Nightmare in Berlin

  Otherwise the vet generally did all right for himself in the station bar. He’d been a regular there for decades. For decades past, he had sat at the regulars’ reserved table from around six to eight in the evening, accompanied by his wife in earlier years, but on his own since her death. The landlord, Kurz, kept him on a tight rein, but generally made sure that his old customer didn’t go without.

  Around suppertime, the waiting room emptied quickly, and Dr. Wilhelm also went on his way. What awaited him now in the little town’s premier hotel was always an open question: it might be a lot, or it might be virtually nothing. The wine still flowed freely in this establishment, but the landlord was a man who liked to take his customers’ money — and the more the better. Even when it made very little sense to take money off his customers, since there was hardly anything left to buy with money, the landlord kept on increasing the price of his wines sold by the bottle, so that the cost of even a single bottle was way beyond the means of a poor pig innoculator like him, whose daily earnings frequently amounted to less than five marks.

  So here Dr. Wilhelm had to take potluck, and there were many times when he had to sit for hours over a glass of watered-down, wartime beer, while he morosely watched SS officers drinking one bottle after another. They never invited him over to their table: the SS always kept its distance from the ordinary German people. Or else there would be some Hitler Youth leader, not even twenty years old, knocking back dessert wines with his girlfriend — and no more interested than the others in the storytelling talents of the ageing vet.

  So these were difficult times for an old alcoholic, for whom drinking was a necessity of life. As the hours went by and the night wore on, and the patrons became increasingly drunk and boisterous, and the white-haired landlord, ever smiling and full of bonhomie, called time on them … as it became quite clear that there was nothing for him this evening, even though so many others were thoroughly well-oiled … as he then, having paid for his beer, totted up the few miserable coins and notes in his pocket to see if he might have enough for a small schnaps at least, knowing full well that he didn’t … as he finally picked up his stick and his hat with a heavy, bitter sigh and stepped out into the night to walk back to his house … and as he thought about the night ahead, in which he would have to summon up sleep with boring tablets instead of alcohol, which so divinely filled his sleep with sweet dreams … then his leathery face became, if possible, even more jaundiced than before, he was racked with envy for everyone and everything, and he would have gladly let the whole world go to hell without a thought, in return for a single bottle of wine!

  But the old vet had better days, too. All of a sudden, this premier hotel on the town square would be frequented by summer visitors or anglers on a fishing trip, who always loved to hear stories about this remote area that had scarcely been touched by the war. Or else a farmer would see the old man sitting there, which made him think how long it was since he had called him out to his farm, and his bad conscience would prompt him to invite Piglet Willem to join him at his table, chat to him, and give him a drink — for everybody knew about his weakness.

  The best times, though, were when all the regulars came together around their table in this hotel. Unfortunately this only happened once or twice a month at most, whenever the circuit judge came over from the district town to hold the appointed court session in the little town. Then the hotelier would get straight on the telephone and notify a local landowner, the dentist, an agricultural-products wholesaler, and also Dr. Doll — but not the old vet, who turned up anyway.

  How Doll had become a part of this motley company he was hardly able to say himself in later years. To begin with — and this was years earlier, at the time of his first marriage, when he was working a smallholding near the little town — he had probably been intrigued by such a mixed bag of drinking companions, and more especially by the stories they had to tell. The old judge in particular excelled in this regard, and told a far better story than the vet, whose jokes were often rather too broad, not to say downright vulgar. But Doll had quickly realised that even these people were utterly mediocre. By the second evening, the old circuit judge had to repeat the same stories; he only knew ten or a dozen, but he was more than happy to tell them a hundred times. It also became increasingly obvious that he liked to be given food for free, and to short-change the staff when it came to handing over his ration coupons. The dentist’s head was filled with stories about women; his day job was just a pretext for him to grope his female patients while they were lying back in the dentist’s chair. And as for the old vet, he was just an old soak who became more greedy and tiresome with every passing day.

  It was the same story with the others: a dull, commonplace bunch, along with their sly landlord, who was only interested in making money. So Doll didn’t always take up the invitation when he was summoned by telephone to join the other regulars. But he came often enough, maybe just because he fancied a few drinks or because he was fond of good wine himself, and because village life at home was even more dull than this crowd. He came and drank and played the generous host, being still fairly well fixed for money at that time, and any freeloaders, from the greedy vet to the cautious circuit judge, did well by him. On particularly good nights, the fat, white-haired hotelier would crawl into the furthest recesses of his cellar and emerge with bottles of Burgundy lagged with dust, or bottles of ‘Mumm extra dry’. To go with the red wine he would serve fine cheeses — no mention of ration coupons! — which they ate in little wedges straight out of their hands. These were blissful times for the old vet, and his friendship with Doll seemed firmly established.

  But that changed, and as is usually the case when male friends have a falling-out, it was all because of a woman. Quite how the old circuit judge came to meet this radiant young woman was a mystery; at all events, when Dr. Doll arrived a little late one evening to join the assembled company, he met there the wife of a Berlin factory-owner who had built himself a cabin on the shore of one of the many lakes in the area, so that he could come and enjoy some weekend fishing.

  But on this particular evening the husband had stayed behind in Berlin, and his young wife was sitting alone among the all-male regulars gathered around the table. She tossed her strawberry-blonde locks, and gazed attentively at whoever was speaking, with her long, slender face and her lovely blood-red mouth — it was just as if this mouth was actually looking at you. Then she would throw her head back, her little white throat seeming to dance with laughter — heavens above, how she could laugh, my God, how young she was! Doll shoved the old vet aside and sat down next to this amazing youthful apparition, who was now sitting on the long corner sofa in between Doll and the old circuit judge.

  How young she was, how full of life, and how alluringly she laughed at the judge’s stories, however witless and inane! Doll began to tell stories himself, and if anyone could tell a good story, it was him. Unlike the circuit judge and the vet, he didn’t just repeat the same old anecdotes he’d wheeled out a hundred times before; Doll’s stories just popped into his head, from different times in his life, as if he had never thought of them before. He spoke more quickly — it all came tumbling out, his tales trumping everybody else’s — and in between times he ordered wine, and more wine, and kept it flowing freely.

  It turned into a great evening. It makes quite an impression on a man in his late forties when a beautiful young woman in her twenties lets him know that she finds him interesting. But the youthful interest being shown in him did not rob Doll of his powers of critical observation, and they alerted him to the fact that while he was talking intently with his neighbour on his left, the old vet on his right was looking after his own needs. The vet had long since lost any interest in stories or women; all he cared about was alcohol. There was plenty of alcohol around the table, but to Piglet Willem’s way of thinking it was being drunk too slowly. When he saw that all eyes were fixed on the young woman, the vet reached out and felt f
or the bottle. He quickly filled his glass, drained it, and promptly filled it again …

  ‘Whoa there!’ cried Doll, who appeared to have his back to him, but had seen everything. ‘That’s not on! As long as I’m buying, I’ll be the one to say when!’ And with that, he took the bottle from Wilhelm’s hand, though not ungently.

  Needless to say, everyone promptly rounded on the old freeloader and soak, teasing him unmercifully. They made fun of him, dredged up the most embarrassing stories about him, and accused him to his face in the meanest fashion. But it didn’t bother him very much; he felt no shame. He was long accustomed to having his human dignity insulted as the price for every cadged drink. This had been happening for so long, and so often, that by now all his human dignity was long gone. He despised them all, of course, and they could all have dropped down dead before his eyes — he wouldn’t have cared, because alcohol was all he cared about now. So he let them mock and bait him, it all fell on deaf ears, and as his podgy, age-spotted hand gripped the stem of the wine glass, he thought to himself: I’ve had two more glasses of wine than you have! And: If I get the chance, I’ll try it again!

  Nor did he have to wait very long for an opportunity. Sitting at their table was a beautiful, blooming young woman, and a terrible flirt — they could have old Piglet Willem any time they wanted, but as long as she was in their midst, they were determined to make the most of her. So the vet sat there, ignored by everyone. This time, Doll really did turn his back on him completely. Three times he reached out and touched the wine bottle, and then drew his hand back. The fourth time he grabbed hold of the bottle and poured himself some more wine …

  Immediately, Doll’s head swivelled round over his shoulder, and this time he said, without any attempt at gentleness: ‘If we’re drinking too slowly for you on this table, maybe you’d like to go and sit somewhere else? There are plenty of tables free …’ And as the vet looked at him with a hesitant, incredulous, almost beseeching expression, he made his meaning even clearer: ‘Did you not understand? I want you to leave the table, now! I’ve had enough of your cheek!!’

  Slowly, the old man got to his feet. Slowly, he walked across the room to a table in the far corner. (As it was very late, long after closing time, the room was empty except for the regulars around their table.) For a moment he had hesitated, but then he had picked up the glass that had cost him so dear and bore it before him with infinite care, like some holy relic. It was, after all, the last glass of wine that he was likely to drink on this ill-fated evening that had started so well. Behind his back, these fat, well-oiled burghers were mocking him in the cruellest fashion, utterly beside themselves with glee and schadenfreude. Doll himself, of course, took no part in this further humiliation of a man who was already down, and perhaps he was even regretting his angry outburst — Wilhelm was an old man, after all. But if he did regret it, his regret didn’t last, because the young woman suddenly said: ‘Quite right, Mr. Doll, I’ve never been able to stand the old sneak either!’

  The drinking and the lively talk around the table continued — talk that became increasingly drunken. The old vet was forgotten. But he was still sitting there at his little table, his hand still wrapped around the stem of his wine glass, which had been empty for a long time. He sat, he watched, he listened, he counted. He counted the bottles as they were brought to the table, he counted the glasses that each person drank, and with every glass that was drunk around the table, he thought to himself: I should have been included in that round!

  Dr. Wilhelm waited until they had all finally had enough, and made to pay the bill. Then the vet slipped quietly out of the bar and took up his position on a dark street corner across from the hotel.

  He had a long wait before the two of them appeared, both wheeling their bicycles. He saw the woman’s white dress; she was wheeling her bike in a perfectly straight line, while the man kept veering off to the side, and frequently had to stop. Then he started off again, bumped into his companion’s bicycle, and dropped his own. He broke into drunken laughter, and held onto the woman. Dr. Wilhelm also noted that they did not part company at the street corner where they should have gone their separate ways. Doll accompanied the young woman on her way home, stumbling, falling, cursing, and laughing. Nodding his head, and with his leathery face twisted into a grimace, as if he was eating pure bile, the vet set off for home, walking slowly and sedately, with his feet splayed out to the sides.

  Next morning, rumours of the ‘orgy’ that had taken place at the town’s premier hotel were flying through the streets and alleys, and were soon getting out into the surrounding countryside on the milk carts. Doll was summoned into town by a distraught phone call from the young woman, who told him that the hotelier’s extremely straight-laced wife had banned her from the bar permanently ‘because of her immoral behaviour’. The young woman was upset and angry; for the first time in her life, she had come up against small-town prejudice, which condemns the accused without a hearing, and against which there is no appeal or defence.

  ‘But we’ve done nothing wrong! Nothing happened, not even a kiss! And this swine of a vet has been telling people I was sitting on your lap the whole evening, and that I took you home with me in the night! When the whole hotel knows full well that you stayed there overnight!’

  This was true. When it became clear that Doll was in no condition to walk or ride a bicycle, his companion had brought him back to the hotel, where he had then taken a room.

  ‘Mr. Doll, you’ve got to talk to the landlord! The ban on me must be lifted, and someone needs to put a stop to these vile rumours! You’ve got to help me, Doll. I’m very upset! How horrid it all is! People round here hate a woman just because she’s good-looking and laughs a lot. For two pins, I’d sell our weekend house right now and never come back!’

  Tears welled up in the young woman’s eyes, and Doll promised to do everything she asked. He would have done it anyway without the tears, for he too was full of anger and hatred. But he was soon to find that rumours of this kind are easier to start than they are to stop. The hotelier, whose straight-laced wife had him completely under her thumb, twisted and wriggled like a worm; in the end, when the argument grew more heated, he slipped quietly out of the room and was not seen again for the rest of the day. The circuit judge, called in as a witness for the defence, and obviously madly jealous of the younger, more successful Doll, gave an inconclusive account of events: in the bar itself he had not observed any lewd behaviour, but as to what happened in the night out on the street, well, he simply couldn’t say. And he really preferred not to get involved in this sort of thing …!

  Doll responded furiously: ‘What could possibly have happened out on the street? Everyone in the hotel knows that I spent the night here!’

  The hotelier’s wife bowed her head and quietly pointed out that between the time the two of them left together and the time that he, Mr. Doll, returned to the hotel, more than an hour had elapsed.

  ‘That’s a wild exaggeration!’ cried Doll. ‘A quarter of an hour, maybe — it can’t have been more than half an hour at the absolute outside!’

  The hotelier’s wife and the circuit judge smiled, and then Mrs. Holier-than-thou opined that even half an hour was quite a long time, and a lot could happen in half an hour …

  At this point the circuit judge, too, edged his way out of the room, and he only heard Doll’s angry response — where did she get the nerve to insinuate, without a shred of evidence, that two persons of blameless character could not spend half an hour together without getting up to something? — as he was retreating down the passageway. He didn’t wait to hear more. It was already looking as if this might end up in court, and he had no desire to be called as a witness in a case of this sort.

  After that, Doll began to run out of steam in this battle against a sanctimonious woman who responded to all his arguments and challenges with a weak smile and evasive, equivocal replies. She wouldn’t even give
a clear ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ answer when he asked her directly if she planned to enforce the ban on the young woman.

  Then Doll abruptly broke into laughter and walked out on the hotelier’s wife. What was he fighting against here? Arguing with this woman, who for certain had voted every time for her adored Führer, was about as pointless as Don Quixote tilting at windmills. No: if he was going to get anywhere in this matter, he had to tackle the man who had started all these rumours — that old gossip and scandalmonger in trousers, the freeloading, free-drinking vet. He’d soon give him what for! And so, swept along on a fresh wave of anger, he set out to find Dr. Wilhelm. But it was a fool’s errand, because the vet wasn’t to be found anywhere — not at home, not in the town, not in any saloon bar. It was as if the old man, suspecting what was in store for him, had gone into hiding — and perhaps he had done exactly that.

  So Doll had no option but to go to a lawyer and have him write formal letters to the vet and the hotelier’s wife. Doll learned from the lawyer that private actions for defamation could not be brought, now that there was a war on. But the others didn’t need to know this, and so letters threatening them with such an action were duly despatched. Maybe they had lawyers, too, or else they knew the score; at all events, they didn’t respond. The rumours continued.

  All this only made him more bitter, just as the departure of the young woman only served to increase his anger. She had been forced to flee in the face of the jealous, rancorous talk of these small-town bigots. He felt like someone trying to fight his way through a wall of feathers and cotton wool: he could hit it as hard as he liked, but it made no difference. In his present state of mind, the letters written by his lawyer seemed to him far too mild and diplomatic, so he sat down and wrote a letter of his own to Dr. Wilhelm, in which he announced his intention of publicly slapping him in the face as a slanderer the next time their paths crossed …