Росс Макдональд - The Dark Tunnel

“I think you did a marvelous job,” I said.

“Thank you. But let’s not talk of it now. I am finished with work for to-day.”

“I’d like to go some place and celebrate. Where could we go to celebrate?”

“Celebrate what?”

“Meeting you. I thought German girls were dull and had thick ankles.”

“We’re a very giddy lot,” she said. “Giddy, giddy, giddy. I thought American men had long grey beards like Uncle Sam.”

“I shave mine off every morning but it grows again during the night. Like mushrooms.”

She laughed, and we went out the stage-door into a side street.

“I know where we’ll go,” she said.

She took me to a cabaret where the wine was very good. We were served at a table in an open booth like the booths in American restaurants. In the centre of the long low room, a tall black-haired man stood against an upright piano, playing an accordion and singing a German song about Hamburg on the Elbe. He was very pale in the bright light, and his heavy black beard sprinkled his shaven jowls like black pepper on the white of a fried egg.

He had a rich baritone, though Schnaps had raised slivers on its surface.

“That singer should be able to sing blues,” I said to Ruth.

“Buy him a glass of beer and ask him for St. Louis Blues, ” she suggested.

“Does he know St. Louis Blues? ”

“Try him.”

When he had finished chanting about Hamburg on the Elbe, I ordered him a glass of beer and asked for St. Louis Blues. He sat down at the piano and sang it in English. For three or four minutes I found what every American abroad is unconsciously looking for, the illusion that he’s at home. I forgot that the great city around me and the girl on the other side of the table were mysterious and alien to me. I was an American college boy out on a date and the world was my oyster and there was an R in November.

A thin young man with a long nose and corrugated fair hair came past our booth before the singer had finished.

Ruth said, “ Hallo, Franz,” and the fair young man turned and smiled at her with teeth that were too good to be true.

“Why, Ruth,” he said in German, “it’s good to see you again.”

“I’d like you to meet Mr. Branch,” she said. “Mr. Branch, this is Franz.”

I rose, and he gave me a hand like leather-covered wood and clicked his heels. He looked about my age but there was something faded about his eyes that made me wonder if he was older.

“How are you,” I said. “Won’t you join us?”

“Delighted,” he said in English and sat down on the long seat beside me. “You’re American, are you?”

“Yes. I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your last name.”

“Franz has repudiated his last name,” Ruth said with a smile. “He’s an Austrian baron but he refuses to admit it.”

“I’ve enough personal crimes to answer for without assuming responsibility for the crimes of my ancestors,” Franz said, smiling like a precocious boy. “My ancestors were in the aristocracy racket.”

“And you’ve been in the United States,” I said.

“Apparently I still talk United States adequately. Sure, I lived in California for several years. They deported me for being a Wobbly. That’s one of my crimes.”

“A Wobbly? You’re older than you look.”

“And younger than I feel. Thanks. How have you been lately, Ruth?”

“Very well, I–”

Two young men in black uniforms went by the open end of the booth. They looked in but neither spoke. Ruth turned pale and bit her lip.

Franz got up and said, “I must be going. I hope I have a chance to talk with you some time, Mr. Branch. I haven’t been in the States for ten years. Auf Wiedersehen. ”

He was gone almost before Ruth could say, “Good night, Franz.” As he went out, I saw the deep wrinkles on the back of his brown neck and the leather patches on the elbows of his shiny suit.

“He’s a surprising sort of person,” I said to Ruth. “How old is he?”

“Over forty,” she said.

“Really? He looks about twenty years younger.”

“Danger keeps some men young. It destroys some but it keeps some men young until they die.”

“What kind of danger?”

“There are many kinds of danger,” she said, “especially in the Third Reich. … I’m sorry, but I think I must ask you to take me home.”

“Of course,” I said and got up. “I haven’t offended you, have I?”

“No.” She touched my arm. “No, you haven’t offended me. It’s just that I’m suddenly tired.”

I helped her on with her coat and we went out to the street. We had to walk blocks before we found a taxi near the Bahnhof, and then it was a run-down affair standing high on its wheels like a horseless buggy.

When we got in, she leaned back against the worn leather seat and sighed before she gave the driver her address. The motor spluttered and the rickety cab moved away.

“We Germans are a poor people,” she said as if in apology.

“There are things more important than automobiles, Fräulein Esch, and you Germans have many of them.” My words sounded wooden in my ears.

“Please don’t call me Fräulein. I hate that word. Will you call me Ruth?”

“I’d like to. If I may see you again.”

“I want to see you again. There are so few people I can talk to any more.”

“You haven’t talked much to me.”

“I will,” she said. “I’m fearfully – loquacious. Giddy and loquacious.”

“To-morrow for lunch?”

“If you wish.”

“Thank you.”

“Thank you. I’m afraid I’ve spoilt your evening, and now you’re inviting me to spoil your luncheon.”

“That’s the first giddy thing you’ve said. You’ve lit up my evening like a Christmas tree. Is there something the matter, Ruth?”

“No, I’m just tired.”

“Who were the SS boys that passed our table? You looked as if you didn’t like them.”

“Did I? I must cultivate a dead – is it dead face?”

“Dead pan,” I said. “Poker face. Your man Hitler has one most of the time.”

“He’s not my man Hitler,” she said sharply. The driver cocked an ear. She changed her tone: “He’s not my man. Der Führer belongs to all of us.”

The driver stopped the cab and smiled at us benignantly as we got out. “Heil Hitler,” he said.

“Heil Hitler,” Ruth replied.

She turned and gave me her hand, which was slim and cold.

“Heil Ruth,” I said under my breath. “When and where to-morrow?”

“Well, I’ll be working here in the morning–”

“May I call for you here? At twelve, say?”

“That would be very nice,” she said. She looked so soft and sweet in the lamplight I thought of kissing her, but she turned and ran up the steps with a wave of her hand and the massive paneled door closed behind her.

Before taking the cab back to my pension, I got out my new map of Munich and marked the location of her apartment in two colors, with the street and number in large block capitals.

Next morning after breakfast, I set out for the Englischer Garten to kill two birds with one stone. I was supposed to be studying English romantic influence on the Continental garden, and it happened that Ruth’s apartment house overlooked the Englischer Garten. I walked around the great park all morning and thought more about Ruth than I did about English romanticism.

At five minutes to twelve I was in her street scanning a tall row of blank-eyed stone houses with faintly Asiatic tilted eaves. Her number signaled in brass from above an arched doorway, and I knocked on the locked door. It opened immediately.

“Mr. Branch! I’m so very glad you’ve come.” She looked glad. “Kommen sie nur’rein.”