Wolf Among Wolves

  Countess Mutzbauer, née Fräulein Fischmann (which she did not naturally divulge to her friend Quarkus) was, of course, more in favor of an estate with a castle, terrace and racing stable. But about this Quarkus was adamant. “I have bought enough cattle from manors,” he said. “I don’t want to buy their worries, too.”

  He was sure that if he went to a farm with a bag full of notes—better still with a trunk—asked to buy a cow, bought ten, threw his money around and bragged about it and used it as a bait, then no owner would be able to resist him. And after buying ten cows he would buy the cowhouse, the straw, the land on which the straw grew, and ultimately the whole farm. And when he told the owner that he could remain and carry on with the farming, doing what he liked with the produce, that farmer would think him cracked and would find other sellers for him, more than he wanted. Till the day dawned when the mark—well, nobody could conceive what the mark would be like on that day—it baffled imagination. Whatever happened, however, the farm would be there. The farms, rather.

  Such were, roughly, Quarkus’s reflections as frequently outlined to the Countess. Actually, since the manor had been turned down, she took very little interest in the matter, but she was too wise to be disinterested enough to let her friend travel by himself. It was always better to be on the spot, for vulgar women, to whom money was as necessary as dung to the dung-beetle, were to be found everywhere. Moreover, if he bought ten farms, an eleventh might perhaps be thrown in as her pickings; and though the idea of her owning a farm was about as reasonable as her possessing a locomotive, yet it could always be sold—in fact, one could sell anything. (Countess Mutzbauer had already sold, in turn, three cars which she had been given by her friend, and had treated him to the magnificent explanation: “You’re too much of a gentleman, Quarkus, to expect me to put up with such an old-fashioned car.” And he was really too much of a gentleman—besides being uninterested in such points.)

  The notion of the eleventh farm, however, had reminded the Countess that her chambermaid, Sophie, came from the country and toward midday, having slept thoroughly, she rang for her and conducted the following conversation:

  “Sophie, you come from the country, don’t you?”

  “Yes, Frau Countess, but I don’t like it.”

  “Do you come from a farm?”

  “No, Frau Countess, from a manor.”

  “You see, Sophie, I told Herr Quarkus that he should buy a manor. But he says he only wants a farm.”

  “Yes, Frau Countess, my Hans was just like that, too. When he had enough money for Habel and partridges, then he only wanted Aschinger with pea soup and bacon; men are like that.”

  “So you, too, Sophie, think that a manor is much better?”

  “Of course, Frau Countess. A manor is much bigger, and when it belongs to you, you don’t need to work yourself but employ people.”

  “On a farm one has to work?”

  “Terribly hard, Frau Countess; and work which ruins the appearance.”

  Hastily the Countess decided to forgo the eleventh farm and accept instead the gift of a diamond ring. And with that decision she lost all personal interest in the trip or the purchase, and thus any reason for taking Sophie with her as adviser.

  “Listen, Sophie, in case Herr Quarkus should ask you, don’t tell him that. That’s no need to dissuade him; it only spoils his pleasure and won’t stop him buying.”

  “Just like my Hans,” said Sophie with a sigh, reflecting sadly that the police would never have nabbed Hans Liebschner if he had followed her advice.

  “All right, Sophie. Then everything is settled. I knew you understood all about the country. Herr Quarkus and I are going to buy a farm, and I thought of buying one for myself. Then I would have taken you with me. But if a farm is no use …”

  Too late Sophie realized that she had spoken too soon. A trip by car into the country with the rich Quarkus would have been very agreeable. She changed her tune. “Of course, Frau Countess, there are all sorts of farms—”

  “No, no,” said the former Fräulein Fischmann. “You’ve explained everything splendidly. I’m not buying.”

  Since there was nothing more to be gained here, Sophie looked for an advantage on the other side. “So Frau Countess will probably be away for some time?”

  Yes, Countess Mutzbauer would hardly be back before tomorrow evening.

  “Oh, if the Frau Countess would then be so kind … My aunt at Neukölln has been seriously ill and I ought to have gone to see her before.… Could I have this afternoon off? And perhaps till tomorrow midday?”

  “Well, Sophie,” said her mistress graciously, although she took the sick aunt in Neukölln about as seriously as Sophie did the acquisition of a farm by the Countess, “it’s really Mathilde’s turn for a day off, but as you’ve given me such good advice … Don’t upset Mathilde, though.”

  “Not at all, Frau Countess; if I give her a cinema ticket she’ll be quite happy. She’s so mean. Only recently the cobbler said to her: ‘Fräulein, don’t you ever go out? The soles of your shoes are still good the second year of wearing!’ But she’s like that.”

  Perhaps the cook Mathilde was really like that with regard to stinginess, days off and the cinema; Sophie Kowalewski may have reported correctly, but she was mistaken in her forecast of the way in which Mathilde would receive the news about that particular afternoon off. Sophie had spoken quite casually about the paltry cinema ticket with which Mathilde would let herself be appeased; but nothing of the kind, nothing of the kind at all! Mathilde stormed. She wouldn’t have it. What? She, the economical and steady one, was to sacrifice herself for a whore who went with any lounge-lizard for three drinks! Oh, no! Unless Sophie immediately gave up this outing obtained in such an underhand manner, she, Mathilde, would go at once to the Countess, and what the Countess would then hear, Sophie might only too well imagine. Such filth wouldn’t pass without reason over her lips. At which point Sophie began to defend her client in front of her friend.

  Oh, stout, easy-going Mathilde! Sophie could not understand why she was furious. Previously she had allowed her free days to be passed over a dozen times, had forgone them voluntarily or involuntarily, and when she sulked for once, a box of sweets or a cinema ticket had always appeased her. Had the oppressive heat driven the old woman mad? For a moment Sophie wondered whether she ought not to give in. If Mathilde opened her mouth to the Countess there might be a pretty stink. Not that Sophie was afraid of that. She could make short work of a drunken man who kicked up a row, and such could be almost as bad as a quarrelsome woman.

  So she considered for a moment.… Then she spoke coldly and maliciously: “I don’t know what’s biting you, Mathilde. Why do you want to go out? You haven’t anything fit to wear.”

  Oh, how sweetly this oil sizzles, how the flame rises higher and higher. “Nothing to wear! Of course, if I could use my mistress’s wardrobe, as some of us do …”

  “You’d do it, Mathilde. Only nothing fits you. You’re so terribly fat.”

  Even in 1923 it was a serious insult to call a woman plump—not to mention fat. Promptly Mathilde burst into tears. “Whore, strumpet, bitch!” she screamed, and rushed off to her mistress. Herr Quarkus had just come in, and they were about to set out for the country.

  Sophie, shrugging her shoulders, stayed behind. It was all one to her, whatever happened. All of a sudden she had had quite enough of the life here, although a minute ago she would not have wished to leave. But it was like that nowadays, there was no stability; what was valid one moment was not so the next. (Never was the fatal gas tap turned on so often and so impulsively as in those days.)

  Suddenly she felt how dog-tired and worn-out she was, and how attractive the thought of a couple of weeks’ holiday with her parents in Neulohe. That would be really fine: to sleep as long as you liked, do nothing, drink nothing and, above all—for a change—no gentlemen. Besides, you could show yourself off to envious school friends of bygone days as a finished woman-about-town—espe
cially just now when they were working themselves to death over the harvest. Finally, and most important, quite close to Neulohe was Meienburg, where stood an establishment which little Sophie had formerly looked at with horror but which now sheltered her Hans. Suddenly she was seized by a mad longing for him; her whole body was a-tremble. She must go to him, she must live near him, she must sense him once again—at the very least she must see him. It ought to be easy to get into touch with him. Warders were only men after all.…

  Sophie had stopped cleaning the silver—why do anything now? She’d leave today anyway; finish with the joint! With satisfaction she heard Mathilde’s guttural whine interspersed with the sharp, irritated voice of the Countess, and occasionally Herr Quarkus’s hoarse tones. If they came and made the slightest criticism there would be a showdown. What a showdown! They would have no option but to get rid of her on the spot—not without her month’s wages, though. And that great gawk Mathilde could whistle for her free day—she would have to do all the work herself.

  With reluctance Countess Mutzbauer sent her friend Quarkus to fetch Sophie from the kitchen. Certainly she wanted no quarrel with her chambermaid, least of all in front of her friend. There had been, some time ago, rather an odd burglary in the flat, and though Herr Quarkus had generously replaced the lost jewelry, he had wanted then and there to get in touch with the police. It would not be pleasant if Sophie explained the ramifications of that theft. Even more painful, of course, would be an account of certain bedroom visits. Countess Mutzbauer was convinced that her gentleman friend would not be broad-minded in the latter respect; and even though one should never shed tears over a lost lover, there being as many good fish in the sea as ever came out of it, she was terrified of a good thrashing.

  But what was to be done? Mathilde, in front of Herr Quarkus, had given an exact account not only of the freedom with which Sophie used her mistress’s wardrobe as well as underwear (the Countess had known this all along) but also of an orgy which had taken place in the Mutzbauer apartments during a two-day absence of the mistress, an orgy, besides, in which strange bullies and tarts had taken part, also her own liqueurs, cigarettes, champagne, and—here Herr Quarkus leaped up with a “Damn”—unfortunately the Mutzbauer bed, too.

  Against all sense and reason the Countess hoped that Sophie would be reticent. On her side, at least, nothing would be done to make matters worse.

  Whereupon in the first three minutes the very worst happened. There was a frightful row, an infernal stench. Emil Quarkus, the cattle dealer, was certainly not squeamish and during his life had had to put up with a lot of unpleasant things; moreover the times were not propitious for cultivating a thin skin.… But what these three women said to each other stank more than all the dunghills of his future farms rolled into one.

  And Quarkus, too, shouted and stormed. With his own hands he threw them out of the room in turn and, howling with fury, fetched them in again for cross-examination, exculpation. He bashed their heads together, separated the clawing women, telephoned for the police and immediately canceled the call, inspected Sophie’s trunks, and had almost at once to rush to her ladyship’s bedroom where murder seemed to be in progress. Then, picking up his hat, he marched off with the contemptuous exclamation: “You damned women, you can kiss my arse,” left the flat, got into his car, and made the chauffeur stop at once, it having occurred to him that under no circumstances could he leave his jewelry with that vulgar woman.…

  The upshot was that he sat on a couch utterly exhausted, incapable of anything more. Her cheeks still red and her eyes flashing, Countess Mutzbauer paced up and down and mixed a pick-me-up for her Emil.

  “Such vulgar women! All abominable lies, of course. It’s good that you dismissed them on the spot, Quarkus.” (He had done nothing of the sort.) “You’re quite right not to call in the police.” (He would dearly have loved to do so.) “In the end your wife would have learned of it, and you know what she is!”

  Mathilde was sitting on her hamper in the kitchen, sniveling quietly as she waited for the carrier to fetch it. Then she would go by subway to her brother-in-law who lived off the Warschauer Brücke. Her sister wouldn’t be very joyful over this surprise because, as things were, the wage of a streetcar conductor was already insufficient. But, in possession of a fair pile of foreign currency which Quarkus, softened by her good cooking, had obtained for her bit by bit, she felt secure against any sisterly displeasure. As a matter of fact, dismissal at this moment suited Mathilde; she would now have time to do something for her illegitimate offspring, the fifteen-year-old Hans Günther; that morning she had read in the newspapers of his arrest as ringleader of a mutiny in a Berlin institution for young delinquents, which was the reason for her anger when Sophie had annexed her day off. Now she had her free day after all. She was content.

  Even more content, however, was Sophie Kowalewski. Through the gathering storm a taxi took her toward the Christian Hostel in Krausenstrasse. Accompanied by gentlemen, Sophie did not object to the most filthy accommodation hotel; but as a young lady traveling alone she was cognizant only of the Christian Hostel. She was going for her summer holiday, her trunks were packed with her ladyship’s nicest possessions, she had her wages; also she had sufficient money saved up and she would get in touch with her Hans, perhaps even see him. Yes, she too was content.

  Only Herr Quarkus was not quite as happy as the three women. But he was not properly aware of it, and in any case he had to go and buy farms immediately. The mark pursued him faster than any female.

  V

  Forester Kniebusch walked slowly through the village of Neulohe, his pointer on a lead. One never knew what might happen; most people, anyhow, were incredibly more afraid of a dog than of a man. Old Kniebusch had always disliked going into the village—his house lay a little back from the road on the edge of the forest—and today he was particularly peevish. He had put off as long as practicable the rounding-up of the villagers for the ten o’clock meeting at the village magistrate’s, but now that the entire western sky was black with storm (from Berlin, of course; what else ever came from there?) he had to set about it. Needs must; he had to be careful not to offend anybody.

  Thank heaven the village of Altlohe didn’t come into the picture so far as this secret military business was concerned. Only miners and industrial workers (therefore Spartacists and Communists) lived in Altlohe; that is, thieves who robbed the fields, wood stealers and poachers, in Herr Kniebusch’s opinion.

  He was quite well aware why he had refused to notice the wood stealers that morning. They were Altlohers who became aggressive on the slightest provocation and openly proclaimed a doctrine akin to the right to steal. Forester Kniebusch was also quite well aware why he had left his rifle at home but taken his dog with him—a weapon only infuriated the people and made them even more dangerous. Still, a dog might mean a torn trouser leg, and trousers were expensive!

  Depressed, the forester slunk through the village threatened by the coming storm. “I would like to die peacefully in my bed,” he had again said to a wife almost paralyzed by rheumatism. She had nodded. “We are all in God’s hands,” she had said.

  “Oh, you!” he would have liked to reply, for he had been certain a long time that God had nothing to do with all this ghastly confusion. But, after a glance at the colored Lord’s Supper on the wall, he had preferred to keep silent. In these days one could not say even to one’s own wife what one really thought.

  He had pictured his old age differently. If the war and this damnable inflation had not come, he would long ago have been living in his own little house in Meienburg, letting duty and the wood thieves look after themselves, occupied only with his bees. But anyone could easily figure out how simple it was to starve to death on an old-age pension in these days. And as for the savings-bank book (hidden from thieves between the sheets in his wife’s linen cupboard), showing a total savings of over 7,000 marks scraped together coin by coin during forty long years of service, that did not bear lookin
g at or thinking of, if tears were not to come at once into the eyes. Had there been no war that sum would have meant a little house in Meienburg, neat as a doll. And then there had been the first mortgage on the magistrate Haase’s farm here in Neulohe, a sound investment, for the interest of 4 per cent on the 10,000 marks Kniebusch had advanced was paid promptly. Some of this advance had been inherited, most of it saved; and it yielded 400 marks yearly, which would have been a welcome addition to Kniebusch’s old-age pension.

  But that was past and done with. Incomprehensibly past and done with. The old man had had to continue running about, working, watching, trying to worm his way between the encroachments of the people and the reprimands of his employer. And this wearied man, so much in need of peace and retirement, was now terribly afraid of having to retire—for what could save the old couple from starving to death? Their two sons had fallen in the war, and their daughter, married to a railway clerk at Landsberg, did not know how to get food enough for herself and her children. Only when a pig was to be killed did she write to her parents, to remind them of the promised share of fat.

  And so the old man had to carry on, fawn, flatter and humble himself to avoid dismissal at all costs. And when that fool of a Lieutenant beckoned, he could do nothing but click his heels and reply submissively: “Very good, Herr Lieutenant.” How was he to know whether his employer approved or not?

  It was dreary walking round the village. The men whom the forester had to see were still in the fields, though it was time for feeding the cattle, nearly six o’clock. Or, sweating, they hurried past him with hardly an acknowledgment. There was not a moment to spare; they must get in all the crops they could before the storm broke.

  Thus the forester had to leave his message with their womenfolk, and they, of course, said exactly what they thought. He was undoubtedly crazy, trying to call a meeting at the height of the harvest! He didn’t, of course, have such a bad time; he wasn’t aching in every limb; he could go for a walk while others worked themselves to death. He got up at six in the morning, their men at half-past two. They had no intention of delivering such a stupid message; he must go and look for bigger fools. They stood with their arms akimbo and the forester got it hot and strong. He had to persuade and beg them to give the message about the meeting at ten o’clock, and when he finally left he was not at all sure whether it would be delivered.