Three Comrades

  The baker's jaw dropped. "And unframed?"

  "Seven hundred and twenty."

  The baker offered four hundred. Ferdinand shook his lion's head.

  "For four hundred marks the most you could have would be a head in profile. Not a half length and full face. It's double the work, you see."

  The baker thought that, after all, a profile head would do quite well. Ferninand drew his attention to the fact that both photos were full face. "Not Titian could paint a profile from them," said he. The baker was sweating; he was annoyed he had not foreseen this when the photographs were taken. But he had to admit that Ferdinand was right—full face was one half-face more than profile; a higher price was clearly warranted.

  The baker could not bring himself to it. So far Ferdinand had been quite restrained; now he began to persuade. His powerful bass resounded through the big studio. As an expert, I must admit it was a fine piece of work. The baker was soon ripe—expecially when Ferdinand conjured up the disconcerting effect so grand a picture would have on ill-disposed neighbours.

  "Very well," said he at last. "But ten per cent, for cash, mind."

  "Agreed," replied Ferdinand; "ten per cent off—but an advance for expenses: colours, canvas—three hundred marks."

  They argued back and forth for some time, then at last came to terms and began to discuss details of treatment. The baker wanted a pearl necklace and a good brooch with diamonds painted in, as extras. They did not appear in the photographs.

  "Of course," explained Ferdinand, "your wife's jewellery shall certainly be painted. It would be better if you could bring it to me here for an hour, so that I can make it as lifelike as possible."

  The baker flushed. "I haven't got it now. It is . . . That is, well, her relatives have it."

  "Ach, so! Well, it doesn't really matter. Did the brooch look like the one in that picture there, for example?" suggested Ferdinand.

  The baker nodded. "Not quite so large."

  "Good. Then we'll make it like that. And we don't need the necklace at all. Pearls all look much alike."

  The baker breathed again. "And when will the picture be ready?"

  "In six weeks."

  "Good." The baker took his leave.

  Ferdinand and I were alone in the studio.

  "Do you really need six weeks for it?" I asked.

  "Ach, what do you think? Four, five days, perhaps. But I couldn't tell him that, or he would be calculating what I earn an hour, and figure he was being done. With six weeks he will be satisfied. The same with the Princess Borghese —it's human nature, my dear Bob; if I had told him it was a seamstress, he wouldn't have valued his picture half so much. This is the sixth time that deceased wives have had jewellery like that in the picture there. Extraordinary coincidence, isn't it? It has been a wonderful draw, that picture of old Luise Wolff."

  I looked round: pictures that had not been claimed by their owners, or had not been paid for—from immobile faces, eyes long since mouldering in the grave stared down from the wall—all human beings that had once breathed and hoped . . .

  "Doesn't this make you sad, Ferdinand?"

  He shrugged his shoulders. "Cynical, if you like. One is sad when one thinks about life—cynical when one -sees what people make of it."

  "Yes, but with some, at any rate, it goes deeper."

  "True. But then they don't have pictures painted."

  He stood up. "After all, isn't it just as well, Bob, that they should have their bit of fun that is so important to them? It keeps them going, staves off the evil day when they will be alone. And to be alone, really alone, without illusion, that way lies madness—and suicide."

  The big bare room was like a vault in the half-twilight. Next door one could hear footsteps coming and going—the housekeeper. She did not show herself when any of us was there; she hated us because she imagined we set Grau against her.

  I left. And the busy clamour of the street below was like a warm bath.

  Chapter XI

  I was on the way to Pat's. It would be the first time I had been to see her. Hitherto she had either been to my place or I had met her outside her house and we had gone somewhere or other. But it was always as if she were merely on a visit. I wanted to know more about her. I wanted to know how she lived.

  The park behind the roundabouts was in full flower. I jumped the railing and began plundering a white lilac.

  "What are you doing, my man?" suddenly rapped a sharp voipe.

  I looked up. A chap with a burgundy red face and white, waxed moustaches was staring at me indignantly. Not a policeman and not a park keeper. A high military gent on the retired list, one saw it immediately.

  "That's not very difficult to see," I replied politely. "I'm breaking off lilac sprays."

  The chap lost the faculty of speech for a moment. "Don't you know this is a city park?" he then growled excitedly.

  I smiled at him amiably. "You don't say! I thought it was the Canary Islands. Where the pretty, yellow long-birds come from, you know."

  The chap turned purple. I was afraid he might have a stroke. "Out of there at once, fellow!" he cried in first-rate barracks-square tone. "You are stealing public property. I'll put you under arrest."

  I had in the meantime enough lilac. "You catch me, grandfather," I invited the old chap, and then jumped over the railing on the opposite side and disappeared.

  Outside Pat's place I looked over my clothes once more. Then, slowly, I mounted the stairs. The house was new and modern—a decided contrast to my jaded and pompous barracks. The staircase had a red carpet—none of that at Mother Zalewski's. Much less a lift.

  Pat lived on the second floor. On the door was a self-important tin plate: Egbert von hake, lt. col. Involuntarily I adjusted my tie before ringing the bell.

  A girl in white cap and little apron opened—not to be mentioned in the same breath with our cockeyed slut, Frida. I began to feel rather awkward. "Herr Lohkamp?" she asked.

  I nodded.

  Without more ado she led me across a little landing and opened a door. I should not have been surprised if Lieutenant Colonel Egbert von Hake had been standing there in full uniform and had subjected me to preliminary cross-examination, so solemn was the effect of the array of portraits of generals, who, covered with decorations, looked down grimly upon me, mere civilian, from the walls of the antechamber. But there was Pat already coming toward me with her lovely, long stride, and the room was suddenly an island of warmth and gaiety. I shut the door and first of all took her cautiously in my arms. Then I handed to her the stolen lilac. "Here," said I, "with the compliments of the town council."

  She put the sprays in a large, bright earthenware pot that stood on the floor by the window. As she did so I glanced in surprise around the room. Pleasant, subdued colours; little old, lovely furniture; a soft blue carpet, pastel-tinted curtains, cosy little armchairs upholstered in faded satin . . .

  "My God, how did you find such a room, Pat?" said I. "People usually put only their broken furniture and useless birthday presents in rooms they have to let."

  She pushed the vase with the flowers carefully back against the wall. I saw her slender, arched neck, the straight shoulders and the arms, a shade too thin. As she knelt she looked like a child, a child one must take care of. But her movements were those of a graceful animal, and then when she stood up and leaned against me, she was no longer a child, her eyes and her lips again had the inquiring expectancy and mystery that so intoxicated me and of which I had believed there was none left in this muddy world.

  I put my arm about her shoulders. It was lovely to feel her like this. "They are my own things, Robby," said she. "The house used to belong to my mother. When she died I let it and kept just two rooms for myself."

  "Then it belongs to you, does it? And Lieutenant Colonel Egbert von Hake is a tenant?"

  She shook her head. "Not now. I couldn't keep it. I had to sell the rest of the furniture and give up the house. I live here en pension now. But what have yo
u got against old Egbert?"

  "Nothing. I merely have a natural shyness of policemen and staff officers. Comes from my army days."

  She laughed. "My father was a major."

  "Major is just on the border line," I replied.

  "Do you know old Hake, then?" she asked.

  I was suddenly seized with an alarming thought. "Is he a little chap, so high, very straight, with a red face, a white moustache, and a big voice? The sort to go walking a lot in the park?"

  "Aha!" She glanced at the lilac and then looked at me, smiling. "No, he's a tall, pale-faced chap with horn-rimmed spectacles."

  "Then I don't know him."

  "Would you like to know him? He's very nice."

  "God forbid! For the moment I belong more to the mechanic and Zalewski side."

  There was a knock. The maid of a while back pushed in a low trolley. Eggshell porcelain, a silver dish with cakes, another with incredibly tiny sandwiches, serviettes, cigarettes, and God knows what else—dazzled, I surveyed it all. "Mercy, Pat!" said I. "It's just like the films. I'm used to eating out of grease-proof paper off the Zalewski window ledge, remember, the old tommy-cooker beside me. Have mercy on the inhabitant of a loveless pension if in his confusion he smashes an odd cup or two."

  She laughed. "You won't do that. Your professional honour as a motor mechanic forbids it. You must be clever with your fingers." She reached for the handle' of a jug. "Tea or coffee, Bob?"

  "Tea or coffee? Are there both then?"

  "Yes. Look."

  "Grand. Like the best palaces! All it wants now is music."

  She leaned over and switched on a little portable radio which I had not noticed before. "So—now what will you have, tea or coffee?"

  "Coffee, plain coffee, Pat. I'm homely. And you?"

  "I'll have coffee with you."

  "But otherwise you take tea?"

  "Yes."

  "Then we'll have that."

  "I'll start now and get used to coffee. Will you have cakes with it or sandwiches?"

  "Both, Pat. One must make the best of one's opportunities. I'll have some tea after, too. I must sample everything you have." She laughed and loaded up my plate. "Enough, enough! Remember we are in the neighbourhood of a lieutenant colonel. The army likes moderation in the lower ranks."

  "Only in drinking, Bob. Old Egbert himself is terribly fond of meringues."

  "Really," I replied. "They weaned us of them pretty thoroughly in those days." I pushed the table to and fro on its rubber wheels. It invited it. Noiselessly it rolled over the carpet. I looked around. Everything went with everything else. "Yes, Pat," said I, "this is how our ancestors lived."

  She laughed. "What nonsense are you talking now?"

  "It's not nonsense. It's a sign of the times."

  "But it's merely an accident I have a few things, Robby."

  I shook my head. "It's not an accident. And it's not the things either. It's what lies behind them. You don't see it. Only a person who no longer belongs to it, sees it."

  She looked at me. "You could have them just the same, if you really wanted."

  I took her hand. "But I don't want, Pat, that is it. I'd feel a high-flyer. The likes of us have to be ready to move on any miniite. We're used to it. It belongs to the time."

  "It's a very convenient way, Bob," said Pat.

  I laughed. "Maybe. And now give me some tea. I'd just like to try it."

  "No," said she, "we'll stick to coffee. But eat something more in case you have to move on."

  "True. But what about Egbert—if he's so fond of cakes, won't he be counting on some to come back to?"

  "Maybe. But he must count on the lower ranks taking their revenge. That belongs to the time, too. Eat it all."

  Her eyes were shining and she looked wonderful. "Do you know one thing I'm not discarding next time I have to move on?"

  She did not answer, but she looked at me.

  "You," said I. "And now to be avenged on Egbert."

  I had had only a plate of soup at the cab shelter for lunch, so it was not difficult to eat up everything there was.

  And egged on by Pat I finished off the entire jug of coffee as well.

  We sat by the window and smoked. The evening showed red over the roofs. "It's nice here, Pat," said I. "I can well imagine one might not want to go out for weeks together— until one had quite forgotten the whole rotten business outside there."

  She smiled. "There was a time when I thought I never should come out of here again."

  "How was that?"

  "I was sick."

  "That's another matter. What was the matter?"

  "Nothing much. But I had to stay in bed. I suppose I grew too fast and got too little to eat. During the war and after the war there wasn't much to be had, of course."

  I nodded. "How long were you in bed, then?"

  She hesitated a moment. "About a year."

  "But that's a long time." I looked at her attentively.

  "It's past now, long since. But then it seemed to me a lifetime. Do you remember in 'The Bar' once you told me about Valentin? How after the war he couid never forget what a pleasure it was to be alive? And how nothing else mattered to him besides?"

  "You have a good memory," said I.

  "Because I understood it so well. Ever since that time I've been just as easily pleased. I'm afraid I'm very superficial, Robby."

  "Only people who think they're not superficial, are."

  "But I am, definitely. I've not much interest in the important things of life. Only in the beautiful things. Just this lilac here makes me happy."

  "That's not superficiality—that's ultimate philosophy. The end of all wisdom, Pat."

  "Not in my case. I am superficial and frivolous."

  "So am I."

  "Not as I am. You said something just now about highflying. I am a real high-flyer."

  "That's what I thought," said I.

  "Yes. I determined I would live, awhile at any rate, as I liked. No matter if it was sensible or not. And I did."

  I laughed. "Why look so defiant about it?"

  "Because everybody said it was utterly irresponsible—I ought to save my little bit of money and get work and a position. But I was determined I would be carefree and gay and do what I wanted and not pinch and scrape. That was after my mother died and I had been so long in bed."

  "Have you any brothers or sisters?" I asked.

  She shook her head.

  "I couldn't imagine it," I replied.

  "Do you think it was irresponsible, too?"

  "No, courageous."

  "Ach, courage—I'm not courageous. I was frightened enough sometimes. Like somebody in the wrong seat at the theatre, who yet doesn't get out of it."

  "Then you were courageous," said I. "A man is courageous only when he is also afraid. And it was sensible too. You'would only have lost your money otherwise. You did at least get something out of it. But what did you do?"

  "Nothing really. Just live for myself."

  "All honour! That's the rarest of all."

  She smiled. "But it will soon be over. I've got to start something now."

  "Oh. What? Had your business interview" with Binding ' anything to do with that?"

  She nodded. "With Binding and Doctor Max Matuscheit, director of the Electrola Gramophone shop."

  "Well," said I, "Binding might have thought of something better, surely."

  "He did," she replied; "but I wasn't having any."

  "I'd advise him not to, too. When do you start, then?"

  "The first of August."

  "Well, that doesn't leave us much time. Perhaps we could find something else, though. In any case you can be sure of our custom."

  "Have you a gramophone, then?"

  "No, but I'll get one at once. All the same I don't like the business much."

  "I don't mind," said she. "It's all much simpler for me .since you are here. But I shouldn't have told you anything about it."

  "You should. You m
ust always tell me everything."

  She looked at me a moment. "Good, Robby," said she. Then she stood up and went to a little cupboard. "What do you think I have here? Rum for you. Good rum, I believe."

  She put a glass on the table and looked at me expectantly.

  "The rum is good all right, I can smell it already from afar," said I. "But really, Pat—don't you think you ought to save a bit now, rather? To postpone the gramophones?"