I glared at her. Now I was breathless too. And Magda glared back at me. She had turned very pale, but I could clearly see she wasn’t afraid of me, despite my threatening behaviour.
Suddenly my mood changed; my excitement died down, and coolly and calmly I said, “I’ll tell you what you are. You’re just a common vulture. I say it to your face!”
She didn’t flinch. She only looked at me.
“You’re a traitor! You betrayed our whole marriage when you set those doctors on to me. I’d like to spit in your face, you—!”
She was still staring at me. Then she said swiftly, “Yes, I did send the doctors after you, but not to betray you, only to save you if that’s still possible. If you had a spark of commonsense left, you would realise that, Erwin. You must see that you can’t live another month like this. Perhaps not another week …”
I interrupted her. I gave a sneering laugh.
“Not another week? I can live for years like this, I can stand anything, and I’ll go on living just to spite you, just to spite you.”
I leaned close to her.
“Shall I tell you what I’m going to do next time I get drunk? I’m going to stand outside your window and shout out to everyone that you are a traitor, a greedy vulture, greedy for my money, and greedy for me to die …”
“Yes,” she said spitefully. “I believe you’re capable of that. But if you did, you wouldn’t land up in a home, you’d land in prison instead. And I’m not sure that it wouldn’t do you good.”
“What?” I shouted at her, and now my rage had reached its climax. “Now you want to have me put in prison? Just you wait! You won’t say that again! I’ll show you.…” I reached for her. I saw red. I tried to seize her by the throat, but she fought back. She really was almost as strong as I, indeed in my present condition she was probably much stronger. We wrestled together. It was a sweet sensation, to feel this once loved, now hostile body pressing so close against me, now her breast, now her straining thigh. The thought shot through my head, “Suppose you were to kiss her suddenly, whisper loving words in her ear? Could you get her round?” I whispered in her ear: “Tomorrow night I’ll come and kill you. I’ll come very quickly.…”
Magda called loudly, “No, no, it’s all right, Else! I can manage him alone. Ring Dr Mansfeld and the police. I’ll keep him here!”
I turned in astonishment. Sure enough, there stood Else, pretty as a picture, attracted by the noise of our struggle. And then she disappeared in the hall, towards the telephone. I tore myself free with a jerk.
“You’re not going to get me, Magda!” I gave her a push and she fell back.
As I ran, I snatched up the scattered silverware, including the broken serving-spoon, and rushed into the hall. I threw everything into the suitcase, and tried hard to shut the lid. Magda was there already.
“You’re not taking those things! My silver is staying here! You’re not going to drink that up as well!”
A yard away, Else was busy telephoning. I heard her say: “He wants to kill his wife!”
“My God, what a child you are,” I thought.
We both tugged at the suitcase. Then suddenly I let go and Magda went sprawling on the floor again. I tore the case out of her hand, lashed out at her once or twice, rushed to the porch, snatched up my shoes and ran into the street in my socks. Suddenly I stopped short.
“Give me the suitcase, sir,” said Lobedanz’s soft insinuating voice. “I’ll go on ahead, look out, here come the women!” Quite mechanically, I handed the case to Lobedanz. He made off. I ran after him, off into the night, in my socks.
18
Lobedanz ran with the suitcase. He took the shortest route, plunged into the oldest part of the town, rushed along lanes and alleys, and suddenly turned a corner. I ran after him. It was very dark. It was only because he was wearing shoes and so made a noise as he ran, that I was able to follow him at all. I am quite sure that Lobedanz had intended to disappear completely with the suitcase, and leave me helpless in the street. He really thought he had shaken me off: he hadn’t heard my soft stockinged footsteps. But when he eventually stopped to draw breath, I was beside him, and asked him why he had been running so senselessly. Nobody was after us!
The scoundrel was not put out for a moment. He managed to conceal his disappointment at my appearance, and said: “You had some trouble with the women, didn’t you? The women were shouting, weren’t they? What did you do to them?”
“Nothing you hadn’t advised me to, Lobedanz,” I laughed. “I tried to frighten them by knocking them about but it didn’t come to much. It’s quite understandable that a woman should resist when her silver’s being taken. I’ve got the silver, Lobedanz.”
“Ah, have you?” the scoundrel answered. “Now we have to see if we get anything for it. Most silver is light and hollow, or the shape is unfashionable, silver that’s only good for melting down is hardly worth anything.”
“You needn’t worry about that, Lobedanz,” I said maliciously, “I’ll sell my silver without you—if I sell it at all, which I haven’t decided yet. Now let me carry my suitcase myself.”
During our conversation I had been putting my shoes on, and now I took the suitcase despite Lobedanz’s protestations. At last I had hit on the right tone for dealing with him. Alcohol, which is constantly stirring up new and different moods, had suggested it to me. Now Lobedanz became a worm again, he protested that he was only a poor worker incapable of dealing with an educated man. Of course my silver was bound to be good, bound to be. I must put it down to his stupidity—that he had thought a man like myself might have inferior silver. I pretended to be sunk in gloomy silence, which made him uneasier than ever, but to myself I was shaking with inner laughter. When we got back home, without having to be asked, Lobedanz brought out the bottle of brandy which, sure enough, he had kept ready. I reached in my pocket and asked: “How much?”
“Two marks fifty,” he whispered, very humbly.
“Here’s your money, and don’t you dare to bring me such rotten liquor again. Have I got to pay anything else?”
He assured me that everything was settled.
“Good, then get out. I want to sleep now.” He wriggled out through the door, I had managed to make him embarrassed and humble.
But I neither felt like sleeping nor drinking. My craving for intoxication had slackened for a while, for some unknown reason I was given a short respite, during which something of my former active self came up to the surface. Perhaps this was a result of the scene I had just had with Magda, which had deeply upset me—of course I tried to think of it as little as possible. For a while I sat brooding on the sofa. It was terribly apparent that, after what had happened, I could never return home again. My old plan of weaning myself from alcohol and facing Magda and the doctors as a healthy man, had finally collapsed—in my sober moments I had never quite believed in it myself. It was also impossible to stay any longer here with Lobedanz; the idea filled me with disgust. It could only end in madness. I had to find some other way, and I believed I had a notion of what this way might be. Within the next twenty-four hours I should have to risk a great deal. I couldn’t set about my task as a drunken man.
It must have been between two and three in the morning when I got up from the sofa and began unpacking the suitcase. I washed myself from head to foot, got half-dressed, and shaved with the utmost care. Everything went infinitely slowly. My hand was shaking so much that from time to time I despaired of ever being able to shave, but at last I managed it. From some unknown source within me, new energy arose, that gave me endurance, that allowed me just to take a few little mouthfuls of drink at long intervals.