Iron Gustav (72 page)

And, as is nearly always the case with women, she took the news quite differently from what he had expected. ‘It will be all right somehow,' she said. ‘Others were able to do it.'

No – no blame.

Father also took it differently than expected. Heinz visited him that evening, still sitting in the stable by his horse.

‘Sophie wants to buy me another old nag. Mine doesn't look good enough for her,' said the old man. ‘But, I don't know. I'm so used to him … So your business has really collapsed, has it?'

At this point, Heinz could have once again remained silent, saying nothing, because there had been nothing yet about Erich Hackendahl in the newspapers. So if Heinz did tell his father everything after all, he did so because he still heard that voice; what it had said about half-measures still seemed right.

‘I see,' said the old man. ‘So that's what you say. Well, I kind of half thought so myself. But you can't jump from your own skin into someone else's, even if we're all the same underneath.' But, as Heinz was still standing by the stable door, the old man added, shouting, ‘You, Heinz, so you know nothing of Erich?'

‘No, Father.'

‘Well then, go away! But tell me immediately if you do hear something. Just no half-measures to save me from what I said back then. Half-measures are rubbish!'

Heinz went away thoughtfully and considered how curious it was that such different people as a detective inspector and an old cab driver could have the same opinion about half-measures.

But he had to go on. He had no time to stay still for long. There were visits to be made – to Irma and the baby, who was his own son, named in memory of a distant, half-forgotten brother called Otto, to the delight of his sister-in-law. But these hospital visits were soon over; after the statutory eight days, Irma returned to their little flat.

There the three of them lived, and began to set themselves up as three, and to settle down as three. It was sometimes not so easy. It was quite different from living as two. But you got used to it.

What you didn't get used to were the daily visits to the unemployment office, from which he always came away sad and tired, and often angry as well. In principle it was a very simple matter – millions of people had to do it every day. (Later it was twice a week.) You went to an office and showed your card. This card was then stamped as evidence that you had shown it, and you could leave. And once a week there was money. Really a very simple matter.

But it made you sad, tired and frequently angry …

Take the unemployment office itself. It was housed in a former
villa, in a small street of villas – nothing distinguished, God forbid – a street inhabited by pensioners, retired teachers, confidential clerks – people who, perhaps just before the inflation, had been lucky enough to invest their life savings in a respectable villa with two hundred square metres of garden. So that those who lived near the unemployment office were clearly people of quite small means. And yet Heinz Hackendahl was told by the other unemployed that these residents had made application after application for the office to be removed; in their opinion the street was spoiled by it and the value of their property impaired – even the coffee tasted sour when they saw unemployed pass by. For all these reasons they felt the unemployment office might well honour some road inhabited by people with smaller means than theirs.

Naturally one never heard what the unemployment office itself thought about this but somehow there were always policemen to supervise the behaviour of the unemployed in this street. No shouting or singing! We've an eye on you …

The unemployed, of course, talked about it constantly. And they had plenty of time to do so, as they queued up and waited for their cards to be stamped. They talked about it more and more, with passion and bitterness. Passing those wretched front gardens which no one thought of profaning – so why the policemen? – they looked with real hatred at the plaster of Paris dwarfs, the glass balls, the pitiable gardening; if the residents disliked the unemployed, that dislike was reciprocated tenfold.

Another thing was the treatment at the unemployment office. Since it was obvious that those behind the counters there were employed only because others were unemployed – they lived off unemployment, the unemployed were their employers – they ought to have been a little politer, or so their true employers, the unemployed, thought; yes, they should treat their employers with consideration and respect.

But of such respect and consideration there was not a trace. On the contrary these people did everything to make life difficult for those who in truth employed them – they were always demanding new documents or poking into antecedents, all the time pretending to ameliorate what they called the lot of the unemployed. They
pried into every unpleasantness. If someone had had a row with his foreman he was called insubordinate, and if another had gone sick and the consultant to the Health Insurance reported him as fit again, then he was a work-shy.

That was the sort of thing they gave you to understand, the smart gentlemen behind the counters, before they slammed the enquiry window and let the unemployed wait while they did themselves well on the lunch they had brought in greaseproof paper and Thermos flask. Those were the people who talked about ‘work-shy'! They behaved as if the miserable sums they paid out were their own money. What airs they gave themselves! It was time they heard a thing or two.

And this they did. There was a row every day. But they were such a mean lot that if a chap told them the truth for once they had him thrown out by the porter or even sent for a policeman, which meant that the man was punished by getting no dole for two, maybe five, days – just because they didn't want to hear the truth.

Yes, the circumstances in which you stood and waited for your stamp, sometimes for hours on end, were enough to make you heart-sick and desperate. You felt utterly wretched when some man, foaming at the mouth, shouted that these bloodsuckers were stopping his dole, and at home his wife and children were dying of starvation. ‘Yes, you behind the counter there, I mean you, pop-eyes, you've never heard your kids crying from hunger at night, you greedy-guts, and not a crumb to give them, not a penny to buy anything with!' And it was useless for your neighbour to whisper that as a matter of fact the chap had boozed his unemployment money on the day he was paid – sometimes it was true, sometimes it wasn't. But it was bad that people revealed themselves so blatantly and shamelessly to one another.

It was bad, too, if a neighbour pointed out when someone in front of them in the queue not only had his card stamped for today, but for yesterday and the day before. ‘The person behind the counter has a party member's book, and in this case the person this side of the counter has one too, and if you want things to be different for you, you better get one of those little party books too. Then you'll see how the place lights up!'

Heinz had already heard such talk at his bank. But he didn't take any notice of it. In the unemployment office waiting room there was a big notice: ‘Political talk strictly forbidden!' But the notice was completely useless, because everyone waiting there talked about politics. If they didn't talk about their own lives, they talked about politics.

God, how Heinz Hackendahl came to hate this dole queue place! His unhappy neighbours could not hate it more. This dreary grey, these figures who seemed to grow ever more dreary – always the same figures, the angry and bitter ones, the skat players, and the envious, resentful ones. (To be envious of that! ‘He's all right! He's only got one leg. He still gets a pension. I should be so lucky!') And colleagues who maintained a pathetic elegance and told new stories about the smart women they went out with the previous night … and other colleagues who suddenly gave up, whose suits look soiled more or less from one day to the next. Suddenly they used string instead of shoelaces and had holes in the sleeves of their jackets.

Spring gave way to summer. Sometimes the sky was radiantly blue and the sun shone. In the gardens of the little villas the lilac was fresh. The people, however, were old and grey. Their lives were spent on the dole. There was no summer for them. For them there was only one thing: the dole. It was like a sickness that had them in its grip – a sickness which killed every pleasure, deadened every desire, and which slowly, gradually took people over completely.

Very soon Heinz was coming home miserable, tired and hopeless, and was even envious of Irma, who was running the household, and for whom there was not only no unemployment, but who was busier than before because of little Otto.

Heinz sat down and watched Irma, knowing that he had nothing else to do all day.

After a while, she turned round to him two or three times and said: ‘You give me the creeps staring at me, Heinz. Come, see if you can do the baby's washing.' And sometimes he did stand at the scrubbing board and began to rub. But even if he succeeded, it didn't bring him any pleasure, because to give pleasure work has to have meaning. To work merely to work – in a sense, to pass the time – is stupid.

For that reason he soon gave up doing it, or she took it out of his hands and said: ‘Leave it, Heinz. I don't want to annoy you. Only, it can make you mad seeing you do something. It always looks as though you want to go to sleep. I know you, I know you, and I'm sorry for you too. But can't you do something? Can't you go and see your old friends? Or visit your old schoolteacher? You always wanted to do that.'

‘Oh, did I?' asked Heinz. ‘I don't now. It looks like rain. But perhaps I'll go …'

For a while he stayed at home, undecided. Then, after Irma gave him a little push, he left after all.

By now he had not seen Professor Degener for a good many years. In fact, he should have been ashamed not to have had anything to do with his beloved teacher for so long. A long time ago, when he began his apprenticeship, he had still gone once or twice. But then he stopped. It was strange how two people who liked each other had suddenly so little to say. How all of a sudden it became clear how one was a philologist and the other a bank apprentice – two ridiculously different spheres, apparently with no connection.

However, now he was going to him. It was good to retrace his steps, see the old street name, and press the old doorbell. When times had been very bad, when he didn't know what to do, he had gone there many times. And now it was a bad time again.

The same old maid opened the door, looked at him searchingly, and said, ‘Yes, I recognize you from the 1919 class, even if you haven't been here for a long time.'

‘It's bad times, Fräulein,' said Heinz.

‘The Herr Professor has changed a lot. He's lost his job since he had his accident. But don't mention it. It only upsets him. And even if he doesn't recognize you, he'll be pleased. No, go straight in. You won't disturb him.'

Professor Degener was sitting at his desk with his head in his hands. His once flaming-red hair had now become quite grey, and as
he raised his head and looked at his visitor, the latter could see an ugly red scar above his once fine, clear forehead; something also seemed to be wrong with one of his eyes. The eyelid hung deep and motionless over the eye itself.

‘Yes, Hackendahl. I remember you well,' said his old teacher. ‘But I recall there being two Hackendahls – but, of course, you're the other one. The other one … never visited me.'

The old man chuckled. Some of his earlier humour was retained in these remarks, but only a very pale copy.

‘You know, Hackendahl – take a seat! You must answer a question. You're older now and have made your way in life. I take it from the ring on your finger that you are married, and perhaps are now a father. You're nodding. You're feeding a family.'

‘Unfortunately not, Herr Professor. I'm unemployed.'

The professor nodded in assent. ‘Yes, I've heard about it. Many people are unemployed. It seems to be the latest occupation – and no easy one, either!'

‘No,' said Heinz Hackendahl.

‘Well, nevertheless,' continued the professor, ‘you've made your way. You are something. Now tell me quite honestly, student Hackendahl, did what you learned with us help you at all? Has it helped you in your life? Does it still give you something?'

He looked at his former student with his single Prussian-blue eye, the other eyelid lightly trembling. He didn't want an answer yet, and continued to speak: ‘You see, I remember you very well. You were sufficiently open-minded. You tasted the tang of the Homeric world, and Plato was also not just a name to you. Now tell me, student Hackendahl, is anything of what you learned with us still in you? Does it help you? Does it give you pleasure?'

Heinz Hackendahl had never thought about it. It was all so very long ago. Something strange and half forgotten only now slowly began to stir in him at the words of his teacher. However, the fact that he had first to think about it already provided an answer in itself. But it was an answer he was reluctant to give the old man.

‘You see, Hackendahl,' the professor started up again. ‘I sit here a lot and think. No, I'm no longer teaching, since … since a long time. I'm also unemployed, but of course I'm an old man. My job is behind
me. But I always have to ask myself: have I really done my job? I've calculated that I've introduced well over a thousand students into the world of Classical Greece. But did I really do so? So that something remained in them?'

His chin was in his hand and his blue eye looked at Heinz Hackendahl as clearly and as alertly as ever.

‘No one could have done it better than you!' exclaimed Heinz Hackendahl.

‘Your teacher is not asking you for grades, student Hackendahl,' chuckled the old man. ‘Just tell me what you took away from those classes. Do you still sometimes think of your Homer?'