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

“What makes you say that, Frl. Schroeder?”

“Well, I’ve noticed that Herr Norris is always getting telegrams from Paris. I used to open them, at first, thinking it might be something important which Herr Norris would like to know at once. But I couldn’t make head or tail of them. They were all from a lady named Margot. Very affectionate, some of them were, too. ‘I am sending you a hug,’ and ‘last time you forgot to enclose kisses.’ I must say I should never have the nerve to write such things myself; fancy the clerk at the post office reading them! These French girls must be a shameless lot. From my experience when a woman makes a parade of her feelings like that, she’s not worth much… . And then she wrote such a lot of nonsense, besides.”

“What sort of nonsense?”

“Oh, I forget half of it. Stuff about teapots and kettles and bread and butter and cake.”

“How very queer.”

“You’re right, Herr Bradshaw. It is queer. . , . I’ll tell you what I think.” Frl. Schroeder lowered her voice and glanced towards the door; perhaps she had caught the trick from Arthur. “I believe it’s a kind of secret language. You know? Every word has a double meaning.”

“A code?”

“Yes, that’s it.” Frl. Schroeder nodded mysteriously.

“But why should this girl write telegrams to Herr Norris in code, do you suppose? It seems so pointless.”

Frl. Schroeder smiled at my innocence.

“Ah, Herr Bradshaw, you don’t know everything, although you’re so clever and learned. It takes an old woman like me to understand little mysteries of that sort. It’s perfectly plain: this Margot, as she calls herself ( I don’t suppose it’s her real name), must be going to have a baby.”

96

“And you think that Herr Norris …”

Frl. Schroeder nodded her head vigorously.

“It’s as clear as the nose on your face.”

“Really, I must say, I hardly think …”

“Oh, it’s all very well for you to laugh, Herr Bradshaw, but I’m right, you see if I’m not. After all, Herr Norris is still in the prime of life. I’ve known gentlemen have families who were old enough to be his father. And, besides, what other reason could she have for writing messages like that?”

“I’m sure I don’t know.”

“You see?” cried Frl. Schroeder triumphantly. “You don’t know. Neither do I.”

Every morning Frl. Schroeder would come shuffling through the flat at express speed, like a little steam-engine, screaming:

“Herr Norris! Herr Norris! Your bath is ready! If you don’t come quick the boiler will explode!”

“Oh dear!” exclaimed Arthur, in English. “Just let me clap on my wig.”

He was afraid to go into the bathroom until the water had been turned on and all danger of an explosion was over. Frl. Schroeder would rush in heroically, with face averted and, muffling her hand in a towel, wrench at the hot tap. If the bursting-point was already very near, this would at first emit only clouds of steam, while the water in the boiler boiled with a noise like thunder. Arthur, standing in the doorway, watched Frl. Schroeder’s struggles with a nervous, snarling grimace, ready at any moment to bolt for his life.

After the bath came the barber’s boy, who was sent up daily from the hairdresser’s at the corner to shave Arthur and to comb his wig.

“Even in the wilds of Asia,” Arthur once told me, “I have never shaved myself when it could possibly be avoided. It’s one of those sordid annoying operations which put one in a bad humour for the rest of the day.”

97

When the barber had gone, Arthur would call to me:

“Come in, dear boy, I’m visible now. Come and talk to me while I powder my nose.”

Seated before the dressing-table in a delicate mauve wrap, Arthur would impart to me the various secrets of his toilet. He was astonishingly fastidious. It was a revelation to me to discover, after all this time, the complex preparations which led up to his every appearance in public. I hadn’t dreamed, for example, that he spent ten minutes three times a week in thinning his eyebrows with a pair of pincers. (“Thinning, William; not plucking. That’s a piece of effeminacy which I abhor.” ) A massage-roller occupied another fifteen minutes daily of his valuable time; and then there was a thorough manipulation of his cheeks with face cream ( seven or eight minutes) and a little judicious powdering (three or four). Pedicure, of course, was an extra; but Arthur usually spent a few moments rubbing ointment on his toes to avert blisters and corns. Nor did he ever neglect a gargle and mouth-wash. (“Coming into daily contact, as I do, with members of the proletariat, I have to defend myself against positive onslaughts of microbes.” ) All this is not to mention the days on which he actually made up his face. ( “I felt I needed a dash of colour this morning; the weather’s so depressing.”) Or the great fortnightly ablution of his hands and wrists with depilatory lotion. ( “I prefer not to be reminded of our kinship with the larger apes.”)

After these tedious exertions, it was no wonder that Arthur had a healthy appetite for his breakfast. He had succeeded in coaching Frl. Schroeder as a toast-maker; nor did she once, after the first few days, bring him an unduly hard-boiled egg. He had home-made marmalade, prepared by an English lady who lived in Wilmersdorf and charged nearly double the market price. He used his own special coffee-pot, which he had brought with him from Paris, and drank a special blend of coffee, which had to be sent direct from Hamburg. “Little things in themselves,” as Arthur said, “which I have come, through long and painful experience,

98

to value more than many of the over-advertised and overrated luxuries of life.”

At half-past ten he went out, and I seldom saw him again until the evening. I was busy with my teaching. After lunch, he made a habit of coming home and lying down for an hour on his bed. “Believe me or not, William, I am able to make my mind an absolute blank for whole minutes at a time. It’s a matter of practice, of course. Without my siesta, I should quickly become a nervous wreck.”

Three nights a week, Frl. Anni came; and Arthur indulged in his singular pleasures. The noise was perfectly audible in the living-room, where Frl. Schroeder sat sewing.

“Dear, dear!” she said to me once, “I do hope Herr Norris won’t injure himself. He ought to be more careful at his time of life.”

One afternoon, about a week after my arrival, I happened to be in the flat alone. Even Frl. Schroeder had gone out. The doorbell rang. It was a telegram for Arthur, from Paris.

The temptation was simply not to be resisted; I didn’t even struggle against it. To make things easier for me, the envelope had not been properly stuck down; it came open in my hand.

“Am very thirsty,” I read, “hope another kettle will boil soon kisses are for good boys.—Margot.”

I fetched a bottle of glue from my room and fixed the envelope down carefully. Then I left it on Arthur’s table and went out to the cinema.

At dinner, that evening, Arthur was visibly depressed. Indeed, he seemed to have no appetite, and sat staring in front of him with a bilious frown.

“W’hat’s the matter?” I asked.

“Things in general, dear boy. The state of this wicked world. A touch of Weltschmerz, that’s all.”

“Cheer up. The course of true love never did run smooth, you know.”

But Arthur didn’t react. He didn’t even ask me what I meant. Towards the end of our meal, I had to go to the back

99

of the restaurant to make a telephone call. As I returned I saw that he was absorbed in reading a piece of paper which he stuffed hastily into his pocket as I approached. He wasn’t quite quick enough. I had recognized the telegram.