‘Load of rubbish. To have to praise something like that, just because the bastards buy space.’
‘Well, and what was it?’
‘Hokum. Sex. Nudity.’
‘I thought you liked that?’
‘Get lost, Wenk! What they call sexy these days! Why take anything off? You know it all anyway.’
Stuff drinks. First a schnapps. Then a long pull on his beer. Then another schnapps.
‘That’s better. I recommend it. It’ll improve your mood.’
‘I can’t. Not allowed to. My nightwatchman gets angry if I smell of strong drink.’
‘Oh, your old lady. Must be funny, always the same one. No surprises. Do you still enjoy it?’
‘Wrong question. Marriage isn’t a matter of enjoyment.’
‘That’s what I thought. And no surprises either. No, thank you. You know, that’s the reason modern female fashions are such crap: you know everything in advance. Those stupid slips! Whereas before, remember baggy white camiknickers!’ He loses himself in a reverie.
‘Which one’s your man?’ Wenk butts in.
‘My man? What man? Oh, you mean Kalübbe! Over there. Two tables over. The elderly guy playing skat, putting on weight.’
‘I see, so that’s Kalübbe,’ says Wenk, disappointed. ‘I pictured him differently.’
‘Pictured him differently? He’s fine the way he is. The two fellows playing with him. They must make the revenue councillor very happy.’
‘Who are they, then?’
‘You must know the one in the grey uniform, surely? Every child knows who that is. No? That’s Auxiliary Prison Warden Gruen. They call him Bonkers Gruen because he lost his mind after the privates stood him up against the wall in November 1918.’
‘Why?’
‘Because he was too hard on them, probably. They wanted to shoot him full of holes, and I don’t think it’s quite dawned on him yet that he’s survived.—You should look at him when the Right wing are waving their black-white-and-red banner, he’s incapable of walking past a flag. He pulls off his hat and intones: “You know we never starved under this flag.” The children follow him everywhere.’
‘And that kind of thing works for the government?’
‘Why not? Presumably he’s still capable of locking and unlocking doors.’
‘All right. And the other man, then?’
‘He’s the train-driver Thienelt. Senior locomotive driver in the region. The directorship of the railway has been on at him for years to wear uniform. He won’t do it. You know why?’
‘Nope. Tell me.’
‘Very simple. He won’t, because then he would have to wear a cap.—You’re not smart enough, Wenk. You can hold your drink, but you’re not smart.—There’s a newfangled eagle on the uniform, and he prefers the old-fashioned design . . .’
‘So he won’t wear it?’
‘He won’t wear it. Now they’ve left him in sole charge of a shunting-engine, but he thinks: I’ll stick it for the remaining two years until I draw my pension. His superiors leave him alone, but it’s his colleagues. Colleagues are always the worst.’
Pause. Stuff drinks plentifully.
‘Maybe Kalübbe will go out and pee, so I can talk to him in private.’
‘Do you think he will?’
‘If I go about it the right way, he will.’
‘You’re taking a chance, aren’t you?’
‘Why? If it gets out, then it was just the drink talking.’
‘Hey, Stuff, the young fellow by himself at the corner table keeps staring at you.’
‘Well, if he likes what he sees. No, I’ve no idea who it is. Ex-officer, I’d guess. Presently travelling in mineral oils and lubricants.’
‘It looks to me as though he’d like a word with you.’
‘Maybe he knows me.—Cheers! Cheers!’ Stuff calls out to the unknown young man right across the pub, who raises his own beer glass back.
‘So you do know him?’
‘No idea. He’s after something. Well, let him come.’
‘Funny thing, to drink to you like that.’
‘What’s so funny about it? Maybe he likes my potato nose. Well, I’ll have another schnapps first, Kalübbe’s sitting tight.’
‘Say, Stuff,’ Wenk begins again. ‘Tredup was complaining about you today. Says you never let him earn any money.’
‘Tredup can get knotted. I’ve not spoken to Tredup for a fortnight.’
‘Because of the oxen?’
‘The oxen? Does that ox think I’ll run his article about the cattle auction just so he can earn his five pfennigs a line?!’
‘I think he’s short.’
‘Listen, we’re all short. Let me tell you something, Wenk, all the people who don’t have enough money are useless. Tredup is as keen on money as a cat is on catnip.’
‘What if his family is going hungry?’
‘And that’s reason enough for me to alienate everyone by running his stupid report? If I carry something that’s pro the farmers, then look to your advertising section: Revenue Department, police, government announcements, they’ll drop us just like that.’
‘But he says he’s written a second report against the farmers?’
‘Well . . . ? So I’m to be against the farmers now, am I? Actually, I feel a sneaking sympathy with them. Would I be sitting here otherwise, waiting for Kalübbe, who seems to be intent on keeping his flies buttoned up?—Ah, at last! Speak of the devil . . . See you later!’
And Stuff heavily pads off in pursuit of Kalübbe.
II
Stuff takes up position in the urinals beside Kalübbe, who is staring vacantly at the running water. Stuff says: ‘Evening, Kalübbe!’
‘Evening! Oh, it’s you, Stuff. How’s life treating you?’
‘Shitty, as ever.’
‘Why would it be any other way?’
‘Well, there’s a thing! Even officialdom is starting to moan!’
‘Officialdom? Hardly . . .’
‘I thought you were. Whereas if my Schabbelt succeeds in making gold from lettuce he’ll shut the paper and I’ll be out on my ear.’
‘Well. You with your province-wide reputation.’
‘Truer of you these days. Since that affair with the oxen—’
‘Sorry, Stuff, no time. I’ve got to get back to my skat game—’
‘Of course.—Is it true that the case is due to be heard tomorrow?’
‘Could be.—Look, I’m keeping Thienelt and Gruen waiting.’
‘And that you’re supposed to identify the culprits?’
‘Skat calls.’
‘And that Thiel, your assistant, was summarily sacked?’
‘Jesus, if you know everything, what are you doing asking? Evening, Stuff!’
‘Do you want to be in on a secret, Kalübbe? You’re about to be demoted. But don’t breathe a word.’
Kalübbe stares at him silently. The water runs and trickles and gurgles into the conduit. The men stand facing each other.
‘Me? Are you talking about me? I’m being demoted? They must have shit for brains! Leave me be with your nonsense. I brought my ox back.’
‘That’s the reason. You should have put them in the stall of the district headman. That way there would have been tongues wagging.’
‘The revenue councillor says I did well.’
‘Don’t give me the revenue councillor! There’s plenty brighter spoons stirring the soup than him.’
‘I’m not being demoted.’
‘Oh yes, you are. Listen, Kalübbe—’
Three men barge into the pissoir. Kalübbe turns to face the mirror and starts elaborately washing his hands. The three greet Stuff boisterously. He stands by the urinal, and acts all busy, while darting an eye at Kalübbe. Kalübbe who is showing no signs of urgency to leave. Stuff grins to himself.
After some time, the three men go out and leave Stuff and Kalübbe alone again.
Kalübbe says briskly: ‘Now listen to me, Stuff.
I’ve thought about it. Maybe I really will get demoted. That’s the way they like to do things nowadays. The buck stops anywhere, but only with us junior employees. But that’s of no interest to you, and if you breathe so much as a word about it in your bloody Chronicle—’
‘Not one word. You’re being demoted. Small earthquake in Chile. The only question is: Are you planning to take anyone else down with you?’
‘Down with me? I see—depends who you mean?’
‘Well, those farmers. Tomorrow is the date for the case. If you identify any of them, they’ll spend months behind bars.’
‘I’ve got no cause to want to play fair by the farmers.’
‘But why be vindictive? Wouldn’t you behave just like them if you were being forced off your property?’
‘What they did that morning was pretty unconscionable.’
‘All right, so you do the bidding of your creepy bosses. You know that revenue councillor of yours will laugh all the way to the bank if he has a few more farmers to lock up. That means another nice round of expropriations.’
‘That bastard! Listen, Stuff, what do you think? He tells me on the phone that I’ve absolutely got to get the oxen to Haselhorst, and then he punishes me because I was only able to get mine as far as Lohstedt. What kind of behaviour is that?’
‘That’s the way they are nowadays!’ Stuff spits into the urinal. ‘Are you about to take punishment from them, and name some of the farmers at the same time?’
Kalübbe hesitates. ‘It was all over in a flash. If I wasn’t able to identify the farmers . . . But there’s always Thiel!’
‘Let me worry about him! Do you think Thiel will talk? He fell in a ditch, his ox took off, his suit was wrecked, he’s bruised and battered and out of a job as of now, because he let his ox run away—do you think he’s about to make any identifications? Is he as stupid as that?’
‘You tell me.’
‘I know what the answer is. Between ourselves: Thiel has got a new job. At a newspaper. But I’m not saying where.’
For a while the two men are silent, then Kalübbe says: ‘Well, I think it all happened too quickly. I really couldn’t say which farmers I saw in the Krug, and who was doing the straw fire.’
‘You see, Kalübbe. And if you’re ever fed up with serving orders and things, just send me a postcard . . .’
They turn to leave . . .
III
A voice speaks up behind them: ‘Just one moment, gentlemen. That was very interesting.’
In the door to one of the stalls is the young man Stuff raised his glass to just a quarter of an hour back.
‘Really. Extraordinarily interesting.—Yes, I was busy in there, gentlemen. I didn’t want to interrupt. I think it’s about the clearest case of tampering with a witness I’ve ever experienced personally. Charming.’
He stands in the doorway, the toilet seat behind him, quite needlessly fiddling with his braces. There are a thousand little wrinkles playing around his eyes, and in the midst of his discomfiture, Stuff manages to think: A boy? That son of a bitch is a thousand years old. Been round the block. What a piece of work.
He growls back: ‘Don’t get any ideas. You couldn’t hear much. Not with the water going the whole time.’
The young man reaches into his pocket and pulls out a wad of paper. ‘Excuse the material, it’s toilet paper. But I do shorthand. Your conversation struck me as worthy of being recorded.’
‘You’re lying. That’s white paper. Don’t think you can fool me. Let’s have a look at it.’
Fat Stuff grabs with extraordinary speed at the left hand of the youth, which is holding the paper. But like a hammer his right fist slams against Stuff’s arm. Stuff tries a left into the solar plexus of the youth, who doubles back over the toilet seat.
Stuff grunts: ‘Come on, Kalübbe, we have to get hold of the paper!’
And the youth, completely calm, now standing on top of the loo seat: ‘Very droll, gentlemen—’
The toilet door swings open, and a couple of men walk in. The three combatants take up various casual poses. Kalübbe is fooling with the soap dispenser. Stuff is leaning against the stall door, apparently giving advice to the slim young fellow, who is reaching up into the cistern: ‘It must be the float.’
At last the gentlemen are finished. One tries to start a conversation with Stuff, but he cuts him off: ‘Leave me alone. I want to puke in peace!’ And the gentleman vanishes.
The door is not yet closed when Stuff undertakes a lightning attack against one of the youth’s legs, grabs it, and with a roar pulls him off the loo seat. His head in the process hits the wall not once but several times. He’s left lying in a corner, pale and bloodied, while Stuff tries to force open the hand that is still holding the bunch of papers in its grip.
‘You won’t do it. It’s held the odd grenade neck in its time, Stuff—’
‘I thought you knew me—’ Stuff lets him go, and looks at him appraisingly. Kalübbe, silent, still deathly pale, peers over his shoulder.
The youth stands up and bows. ‘At your service, Henning. Georg Henning. And please excuse my little joke. I’m still a little childish at times.’
‘Probably right,’ says Stuff. And turning to Kalübbe: ‘Don’t worry. He won’t blab.’
‘See, here’s my shorthand. And now I’ll consign it to the waves. We pull the flush. Never to be seen again.’
‘What do you want now?’ asks Stuff. ‘I don’t imagine you forfeited that quite without—?’
‘No, no. Of course not. But some other way. Not the way you might imagine. At least not just that. There’s a photograph of the straw fire and the panicking oxen.’
‘Surely not!’
‘There may even be two.’
‘Now how could I not know that!?’ exclaims Stuff in indignation.
‘Wait!’ interjects Kalübbe. ‘Wait a minute. He’s right. How could I have forgotten about that? There was someone from a newspaper, he wanted to take pictures at the auction. Later I saw him again, behind a tree, at the straw fire over towards Haselhorst. And then a third time, just when we were going through the flames . . . A farmer, a fellow with a black beard, was knocking the box out of his hands.’
‘And that young man,’ says Georg Henning, ‘that young man is on the staff of your newspaper, Herr Stuff, and rejoices in the name of Tredup.’
Stuff stares at Henning, before turning to Kalübbe, who nods in affirmation. Stuff lowers his head, reaches into his pocket, plays with his keys. Looks round, starts playing with his watch-chain.
All of them are silent.
‘I’ll tell you something, gentlemen. I don’t know you, Henning, but I know you well enough. I’m in the picture.
‘The evening after the distraint of the cattle, Tredup comes up to me in high excitement, he wants to write a piece for me. Half a column. It turns into two columns. You must understand that Tredup doesn’t draw a salary from the paper, we pay him a commission on whatever ads he sells. Whereas if he writes for us, he gets five pfennigs a line.
‘I say to him: “Tredup, your piece is good, but it’s rubbish. I know you’re on your uppers, and you have a wife and children, but I’m not taking that piece. I’m going to personally put your piece in the furnace. This is a farmers’ matter and a government matter and it’s nothing to do with the town of Altholm and the readers of the Altholm Chronicle.”’
‘What did Tredup do? Was he angry?’
‘No, the opposite, really. He just said whenever he had anything good I wasn’t interested. And he went off. Since then he’s not said a word to me, or written me a line, or helped me in any way.’
Henning asks: ‘And he didn’t mention that he had a picture or pictures?’
‘That’s just it. Not one word about it.’
‘Then he’s got something up his sleeve.’
‘Or maybe the pictures didn’t turn out?’
‘He had no cause to keep quiet about that. He wouldn’t even have had them developed
at that stage!’
Henning says: ‘Tomorrow is the court case, and by then we have to know whether there are pictures or not. You, Kalübbe, are in the clear. The train leaves at half past nine. By then you’ll have heard about your statement. You, Stuff, will leave now, and we’ll rendezvous at the corner of Burstah and Stolper Strasse. Tredup lives at 72 Stolper Strasse. We’ll be there by half past midnight. We’ll catch him asleep, and it’ll be easier to pull the wool over his eyes.’
‘What a tactician!—You must have fought? Sure you did.’
‘Only the last six months of the war. I wasn’t old enough. But I made up for it later, in the Baltic, the Ruhr, Upper Silesia, wherever there was anything going on.’
‘It shows. Well, that’s all for now!’
And at long last the bathroom is vacated.
IV
There are hardly any lights left burning on the Stolper Strasse after midnight. The two men approach one another in silence, and head off together.
Stuff asks: ‘What happened with Thiel’s ox, by the way?’
‘Caught and slaughtered.’
‘Of course. Keeping it somewhere would have been too risky.’
‘Of course. There are always traitors.’
They walk on in silence.
Stuff again: ‘I was only at the Front for six months myself. I spent the rest of the four years behind the lines, and not by choice either. It was because I was a qualified typesetter, and they needed them.’
‘The Baltic theatre was the best,’ the other said pensively. ‘My God! Being master in a foreign land! Not having to pay any regard to the civilian population. And the girls!’
‘Come off it! Stories like that, and girls!’
‘I travel,’ said Georg Henning calmly, ‘for a Berlin manufacturer of milking machines and centrifuges. There’s not a woman that remembers me.’
‘Do you not drink?’
‘I never get drunk.’
‘That’s all right then.’
They walk on in silence.
‘I don’t know what your plan is,’ Georg Henning begins this time, ‘but I have here a genuine police ID with photograph. And a badge as well.’
He flips back the lapel of his summer coat and reveals a police badge.
‘No, that won’t work. Tredup will know all the local cops. And if it goes wrong, there’ll be a huge fuss. That would be good for later on. I think what we use for now is money.’