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

In the Wassertorstrasse one week was much like another. Our leaky stuffy little attic smelt of cooking and bad drains. When the living-room stove was alight, we could hardly breathe; when it wasn’t we froze. The weather had turned very cold. Frau Nowak tramped the streets, when she wasn’t at work, from the clinic to the board of health offices and back again: for hours she waited on benches in draughty corridors or puzzled over complicated application-forms. The

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doctors couldn’t agree about her case. One was in favour of sending her to a sanatorium at once. Another thought she was too far gone to be worth sending at all—and told her so. Another assured her that there was nothing serious the matter: she merely needed a fortnight in the Alps. Frau Nowak listened to all three of them with the greatest respect and never failed to impress upon me, in describing these interviews, that each was the kindest and cleverest professor to be found in the whole of Europe.

She returned home, coughing and shivering, with sodden shoes, exhausted and semi-hysterical. No sooner was she inside the flat than she began scolding at Grete or at Otto, quite automatically, like a clockwork doll unwinding its spring:

“You mark my words—you’ll end in prison! I wish I’d packed you off to a reformatory when you were fourteen. It might have done you some good… . And to think that, in my whole family, we’ve never had anybody before who wasn’t respectable and decent!”

“You respectable!” Otto sneered: “When you were a girl you went around with every pair of trousers you could find.”

“I forbid you to speak to me like that! Do you hear? I forbid you! Oh, I wish I’d died before I bore you, you wicked, unnatural child!”

Otto skipped around” her, dodging her blows, wild with glee at the row he had started. In his excitement he pulled hideous grimaces.

“He’s mad!” exclaimed Frau Nowak: “Just look at him now, Herr Christoph. I ask you, isn’t he just a raving madman? I must take him to the hospital to be examined.”

This idea appealed to Otto’s romantic imagination. Often, when we were alone together, he would tell me with tears in his eyes:

“I shan’t be here much longer, Christoph. My nerves are breaking down. Very soon they’ll come and take me away. They’ll put me in a strait-waistcoat and feed me through a

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rubber tube. And when you come to visit me, I shan’t know who you are.”

Frau Nowak and Otto were not the only ones with “nerves.” Slowly but surely the Nowaks were breaking down my powers of resistance. Every day I found the smell from the kitchen sink a little nastier: every day Otto’s voice when quarrelling seemed harsher and his mother’s a little shriller. Grete’s whine made me set my teeth. When Otto slammed a door I winced irritably. At nights I couldn’t get to sleep unless I was half drunk. Also, I was secretly worrying about an unpleasant and mysterious rash: it might be due to Frau Nowak’s cooking, or worse.

I now spent most of my evenings at the Alexander Casino. At a table in the corner by the stove I wrote letters, talked to Pieps and Gerhardt or simply amused myself by watching the other guests. The place was usually very quiet. We afl sat round or lounged at the bar, waiting for something to happen. No sooner came the sound of the outer door than a dozen pairs of eyes were turned to see what new visitor would emerge from behind the leather curtain. Generally, it was only a biscuit-seller with his basket, or a Salvation Army girl with her collecting-box and tracts. If the biscuit-seller had been doing good business or was drunk he would throw dice with us for packets of sugar-wafers. As for the Salvation Army girl, she rattled her way drably round the room, got nothing and departed, without making us feel in the least uncomfortable. Indeed, she had become so much a part of the evening’s routine that Gerhardt and Pieps did not even make jokes about her when she was gone. Then an old man would shuffle in, whisper something to the barman and retire with him into the room behind the bar. He was a cocaine-addict. A moment later he reappeared, raised his hat to all of us with a vague courteous gesture, and shuffled out. The old man had a nervous tic and kept shaking his head all the time, as if saying to Life: No. No. No.

Sometimes the police came, looking for wanted criminals or escaped reformatory boys. Their visits were usually ex—

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pected and prepared for. At any rate you could always, as Pieps explained to me, make a last-minute exit through the lavatory window into the courtyard at the back of the house: “But you must be careful, Christoph,” he added: “Take a good big jump. Or you’ll fall down the coal-chute and into the cellar. I did, once. And Hamburg Werner, who was coming after me, laughed so much that the bulls caught him.” On Saturday and Sunday evenings the Alexander Casino was full. Visitors from the West End arrived, like ambassadors from another country. There were a good number of foreigners—Dutchmen mostly, and Englishmen, The Englishmen talked in loud, high, excited voices. They discussed communism and Van Gogh and the best restaurants. Some of them seemed a little scared: perhaps they expected to be knifed in this den of thieves. Pieps and Gerhardt sat at their tables and mimicked their accents, cadging drinks and cigarettes. A stout man in horn spectacles asked: “Were you at that delicious party Bill gave for the negro singers?” And a young man with a monocle murmured: “All the poetry in the world is in that face.” I knew what he was feeling at that moment: I could sympathise with, even envy him. But it was saddening to know that, two weeks hence, he would boast about his exploits here to a select party of clubmen or dons—warmed discreet smilers around a table furnished with historic silver and legendary port. It made me feel older.

At last the doctors made up their minds: Frau Nowak was to be sent to the sanatorium after all: and quite soon—shortly before Christmas. As soon as she heard this she ordered a new dress from the tailor. She was as excited and pleased as if she had been invited to a party: “The matrons are always very particular, you know, Herr Christoph. They see to it that we keep ourselves neat and tidy. If we don’t we get punished—and quite right, too… . I’m sure I shall enjoy being there,” Frau Nowak sighed, “if only I can stop myself

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worrying about the family. What they’ll do when I’m gone, goodness only knows. They’re as helpless as a lot of sheep. …” In the evenings she spent hours stitching warm flannel underclothes, smiling to herself, like a woman who is expecting a child.

On the afternoon of my departure Otto was very depressed.

“Now you’re going, Christoph, I don’t know what’ll happen to me. Perhaps, six months from now, I shan’t be alive at all.”

“You got on all right before I came, didn’t you?”

“Yes … but now mother’s going, too. I don’t suppose father‘11 give me anything to eat.”

“What rubbish!”

“Take me with you, Christoph. Let me be your servant. I could be very useful, you know. I could cook for you and mend your clothes and open the door for your pupils… .” Otto’s eyes brightened as he admired himself in this new role. “I’d wear a little white jacket—or perhaps blue would be better,” with silver buttons… .”

“I’m afraid you’re a luxury I can’t afford.”

“Oh, but, Christoph, I shouldn’t want any wages, of course.” Otto paused, feeling that this offer had been a bit too generous. “That is,” he added cautiously, “only just a mark or two to go dancing, now and then.”

“I’m very sorry.”

We were interrupted by the return of Frau Nowak. She had come home early to cook me a farewell meal. Her stringbag was full of things she had bought; she had tired herself out carrying it. She shut the kitchen-door behind her with a sigh and began to bustle about at once, her nerves on edge, ready for a row.