After a year, he knew Herr Sammet’s secret hiding place for the gold coins. Then he asked for a raise. Frau Frida hoped to learn the secret from him. She increased Bidak’s salary, but she learned nothing.
‘The money lies behind the painting with the black ship,’ said Leo Bidak. But it was not there. ‘He’s hidden it again,’ said Bidak.
At one point Herr Sammet fell ill. He had a notary come and gave Leo Bidak half of the house.
Herr Sammet regained his health. But he was not sorry that he had given Leo Bidak half of his house.
Now Bidak had a half of a house. He was already twenty-three years old. At this age men normally begin to look for a wife. Bidak fell in love with a girl named Ellen who had learned shorthand and was a socialist.
Leo Bidak and Ellen met often, they read books, and Herr Sammet was pleased about these young lovers.
One day Leo told his girlfriend that he had killed a wrestler. He told her only because he loved her ardently and trusted her.
But Fräulein Ellen could not bear the thought that she should kiss a man who was a murderer.
For three weeks Ellen avoided her beloved, and Leo fell into depression.
Then he went to see Ellen and received her forgiveness.
I have always believed that Ellen was not actually upset about the murder. On the contrary, it pleased her to have such a unique man.
One day they got married. And it was the only day on which I saw Frau Frida Sammet smile. She wore a grey silk dress with black veil, and she babbled like a waterfall. The Perlefter family’s gift was a silver centrepiece for fruit.
IX
It was unpleasant for the Perlefter family to have relatives with no virtues; neither fortune, nor talent, nor good manners. I believe that Herr Perlefter suffered much on account of these relatives. For they could not prevent Herr Sammet or his wife from inviting themselves to visit on special occasions. One could not break off relations with this distant part of the family. I have already mentioned a few times that Herr Perlefter did not like severing ties. He had even developed a strong sense of family. If it were up to him he would have been quite happy to chat with Frau Sammet who had known him when he was still an apprentice at a flour concern. Only that no longer depended solely on him. He had many more things to consider than just his family, and one knows how seldom the interests of the world coincide with those of the family.
It was by no means in the interest of the world that Leo Bidak should come together with Perlefter. Nevertheless they came together. Perlefter was not unfriendly. Leo Bidak appeared one afternoon with his young wife. He did not allow her to get a word out. He told stories of Odessa. The young wife was red. He was offered a shot of kümmel, and he drank three. Then he requested some bread and butter, for he ate no sweets. His wife was quite embarrassed.
She had brown skin. When her face was flushed she was pretty. She had narrow shoulders and very wide hips. I already could see that she would bear many children.
And she did have many children. First came twins after only six months. A year later she bore a girl. After four years there were six children, girls and boys, and the whole family lived in the Sammet house.
Old Herr Sammet suffered a stroke. The right half of his body became paralysed. He was in a wheelchair and murmured curses against his wife. The cries of the children stormed through all the rooms, through the corridors and the hall. Leo Bidak’s six children seemed like thirty. They broke the banister. They brought stolen cats into the house that gave birth to many litters. Frau Sammet called the children ‘bastards’. She suspected the paralysed Herr Sammet was the father. For she was the jealous type.
The young Frau Bidak grew enormously. She always had a round belly, even when she was not pregnant. Her clothes didn’t fit her any more, her breasts hung low to the waist, and her brown skin became yellow. She called her husband ‘murderer’ when she was in a bad mood. And she was often in a bad mood.
One day Herr Sammet suffered his second heart attack and could not be revived. He was buried without tears. I was there, and I saw that the Bidak children were happy. For the first time they wore dark coats and drove in a carriage. The mood was festive as the dead Herr Sammet was buried. Leo Bidak invited the gravedigger to the wake. All the survivors went to the nearest pub and ate and drank until darkness fell. It was summer, and the sun set quite late, and Leo Bidak was drunk and boarded with the whole family into a great Landau. Along the way he bought Chinese lanterns from a street vendor, lit them and caused quite a stir in all the streets through which they drove.
Already on the following day there was a dispute. Leo Bidak didn’t want to get up. He was now not only the owner of half the house but also the master of the whole house, and he accepted no more orders from the widow Sammet. He took the dead man’s gold coins from their hiding place, showed his aunt and filled his pockets with gold pieces and jingled them around.
The widow replied to this music with fury and grief. She threw a hot flat-iron at her nephew, didn’t hit him but instead a bundle of curtains, which caught fire.
Consequently, Leo Bidak went to a factory. He was determined to expand the operations into something ‘really big and American’. To this aim, he wanted to purchase large pressing machines. He despised tedious manual labour. He wanted to establish a proper laundry.
He inspected amazing machines. There were some with double tumblers between which the wet laundry was dried, starched and pressed; machines with great wheels that moved independently but which required a great deal of electrical power.
Leo Bidak bought the largest machines of modern design. In the yard of the house he erected a machine room. It took three months to get the machines set up and working. But no good came of it. For the wash came out of the machines half wet, not starched and dully ironed, and the customers were dissatisfied. Leo Bidak’s girls had to iron everything again, and it was actually double the work.
At this point, Bidak took out an advertisement in the newspaper and offered the machines for sale. He got rid of them at a huge loss. A technician who had invented a new laundry machine made contact with Bidak who bought the new machine.
Meanwhile many new washerwomen settled in the area and attracted the customers themselves. The meagre assets of Herr Sammet’s estate had long since been consumed. Bidak began to take out mortgages on his half of the house.
This steep mortgage, in addition to his other smaller debts, would have embittered him about life had he not possessed such a cheerful nature.
Indeed he had a cheerful nature. His body was ever wider, his belly rounder, his face fuller, his eyes and nose almost entirely disappeared between his cheeks, he gobbled up everything in sight, ate and drank and delighted over every new concern. He did not neglect the upbringing of his children. On the contrary, he gave himself to them quite zealously, and if the results corresponded with his efforts this alone was reward enough.
Leo Bidak had not hit anyone in a long time, and anyone who knows something about wrestlers and athletic nature understands that this talent cannot lie dormant for too long. Bidak would have liked to hit his Tante Sammet. But, for one, he perceived that her withered body offered none of that resistance which provides a joyful inspiration to strike enthusiastic blows; and, second, this Tante Sammet was the only person he began to fear more and more the older and fatter he became.