The Man with the Clubfoot

  CHAPTER XIV

  CLUBFOOT COMES TO HAASE'S

  Kore presently retired to an inner room with the man in shirt-sleeves,whom I judged to be the landlord, and in a little the flaxen-haired ladyat the bar beckoned me over and bade me join them.

  "This is Julius Zimmermann, the young man I have spoken of," said theJew; then turning to me:

  "Herr Haase is willing to take you on as waiter here on myrecommendation, Julius, See that you do not make me repent of mykindness!"

  Here the man in shirt-sleeves, a great, fat fellow with a bullet headand a huge double chin, chuckled loudly.

  "Kolossal!" he cried. "Herr Kore loves his joke! Ausgezeichnet!" And hewagged his head roguishly at me.

  On that Kore took his leave, promising to look in and see how I wasfaring in a few days' time. The landlord opened a low door in the cornerand revealed a kind of large cupboard, windowless and horribly stale andstuffy, where there were two unsavoury-looking beds.

  "You will sleep here with Otto," said the landlord. Pointing to a dirtywhite apron lying on one of the beds, he bade me take off my overcoatand jacket and put it on.

  "It was Johann's," he said, "but Johann won't want it any more. A goodlad, Johann, but rash. I always said he would come to a bad end." And helaughed noisily.

  "You can go and help with the waiting now," he went on. "Otto will showyou what to do!"

  And so I found myself, within twenty-four hours, spy, male nurse andwaiter in turn.

  I am loth to dwell on the degradation of the days that followed. Thatcellar tavern was a foul sink of iniquity, and in serving the dregs ofhumanity that gathered nightly there I felt I had indeed sunk to thelowest depths. The place was a regular thieves' kitchen ... what iscalled in the hideous Yiddish jargon that is the criminal slang ofmodern Germany a "Kaschemme." Never in my life have I seen such brutishfaces as those that leered at me nightly through the smoke haze as Ishuffled from table to table in my mean German clothes. Gallows' birds,sneak thieves, receivers, bullies, prostitutes and harpies of everydescription came together every evening in Herr Haase's beer-cellar.Many of the men wore the soiled and faded field-grey of the soldier backfrom the front, and in looking at their sordid, vulpine faces, inflamedwith drink, I felt I could fathom the very soul of Belgium's misery.

  The conversation was all of crime and deeds of violence. The men backfrom the front told gloatingly of rapine and feastings in lonely Belgianvillages or dwelt ghoulishly on the horrors of the battlefield, themounds of decaying corpses, the ghastly mutilations they had seen in thedead. There were tales, too, of "vengeance" wreaked on "the treacherousEnglish." One story, in particular, of the fate of a ScottishSergeant ... "der Hochlaender" they called him in this oft-toldtale ... still makes me quiver with impotent rage when I think of it.

  One evening the name of the Hotel Esplanade caught my ear. I approachedthe table and found two flashily dressed bullies and a bedraggled drabfrom the streets talking in admiration of my exploit.

  "Clubfoot met his match that time," the woman cried. "The dirty dog! Butwhy didn't this English spy make a job of it and kill the scum? Pah!"

  And she spat elegantly into the sawdust on the floor.

  "I wouldn't be in that fellow's shoes for something," muttered one ofthe men. "No one ever had the better of Clubfoot yet. Do you rememberMeinhardt, Franz? He tried to cheat Clubfoot, and we know what happenedto him!"

  "They're raking the whole city for this Englishman," answered the otherman. "Vogel, who works for Section Seven, you know the man I mean, wastelling me. They've done every hotel in Berlin and the suburbs, but theyhaven't found him. They raided Bauer's in the Favoriten-Strasse lastnight. The Englishman wasn't there, but they got three or four othersthey were looking for--Fritz and another deserter included. I was nearlythere myself!"

  I was always hearing references of this kind to my exploit. I was neverspoken of except in terms of admiration, but the name of Clubfoot--derStelze--excited only execration and terror.

  I lived in daily fear of a raid at Haase's. Why the place had escaped solong, with all that riff-raff assembled there nightly, I couldn'timagine. It was one of those defects in German organization which puzzlethe best of us at times. In the meantime, I was powerless to escape. Thefirst thing Haase had done was to take away my papers--to send them tothe police, as he explained--but he never gave them back, and when Iasked for them he put me off with an excuse.

  I was a virtual prisoner in the place. On my feet from morning tillnight, I had indeed few opportunities for going out; but once, duringa slack time in the afternoon, when I broached the subject to thelandlord, he refused harshly to let me out of his sight.

  "The street is not healthy for you just now. You would be a danger toyourself and to all of us!" he said.

  My life in that foul den was a burden to me. The living conditions wereunspeakable. Otto, a pale and ill-tempered consumptive, compelled, likeme, to rise in the darkness of the dawn, never washed, and hiscompanionship in the stuffy hole where we slept was offensive beyondbelief. He openly jeered at my early morning journeys out to a narrow,stinking court, where I exulted in the ice-cold water from the pump. Andthe food! It was only when I saw the mean victuals--the coarse and oftentainted horseflesh, the unappetizing war-bread, the coffee substitute,and the rest--that I realized how Germany was suffering, though onlythrough her poor as yet, from the British blockade. That thought used tohelp to overcome the nausea with which I sat down to eat.

  Domestic life at Haase's was a hell upon earth. Haase himself was adrunken bully, who made advances to every woman he met, and whosecomplicated intrigues with the feminine portion of his clientele led tofrequent scenes with the fair-haired Hebe who presided at the bar andover his household. It was she and Otto who fared daily forth to taketheir places in the long queues that waited for hours with food cardsoutside the provision shops.

  These trips seemed to tell upon her temper, which would flash outwrathfully at meal-times, when Haase began his inevitable grumblingabout the food. As Otto took a malicious delight in these family scenes,I was frequently called upon to assume the role of peace-maker. Morethan once I intervened to save Madame from the violence she had calleddown upon herself by the sharpness of her tongue. She was a poor, fadedcreature, and the tragedy of it all was that she was in love with thisdegraded bully. She was grateful to me for my good offices, I think,for, though she hardly ever addressed me, her manner was alwaysfriendly.

  These days of dreary squalor would have been unbearable if it had notbeen for my elucidation of the word Boonekamp, which was said to holdthe clue to my brother's address. On the wall in the cubby-hole where Islept was a tattered advertisement card of this _aperitif_--for such isthe preparation--proclaiming it to be "Germany's Best Cordial." As Iundressed at night, I often used to stare at this placard, wonderingwhat connection Boonekamp could possibly have with my brother. Idetermined to take the first opportunity of examining the card itself.One morning, while Otto was out in the queue at the butcher's, I slippedaway from the cellar to our sleeping-place and, lighting my candle, tookdown the card and examined it closely. It was perfectly plain, redletters on a green background in front, white at the back.

  As I was replacing the card on the nail I saw some writing in pencil onthe wall where the card had hung. My heart seemed to stand still withthe joy of my discovery. For the writing was in my brother's neat,artistic hand, the words were English, and, best of all, my brother'sinitials were attached. This is what I read:

  (Facsimile.) 5.7.16.

  "You will find me at the Cafe Regina, Duesseldorf--F.O."

  After that I felt I could bear with everything. The message awakenedhope that was fast dying in my heart. At least on July 5th, Francis wasalive. To that fact I clung as to a sheet-anchor. It gave me courage forthe hardest part of all my experiences in Germany, those long days ofwaiting in that den of thieves. For I knew I must be patient. Presently,I hoped, I might extract my papers from Haase or persuade Kore, when hecame back, to see m
e, to give me a permit that would enable me to get toDuesseldorf. But the term of my permit was fast running out and the Jewnever came.

  There were often moments when I longed to ask Haase or one of the othersabout the time my brother had served in that place. But I feared to drawattention to myself. No one asked any questions of me (questions as topersonal antecedents were discouraged at Haase's), and, as long as Iremained the unpaid, useful drudge I felt that my desire for obscuritywould be respected. Desultory questions about my predecessors elicitedno information about Francis. The Haase establishment seemed to have hada succession of vague and shadowy retainers.

  Only about Johann, whose apron I wore, did Otto become communicative.

  "A stupid fellow!" he declared. "He was well off here. Haase liked him,the customers liked him, especially the ladies. But he must fall in lovewith Frau Hedwig (the lady at the bar), then he quarrelled with Haaseand threatened him--you know, about customers who haven't got theirpapers in order. The next time Johann went out, they arrested him. Andhe was shot at Spandau!"

  "Shot?" I exclaimed. "Why?"

  "As a deserter."

  "But was he a deserter?"

  "Ach! was! But he had a deserter's papers in his pockets ... his own hadvanished. Ach! it's a bad thing to quarrel with Haase!"

  I made a point of keeping on the right side of the landlord after that.By my unfailing diligence I even managed to secure his grudgingapproval, though he was always ready to fly into a passion at the leastopportunity.

  One evening about six o'clock a young man, whom I had never seen amongour regular customers, came down the stairs from the street and askedfor Haase, who was asleep on the sofa in the inner room. At the sight ofthe youth, Frau Hedwig jumped off her perch behind the bar and vanished.She came back directly and, ignoring me, conducted the young man intothe inner room, where he remained for about half an hour. Then hereappeared again, accompanied by Frau Hedwig, and went off.

  I was shocked by the change in the appearance of the woman. Her face waspale, her eyes red with weeping, and her eyes kept wandering towards thedoor. It was a slack time of the day within and the cellar was free ofcustomers.

  "You look poorly, Frau Hedwig," I said. "Trouble with Haase again?"

  She looked up at me and shook her head, her eyes brimming over. A tearran down the rouge on her cheek.

  "I must speak," she said. "I can't bear this suspense alone. You are akind young man. You are discreet. Julius, there is trouble brewing forus!"

  "What do you mean?" I asked. A foreboding of evil rose within me.

  "Kore!" she whispered.

  "Kore?" I echoed. "What of him?"

  She looked fearfully about her.

  "He was taken yesterday morning," she said.

  "Do you mean arrested?" I exclaimed, unwilling to believe the staggeringnews.

  "They entered his apartment early in the morning and seized him in bed.Ach! it is dreadful!" And she buried her face in her hands.

  "But surely," I added soothingly, though with an icy fear at my heart,"there is no need to despair. What is an arrest to-day with all theseregulations...."

  The woman raised her face, pallid beneath its paint, to mine.

  "Kore was shot at Moabit Prison this morning," she said in a low voice."That young man brought the news just now." Then she added breathlessly,her words pouring out in a torrent:

  "You don't know what this means to us. Haase had dealings with this Jew.If they have shot him, it is because they have found out from him allthey want to know. That means our ruin, that means that Haase will gothe same way as the Jew.

  "But Haase is stubborn, foolhardy. The messenger warned him that a raidmight be expected here at any moment. I have pleaded with him in vain.He believes that Kore has split; he believes the police may come, but hesays they daren't touch him: he has been too useful to them: he knowstoo much. Ach, I am afraid! I am afraid!"

  Haase's voice sounded from the inner room.

  "Hedwig!" he called.

  The woman hastily dried her eyes and disappeared through the door.

  The coast was clear, if I wanted to escape, but where could I go,without a paper or passport, a hunted man?

  The news of Kore's arrest and execution haunted me. Of course, the manwas in a most perilous trade, and had probably been playing the game foryears. But suppose they had tracked me to the house in the street calledIn den Zelten.

  I crossed the room and opened the door to the street. I had never setfoot outside since I had come, and, hopeless as it would be for me toattempt to escape, I thought I might reconnoitre the surroundings of thebeer-cellar for the event of flight.

  I lightly ran up the stairs to the street and nearly cannoned into a manwho was lounging in the entrance. We both apologized, but he stared atme hard before he strolled on. Then I saw another man sauntering alongon the opposite side of the street. Further away, at the corner, two menwere loitering.

  Every one of them had his eyes fixed on the cellar entrance at which Iwas standing.

  I knew they could not see my face, for the street was but dimly lit, andbehind me was the dark background of the cellar stairway. I took a gripon my nerves and very deliberately lit a cigarette and smoked it, as ifI had come up from below to get a breath of fresh air. I waited alittle while and then went down.

  I was scarcely back in the cellar when Haase appeared from the innerroom, followed by the woman. He carried himself erect, and his eyes wereshining. I didn't like the man, but I must say he looked game. In hishand he carried my papers.

  "Here you are, my lad," he said in quite a friendly tone, "put 'em inyour pocket--you may want 'em to-night."

  I glanced at the papers before I followed his advice.

  He noted my action and laughed.

  "They have told you about Johann," he said. "Never fear, Julius, you andI are good friends."

  The papers were those of Julius Zimmermann all right.

  We were having supper at one of the tables in the front room--there wereonly a couple of customers, as it was so early--when a man, a regularvisitor of ours, came down the stairs hurriedly. He went straight overto Haase and spoke into his ear.

  "Mind yourself, Haase," I heard him say. "Do you know who had Korearrested and shot? It was Clubfoot. There is more in this than we know.Mind yourself and get out! In an hour or so it may be too late."

  Then he scurried away, leaving me dazed.

  "By God!" said the landlord, bringing a great fist down on the table sothat the glasses rang, "they won't touch me. Not the devil himself willmake me leave this house before they come, if coming they are!"

  The woman burst into tears, while Otto blinked his watery eyes interror. I sat and looked at my plate, my heart too full for words. Itwas bitter to have dared so much to get this far and then find the pathblocked, as it seemed, by an insuperable barrier. They were after me allright: the mention of Clubfoot's name, the swift, stern retribution thathad befallen Kore, made that certain--and I could do nothing. Thatcellar was a cul-de-sac, a regular trap, and I knew that if I stirred afoot from the house I should fall into the hands of those men keepingtheir silent vigil in the street.

  Therefore, I must wait, as calmly as I might, and see what the eveningwould bring forth. Gradually the cellar filled up as people drifted in,but many familiar faces, I noticed, were missing. Evidently the illtidings had spread. Once a man looked in for a glass of beer and driftedout again, leaving the door open. As I was closing it, I heard a muffledexclamation and the sound of a scuffle at the head of the stairs. It wasso quietly done that nobody below, save myself, knew what had happened.The incident showed me that the watch was well kept.

  The evening wore on--interminably, as it seemed to me. I darted to andfro from the bar, laden with mugs of beer and glasses of schnaps,incessantly, up and down. But I never failed, whenever there came apause in the orders, to see that my journey finished somewhere in theneighbourhood of the door. A faint hope was glimmering in my brain.

  Until the end
of my life, that interminable evening in the beer-cellarwill remain stamped in my memory. I can still see the scene in its everydetail, and I know I shall carry the picture with me to the grave; thelong, low room with its blackened ceiling, the garish yellow gaslight,the smoke haze, the crowded tables, Otto, shuffling hither and hitherwith his mean and sulky air, Frau Hedwig, preoccupied at her desk,red-eyed, a graven image of woe, and Haase, presiding over thebeer-engine, silent, defiant, calm, but watchful every time the dooropened.

  When at last the blow fell, it came suddenly. A trampling of feet on thestairs, a great blowing of whistles ... then the door was burst openjust as everybody in the cellar sprang to their feet amid exclamationsand oaths from the men and shrill screams from the women. Outlined inthe doorway stood Clubfoot, majestic, authoritative, wearing some kindof little skull-cap, such as duelling students wear, over a black silkhandkerchief bound about his head. At the sight of the man the hubbubceased on the instant. All were still save Haase, whose bull-like voiceroaring for silence broke on the quiet of the room with the force of anexplosion.

  I was in my corner by the door, pressed back against the coats and hatshanging on the wall. In front of me a frieze of frightened facesscreened me from observation. Quickly, I slipped off my apron.

  Clubfoot, after casting a cursory glance round the room, strode itslength towards the bar where Haase stood, a crowd of plain-clothes menand policemen at his heels. Then quite suddenly the light went out,plunging the place into darkness. Instantly the room was in confusion;women screamed; a voice, which I recognized as Clubfoot's, bawledstentorianly for lights ... the moment had come to act.

  I grabbed a hat and coat from the hall, got into them somehow, anddarted to the door. In the dim light shining down the stairs from astreet lamp outside, I saw a man at the door. Apparently he was guardingit.

  "Back!" he cried, as I stepped up to him.

  I flashed in his eyes the silver star I held in my hand.

  "The Chief wants lanterns!" I said low in his ear.

  He grabbed my hand holding the badge and lowered it to the light.

  "All right, comrade," he replied. "Drechsler has a lantern, I think!You'll find him outside!"

  I rushed up the stairs right into a group of three policemen.

  "The Chief wants Drechsler at once with the lantern," I shouted, andshowed my star. The three dispersed in different directions calling forDrechsler.

  I walked quickly away.