Erich Remarque - The Black Obelisk

“That won’t do. The other butchers would think I was putting on airs. Besides, the smell would come through. It clings.”

“What about a bath?”

“A bath?” Watzek asks. “Where? In the municipal baths? They’re closed when I come home from work at six in the morning.”

“Isn’t there a shower at the slaughterhouse?”

Watzek shakes his head. “Only hoses to wash down the floors. It’s too cold now to stand under them.” I can understand that. Ice-cold water in November is no pleasure. If Watzek were Karl Brill, it wouldn’t bother him at all. Karl is the man who chops a hole in the river ice so he can go swimming with his club. “What about toilet water?” I ask.

“What?”

“Perfume, to drown out the smell of blood.”

“I can’t try that. The others would take me for a pansy. “You don’t know those fellows at the slaughterhouse!”

“How about changing your profession?”

“I don’t know any other,” Watzek says sadly.

“Horse dealer,” I suggest. “That’s the same line.”

Watzek dismisses the idea. We sit for a time in silence. What does he matter to me? I think. And how can anyone help him? Lisa is in love with the Red Mill. It’s not so much Georg, it’s her aspiration to rise above her horse butcher. “You must become a cavalier,” I say finally. “Do you make good money?”

“Not bad.”

“Then you’re in luck. Go to the municipal baths every other day and buy a new suit to wear only at home. A couple of shirts, a tie or two—can you manage that?”

Watzek broods. “You think that would help?”

I remember my evening under the critical eye of Frau Terhoven. “You’ll feel better in a new suit,” I reply. “I’ve had that experience myself.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

Watzek looks at me with interest. “But your clothes are always first-class.”

“That depends. To you, perhaps. Not to certain others. I have noticed that.”

“Have you? Recently?”

“Today,” I say.

Watzek’s mouth flies open. “Think of that! Then we’re almost like brothers. It’s amazing!”

“I read somewhere that all men are brothers. That’s even more amazing when you look at the world.”

“And we almost killed each other!” Watzek says happily.

“Brothers often do.”

Watzek gets up. “I’m going to the baths tomorrow.” He feels his left eye. “I really intended to order an SA uniform. They’ve just been put on sale in Munich.”

“A natty, double-breasted dark gray suit would be better. There’s no future for your uniform.”

“Many thanks,” Watzek says. “But perhaps I’ll manage both. And don’t hold it against me, comrade, that I tried to knife you. Tomorrow I’m going to send you a big dish of first-class horse sausage to make up for it.”

“The cuckold is like a domestic animal,” Georg says, “an edible one, a chicken, let’s say, or a rabbit. You eat it with pleasure provided you don’t know it personally. But if you grow up with it, play with it, feed and protect it—then only a barbarian could relish it as a roast. That’s why one should never know cuckolds.”

Silently I point at the table. There between the samples of stones lies a thick, red sausage—horse sausage—a gift Watzek left for me this morning. “Are you going to eat it?” Georg asks.

“Of course I’m going to eat it. I’ve eaten worse horse meat before, in France. But don’t dodge the issue! There lies Watzek’s gift. I am in a dilemma.”

“Only because you love dramatic situations.”

“All right,” I say. “I grant that. Nevertheless, I saved your life. Widow Konersmann is going to keep on spying. Is the affair worth it?”

Georg gets a Brazilian out of the cupboard. “Watzek considers you his brother now,” he replies. “Is that what causes your conflict of conscience?”

“No. Besides, he’s still a Nazi—that cancels out this one-sided brotherhood. But let’s stick to the subject.”

“Watzek is my brother too,” Georg announces, blowing the white smoke of the Brazilian into the face of a painted plaster image of Saint Catherine. “Lisa, you must know, is deceiving me as well.”

“Are you making that up?” I ask in amazement. “Not a bit of it. Where do you think she gets all those clothes and jewels? Watzek, her husband, never gives them a thought—I, however, do.”

“You?”

“She confessed to me herself without my asking. She explained she didn’t want any kind of deception between us. She meant it honestly too—not as a joke.”

“And you? You betray her with the fascinating creatures of your imagination and your magazines.”

“Of course. What does betrayal mean anyway? The word j never used except by those to whom it is happening at the moment. Since when has feeling had anything to do with morality? Is that all you’ve learned from the postwar education I’ve given you here among the symbols of morality? Betrayal—what a vulgar word for the everlasting, sensitive dissatisfaction, the search for more, always more—”

“Granted!” I interrupt him. “That short-legged, muscular fellow with a bump on his head you just saw turning into his house is the freshly bathed butcher Watzek. His hair has been cut and is still damp with bay rum. He is trying to please his wife. Don’t you find that touching?”

“Of course. But he will never please his wife.”

“Then why did she marry him?”

“That was during the war when she was very hungry and he could provide plenty of meat. Since then she has grown six years older.”

“Why doesn’t she leave him?”

“Because he has threatened to kill her whole family if she does.”

“Did she tell you all this?”

“Yes.”

“Dear God,” I say. “And you believe it!”—Georg blows an artistic smoke ring. “If you ever get to be as old as I am, you proud cynic, I hope you will have found out that some beliefs are not only convenient but often justified as well.”

“All right,” I say. “Meanwhile, what about Master Butcher Watzek and the sharp-eyed Widow Konersmann?”

“Disturbing,” he replies. “Besides, Watzek is an idiot. At the moment he has an easier life than ever before—because Lisa is deceiving him she treats him better. Just wait and listen to his screams when she is true to him again and makes him pay for it. Now come along, let’s eat! We can consider this case another time.”

Eduard almost has a stroke when he sees us. The dollar has risen to nearly a trillion marks, and we still seem to have an inexhaustible supply of coupons. “You’re printing them!” he asserts. “You’re counterfeiters! You print them secretly!”

“We’d like to have a bottle of Forster Jesuitengarten after our meal,” Georg says with dignity.

“Why after your meal?” Eduard asks suspiciously. “What are you trying to get away with now?”

“The wine is too good to drink with what you’ve been serving these past weeks,” I explain.

Eduard swells with rage. “To eat on last winter’s coupon, at a miserable six thousand marks per meal and then criticize the food—that’s going too far! I ought to call the police!”

“Call them! One more word out of you and we’ll eat here and have our wine at the Hotel Hohenzollern!”

Eduard looks as though he were about to explode, but he controls himself because of the wine. “Stomach ulcers,” he mutters, hurriedly withdrawing, “stomach ulcers is what I’ve got because of you! Now all I can drink is milk!”

We sit down and look around. Covertly and guiltily I search for Gerda, but do not see her. Instead, I become aware of a familiar, grinning face moving toward us through the middle of the room. “Do you see what I see?” I ask Georg.