Gertrude rose to leave.
“Sit down, Gertrude,” said Hans. “If you don’t want to hear what this fellow has to say, maybe you’d like to hear what I have to say. Now, you, Werner, look here. If you haven’t told it to yourself, I’ll tell you. The world you left behind when you went to war has changed, and what concerns us most has changed, too. I don’t know just how clear these things are to you, or just how pleasant you find them. If you like, I’m ready to explain them to you.”
Fernheim raised his eyes and tried to look straight at his brother-in-law, whose face at that moment was not pleasant to look at. He lowered his head and his eyes and sat despondent. Steiner shouted suddenly, “Is there no ashtray here? Excuse me, Gertrude, if I say that here, on this spot, there should always be an ashtray.”
Gertrude rose and got an ashtray.
“Thanks very much, Gertrude. The ash has already dropped onto the rug. What were we talking about? You want an explanation, Werner. In that case, let me begin at the beginning. Once there was a daughter of a well-to-do family who was engaged to a certain man; only the ceremony had not yet taken place. It chanced to happen that a certain fellow started to frequent this man’s company. The man who was engaged to the girl disappeared, and this other fellow who had been trailing along after him came and started courting the girl, until finally he won her and she married him, Why did he win her and why did she marry him? This I leave to riddle solvers. I can’t say why. From the very start the match was no match, but what happened happened. At any rate, there’s no need that it be so forever. Do you understand, my dear fellow, what I’m driving at? You don’t understand? Amazing. I’m speaking quite frankly.”
“Is that the only reason?” said Werner.
“What I’ve said seems trivial?” Hans replied.
“At any rate,” said Werner, “I’d like to know if that’s the only reason.”
“There’s that and there’s another reason…”
“And what’s the other reason?”
Steiner fell silent.
Werner went on, “I beg of you, tell me what that other reason is. You say, ‘There’s that and there’s another reason.’ What is that other reason?”
“What you speak of as another reason,” said Steiner, “is something else again.”
“And if I want to know?”
“If you want to know,” said Steiner, “I’ll tell you.”
“Well?”
“Well, the same man to whom the young woman was engaged was found alive, and we trust that you won’t go about setting up obstacles. You notice, Werner, that I’m not bringing up your absconding with the funds and staining the firm’s reputation.”
Fernheim whispered, “Karl Neiss alive?”
“Alive,” repeated Steiner.
“Have the dead revived already, then? I myself, everybody with me — we all saw him disappear beneath a landslide and I never heard of his having been pulled out of the debris. Hans, my dear fellow, you are joking with me. And even if they did get to him, he couldn’t possibly have come out alive. Tell me, Hans, what led you to say such a thing? Didn’t—”
“Story-telling is not my business,” clipped Steiner, “but I’ll tell you this: Karl is alive and well, alive and well. And, let me add, Inge is counting on you, on your not setting yourself as a barrier between them. And as to your coming back empty-handed, we’ve taken that into consideration; we won’t send you away empty-handed. I haven’t as yet set aside a definite sum for you, but at any rate you can be sure it will be enough to set you on your feet, unless you mean to go idle.”
“Won’t you let me see Inge?” pleaded Fernheim.
“If Inge wants to see you,” said Steiner, “we won’t stand in her way.”
“Where is she?”
“If she hasn’t gone out for a walk, she’s sitting in her room.”
“By herself?” asked Fernheim derisively.
Steiner did not catch Fernheim’s derision and answered calmly, “She may or may not be by herself. Inge is on her own and may do as she pleases. At any rate, she can be asked if she is free to receive visitors. What do you think, Gertrude? Shall we send Zig to her? What was wrong with Zig that he was acting so stubbornly? Doing nothing is good for no one, especially children.”
4
Inge greeted Fernheim politely. If we did not know what we do know, we would think that she was glad to see him. A new light, a deep contentment shone from her eyes. Happiness is a wonderful thing: even when it is not intended for you, you bask in its light. At that moment, all that he had to say fled him. He sat looking at Inge in silence.
“Where were you all these years?” she asked. “That I know perfectly well,” said Werner, “but were you to ask me where I am now, I doubt that I could answer.” Inge smiled as though she had heard a joke.
Werner moved uncomfortably in his chair. He leaned his right hand on the arm of the chair, lifted his left hand to his nose, smelled his fingernails, yellowed from smoking, amazed all the while that after all the years that he had been away from Inge he was once more sitting beside her, even looking at her while she looked at him — but not one of the thoughts that filled his heart reached his lips, even though his heart urged him to say something.
“Tell me,” said Inge, “I’m listening.”
Werner stuck his hand into his pocket and started groping about. But the present he had bought for Inge had been pawned for travel expenses to Lückenbach. He smiled painfully and said, “You want to know what I did all that while?”
She nodded her head. “Why not?”
As soon as he started speaking he saw that she was not listening.
“And how did the Bulgarians treat you?” asked Inge.
“The Bulgarians? The Bulgarians were our allies.”
“But weren’t you a prisoner of war? I thought I heard that you had been captured.”
“I was a prisoner of war of the Serbs,” Fernheim answered. “You fail to distinguish between friend and foe. I heard he came back.”
Her face reddened and she did not reply.
“You suspect me of having purposely deceived you when I came and told you that I saw Karl Neiss buried in a landslide. I was ready to tell a hundred lies in order to win you. But that was true.”
“True and not true.”
“True and not true? What’s not true about it?”
“It’s true that a landslide fell on top of him, but it didn’t bury him.”
“Then where was he all those years?”
“That’s a long story.”
“You’re afraid to tell me,” said Werner, “for fear I’ll stay here with you that much longer.”
“I wasn’t thinking of that.”
“But rather—”
“Rather — I don’t know how to tell stories.”
“At any rate,” said Werner, “I’d like to know what happened and what didn’t happen. With my own eyes I saw a landslide bury him, and you say there was a landslide, but not on him. Forgive me if I repeat myself, but where was he, then, all those years? He wrote no letters, he wasn’t inscribed among the living. Suddenly he comes and says, ‘Lo and behold, here I am, and now, now all we need to do is pluck Werner Fernheim out of the world and take his wife.’ Right, Inge?”
“Please don’t, Werner.”
“Or it would be better were this same Werner, this same Werner Fernheim, Inge’s husband, to pluck himself out of the world, so that Mr. Karl Neis might take to wife Mrs. Inge Fernheim, excuse me, Miss Ingeborg of the house of Starkmat. This is the woman Werner took in holy matrimony, who even bore him a child, and though God did take him, his father is still alive, and means to go on living; yes, to go on living after all the years he was half dead. But this same Werner Femheim, this unlucky fellow, doesn’t want to pluck himself out of the world. To the contrary, he seeks new life. Yesterday I was at our son’s grave. Do you think that with him we buried everything that was between us? Don’t cry, it’s not tears I’m after.”