Farewell, Isabelle! Salute, Isabelle! Farewell, Life! Salute, Life!
Much later, I notice it is raining. I lift my face to the drops and taste them. Then I walk to the gate. A tall figure, smelling of wine and incense, is waiting there. We walk through the gate together. The watchman closes it behind us. “Well?” Bodendiek asks. “Where have you been? Searching for God!”
“No. I have found Him.”
He squints at me suspiciously from under his broad-brimmed hat. “Where? In nature?”
“I don’t know where. Is He to be found in special places?”
“At the altar,” Bodendiek rumbles and then, pointing to the right, “This is my way. And yours?”
“All of them are right,” I reply.
“Surely you haven’t drunk that much,” he growls behind me, somewhat startled....
As I near home someone jumps on me from behind our door. “Now I’ve got you, you swine!”
I shake him off, thinking it some kind of joke. But he is on his feet again instantly and butts me in the stomach with his head. I fall against the obelisk but manage to plant a kick in his belly: a weak kick because I am falling. The man leaps on me again, and I recognize the horse butcher Watzek. “Have you gone crazy?” I ask. “Can’t you see who I am?”
“I see all right!” Watzek seizes me by the throat. “I see you well enough, you bastard! But this is the end of you.”
I don’t know whether he is drunk, but I have no time to consider the question. Watzek is smaller than I, but he has the muscles of a bull. I succeed in carrying him over backward and pinning him against the obelisk. He lets go halfway. I throw myself and him to one side and knock his head against the foundation. He lets go completely. To make sure, I give him a blow under the chin with my shoulder, get up, go to the gate, and turn on the light. “What’s all this?” I say.
Watzek gets up slowly. He is shaking his head, still somewhat dazed. I watch him. Suddenly he runs at me again with his head aimed at my stomach. I step to one side, put out my leg, and he hits the obelisk again with a dull thud, this time between the socles. Anyone else would have been knocked silly; Watzek hardly reels. He turns around with a knife in his hand. It is his long, sharp, butcher’s knife, as I can see in the electric light. He has drawn it from his boot and now he is running at me. I indulge in no superfluous- heroism; it would be suicide against a man like the horse butcher, who knows how to use a knife. I spring behind the obelisk; Watzek after me. Fortunately I am quicker and lighter on my feet than he. “Are you crazy?” I hiss. “Do you want to be hanged for murder?”
“I’ll teach you to sleep with my wife!” Watzek gasps. “Blood will flow!”
Finally I realize what is happening. “Watzek!” I shout “You’re murdering an innocent man!”
“Shit! I’ll slit your throat!”
We race around the obelisk. It doesn’t occur to me to call for help. Everything is happening too fast; besides, who could really help me? “You’re deceived!” I gasp. “What’s your wife to me?”
“You’re sleeping with her, you devil!”
We continue to run—first to the right, then to the left. Watzek wearing boots, is clumsier than I. Damn it! I think. Where is Georg? I’ll be slaughtered for him while he sits in his room with Lisa. “Ask your wife, you idiot!” I gasp.
“I’ll slaughter you!”
I look about for a weapon. There is nothing. Before I could lift a small headstone, Watzek would have my throat cut. Suddenly I see a piece of marble about the size of my fist shimmering on the window sill. I seize it, dance around the obelisk and hurl it at Watzek’s skull. It hits him on the left side. Right away blood streams over one eye so that he can only see with the other. “Watzek! You’re mistaken!” I say. “I’ve had nothing to do with your wife! I swear it to you!”
Watzek is slower now, but he is still dangerous. “To do that to a friend!” he growls. “What foulness!”
He makes a lunge like a miniature bull. I spring aside, grab the piece of marble again and throw it at him. Unfortunately it misses and lands in the lilac bush. “Your wife doesn’t matter a shit to me!” I hiss. “Understand that, man! Not a shit!”
Watzek goes on chasing me in silence. Now he is bleeding profusely on the left side; I run to the left so that he can’t see me clearly. At a dangerous moment I succeed in catching him with a good kick in the knee. At the same instant he stabs but only slices the sole of my shoe. The kick has its effect. Watzek stops, bleeding, his knife ready. “Listen to me!” I say. “Stay where you are! Let’s have an armistice for a minute! After that you can start again right away, and I’ll knock your other eye out! Pay attention, man! Try, you imbecile!” I stare at Watzek as though trying to hypnotize him. Once I read a book about that. “I—have—not—had—anything—to—do—with—your—wife—” I chant distinctly and slowly. “She doesn’t interest me! Hold on!” I hiss as Watzek makes a new move. “I have a woman of my own—”
“All the worse, you goat!”
Watzek takes up the chase, but collides with the foundation of the obelisk on too close a turn; he stumbles, and I give him another kick, this time in the shin. He is wearing boots, but this kick does the trick. Watzek halts, his legs apart, unfortunately still holding the knife. “Stop this, you ass!” I say in the impressive tones of a hypnotist. “I’m in love with an entirely different woman! Hold on! I’ll, show her to you! I have her photograph here!”
Watzek makes a silent lunge. We make another half-turn around the obelisk. I succeed in getting my wallet out. Gerda at parting has given me a picture of herself. I fumble desperately for it. A few billion marks slide colorfully to the ground; then I find the photo. “Here!” I say, warily pushing it toward him along the obelisk so that he can’t hack at my hand. “Is this your wife? Look at it! Read the inscription!”
Watzek squints at me with his uninjured eye. I place Gerda’s picture on the foundation of the obelisk. “So there you have it! Is that your wife?”
Watzek makes a halfhearted attempt to catch me. “You camel!” I say. “Just look at the photograph! Do you think anyone with something like that would run after your wife?”
I’ve gone almost too far. The insult provokes a lively lunge. Then he stands still. “Somebody is sleeping with her!” he announces uncertainly.
“Nonsense!” I say. “Your wife is true to you!”
“Then why is she here all the time?”
“Where?”
“Here!”
“I have no idea what you mean,” I say. “She may have come here a few times to telephone, that’s possible. Women like to telephone, especially when they’re alone a lot. Get her a telephone!”
“She’s here at night too!” Watzek says.
We are still standing facing each other with the obelisk between us. “She was here for a few minutes the night a while back when they brought Sergeant Major Knopf home seriously ill,” I reply. “Aside from that she has been working at the Red Mill.”
“That’s what she says—but—”
The knife is hanging. I pick up Gerda’s photograph and walk around the obelisk to Watzek. “So,” I say. “Now you can stab me as much as you like. But we can talk to each other too. What do you want to do? Murder an innocent man?”
“Not that,” Watzek says after a pause. “But—”
It transpires that the widow Konersmann has been talking to him. I am mildly flattered that she believes I am the only one in the house who could be the culprit. “Man,” I say to Watzek, “if you knew where my thoughts are, you wouldn’t suspect me. And besides, just compare the figure. Don’t you notice something?”