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

“Why, Otto, you’ve let the stove go out! After I specially told you to keep an eye on it! Oh, dear, can’t I rely on anybody in this house to help me with a single thing?”

“Sorry, mother,” said Otto. “I forgot.”

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“Of course you forgot! Do you ever remember anything? You forgot!” Frau Nowak screamed at him, her features puckered into a sharp little stabbing point of fury: “I’ve worked myself into my grave for you, and that’s my thanks. When I’m gone I hope your father’ll turn you out into the streets. We’ll see how you like that! You great, lazy, hulking lump! Get out of my sight, do you hear! Get out of my sight!”

“All right. Christoph, you hear what she says?” Otto turned to me, his face convulsed with rage; at that moment the resemblance between them was quite startling; they were like creatures demoniacally possessed. “I’ll make her sorry for it as long as she lives!”

He turned and plunged into the inner bedroom, slamming the rickety door behind him. Frau Nowak turned at once to the stove and began shovelling out the cinders. She was trembling all over and coughing violently. I helped her, putting firewood and pieces of coal into her hands; she took them from me blindly, without a glance or a word. Feeling, as usual, that I was only in the way, I went into the living-room and stood stupidly by the window, wishing that I could simply disappear. I had had enough. On the window-sill lay a stump of pencil. I picked it up and drew a small circle on the wood, thinking: I have left my mark. Then I remembered how I had done exactly the same thing, years ago, before leaving a boarding-house in North Wales. In the inner room all was quiet. I decided to confront Otto’s sulks. I had still got my suitcases to pack.

When I opened the door Otto was sitting on his bed. He was staring as if hypnotized at a gash in his left wrist, from which the blood was trickling down over his open palm and spilling in big drops on the floor. In his right hand, between finger and thumb, he held a safety-razor blade. He didn’t resist when I snatched it from him. The wound itself was nothing much; I bandaged it with his handkerchief. Otto seemed to turn faint for a moment and lolled against my shoulder.

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“How on earth did you manage to do it?”

“I wanted to show her,” said Otto. He was very pale. He had evidently given himself a nasty scare: “You shouldn’t have stopped me, Christoph.”

“You little idiot,” I said angrily, for he had frightened me, too: “One of these days you’ll really hurt yourself—by mistake.”

Otto gave me a long, reproachful look. Slowly his eyes filled with tears.

“What does it matter, Christoph? I’m no good… . What’ll become of me, do you suppose, when I’m older?”

“You’ll get work.”

“Work… .” The very thought made Otto burst into tears. Sobbing violently, he smeared the back of his hand across his nose.

I pulled out the handkerchief from my pocket. “Here. Take this.”

“Thanks, Christoph… .” He wiped his eyes mournfully and blew his nose. Then something about the handkerchief itself caught his attention. He began to examine it, listlessly at first, then” with extreme interest.

“Why, Christoph,” he exclaimed indignantly, “this is one of mine!”

One afternoon, a few days after Christmas, I visited the Wassertorstrasse again. The lamps were alight already, as I turned in under the archway and entered the long, damp street, patched here and there with dirty snow. Weak yellow gleams shone out from the cellar shops. At a hand-cart under a gas-flare, a cripple was selling vegetables and fruit. A crowd of youths, with raw, sullen faces, stood watching two boys fighting at a doorway: a girl’s voice screamed excitedly as one of them tripped and fell. Crossing the muddy courtyard, inhaling the moist, familiar rottenness of the tenement buildings, I thought: Did I really ever live here? Already, with my comfortable bed-sitting room in the West

129

End and my excellent new job, I had become a stranger to the slums.

The lights on the Nowaks’ staircase were out of order: it was pitch-dark. I groped my way upstairs without much difficulty and banged on their door. I made as much noise as I could because, to judge from the shouting and singing and shrieks of laughter within, a party was in progress.

“Who’s there?” bawled Herr Nowak’s voice.

“Christoph.”

“Aha! Christoph! Anglais! Englisch Man! Come in! Come in!”

The door was flung open. Herr Nowak swayed unsteadily on the threshhold, with arms open to embrace me. Behind him stood Grete, shaking like a jelly, with tears of laughter pouring down her cheeks. There was nobody else to be seen.

“Good old Christoph!” cried Herr Nowak, thumping me on the back. “I said to Grete: I know he’ll come. Christoph won’t desert us!” With a large burlesque gesture of welcome he pushed me violently into the living-room. The whole place was fearfully untidy. Clothing of various kinds lay in a confused heap on one of the beds; on the other were scattered cups, saucers, shoes, knives and forks. On the sideboard was a frying-pan full of dried fat. The room was lighted by three candles stuck into empty beer-bottles.

“All light’s been cut off,” explained Herr Nowak, with a negligent sweep of his arm : “The bill isn’t paid… . Must pay it sometime, of course. Never mind—it’s nicer like this, isn’t it? Come on, Grete, let’s light up the Christmas tree.”

The Christmas tree was the smallest I had ever seen. It was so tiny and feeble that it could only carry one candle, at the very top. A single thin strand of tinsel was draped around it. Herr Nowak dropped several lighted matches on the floor before he could get the candle to burn. If I hadn’t stamped them out the table-cloth might easily have caught fire.

“Where are Lothar and Otto?” I asked.

“Don’t know. Somewhere about… . They don’t show themselves much, nowadays—it doesn’t suit them, here… .

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Never mind, we’re quite happy by ourselves, aren’t we, Grete?” Herr Nowak executed a few elephantine dance-steps and began to sing:

“O Tannenbaum! O Tannenbaum! … Come on, Christoph, all together now! Wie treu sind Deine Blätter!”

After this was over I produced my presents: cigars for Herr Nowak, for Grete chocolates and a clockwork mouse. Herr Nowak then brought out a bottle of beer from under the bed. After a long search for his spectacles, which were finally discovered hanging on the water-tap in the kitchen, he read me a letter which Frau Nowak had written from the sanatorium. He repeated every sentence three or four times, got lost in the middle, swore, blew his nose, and picked his ears. I could hardly understand a word. Then he and Grete began playing with the clockwork mouse, letting it run about the table, shrieking and roaring whenever it neared the edge. The mouse was such a success that my departure was managed briefly, without any fuss. “Goodbye, Christoph. Come again soon,” said Herr Nowak and turned back to the table at once. He and Grete were bending over it with the eagerness of gamblers as I made my way out of the attic.

Not long after this I had a call from Otto himself. He had come to ask me if I would go with him the next Sunday to see Frau Nowak. The sanatorium had its monthly visiting-day: there would be a special bus running from Hallesches Tor.

“You needn’t pay for me, you know,” Otto added grandly. He was fairly shining with self-satisfaction.

“That’s very handsome of you, Otto. … A new suit?”

“Do you like it?”

“It must have cost a good bit.”

“Two hundred and fifty marks.”

“My word! Has your ship come home?”

Otto smirked: “I’m seeing a lot of Trade now. Her uncle’s left her some money. Perhaps, in the spring, we’ll get married.”