Klohse compromised just a little. He called a meeting of the faculties of both schools, which decided that "Disciplinary considerations make it imperative…"
And the Board of Education confirmed Klohse's report to the effect that a former student, whose past history, even though he, but particularly in view of the troubled and momentous times, though without wishing to exaggerate the importance of an offense which, it must be admitted, was none too recent, nevertheless and because the case is unique of its kind, the faculty of both schools has agreed that…
And Klohse wrote a purely personal letter. And Mahlke read that Klohse was not free to act as his heart desired. Unfortunately, the times and circumstances were such that an experienced schoolmaster, conscious of his professional responsibilities, could not follow the simple, paternal dictates of his heart; in the interests of the school, he must request manly co-operation in conformity to the old Conradinian spirit; he would gladly attend the lecture which Mahlke, soon, he hoped, and without bitterness, would deliver at the Horst Wessel School; unless he preferred, like a true hero, to choose the better part of speech and remain silent.
But the Great Mahlke had started down a path resembling that tunnel-like, overgrown, thorny, and birdless path in Oliva Castle Park, which had no forks or byways but was nonetheless a labyrinth. In the daytime he slept, played backgammon with his aunt, or sat listless and inactive, apparently waiting for his furlough to be over. But at night he crept with me – I behind him, never ahead of him, seldom by his side – through the Langfuhr night. Our wanderings were not aimless: we concentrated on Baumbachallee, a quiet, genteel, conscientiously blacked-out lane, where nightingales sang and Dr. Klohse lived. I weary behind his uniformed back: "Don't be an ass. You can see it's impossible. And what difference does it make? The few days' furlough you've got left. Good Lord, man, don't be an ass…"
But the Great Mahlke wasn't interested in my tedious appeals to reason. He had a different melody in his protuberant ears. Until two in the morning we besieged Baumbachallee and its two nightingales. Twice he was not alone, and we had to let him pass. But when after four nights of vigilance, at about eleven o'clock, Dr. Klohse turned in from Schwarzer Weg alone, tall and thin in knickers but without hat or coat, for the air was balmy, and came striding up Baumbachallee, the Great Mahlke's left hand shot out and seized Klohse's shirt collar with its civilian tie. He pushed the schoolman against the forged-iron fence, behind which bloomed roses whose fragrance – because it was so dark – was overpowering, louder even than the voices of the nightingales. And taking the advice Klohse had given him in his letter, Mahlke chose the better part of speech, heroic silence; without a word he struck the school principal's smooth-shaven face left right with the back and palm of his hand. Both men stiff and formal. Only the sound of the slaps alive and eloquent; for Klohse too kept his small mouth closed, not wishing to mix peppermint breath with the scent of the roses.
That happened on a Thursday and took less than a minute. We left Klohse standing by the iron fence. That is to say, Mahlke about-faced and strode in his combat boots across the gravel-strewn sidewalk beneath the red maple tree, which was not red at night but formed a black screen between us and the sky. I tried to give Klohse something resembling an apology, for Mahlke – and for myself. The slapped man waved me away; he no longer looked slapped but stood stiff as a ramrod, his dark silhouette, sustained by roses and the voices of rare birds, embodying the school, its founder, the Conradinian spirit, the Conradinum; for that was the name of our school.
After that we raced through lifeless suburban streets, and from that moment on neither of us had a word to spare for Klohse. Mahlke talked and talked, with exaggerated coolness, of problems that seemed to trouble him at that age – and myself, too, to some extent. Such as: Is there a life after death? Or: Do you believe in transmigration? "I've been reading quite a bit of Kierkegaard lately," he informed me. And "you must be sure to read Dostoevski. Later, when you're in Russia. It will help you to understand all sorts of things, the mentality and so on."
Several times we stood on bridges across the Striessbach, a rivulet full of horse leeches. It was pleasant to lean over the railing and wait for rats. Each bridge made the conversation shift from schoolboy banalities – erudition, for instance, about the armor plate, firepower, and speed of the world's battleships – to religion and the so-called last questions. On the little Neuschottland bridge we gazed for a long while at the star-studded June sky and then – each for himself – into the stream. Mahlke in an undertone, while below us the shallow outlet of Aktien Pond, carrying away the yeasty vapors of Aktien Brewery, broke over shoals of tin cans: "Of course I don't believe in God. He's just a swindle to stultify the people. The only thing I believe in is the Virgin Mary. That's why I'm never going to get married."
There was a sentence succinct and insane enough to be spoken on a bridge. It has stayed with me. Whenever a brook or canal is spanned by a small bridge, whenever there is a gurgling down below and water breaking against the rubbish which disorderly people the world over throw from bridges into rivulets and canals, Mahlke stands beside me in combat boots and tanker's monkey jacket, leaning over the rail so that the big thingamajig on his neck hangs down vertical, a solemn clown triumphing over cat and mouse with his irrefutable faith: "Of course not in God. A swindle to stultify the people. There's only Mary. I'll never get married."
And he uttered a good many more words which fell into the Striessbach. Possibly we circled Max-Halbe-Platz ten times, raced twelve times up and down Heeresanger. Stood undecided at the terminus of Line No. 5. Looked on, not without hunger, as the streetcar conductors and marcelled conductorettes, sitting in the blued-out trailer, bit into sandwiches and drank out of thermos bottles.
…and then came a car – or should have – in which the conductorette under the cocked cap was Tulla Pokriefke, who had been drafted as a wartime helper several weeks before. We'd have spoken to her and I would certainly have made a date with her if she had been working on Line No. 5. But as it was, we saw only her little profile behind the dark-blue glass and we were not sure.
I said: "You ought to give it a try with her."
Mahlke, tormented: "I just told you that I'm never going to get married."
I: "It would cheer you up."
He: "And who's going to cheer me up afterward?"
I tried to joke: "The Virgin Mary of course."
He had misgivings: "What if she's offended?"
I offered my help. "If you want me to, I'll be Gusewski's altar boy tomorrow morning."
I was amazed at the alacrity with which he said: "It's a deal!" And he went off toward the trailer which still held out the promise of Tulla Pokriefke's profile in a conductor's cap. Before he got in, I called out: "Say, how much more furlough have you got left?"
And from the door of the trailer the Great Mahlke said: "My train left four and a half hours ago. If nothing has gone wrong, it must be pulling into Modlin."