“Certainly not,” I reply and see Otto Bambuss stalking me.
An hour later I have in my pocket a copy of Bambuss’s “Voices of Silence” with a flattering dedication, and, in addition, a carbon copy of the sonnet sequence “The Tigress,” which I am to get published in Berlin; from Sommerfeld a copy of the “Book of the Dead” in free verse, from other members a dozen additional works—and from Eduard a carbon of his “Paean on the Death of a Friend” in 186 lines, dedicated to “Valentin, Comrade, Fellow Warrior, and Man.” Eduard works easily and quickly.
Suddenly it all seems remote. As remote as the inflation, which died two weeks ago—or my childhood which was smothered overnight in a uniform. As remote as Isabelle.
I look at the faces around me. Are they still the faces of awestruck children, confronted by chaos and miracle, or are they already the faces of conscientious club members? Is there still something in them of Isabelle’s rapt and terrified countenance, or are they more imitators, noisily exploiting that tenth of a talent which every youth possesses, whose disappearance they boast of and enviously celebrate instead of cherishing it in silence and trying to preserve some bit of it for the future?
“Comrades,” I say. “I hereby resign from your club.”
All faces turn toward me. “Impossible! You’ll be a corresponding member in Berlin,” Hungermann declares.
“I’m resigning,” I say.
For an instant the poets are silent. They look at me. Am I mistaken or do I see something like the fear of discovery in the faces of some? “Do you really mean it?” Hungermann asks.
“I really mean it.”
“All right. We accept your resignation and we hereby make you an honorary member.”
Hungermann glances around. There is resounding applause. The faces relax. “Unanimously passed!” says the poet of Casanova.
“I thank you,” I reply. “This is a proud moment. But I cannot accept. It would be like being turned into a statue. Or a gravestone. I do not want to go into the world as the honorary member of anything—not even of our establishment in Bahnstrasse.”
“That’s not a nice comparison,” says Sommerfeld, the poet of Death.
“Give him leave,” Hungermann decrees. “Well then, how do you want to go into the world?”
I laugh. “As a spark of life struggling to avoid extinction.”
“Dear God,” Bambuss says, “isn’t there something like that in Euripides?”
“Possibly, Otto. Then there must be something to it. Besides, I don’t intend to write about it; I’m going to try to be it.”
“It isn’t in Euripides,” Hungermann, the academician, announces with a triumphant glance at Bambuss, the village schoolmaster. “So you intend—” he says to me.
“Last night I made a fire,” I say. “It burned well. You know the old marching order: travel light.”
They nod eagerly. They have long since forgotten it, I suddenly realize. “All right then,” I say. “Eduard, I still have twelve luncheon coupons. The inflation has overtaken them, but I believe I would still have the legal right, even if I had to go to court about it, to demand food from you. Will you trade two bottles of Reinhartshausener for them? We want to drink them now.”
Eduard made a lightning calculation, counting in Valentin as well as the poem about Valentin in my pocket. “Three,” he says.
Willy is sitting in a small room. He has exchanged his elegant apartment for this. It is a terrific fall in the world, but Willy is bearing it well. He has saved his suits, and some of his jewelry; with these he will be able to play the elegant cavalier for some time to come. The red car had to be sold. He had speculated too recklessly on continued depreciation. The walls of his room are papered with notes and worthless bonds of the inflation. “It was cheaper than wallpaper,” he explains. “And more entertaining.”
“And now?”
“I’ll probably get a small job in the Werdenbrück bank.” Willy grins. “Renée is in Magdeburg. She writes that she’s having a big success in ‘The Green Cockatoo.’”
“It’s nice that she goes on writing at least.”
Willy makes an expansive gesture. “None of it matters, Ludwig. Out of sight, out of mind! Besides, for the last month I haven’t been able to persuade Renée to play the general at night. So it was only half the fun. The only time lately that she shouted a command was during that memorable battle at the pissoir in New Market. Farewell, youth! As a going-away present—” he opens a bag full of bonds and paper money. “Take anything you like! Millions, billions—it was a dream, wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” I say.
Willie accompanies me to the street. “I’ve saved a few hundred real marks,” he whispers. “The fatherland is not yet lost! Now it’s the turn of the French franc. I’m going to speculate on its falling. Would you like to take a small flier with me?”
“No, Willy. From now on I’m only speculating on rises.”
“Rises,” he says as though he were saying Popocatepetl.
I am sitting alone in the office. It is my last day. I am leaving tonight. As I leaf through a catalog, wondering whether to include Watzek’s name on one of the tombstones I have drawn, the telephone rings.
“Are you the one called Ludwig?” a husky voice inquires. “The one who used to collect frogs and slowworms?”
“Could be,” I reply. “It depends on the reason. Who’s speaking?”
“Fritzi.”
“Fritzi! of course it’s me! What has happened? Has Otto Bambuss—”
“The Iron Horse is dead.”
“What?”
“Yes. Last evening. Heart attack. While at work.”
“A beautiful death,” I say. “But too young!”
Fritzi coughs. Then she says: “You’re in some sort of monument business, aren’t you? You told me about it once!”
“We have the best monument business in the city,” I reply. “Why?”
“Why? My God, Ludwig, I’ll give you three guesses! The Madame naturally wants to give the order to a client. And, besides, it was on the Iron Horse that you—”
“Not I,” I interrupt. “But possibly my friend Georg—”
“No matter, a client is to have the order. Come on out here! But come soon! A salesman for your competitors has been here already—he kept weeping and saying it was on the Horse that he—”
Weeping Oskar! Not a doubt of it! “I’m coming at once!” I say. “That blubberer was lying!”
The Madame receives me. “Do you want to see her?” she asks.
“Is she laid out here?”
“Upstairs, in her room.”
We go up the creaking stairs. The doors are open. I see the girls getting dressed. “Are you going to be open tonight?” I ask.
The Madame shakes her head. “Not tonight. The ladies are just getting dressed anyway. Habit, you know. Being closed is no great loss. Now that the mark is the mark again, our business has gone to pot. All the sinners are broke. Funny, isn’t it?”
It is not funny; it is true. The inflation has turned straight into deflation. Where billions are once thrown about, calculations are again being made in pfennigs. There is a general shortage of money. The horrible carnival is over. A spartan Ash Wednesday has come.
The Iron Horse lies on her bier among green potted plants and lilies. Her face is now severe and old; I recognize her only by one gold tooth just visible at one corner of her lips. The mirror, in front of which she has so often made up, is hung with white tulle. The room smells of stale perfume, evergreens, and death. On the bureau stand a few photographs and a crystal ball, with one flat side where a picture is glued. If you shake the ball the people in the picture look as if they were in a snowstorm. I know it well; it is one of the finest memories of my childhood. I longed to steal it in the days when I used to do my schoolwork in Bahnstrasse. “She was a kind of stepmother to you, wasn’t she?” The Madame asks.