When at last, washed and tidied, I looked at myself in the mirror, I was astonished how well I still looked. True, my eyes were bloodshot, with pinpoint pupils, and my cheeks were rather flabby, but nobody could take me for a drunkard. I could risk it tomorrow morning, and I would risk it. I didn’t bother to go to bed. I wrapped a blanket round me and sat down on the sofa, to wait for morning. I listened. Everything was quiet in the house, but I was firmly convinced that Lobedanz was on the watch. Well, I would wait, and I trusted myself to outwit him.
I had filled a tumbler with brandy, and put the bottle with the rest of it in the furthest corner of my room. I would have to manage till morning with this tumbler of brandy: I had made up my mind. But I only sipped it. I was dead-tired from the unwonted activity of the night. I leaned back, and was soon asleep.
A slight clatter awoke me. I half-opened my eyes and blinked into the room, in which the morning sun had already got the upper hand of the light from the electric bulb. Lobedanz stood bent over my suitcase. He had taken a table-knife out of its baize, examined it critically and weighed it in his hand. For a while through half-closed eyelids I watched this scoundrel rummaging among the silver; then I stretched and yawned loudly like someone who is just waking, and looked round my room. It was empty. I just caught sight of the door-handle lifting into position. A glance into the suitcase convinced me that Lobedanz had contented himself for the time being with merely examining the silver. The actual pilfering was probably being reserved for my more drunken moments. I opened the window and looked out over the town. The sun had not risen far above the horizon, it must have been between six and seven o’clock. I called through the door for Lobedanz. The artful dog let some time pass before he answered. I called down to him that I would like to have my breakfast. He brought it very quickly: his cringing, almost sheeplike expression betrayed a lively alarm at the change in my bearing. I acted as if I had noticed nothing and for the first time I ate with some relish. The coffee was surprisingly good, the rolls crusty, the butter fresh and cool—that scoundrel Lobedanz certainly knew how to live.
While I was eating, Lobedanz tidied up my bed and the wash-stand, and as he did so, he couldn’t resist throwing furtive side glances at me. His cough seemed to get worse. The brandy-bottle which he found in the corner of the room, gave him at last the excuse he had been seeking to start a conversation:
“You’ve hardly drunk anything, sir,” he said, and held the bottle up to the light.
“No, my dear Herr Lobedanz,” I said ironically but genially, as I spread some butter thickly on a roll. “And if you go on bringing me such hooch, I’ll soon give up drinking altogether.”
“It was a mistake, sir,” he growled. “A mistake on the grocer’s part. As true as I stand here, I paid four marks fifty for this bottle, and the grocer gave me the wrong one. But of course I’ve only charged you the proper price, I paid the two marks myself, though I’m a poor man. I’m honest, sir …”
“Don’t talk rubbish, Lobedanz,” I answered roughly. “You’re no more honest than you are poor. You’re an old swindler, or rather a young one, but sly enough for an old one. Perhaps that’s why I like you. Now you can take that bottle,” I suddenly cried in pretended rage, “and drink it yourself. And see there’s a decent one here in five minutes.”
And I threw a note down on the table. He snatched it.
“As soon as the shops open,” he assured me.
“Not when the shops open!” I shouted still louder. “Now, this very minute! You idiot, do you think I’m going to sit awake all day after a night like this? I want to get to sleep some time.”
With a pretence of excitement, I had jumped up, already taken off my jacket and unbuttoned my waistcoat. I had to convince him now, or the whole thing would go wrong. So I snatched up the tumbler of brandy that stood on the table, gulped it down, and cried, “There, fill it up again with that damned hooch of yours. And see there’s some other drink here in five minutes; the grocer is bound to let you in by the back door, a good customer like you!” I had torn off my waistcoat and was already unbuttoning my braces.
“In five minutes!” Lobedanz assured me, and hurried out of the room. It was easy to detect the relief and satisfaction in his words. He had been afraid of losing his milch cow, but now I was boozing again, hallelujah!
Hardly had I heard the front door shut than I was in my clothes again. I shut the suitcase, took it, and ran downstairs. There might be a Frau Lobedanz, and Lobedanz children, of the same gentle, insinuating, whispering, damned-roguish kind as their father, I’d never set eyes on them, and I didn’t see them this morning either. Unimpeded, I came out into the lane. Here, almost free of my tormentor, the alcohol nearly played a trick on me again. Suddenly I remembered that for the first time for weeks I was out without “provisions”, and on such a dangerous and decisive journey, while up in my room stood a newly-filled tumbler of brandy. I nearly went back, and if I had I would almost certainly have fallen again into the long-fingered blackmailing clutches of Lobedanz. But the energy which had newly awakened in the night was victorious; I shook my head and went on my way.
19
Of course I had no idea in which direction Lobedanz had gone, and at first I looked about me rather anxiously. But once I was out of the “shed quarter” and walking through the clean streets of my home town, I felt safer. Without hesitation, I went straight to the station and sat down in the second-class waiting-room. I knew I was risking a great deal; if anything of my story had leaked out, I was lost. But I would have to run many more risks this morning: this sitting in the waiting-room was only a rehearsal for other important undertakings to come. Of course I could have hidden in the park for a few hours with less risk, but in my changed mood, I liked to defy danger now, though I must also confess that I was to some extent incited to it by alcohol. I did not want to be quite without it, so I ordered from the waiter, besides a big breakfast of fried eggs, sausage and cheese, a carafe of cognac as well, with which to lace my coffee while I breakfasted for the second time, in comfort, and not without appetite. During this long spun-out meal I buried myself in the local newspaper, which I had not seen for a long time. I read all the local news, including the personal columns, and became certain that no hint about me had got into the paper. It was quite feasible that Magda in her ‘concern for my well-being’ would have inserted in the paper an announcement to the effect that: E.S., a wholesale merchant, had been missing for such and such a time and was probably wandering about the neighbourhood in a state of mental confusion. Anyone having news of him etc., etc. But nothing of the kind.
During my breakfast I was interrupted for some ten minutes by Stretz the baker, about whom I had just been reading in the newspaper. It appeared that he had been celebrating the twenty-fifth anniversary of his business. We get our bread from him, and now and then he buys his white flour from me. We have known each other for years. He sat down at my table and expressed surprise that we had not seen each other for so long and that I was here at the station eating his competitor’s rolls, instead of breakfasting peacefully at home off his. But all this was innocent, as I quickly noticed. I explained everything by hinting at a journey. I was sure now that no rumour of my changed way of life had penetrated beyond the very narrow circle of those concerned. Later, some distant acquaintances came into the waiting-room and, feeling quite safe, I greeted them with a friendly nod and wave of the hand.
However, as the hands of the clock got closer to nine, the waiter had to bring me a second, and finally a third carafe of cognac—let him think what he liked about me, I was not likely to be his guest again soon.