Iron Gustav (65 page)

He rushed to the door. Terror-stricken they looked at him, picturing the milk boiling over and stinking.

He turned back, pale but resolute. ‘It's all the same to me,' he said gloomily. ‘Let it burn, let the fire brigade come. I'm not leaving until I'm out of this awful suspense. I must have a definite answer at last.' He sat down beside her.

‘I'll never marry you,' she shouted into his ears. ‘Now you've got your definite answer.'

‘Please, dear Heinz, your milk!' Frau Quaas was absolutely overwhelmed.

‘I told you so,' he said, nodding his head. ‘She hasn't decided yet. She must have time for reflection.'

‘Please, Heinz, the milk.'

‘Are you going, Heinz, or aren't you?' Irma's patience was at an end. Crimson with fury, she stood in front of him.

‘If only you'd think it over quietly,' he begged. ‘You're too excited now, Irma.'

‘You're to go and see about your milk. You're upsetting Mother.'

‘It's only half a litre,' he said apologetically. ‘By the time I got there it would be burnt away, anyhow. I'd rather wait here.'

‘You're to leave at once.'

‘And then' – Heinz looked repentant – ‘I find lying beastly. To tell the truth I've got no milk on the gas at all, Irma. And the gas isn't turned on either, but—'

Smack! That was his slap all right. Smack! Smack! Smack! Three more than he had bargained for.

‘There! There! There! You miserable liar, to torment us like this. You do nothing but torment people.'

But he'd got her in his arms. ‘Oh, Irma,' he said, ‘thank heavens you've boxed my ears at last. That's been on your mind for five years.'

‘Let me go,' she said faintly. ‘You must let me go. I don't want to hit you again.'

‘No, now you'd like to …'

She made desperate efforts to free herself. Then she exclaimed impatiently: ‘Mother, there's somebody in the shop. Do have a look.'

And
hardly had the door closed behind the confused old woman – who did not understand what was happening at all, who understood neither her shop nor her daughter nor money nor the milk on the gas nor the whole world – hardly were the two alone when Irma said: ‘Listen, Heinz. I've let … that pass once. But never again, you understand. I never wish to experience such anxiety and misery again. You understand?'

‘Yes.'

‘Good – and now it shall be forgiven and forgotten for ever. You can kiss me, Heinz.'

At the bank they had been using machines to count and bundle up the notes, and the clerks had had to work overtime at the same job of counting – there were virtuosi among them who could converse while doing this; their fingers counted for them and a machine in their heads added up to a hundred while they were saying: ‘Damned cold today, isn't it? Well, yes, I was on the razzle last night. Pretty hot! Perhaps that's why I'm freezing now.' And all the time counting infallibly and bundling up the million-mark or milliard-mark notes. No cash box, no steel safe was large enough to hold these piles of money; there had been a great demand for laundry baskets, found eminently suitable for keeping money in, and which were also completely safe as a rule.

And then, all of a sudden, this madness was over – the Rentenmark had come. The floods drained away and, as is usual with floods, left behind mud and destruction. While plenty of notes of high denomination were circulating, people hadn't grasped how poverty-stricken they really were, not even the poor. The enormous figures, the vast issue of paper money had made it impossible to think clearly.

And then the banks started their great clean-up. Accounts were looked into, stocks valued and adjusted, and letters sent to clients. ‘We beg to advise you that your account with us is closed because of its trifling nature. Your stocks and shares, etc., are at your disposal during office hours. Yours truly …'

Now began the invasion of the cheated, the expropriated, the bankrupt, of those who had, through hard work, acquired stocks and shares against old age, the rentiers, the small investors, the petty
and the high officials, and it became evident that these people had been very far from businesslike. They hadn't gone in for foreign currency speculations or shady deals – they had simply waited and lost everything. For days on end the counters echoed with the laments and protests, the weeping and the cursing of the aged. The bank employees tried to cheer them up, but it is difficult to persuade a person who feels cheated to suffer in silence. In fact it is impossible.

‘Listen,' an old gentleman would say, thumping his beautifully printed shares with their flourish of signatures. ‘Here are shares. Shares for twenty thousand marks. And you say they're worth nothing?'

‘You must take the dollar quotation into consideration, Herr Counsellor. The dollar finally stood at four thousand two hundred milliards of paper marks. And the shares are in paper marks. So they're not worth even a pfennig.'

‘But when I gave the factory my money it was in gold currency. The Reichsbank exchanged my money every day according to the gold standard.'

‘Yes, but that was before 1914, Herr Counsellor. Since then we've lost a war.'

‘We? You, perhaps – not me! My sons … but that has nothing to do with it. The factory which received my money's still there, isn't it? I had a look at it only the other day. The chimneys were smoking.'

‘Yes, but that was before the war, Herr Counsellor.'

‘So the factory hasn't turned into paper!'

‘You must understand, Herr Counsellor, the devaluation of the mark …'

‘Oh, yes, I understand, just like my War Loans. You remember – the gratitude of the Fatherland is assured!'

‘We lost the war …'

‘Excellent – and the others have to pay for it. Good day! I'll never set foot in a bank again.'

And he left – and the unhappy employee, whose twentieth disgusted customer of the day this was, looked despairingly after him.

But even this came to an end when the tidying-up was over, and all was ready for new customers – who, however, did not come,
despite all the preparations. Interest on their savings was to be, in view of the times, proportionately high, and the new shares issued by manufacturing companies promised the handsomest of gains. Yet still the customers came not. They wanted neither interest nor profit. They had no confidence. They stayed away.

It was in this way that it became common to refer to the enormous distension of the system. Inflation was like a medical distension of the market (a very good, indeed a precise comparison for something so noxious). The banks had distended with the system – and now were being dismantled! (This comparison was not quite so good. One didn't talk so much about dismantling before; it was called demolition. However, dismantling sounded better. Each period has the expressions and technical terms it deserves.) So, long live dismantling!

Inevitably the day arrived when Heinz Hackendahl was requested to see the staff manager. The staff manager's waiting room was crowded. Every three minutes his office door opened and his secretary's voice melodiously sang out: ‘The next gentleman, please.' People were being dismissed as on a conveyor belt. Those waiting knew of course what was in store for them, but in most cases they did not take it tragically. Hitherto there had always been work. Hardly anybody had yet experienced real unemployment.

‘I'd had enough of the joint long ago.'

‘Fat lot I care! I can get a job tomorrow as foreign corres-pondent.'

‘Let them see how they'll get on without me.'

‘The next, please.'

But when Heinz Hackendahl entered the staff manager's office he saw a different spectacle – a bald, elderly clerk for whom the manager had poured out a glass of water.

‘Do calm yourself, Herr Tümmel. With your abilities you'll get a post tomorrow.'

‘What am I to do? What shall I do? No bank will take an old man like me.'

‘Please, Herr Tümmel, please calm yourself! Eighty gentlemen are waiting outside. If I had to spend as much time with each of them …'

‘I've worked here thirty-five years and now you're turning me out into the street.'

‘But who's talking about the street, Herr Tümmel? A man as efficient as you! We're not responsible. It's the hard times. We didn't make them.'

‘I've earned millions for the bank and now … But that's the capitalists all over.'

‘I must ask you, Herr Tümmel, I must really ask you not to drag in politics. I've no time now. Please, Fräulein, take Herr Tümmel to his room. Well, Herr Hackendahl, you know what it's all about … Reductions in staff forced upon us … deep regret … your valuable services … when conditions are more favourable perhaps we could re-engage you …' The staff manager reeled it off like a robot, for the fiftieth time that morning. Then, with incontestable legality and preciseness: ‘Notice to take effect on 1 July. It rests with you whether you leave your employment now, receiving your salary up to 30 June.'

‘I can stay away from tomorrow, then?'

‘Yes, of course. We're as accommodating as we can be. But old employees such as Herr Tümmel, they won't see that. He talks about his thirty-five years of service. But he forgets that for thirty-five years he also received his due from the bank. The man doesn't think of that. Please sign here that you've received your notice.'

‘Will he get another post?'

‘Good Lord, an old stick-in-the-mud like that? He couldn't adapt himself. Two years ago I wanted to change his room for one three doors away, similar in all respects, same size, same furniture – my God, didn't the man make a fuss! Said he was homesick. How can you be homesick for an office? No, Tümmel's finished. Ah, Fräulein Schneider! Got rid of him? Well, the next one, please. See you again – sorry, I mean good afternoon, Herr Hackendahl.'

Heinz went to his office. He had fully three months' holiday before him. That had never happened in his whole life. How happy Irma would be! They could travel, they had money. They could go to Hiddensee? To Tutti? It was wonderful. How good the new mark was!

As he went he saw an open office door. Behind it sat Herr Tümmel surrounded by sympathetic colleagues. With his head in his
hands he repeatedly sobbed the words, ‘I'll never get another job! Never, ever!'

Poor fellow: he really would never get another job. How bad it was to be old. Homesick for an office! How good it was still to be young! He would always have work – sometimes more than he wanted.

Heinz packed his office belongings and took leave of his colleagues. Then he went to the cashier and collected his salary for three months. Five hundred and forty gold marks! Never before had he carried on him so much money of his own – it encouraged to recklessness. On the way home he stopped for a long time in front of a shop displaying electrical appliances, muttering to himself, calculating …

At last he entered. Negotiations with the salesman were lengthy, strange words known to him before only in print were uttered; he purchased brown cords and green wires and a small board on which were mounted mysterious objects, all shockingly expensive.

He didn't have a clear conscience when he left the shop. Now that he had made the purchase, his worries began. What would Irma say? After all, they were not in a position to spend over fifty marks on a toy … That's no plaything, he imagined him saying reproachfully to Irma; it's a very serious matter!

Then he went home, extremely anxious to hear what Irma would say, or to be more exact a little scared. For the stormy weather which had gathered round them before their wedding had not deserted them in marriage – they quarrelled a good deal, if without ill-feeling. Irma, however, said nothing when he came in, for she wasn't there. Probably at her mother's. He had come home some hours earlier than usual and everything in the garden was lovely; nevertheless it would have been nicer, of course, to have told Irma at once. There was no need for her to be always at her mother's.

But when she did come he was in no hurry to talk. On the contrary, he snapped at her when she closed the door a little noisily. ‘Be quiet, Irma – please! I believe I've got something. Oh, Lord, the clock's ticking much too loudly. Please, Irma, put the alarm under the pillow.'

‘Well!' She stared perplexed at the queer apparatus and her husband with headphones over his ears, moving two green circles of
wire towards one another. ‘What's gone wrong? How is it you're already home? It's not four o'clock yet.'

‘Radio,' he replied mysteriously. ‘I just got … I believe it must have been Nauen … Or Paris … Irma, please sit down, don't run about like that. I can't hear a thing.'

She was still staring, agitated by doubts and anxiety. ‘Are you ill, Heinz?' she exclaimed. ‘Is that why you're not at the bank?'

‘Dismissed,' he murmured. ‘That's to say, three months' leave first. Oh, Irma, if you'd only sit down for a moment I'll tell you everything presently.'

‘Dismissed!' With this word she did sit down. ‘And you …' She was completely helpless.

‘Not bad,' he muttered. ‘Oh, God, must they run their damned tap at this moment? Just as I'd got … Irma! There!' His face was shining. Cautiously he took out one of the receivers from the headphones. ‘Irma, do come. On tiptoe. Put that to your ear! You hear it? That's music, do you realize that? I believe they're playing Wagner. It may be coming from Nauen. Or even from England, I'm not sure yet. I'll get it clearer soon. You can hear it, can't you? Please, Irma, don't look so stupid. You know, wireless! You must have read about it. Music from the ether! They're transmitting it from Nauen, Paris, London, everywhere. Radio.' He spelled it very quietly while continuing to listen. His face was shining.

‘Of course,' she said, much too loudly. ‘I know that, man. Radium – what they radiate you with. But for God's sake, Heinz, what are you doing here with radium?'

‘Radio! Radio! It's completely different from radium.'

‘But why are you fiddling with this when you ought to be at the bank? Why have you been discharged? Why have they given you leave?'

‘There, now it's gone again. Can't you be more careful? Well, I'll get it again … Listen, Irma, I've been given notice but only from 1 July. And I needn't go back. I've been given leave, think of it, Irma, three months' leave. And with full pay.' Beaming, he slapped his pocket. ‘Think of it, Irma! Five hundred and forty marks … That is,' he added, ‘I've bought this radio out of it. Fifty-three marks. A real wonder.'

‘What?' she said indignantly. ‘Over fifty marks for that stuff?'

‘Well, it's a radio! Music through the air, through the walls.'

‘Oh, rubbish! If you'd bought a decent gramophone and a few records! All this does is crackle in your ears. And you said Wagner. Well, it was the Waltz Dream by Strauss. Or is that by Lehár?'

‘It was the Overture to
Tannhäuser
.'

‘I heard it clearly.' She began to sing: ‘And I have only kissed her on the shoulder.'

‘That's from the
Fledermaus
!'

‘Well, I've been saying Strauss all along. Not a bit like Wagner. And why have you been given notice?'