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

Another pause—eight months, this time. And here I was, ringing the bell of Bernhard’s flat. Yes, he was in.

“This is a great honour, Christopher. And, unfortunately, a very rare one.”

“Yes, I’m sorry. I’ve so often meant to come and see you. … I don’t know why I haven’t… .”

“You’ve been in Berlin all this time? You know, I rang up twice at Frl. Schroeder’s, and a strange voice answered and said that you’d gone away, to England.”

“I told Frl. Schroeder that. I didn’t want her to know that I was still here.”

“Oh, indeed? You had a quarrel?”

“On the contrary. I told her that I was going to England, because, otherwise, she’d have insisted on supporting me. I

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got a bit hard up… . Everything’s perfectly all right again, now,” I added hastily, seeing a look of concern on Bernhard’s face.

“Quite certain? I am very glad… . But what have you been doing with yourself, all this time?”

“Living with a family of five in a two-room attic in Hallesches Tor.”

Bernhard smiled: “By Jove, Christopher—what a romantic life you lead!”

“I’m glad you call that kind of thing romantic. I don’t!”

We both laughed.

“At any rate,” Bernhard said, “it seems to have agreed with you. You’re looking the picture of health.”

I couldn’t return the compliment. I thought I had never seen Bernhard looking so ill. His face was pale and drawn; the weariness did not lift from it even when he smiled. There were deep sallow half-moons under his eyes. His hair seemed thinner. He might have added ten years to his age.

“And how have you been getting on?” I asked.

“My existence, in comparison with yours, is sadly humdrum, I fear… . Nevertheless, there are certain tragicomic diversions.”

“What sort of diversions?”

“This, for example–—” Bernhard went over to his writing-desk, picked up a sheet of paper and handed it to me: “It arrived by post this morning.”

I read the typed words:

Bernhard Landauer, beware. We are going to settle the score with you and your uncle and all other filthy Jews. We give you twenty-four hours to leave Germany. If not, you are dead men.

Bernhard laughed: “Bloodthirsty, isn’t it?” “It’s incredible… . Who do you suppose sent it?” “An employee who has been dismissed, perhaps. Or a practical joker. Or a madman. Or a hot-headed Nazi schoolboy.”

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“What shall you do?”

“Nothing.”

“Surely you’ll tell the police?”

“My dear Christopher, the police would very soon get tired of hearing such nonsense. We receive three or four such letters every week.”

“All the same, this one may quite well be in earnest… . The Nazis may write like schoolboys, but they’re capable of anything. That’s just why they’re so dangerous. People laugh at them, right up to the last moment… .”

Bernhard smiled his tired smile: “I appreciate very much this anxiety of yours on my behalf. Nevertheless, I am quite unworthy of it. … My existence is not of such vital importance to myself or to others that the forces of the Law should be called upon to protect me. … As for my uncle he is at present in Warsaw… .”

I saw that he wished to change the subject:

“Have you any news of Natalia and Frau Landauer?”

“Oh yes, indeed! Natalia is married. Didn’t you know? To a young French doctor. … I hear that they are very

happy.”

“I’m so glad!”

“Yes… . It’s pleasant to think of one’s friends being happy, isn’t it?” Bernhard crossed to the waste-paper basket and dropped the letter into it: “Especially in another country… .” He smiled, gently and sadly.

“And what do you think will happen in Germany, now?” I asked. “Is there going to be a Nazi putsch or a communist revolution?”

Bernhard laughed: “You have lost none of your enthusiasm, I see! I only wish that this question seemed as momentous to me as it does to you… .”

“It’ll seem momentous enough, one of these fine mornings” —the retort rose to my lips: I am glad now that I didn’t utter it. Instead, I asked: “Why do you wish that?”

“Because it would be a sign of something healthier in my own character. … It is right, nowadays, that one should

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be interested in such things; I recognize that. It is sane. It is healthy… . And because all this seems to me a little unreal, a little—please don’t be offended, Christopher—trivial, I know that I am getting out of touch with existence. That is bad, of course… . One must preserve a sense of proportion… . Do you know, there are times when I sit here alone in the evenings, amongst these books and stone figures, and there comes to me such a strange sensation of unreality, as if this were my whole life? Yes, actually, sometimes, I have felt a doubt as to whether our firm—that great building packed from floor to roof with all our accumulation of property—really exists at all, except in my imagination… . And then I have had an unpleasant feeling, such as one has in a dream, that I myself do not exist. It is very morbid, very unbalanced, no doubt. … I will make a confession to you, Christopher… . One evening, I was so much troubled by this hallucination of the non-existence of Landauers’ that I picked up my telephone and had a long conversation with one of the night-watchmen, making some stupid excuse for having troubled him. Just to reassure myself, you understand? Don’t you think I must be becoming insane?”

“I don’t think anything of the kind. … It could have happened to anyone who has overworked.”

“You recommend a holiday? A month in Italy, just as the spring is beginning? Yes. … I remember the days when a month of Italian sunshine would have solved all my troubles. But now, alas, that drug has lost its power. Here is a paradox for you! Landauers’ is no longer real to me, yet I am more than ever its slave! You see the penalty of a life of sordid materialism. Take my nose away from the grindstone, and I become positively unhappy… . Ah, Christopher, be warned by my fate!”

He smiled, spoke lightly, half banteringly. I didn’t like to pursue the subject further.

“You know,” I said, “I really am going to England, now. I’m leaving in three or four days.”

“I am sorry to hear it. How long do you expect to stay there?”

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“Probably the whole summer.”

“You are tired of Berlin, at last?”

“Oh no. … I feel more as if Berlin had got tired of me.”

“Then you will come back?”

“Yes, I expect so.”

“I believe that you will always come back to Berlin, Christopher. You seem to belong here.”

“Perhaps I do, in a way.”

“It is strange how people seem to belong to places— especially to places where they were not born… . When I first went to China, it seemed to me that I was at home there, for the first time in my life… . Perhaps, when I die, my spirit will be wafted to Peking.”

“It’d be better if you let a train waft your body there, as soon as possible!”

Bernhard laughed: “Very well. … I will follow your advice! But on two conditions—first, that you come with me; second, that we leave Berlin this evening.”

“You mean it?”

“Certainly I do.”

“What a pity! I should like to have come… . Unfortunately, I’ve only a hundred and fifty marks in the world.”

“Naturally, you would be my guest.”

“Oh, Bernhard, how marvellous! We’d stop a few days in Warsaw, to get the visas. Then on to Moscow, and take the trans-Siberian… .”

“So you’ll come?”

“Of course!”

“This evening?”

I pretended to consider: “I’m afraid I can’t, this evening… . I’d have to get my washing back from the laundry, first… . What about tomorrow?”