Iron Gustav (62 page)

The two of them sat there for a long time, talking with one another, about Irma and about the only partially persuaded grandfather, about Eva, whom Heinz had gone on holiday to help, but who didn't want help, and about his miserably botched attempt to spare her the excitement over Eva. ‘Because you're not in the best of
health, Tutti, and I sometimes worry when I hear you coughing at night.'

‘I've always coughed, Heinz, and at home we used to say, “If you keep coughing, you'll keep living.” '

‘Yes, you and your “at home”,' he said, ‘but who here is going to make my bed? Oh, Tutti. I'm going to find it damn difficult to live in a furnished room again, and without our boys.'

‘Well,' she said and could even smile, ‘I don't think Irma would like to live in a furnished room, and your own boys are always better than “our boys”.'

She saw him blush, and actually blush in a way that a young man in 1923 should not have to at such a remark. And she was almost happy when he stood up and said: ‘Don't talk such rubbish, Tutti! With Irma, of all people! Don't forget: Closed for Family Mourning.'

‘Liar! For Family Celebration!'

‘Well, a celebration like that would be like mourning.'

During the fortnight which Erich Hackendahl needed to wind up his affairs in Berlin, he wondered over and over again whether or not to ring up his friend the lawyer. More and more nebulous and drunken did that night of national mourning over what had happened in the Ruhr now appear to him; one ought not to take such things too seriously. He himself had been drunk, the other had been drunk and, as is well known, drunkenness impairs the memory – one need not remember things too clearly. In any case his recollections of the evening were vague, very vague. Several times he had picked up the receiver, only to put it back when the exchange came on, or ask for another number. Despite a faulty memory, the relationship with his father had been violated. A friendship had been damaged. But he showed more decision about converting his property into money – that is, into stable currencies. With the villa in Zehlendorf he had luck; he sold it lock, stock and barrel to a foreigner who, having acquired a fortune on the London Stock Exchange, was thinking of buying up half Berlin. He had even more luck in that both he and
this purchaser were of the opinion that the State, or more exactly the Exchequer, should be involved in the matter as little as possible. A bit of a wangle, of course. And so Erich became the possessor of a demand draft in Norwegian kroner on an Amsterdam firm, and the foreigner paid him pro forma a couple of million paper marks on a very backdated purchase agreement.

And his luck held in other things – the disposal of his firm, the collection of outstanding debts, the getting rid of his car. Erich, on the eve of his departure, could say: everything I possess is abroad.

He paced up and down his hotel room, delighted that he had been able to invest what was left of his wretched paper marks in a fur coat, a gold watch and a diamond ring. He was wondering whether the Customs would object to the fact that everything he possessed was brand new.

But what are one's connections for? Erich went to the telephone, asked for the lawyer's secret number, and half a minute later he heard the sound of the familiar soft, slightly ironic voice in his ear.

‘Hello, Erich. Yes, I was thinking about ringing you – Yes, of course, we did have rather a lot. In those places they doctor the drinks too – Quite right, for days on end I thought I was poisoned – Yes, I can hardly remember … A dim idea that we went on somewhere … My doctor says methylated spirits would have that effect – And the champagne actually cost ten dollars! Crazy! Really? That's splendid – Indeed? Brussels? Why Brussels, by the way? Do you particularly want to go there? Not particularly? You have no particular connections there then? – Only from the war; yes, of course, I understand, I understand … Wait, Erich, you got half an hour to spare? I might have a suggestion to make. Magnificent! In your hotel? Splendid. Well then, I'll be in the bar in half an hour – So long, old chap. So sensible of you to ring me up.'

Smilingly Erich replaced the receiver … Everything OK now with the old fox; memory a bit off, fuddled with methylated – all right! Let him come, that was the main thing. You wouldn't be yourself, Herr Doctor, if you didn't want to earn a few pounds, dollars, Norwegian kroner.

And in the small but cosy hotel bar took place a memorable conversation. Never had the lawyer been so paternally benevolent or
Erich so tractable and filial. There they sat – a young and enterprising businessman, not badly off, on the eve of departure to try his luck in the wide world, and the experienced politician ready to assist his protégé a last time with advice and help. Oh yes, he was definitely against Brussels; as a money market it was not in the first rank. The great things took place in the city of Amsterdam, where gigantic battles were now being fought over the mark. ‘And the mark, we're at one there, is to be your main field of activity. I could regularly give you tips by means of a very simple code which we can arrange together.'

The waiter brought their sherry cobblers. ‘The pegging of the mark is to be your task, my dear Erich,' said the lawyer raising his voice.

Both gentlemen smiled a little and thoughtfully stirred their drinks.

‘No,' said the older man, ‘have a look at Brussels by all means but Amsterdam is the place for you, if only on account of the still very strong hatred of the Germans in Brussels. In Amsterdam I could give you a cordial introduction to my friend Roest the banker.'

This time the consumption of drinks was kept within very moderate limits, but the lawyer handed his young friend a little parcel to take to Amsterdam – his share in the business. ‘I am participating with you to the extent of this sum; you can dispose of it in accordance with my advice.' And no small amount! The lawyer however remained gentle and modest. ‘Let me in on your deal when you think fit … No, that's all right. An ordinary receipt. I have one prepared … A loan, that's the simplest way … Participation and share in profits had better remain a verbal agreement. I trust you completely … How are you going to get across the frontier? Wait, let me think.' He thought. ‘Postpone your journey for a day. I think it can be arranged for you to travel as a special courier for the Foreign Office. You understand – diplomatic bag.'

Both smiled again.

‘I would prefer, however, to send the receipt when I'm safely over the frontier with the money,' said Erich, modest but firm.

‘As you like, my dear Erich, as you like. You shall run no risk. I rely entirely on you. Anyway, you'll be needing my information about the mark. We're dependent on each other, isn't that so?'

This
time both looked serious, both pondered, both finally nodded. Gravely.

The deputy then proceeded to expand on the prospects of the Ruhr uprising and the Cuno government. He was against the latter. ‘It will fall: what can a government do nowadays against the Social Democrats, the strongest party? It must fall.'

‘And the Ruhr uprising?'

‘If you lose a war, you shouldn't make a fuss. The French demanded a lot, and we endorsed it. We should have given way on this too. The Ruhr uprising will fall as well.'

However, what will fall most will be the mark. What was the dollar that day? Forty-two thousand marks! And it was going to be quoted at forty-two millions, at forty-two milliards, till the bottom dropped out of it. The only thing that mattered now was to know when this stage was going to be reached so that the bears should cover. ‘I'll wire you, Erich – you'll see!'

Three days later Erich travelled as special diplomatic courier to Brussels. It pleased him considerably that the Reich paid for his journey in pursuit of his further speculations. It was a drab February day when he arrived in Amsterdam; he disliked the town, thought it narrow, gloomy, overcrowded, noisy. The canals lay inert, stinking and foggy. And the offices of Roest the banker were three small, dirty rooms on a third floor. He had to go there several times before being received.

Herr Roest was a pale, tall, restless man with gold-rimmed spectacles. Failing to ask his visitor to take a seat, he paced up and down, continually wiping his face with a big coloured handkerchief.

‘Who's he sent me?' he muttered. ‘Nothing but scroungers. I've no vacancy in my office. There are only scroungers left in Germany. God, I suppose you know that the Belgian franc stayed firm? Like iron! And I'm a bear for a million.' Very depressed, Herr Roest looked at his visitor without seeing him and, wiping his face continually, expressed himself at length on the perfidy of the Belgian government which, while secretly supporting the franc, had led people to expect a fall in it. ‘They're all criminals! A plague on them! And I'm a million down.' At last he remembered that his visitor had come with a letter of introduction. ‘What d'you want?' he asked
suspiciously. ‘They all want something out of me. But who gives me anything?' Having decided to read the letter, he grew more amiable. ‘So? You want to go to the Stock Exchange? Do a bit of foreign currency exchange? Then you're on the right track, I'll look after you like my own son, just like myself. But marks! Marks! What d'you want with marks? You'll burn your fingers; no one knows what'll become of the mark. Poincaré – he'll ruin it. What does he gain? Nothing at all. All very well if he did – but things are just like that anyway. Isn't that so? How much are you going to start off with?'

Erich Hackendahl muttered something about fifty thousand dollars but he wanted to think it over first – get his bearings. He didn't much like Herr Roest with his dirty, gnawed-at nails, his alternation of lament and aggression, his coloured handkerchief …

‘Go, young man, go and ask round. Ask about Roest – you'll hear. And what'll you hear? God, I was caught short, caught short for one million Brussels.' He recovered himself and held out a damp and bony hand. ‘You'll hear, you'll come back.' Lord, what a greenhorn to think that he could hang onto his money and make a fortune as well. He'll see!

Erich Hackendahl did see the city. He saw the city in turmoil. That is to say, he didn't see the city at all. He had intended to go to the Rijksmuseum and see the Rembrandts. The landlubber wanted to see the harbour and the overseas traffic – he saw nothing of it. He sat about in the lounges of the luxury hotels, in bars, in the cafés frequented by the stockjobbers; he went to the brokers' offices and sat with other clients staring feverishly at the glass panels which showed the quotations in illuminated figures, flashing off, flashing on again.

Wherever he went he heard only talk of gold currencies, bear selling, offer and bid, arbitrage, guilders, francs, dollars, pounds – he heard nothing else. It was possible that the Dutch people in general were leading a different kind of life – sometimes, going back to his hotel at four in the morning, he met fishermen on their way to the harbour, saw their tanned, leathery faces and remarkably light eyes – and for a moment it would occur to him that these people went to work, to real manual work, for a single guilder while nearby on the Stock Exchange tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions
of guilders were won (and lost) every day of their lives. But such moments grew rarer. It was not his business anyway.

He had been indignant with Roest for receiving him as though he were a beggar and a greenhorn, but he soon saw that he really was a greenhorn in this city riotous with millions. Roest in his three dirty little rooms had engagements to the extent of fifty million guilders in the money market.

Others, people whom formerly he wouldn't have cared to sit next to in a café – so unkempt they looked – were engaged in even larger transactions. He was glad to sit beside them now, indeed seeking them out, and listening reverently when, peevishly stirring their coffee, they said: ‘I got a hunch. I dreamed of a black cat with white spots. I got a hunch the dollar will sag tomorrow.' And he saw these creatures get into their luxurious English or Italian cars and race off at a hundred kilometres an hour to Scheveningen or Spa …

Burning envy filled him. In Berlin, with well over half a million marks, he had considered himself a rich man; here he saw that that was nothing. There were people here – he spoke to them – who had lost twenty times that amount in half an hour, and who laughed about it. ‘I shan't have to sell matches – I'll get it all back,' they boasted. And get it back they did.

Erich Hackendahl both envied and despised them. He envied them their nose for the market, their nerve – the reckless courage with which almost hourly they risked their whole existence, all their goods and chattels – he even envied them their frivolous feelings. But he despised them profoundly for their inability to do anything with the money they had gained, for their inability to clear out once they were really rich, to flee the excitements of the money market and lead the kind of life which he personally desired.

Vaguely it dawned on him that these people were different, that they were not in this game just to become rich, but for the sake of the game itself. Fundamentally they were gamblers – and like all gamblers they could never stop, not even to think – all they wanted was to go on gambling. He, however, wanted to become rich in order to live well. He wanted to buy beautiful things, to live with beautiful women, to travel. Throughout his youth he had breathed the air of a stable; he shuddered when he remembered it. One must
never be poor again, he thought, one must never have to worry over money.

He started cautiously. He deposited certain amounts as margin with two or three brokers and began to give buying and selling orders. He felt very uncertain, always conscious that the ground on which he trod was insecure. The banker Roest (whom he also visited as a client) had summed him up correctly in the first five minutes. He would have preferred to keep his money intact; he wanted to gamble without any risk.