“Say rather a kind of mother. Without the Iron Horse I would probably have become a biologist. But she loved poems; I had to keep bringing her new ones and finally I forgot about biology.”
“That’s right,” says the Madame. “You always had salamanders and fishes with you!”
We go out. On the way I see the Cossack cap lying on the dressing table. “Where are her high boots?” I ask.
“Fritzi has them now. Fritzi is no longer interested in anything else. Wielding the whip is less exhausting. And brings in more. In fact, we’ll soon have to find an understudy. We have quite a little circle of clients for a strenuous masseuse.”
“How did it really happen to the Horse?”
“In line of duty. She always took too much interest in the matter, that was the real reason. We have a one-eyed Dutch businessman, a very fine gentleman; he doesn’t look the part at all but the only thing he wants is beating and he comes every Sunday. Crows, when he’s had enough, like a rooster, very droll. Married, has three sweet children, but can’t, of course, order his wife to beat him—so he’s a permanent client, with foreign exchange in his wallet, pays in gulden—we almost worshiped that man—and his valuta. Well, so that’s how it happened yesterday. Malvina got too excited—and suddenly she fell over, whip in hand.”
“Malvina?”
“That’s her first name. You didn’t know, did you? What a shock for the gentleman to be sure! He won’t come again,” says the Madame woefully. “What a client! Pure sugar! We could always buy meat and baked stuffs for a whole month with his foreign exchange. How does it stand now, by the way?” She turns to me. “Not worth what it used to be, is it?”
“A gulden is worth just about two marks.”
“Is it possible! And a little while ago it was worth trillions! Well, then it’s not so bad even if our client should stay away. Won’t you take some trifle with you as a memento of the Horse?”
For a moment I think of the glass ball with its snowstorm. But one oughtn’t to carry along keepsakes. I shake my head.
“All right,” says the Madame. “Then we’ll have a nice cup of coffee downstairs and pick out the monument.”
I have been figuring on a small headstone, but it turns out that, thanks to the Dutch businessman, the Iron Horse had amassed considerable savings. She put the gulden notes away in a strongbox. Now they represent an impressive sum. The businessman has been her loyal client for years. “Malvina had no family,” the Madame says.
“Then of course,” I reply, “we can turn to the important class of Tombstones. Marble or granite.”
“Marble is not the thing for the House,” Fritzi says. “That’s more for children, isn’t it?”
“Not always, by any means! We have laid generals to rest under marble columns.”
“Granite,” says the Madame. “Granite is better. Suits her iron nature.”
We are sitting in the big room. The coffee is steaming, there are home-baked cakes with whipped cream and there is a bottle of curacao. I feel almost as though I had been spirited back to the old times. The ladies are looking over my shoulder at the catalogue just as they used to look at my schoolbooks.
“Here’s the finest thing we have,” I say. “Black Swedish granite, a memorial cross with a double socle. There aren’t more than two or three like it in the whole city.”
The ladies examine the drawing. It is one of my last. I have put Major Wolkenstein in the inscription—as having fallen in 1915 at the head of his troop—which would certainly have been a blessing for the carpenter in Wüstringen.
“Was the Horse Catholic?” Fritzi asks.
“A cross is not just for Catholics,” I reply.
The Madame scratches her head. “I don’t know whether she would have cared for anything as religious as that. Isn’t there something else? Something more like a natural rock?”
For an instant my breath leaves me. “If you want something of that sort,” I say, “I have just the thing. Something extraordinary! An obelisk!”
It is a shot in the dark, I know. My fingers suddenly trembling with the excitement of the chase, I search for the drawing of the veteran and lay it on the table.
The ladies study it in silence. I hold back. Sometimes there is a kind of beginner’s luck that accomplishes with a child’s touch things that would baffle the expert. Fritzi suddenly laughs. “Really not bad for the Horse,” she says.
The Madame smiles too. “What does the thing cost?”
For as long as I have been in the business, no price has ever been put on the obelisk, since everyone knew it was unsalable. I calculate quickly. “A thousand marks is the official price,” I say. “For you, as friends, six hundred. For the Horse, as my teacher, three hundred. I can take the chance of making this ridiculous price because this is my last day in the office—otherwise I’d be fired. Cash payment of course! And the inscription extra.”
“Well, why not?” Fritzi says.
“It’s all right with me!” the Madame nods.
I can’t trust my ears. “Then it’s a deal?” I ask.
“A deal,” the Madame replies. “How much is three hun-red marks in gulden?”
She begins to count out the notes. A bird shoots out of the cuckoo clock on the wall and chirps the hour. It is six o’clock. I put the money in my pocket. “A schnaps to Malvina’s memory,” says the Madame. “She’ll be buried tomorrow morning. We need the place again for the evening.”
“Too bad I can’t stay for the funeral,” I say.
We all drink cognac with a dash of crème de menthe. The Madame wipes her eyes. “It touches me deeply,” she remarks.
It touches us all. I get up and say good-by. “Georg Kroll will install the monument,” I say.
The ladies nod. I have never met so much loyalty and good faith as here. They wave to me from the windows. The bulldogs bark. I walk quickly along the brook toward the city.
“Impossible!” Georg says. Silently I take the Dutch gulden out of my pocket and spread them on the desk. “What have you sold for all that?” he asks.
“Just a minute.”
I have heard the tinkle of a bicycle bell. Immediately thereafter there is the sound of an authoritative cough at the front door. I pick up the bills and put them back in my pocket. Heinrich Kroll appears in the doorway, the cuffs of his trousers somewhat soiled by the dust of the roads. “Well,” I ask, “sold anything?”
He stares at me venomously. “Go out and try to sell something yourself! There’s a state of general bankruptcy. No one has money! And anyone who has a couple of marks holds onto them!”
“I was out,” I reply, “and I sold something.”
“Did you? What?”
I turn so that I have both brothers in front of me and say: “The obelisk.”
“Nonsense!” Heinrich says curtly. “Go make your jokes in Berlin!”
“I have nothing more to do with the business, of course,” I explain, “inasmuch as my employment terminated at twelve o’clock today. Nevertheless, I wanted to show you how simple it is to sell tombstones. A kind of vacation job really.”
Heinrich swells with rage, but restrains his anger. “Thank God we won’t have to listen to this sort of nonsense much longer! Have a good trip! They’ll teach you to talk respectfully in Berlin.”
“He has actually sold the obelisk, Heinrich,” Georg says.
Heinrich stares at him incredulously. “Prove it!” he barks at length.
“Here!” I say, letting the gulden notes flutter down. “Even in foreign exchange!”