Joseph Roth - Three Novellas

That morning, the Friday, he went to work for the fat gentleman. His job was to help the lady of the house to pack, and, even though the furniture removal men were doing their work, there was more than enough, both arduous and less arduous, to keep Andreas busy. In the course of the day, he felt the strength returning to his muscles, and he took pleasure in his work. He had grown up working, he had been a coalminer like his father, and briefly a farmer like his father before him. If only the lady of the house hadn’t got on his nerves so much, giving him pointless instructions, telling him to be in two places at once, so that he didn’t know whether he was coming or going. But he could appreciate that she was agitated too. It couldn’t have been easy for her, moving house just like that, and maybe she wasn’t sure about the new place either. She stood there dressed to go out, in coat and hat and gloves, with her handbag and umbrella, even though she must have known that she would be remaining in the old house all that day and night, and even some of the next day as well. From time to time she would paint her lips, and that too Andreas could well understand. Naturally — she was a lady.

Andreas worked all day. When he had finished, the lady of the house said to him: “Come punctually at seven o’clock tomorrow.” She took a little purse full of coins from her handbag. Her fingers scrabbled about in it for a long time, picking up a ten-franc piece then dropping it again, before settling instead on a five-franc piece. “Here’s a little something for you!” she said. “But,” she added, “you’re not to spend it all on drink, and be sure to be here in good time tomorrow!”

Andreas thanked her, left and spent the money — but no more — on drink. He spent the night in a small hotel.

He was woken up at six in the morning. And he went to work feeling fresh and alert.

4

He arrived even before the removal men. The lady of the house was already standing there, exactly as on the previous day, in hat and gloves, as though she hadn’t gone to bed at all, and she said to him pleasantly: “I can see you took my advice, and didn’t spend the whole of your tip on drink.”

Andreas got to work. Later he went with the lady to the new house they were moving into, and waited till the friendly man came home, and paid him the second installment of his wage.

“Now for that drink I promised you,” said the gentleman. “Let’s go.”

But the lady of the house wouldn’t allow it, she stood between them and said to her husband: “Dinner’s ready.” And so Andreas went away alone, and that evening he ate and drank alone, and afterwards he visited another couple of bars. He drank a lot, but he didn’t get drunk, and he was careful not to spend too much money, because the next day, mindful of his promise, he wanted to go to the Chapelle de Sainte Marie des Batignolles, and pay at least some of his debt to little Thérèse. But he did drink just enough to cloud his judgment, and make him lose his pauper’s infallible instinct for the very cheapest hotel in the quartier.

So he went into a slightly more expensive hotel, where, because he had no luggage, and his clothes were in a poor state, he was made to pay in advance. But he wasn’t bothered by that, and he slept peacefully until the following morning. He was woken up by the sound of bells tolling in a nearby church, and straightaway it came to him what an important day it was today: it was Sunday, and he had to go to little Thérèse and pay his debt. He quickly pulled his clothes on, and hurried over to the square where the church was. Even so, he reached it too late, because when he arrived the congregation was just emerging from the church after the ten o’clock service. He asked when the next Mass would begin, and was told at noon. He felt at a bit of a loose end, standing around outside the church. There was a whole hour to wait, and he would have preferred not to spend it on the street. So he looked around for some place where he might wait in greater comfort, and saw a bistro diagonally across the square from the church, and decided to spend the hour till Mass there instead.

With the assurance of a man who knows he has money in his pocket, he ordered a Pernod, and with the assurance of a man who has drunk a good many of them in the course of his life, he drank it. He drank another, and a third, adding less water each time. By the time the fourth was served to him, he had no idea whether he had had two glasses, or five or even six. Nor could he remember what he was doing in this café or in this part of town. All he knew was that there was some obligation he had to discharge, some honorable obligation, and he paid, got up, and had walked steadily out of the door when he caught sight of the church facing him across the square, and remembered in a flash where he was and why and to accomplish what. He was just about to take a step towards the church when he suddenly heard the sound of his name. A voice was calling “Andreas,” a woman’s voice. It reached him from another age. He stopped and turned his head to the right, where the voice was coming from. And straight away he recognized the face for whose sake he had gone to prison. It was Caroline.

Caroline! She was wearing clothes and a hat he had never seen her in before, but it was still the same face, and he threw himself into her arms, which she had quickly opened wide to receive him. “What a coincidence,” she said. And it was really her voice, the voice of Caroline.

“Are you on your own?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said, “I’m alone.”

“Come on then, we need to have a talk,” she said.

“But, but,” he replied, “I’ve got a rendezvous.”

“With a woman?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said timidly.

“Who with?”

“With little Thérèse,” he replied.

“Never mind her,” said Caroline.

Just at that moment a taxi drove by, and Caroline stopped it by waving her umbrella at it. She gave the cabbie an address, and before Andreas quite realized what was happening, he was sitting in the cab with Caroline, driving away, racing away, as it seemed to Andreas, going through a mixture of familiar and unfamiliar streets, to God knows where!

They left the city altogether, and stopped in a landscape, or rather in front of a cultivated garden that was pale green, the green of spring to come. There was a discreet restaurant tucked away behind some almost leafless trees.

Caroline got out first; with her familiar rapacious steps, she got out first, clambering over his knees. She paid, and he followed her. They went into the restaurant and sat side by side on a bench upholstered in green velvet, as in younger days, before he’d gone to prison. She ordered for them both, as she always did; she looked at him and he was afraid to look at her.

“Where have you been all this time?” she asked.

“All over the place,” he said. “Nowhere really. I’ve only been back at work again for two days. All the time we didn’t see each other I was drinking and sleeping under bridges like a clochard. I expect you’ve had a better life. With men,” he added, after a pause.

“You can talk,” she retorted. “Drunk and out of work and sleeping under bridges you may be, but somehow you still find the time and the opportunity to meet this Thérèse of yours. If I hadn’t happened to come along, I expect you’d have gone off with her.”

He made no reply, and in fact said nothing at all until they had both finished their meat course, and the cheese had arrived, and the fruit. Just as he was emptying his glass of wine, he was again gripped by the sudden feeling of panic that he had so often felt when he was living with Caroline, years ago. Again, he felt like running away from her, and he called out: “Waiter, the bill please!” But she quickly cut in: “No, waiter, that’s my affair!” The waiter, a wise man who had been around, said: “I heard the gentleman call first.” And so it was Andreas who paid. He took all the money from his left inside jacket pocket, and after paying, he saw with horror — somewhat diminished by the wine he had drunk — that he no longer had the full sum he owed the little saint. But then again, he comforted himself, so many miracles are happening to me these days, just one after another, that surely I’ll be able to get the money together and pay her back next week.