“It won’t work!” Knopf decides. “The women! The stone is to remain here. Untouched! You’ll be responsible! Insure it! At your own expense!”
By now I have had enough of this military tone. “How about holding a review every morning?” I inquire. “See to it that the polish is first class, that the tombstone is precisely lined up with the ones in front, that the base is properly drawn in like a belly, that the bushes around are standing at attention, and, if you insist, Herr Heinrich Kroll can report every day in uniform. He would certainly enjoy that.”
Knopf looks at me somberly. “The world would be a better place if there were more Prussian discipline in it,” he replies, and belches frighteningly. The smell of Roth schnaps is pervasive. The sergeant major has probably had nothing to eat all day. Knopf belches again, this time more softly and melodiously, stares at us for a while while with the pitiless eye of a full sergeant major in retirement, turns around, almost falls, catches himself, and then wavers purposefully out of the courtyard toward the left—in the direction of the first inn, in his pocket his family’s remaining billions.
Gerda is standing in front of her gas ring, making cabbage roulades. She has a pair or worn-down green bedroom slippers on her feet and a red checked kitchen towel draped over her right shoulder. The room smells of cabbage, fat, powder, and perfume; outside, the red leaves of the wild grapevine swing in front of the window, and autumn stares in with blue eyes.
“It’s nice that you came again,” Gerda says. “I’m moving out of here tomorrow.”
“You are?”
She stands unconcernedly in front of the gas ring, confident of her own body. “Yes,” she says. “Does that interest you?”
She turns around and looks at me. “It does interest me, Gerda,” I reply. “Where are you going?”
“To the Hotel Walhalla.”
“To Eduard?”
“Yes, to Eduard.”
She shakes the pan with the cabbage roulades. “Have you anything against that?” she asks presently.
I look at her. What can I have against it? I think. I wish I did have something against It! For a moment I am tempted to lie, but I know she will see through me. “Aren’t you staying on at the Red Mill?” I ask.
“I finished up there long ago. You didn’t bother to find out, did you? No, I’m not going to continue. People starve in our profession. But I’ll stay in this city.”
“With Eduard,” I say.
“Yes, with Eduard,” she repeats. “He’s turning the bar over to me. I’ll be the barmaid.”
“And you’ll live in the Walhalla?”
“I’ll live in the Walhalla, upstairs under the rafters, and 111 work in the Walhalla. I’m not as young as you think; I have to look for some kind of security before I find myself with no more engagements. Nothing came of the circus either. That was just a last try.”
“You can go on finding engagements for years, Gerda,” I say.
“You don’t know anything about that. I know what I’m doing.”
I glance at the red vine leaves swinging in front of the window. For no reason I feel like a shirker. My relationship with Gerda has been no more than that of a soldier on leave, but for one of every pair it is always something different.
“I wanted to tell you myself,” Gerda says.
“You wanted to tell me it’s all over between us?”
She nods. “I play fair. Eduard is the only one who has offered me something secure—a job—and I know what that’s worth. I’m not going to cheat.” She laughs suddenly. “Farewell to youth. Come, the cabbage roulades are done.”
She puts the plates on the table. I look at her and am suddenly sad. “Well, how is your heavenly love affair getting on?” she says.
“It’s not, Gerda. Not at all.”
She serves the meal. “The next time you have a small affair,” she says, “don’t tell the girl anything about your other loves. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” I reply. “I’m sorry, Gerda.”
“For God’s sake, shut up and eat!”
I look at her. She is eating calmly and matter-of-factly, her face is clear and firm, she has been used from childhood on to living independently, she understands her existence and has adjusted herself to it. She has everything I lack, and I wish I were in love with her and that life were clear and foreseeable and one always knew what one needed to know about it—not very much but that little with certainty.
“You know, I don’t want much,” Gerda says. “I grew up among blows and then was thrown out. Now I have had enough of my profession and I’m going to settle down. Eduard is not the worst.”
“He is vain and stingy,” I declare and am at once angry at myself for having said it.
“That’s better than being slovenly and extravagant, if you’re going to marry someone.”
“You’re going to get married?” I ask in amazement. “Do you really believe that? He’ll exploit you and then marry the daughter of some rich hotel owner.”
“He hasn’t promised me anything. I just have a contract for the bar, for three years. In the course of those years he will discover that he can’t get along without me.”
“You have changed,” I say.
“Oh, you sheep! I have just made up my mind.”
“Soon you will join Eduard in cursing at us about those coupons.”
“Do you still have some?”
“Enough for another month and a half.”
Gerda laughs. “I won’t curse. Besides, you paid for them properly at the time.”
“It was our one successful financial transaction.” I watch Gerda as she clears away the plates. “I’ll turn them all over to Georg,” I say. “I’ll not be coming to the Walhalla any more.”
She turns around. She is smiling, but her eyes are not. “Why not?” she asks.
“I don’t know. It’s the way I feel. But perhaps I shall, after all.”
“Of course you’ll come! Why shouldn’t you?”
“Yes, why not?” I say dispiritedly.
From below come the subdued tones of the player piano. I get up and walk to the window. “How fast this year has gone!” I say.
“Yes,” Gerda replies, leaning against me. “Idiotic!” she murmurs, “when once you find someone you like, it has to be somebody like you, somebody who just doesn’t fit.” She pushes me away. “Now go—go to your divine love—God, what do you know about women?”
“Not a thing.”
She smiles. “Don’t try to either, baby. It’s better this way. Now go! Here, take this with you.”
She gets a medal and gives it to me. What’s that?” I ask.
“A man who carries people through the water. He brings luck.”
“Has he brought you luck?”
“Luck?” Gerda replies. “That can mean many different things. Perhaps. Now go.”
She pushes me out and closes the door behind me. I walk down the stairs. In the courtyard two gypsy women meet me. They are on the program at the inn. The lady wrestlers have long since gone. “Your future, young gentleman?” asks the younger of the gypsies. She smells of garlic and onions.
“No,” I say “Not today.”
At Karl Brill’s the tension is extreme. A pile of money lies on the table; there must be trillions there. The opposing bettor is a man with a head like a seal and very small hands. He has just tested the nail in the wall and is coming back. “Another two hundred billion,” he offers in a clear voice.
“Done,” Karl Brill replies.
The opponents lay down the money. “Anyone else?” Karl asks.
No one speaks. The wagers are too high for all of them. Karl is sweating in clear drops, but he is confident. The odds stand at forty to sixty in his favor. He has allowed the seal to give a last tap with the hammer; in return the odds of fifty-fifty have been changed to forty-sixty. “Will you play the ‘Bird Song at Evening’?” Karl asks me.