and silvery the sounds – Heinz, as if he had been called, now turned his head. She was coming down the stairs, the stranger, the woman with a regal air who had made him see for the first time that the upright posture of man is divine and distinguishes him from all other creatures …

With heavenly rhythmic limbs she descended – and she was naked, utterly naked. He shut his eyes. Was it a dream? No, she was naked … of course she had to be naked … for one who can walk thus, moving so harmoniously, all garments are a clog and hindrance.

Down the stairs she came like a white flame – beautiful, silent, noiseless – passed close to Heinz and stood in front of the fire. Upstairs the violin began to call, to allure … With bent head she stood as though listening to her own heart, motionless as if, like Heinz, she heard the call of the violin not from without but within.

What was happening? Had she stirred? At what sound? She swayed, her hands moved, her arms glittered through the air – and all was over … The white flame leaped and yielded; a flurry of wind seemed to blow her down and away. But again she was there, whiter and more regal than before. Then – miraculous! – with feet together,
immobile, she yet seemed to free herself from the earth, to rise, ethereal … What was that?

Why has she stopped? She stands there, listening, while the violin sings on. She is tranquil and is waiting. Light dances over her body, caresses her hips, lifts a nipple out of the darkness and is swift to brighten the arm she now raises, beckoning, luring …

Heinz turned his head. Whom did she beckon? Whom did she lure?

Tinette – Tinette had risen from her chair. Slowly, as if asleep, she was taking off her clothes, one after the other, and letting them glide to the floor. Down slipped her skirt, to lie round her feet like a husk shed by a silver fruit. Slim and white she stood …

I must shut my eyes, he thought. I can't bear it. I don't ever want to see her like that, I'd never be able to forget it.

However, he continued to stare at her, watched her standing – a silver, dreamlike figure, actually descended from the clouds, the anxiously guarded Venus of his boyhood dreams.

What enticement, invitation, in the violin now! The world was saluting her, Life calling. What we had dreamed came true and was beyond all our dreams.

The two women swayed nearer, stretched out their hands – but, as if something had come in between, one glided away while the other sought to reach her. Again they approached. Gentle was the violin, the soft crackling of the fire … And now they were held in each other's arms.

Embracing thus, each seemed to be searching the other's face, the other's eyes – for what? And both were smiling as Tinette had been smiling all evening … a smile ancient and sad, knowing the transitory nature of all things, the futility of desire.

Didn't they know how they were smiling? Far too close they were, body against body, breast on breast … closer, closer … They no longer held each other in their arms. They were pressing against each other … No, I don't want to see that! We've all had our childhood paradises, but we had to come out of them, because mankind doesn't live in paradise, and doesn't want to. Man wants to work with other people!

But
if we no longer live in paradise, do we have to stoop so low as a result? No, I don't want to see it. No! Go away! I disliked you from the beginning – you with Madonna-like hair – I knew you were evil. I won't have you clasping her like that, pursuing her with your mouth. Erich, she belongs to you. You tell her she shouldn't. You tell her – I can't.

In this moment Erich turned his head, just as if Heinz had actually addressed him. ‘Well, Bubi, how d'you like it? Did we exaggerate?' And he looked at his brother triumphantly and with scorn.

Heinz rose. He wanted to reply – no, he wanted to go away – and yet he could not take his eyes off this woman who now came slowly, very slowly, towards him.

‘I want to go. I must go … I …'

‘Bubi,' she said, laying her hand on his shoulder. And under that soft touch he gave way as if a fist had struck him, and he knelt down, while her hand played very gently in his hair. Pressing his face against her body, he groaned with desire and despair. He sensed the smell of life and of life's transience …

And he hears a laugh.

Does a violin laugh like that? Can a violin mock a man like that?

The lights went on – all the lights had been turned on to reveal him, the seventeen-year-old Heinz Hackendahl, kneeling before a French whore and kissing her naked body as though it were the holy tabernacle itself. And in the door stood his brother and the wretched dance woman, laughing at him, mocking him, mocking his pain, his innocence, and his whole life.

‘Splendid, Tinette,' cried Erich ‘Have you vexed him? Now have him kiss your feet. Oh, I'd love to see him licking your feet.'

Tinette, pushed away suddenly, gave a little shriek and fell. Heinz sprang at his brother and the pair, furiously struggling, crashed to the ground, Heinz aiming blow after blow at that dissolute, impertinent face. And felt, as he did so, that only a brother can be struck like that, because of what is in truth detested in oneself – one's own softness, weakness, cowardice. It was a real fight. He wanted to beat his whole past with his fists, to beat himself clean again, just as silver is beaten clean. He hardly noticed the women dragging and clawing
at him … Only when his passion had spent itself did he get up – to go without heeding anything, without looking back.

In the lobby he slowly put on his coat, the beautiful tailored coat he had bought with his brother's money. He adjusted his tie, put on his hat. His pale face with its staring eyes looked back at him from the mirror. He tried to smile but didn't succeed.

His hand felt for the switch. The light went out and with it his face in the mirror. Then he unfastened the security chain, opened the door and stepped out into the frost-cold, frost-hard January night.

He took a few steps, but when he reached the street he remained standing. He looked back once more at the house. There it was, lit up here and there, a stately building of fine aspect, of a certain unostentatious wealth.

That's where he'd been a guest, for many weeks. Weeks of torture! A guest? He'd been a prisoner there! And he knew with total certainty that he would never go back there again. No matter where his life might lead him, he would hardly be likely to enter the villas of the rich again, for the purposes of bloated and lecherous pleasure. The escape had come from within him. The prisoner had freed himself. From the sick cravings of his master, the slave had made the tools that had broken his own chains.

He looked at the villa once more and went. Went free.

The collecting of firearms was over – this task Professor Degener could no longer allot to the returned wanderer.

‘That's finished, Hackendahl,' he said with a thin smile. ‘You would have missed it. You were quite far away, weren't you? All arms must now be delivered up to the government. Unauthorized possession is punishable with imprisonment up to five years or a fine not exceeding a hundred thousand marks. And of course I do not possess a hundred thousand marks.'

‘You delivered up the arms to the government?'

The professor smiled again and gazed at his slender hands. ‘There are no more weapons, Hackendahl,' he said gently. ‘I hear from your
comrades that there are no more in the whole of Berlin; doubtless they have been handed over in accordance with the law. No, I think it would be quite a good thing if, after your sojourn in a far country, you occupied yourself with your exam. The written part begins in a fortnight.'

Heinz made an exasperated movement. ‘I'd like to have a real task, Herr Professor. Something to absorb me. I feel so empty …'

‘Well, well, that's always the case on returning. Work is uncongenial – that is how they put it. In any case, simple hard work would be worth the sweat of a Hackendahl. I hear not very favourable rumours in certain circles about a certain pupil.'