Unknown - Isherwood, Christopher (The Berlin Stories - The Last of Mr Norris - Goodbye to Berlin) (TXT)

“It doesn’t matter if there isn’t. I’ve brought you a little present.”

I produced a bottle of cognac which I had been holding behind my back.

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“My dear boy, you overwhelm me. You shouldn’t, you know. You really shouldn’t. Are you sure you can afford it?”

“Oh yes, easily. I’m saving quite a lot of money nowadays.”

“I always,” Arthur shook his head sadly, “look upon the capacity to save money as little short of miraculous.”

Our footsteps echoed loudly through the flat as we crossed the bare boards where the carpet had been.

“All was prepared for the festivities, when the spectre appeared to forbid the feast,” Arthur chuckled nervously and rubbed his hands together.

“Ah, but the Apparition, the dumb sign, The beckoning finger bidding me forgo The fellowship, the converse and the wine, The songs, the festal glow!

“Rather apt here, I think. I hope you know your William Watson? I have always regarded him as the greatest of the moderns.”

The dining-room was draped with paper festoons in preparation for the party; Chinese lanterns were suspended above the table. On seeing them, Arthur shook his head.

“Shall we have these things taken down, William? Will they depress you too much, do you think?”

“I don’t see why they should,” I said. “On the contrary, they ought to cheer us up. After all, whatever has happened, it’s still your birthday.”

“Well, well. You may be right. You’re always so philosophical. The blows of fate are indeed cruel.”

Hermann gloomily brought in the eggs. He reported, with rather bitter satisfaction, that there was no butter.

“No butter,” Arthur repeated. “No butter. My humiliation as a host is complete… . Who would think, to see me now, that I have entertained more than one member of a royal family under my own roof? This evening, I had intended to set a sumptuous repast before you. I won’t make your mouth water by reciting the menu.”

“I think the eggs are very nice. I’m only sorry that you had to send your guests away.”

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“So am I, William. So am I. Unfortunately, it was impossible to ask them to stay. I shouldn’t have dared face Anni’s displeasure. She was naturally expecting to find a groaning board… . And, in any case, Hermann told me there weren’t enough eggs in the house.”

“Arthur, do tell me now what has happened.”

He smiled at my impatience, enjoying a mystery, as always. Thoughtfully, he squeezed his collapsed chin between finger and thumb.

“Well, William, the somewhat sordid story which I am about to relate to you centres on the sitting-room carpet.”

“Which you had taken up for the dancing?”

Arthur shook his head.

“It was not, I regret to say, taken up for the dancing. That was merely a façon de parler. I didn’t wish to distress one of your sympathetic nature unnecessarily.”

“You mean, you’ve sold it?”

“Not sold, William. You should know me better. I never sell if I can pawn.”

“I’m sorry. It was a nice carpet.”

“It was, indeed… . And worth very much more than the two hundred marks I got for it. But one mustn’t expect too much these days. … At all events, it would have covered the expenses of the little celebration I had planned. Unfortunately,” here Arthur glanced towards the door, “the eagle, or, shall I say, the vulture eye of Schmidt lighted upon the vacant space left by the carpet, and his uncanny acumen rejected almost immediately the very plausible explanation which I gave for its disappearance. He was very cruel to me. Very firm… . To cut a long story short, I was left, at the end of our most unpleasant interview, with the sum of four marks, seventy-five pfennigs. The last twenty-five pfennigs were an unfortunate afterthought. He wanted them for his bus-fare home.”

“He actually took away your money?”

“Yes, it was my money, wasn’t it?” said Arthur, eagerly, seizing this little crumb of encouragement. “That’s just what

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I told him. But he only shouted at me in the most dreadful

way.

“T

I never heard anything like it. I wonder you don’t sack him.”

“Well, William, I’ll tell you. The reason is very simple. I owe him nine months’ wages.”

“Yes, I supposed there was something like that. All the same, it’s no reason why you should allow yourself to be shouted at. I wouldn’t have put up with it.”

“Ah, my dear boy, you’re always so firm. I only wish I’d had you there to protect me. I feel sure you would have been able to deal with him. Although I must say,” Arthur added doubtfully, “Schmidt can be terribly firm when he likes.”

“But, Arthur, do you seriously mean to tell me that you intended spending two hundred marks on a dinner for seven people? I never heard anything so fantastic.”

“There were to have been little presents,” said Arthur meekly. “Something for each of you.”

“It would have been lovely, of course… . But such extravagance… . You’re so hard up that you can only eat eggs, and yet, when you do get some cash, you propose to blow it immediately.”

“Don’t you start lecturing me, too, William, or I shall cry. I can’t help my little weaknesses. Life would be drab indeed if we didn’t sometimes allow ourselves a treat.”

“All right,” I said, laughing. “I won’t lecture you. In your place, I’d probably have done just the same.”

After supper, when we had returned with the cognac into the denuded sitting-room, I asked Arthur if he had seen Bayer lately. The change which came over his face at the mention of the name surprised me. His soft mouth pursed peevishly. Avoiding my glance, he frowned and abruptly shook his head.

“I don’t go there more than I can help.”

“Why?”

I had seldom seen him like this. He seemed, indeed, an—

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noyed with me for having asked the question. For a moment he was silent. Then he broke out, with childish petulance:

“I don’t go there because I don’t like to go. Because it upsets me to go. The disorder in that office is terrible. It depresses me. It offends a person of my sensibilities to see such entire lack of method… . Do you know, the other day Bayer lost a most important document, and where do you think it was found? In the waste-paper basket. Actually … to think that these people’s wages are paid out of the hard-earned savings of the workers. It makes one’s blood boil… . And, of course, the whole place is infested with spies. Bayer even knows their names… . And what does he do about it? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. He doesn’t seem to care. That’s what so infuriates me; that happy-go-lucky way of doing things. Why, in Russia, they’d simply be put against the wall and shot.”

I grinned. Arthur as the militant revolutionary was a little too good to be true.

“You used to admire him so much.”

“Oh, he’s an able enough man in his way. No doubt about that.” Arthur furtively rubbed his chin. His teeth were bared in a snarl of an old lion. “I’ve been very much disappointed in Bayer,” he added.

“Indeed?”

“Yes.” Some last vestiges of caution visibly held him back. But no. The temptation was too exquisite: “William, if I tell you something, you must promise on all you hold sacred that it will go no farther.”

“I promise.”

“Very well. When I threw in my lot with the Party, or, rather, promised it my help (and though I say it who shouldn’t, I am in a position to help them in many quarters to which they have not hitherto had access)—”

“I’m sure you are.”

“I stipulated, very naturally I think, for a (how shall I put it? )—let us say—a quid pro quo.” Arthur paused and glanced