“Don’t let’s talk about that, sir,” said Lobedanz eagerly. “Don’t let’s talk about trifles like that. I know you’re an honourable man, you’re really a fine man. You wouldn’t have the heart to let a poor man die in misery.…”
“What do you mean, Lobedanz?” I asked warily. “I think you’ve already had enough, and more than enough, out of me. When I think of that jewellery of mine.…”
He paid no attention.
“Look, sir,” he began in his most insinuating tone, and he made his joints crack sickeningly, “a man like myself is like a brute beast, born in filth and never getting out of the filth. A fine gentleman like yourself can’t imagine it properly …”
“I can imagine a whole lot of things about you, Lobedanz,” I said grimly, “and they certainly have to do with filth.”
Again he took no notice of me. Impressively and with conviction, he said: “And when such a brute beast, sir, sees a bit of business that might lift him out of the filth for his whole life, well, sir, there can’t be any hesitation, the business has to be gone through with, sir!”
He looked at me and repeated, this time with nothing soft and insinuating in his voice: “The business has to be gone through with, sir. It’s a matter of life and death.”
Inwardly, I trembled at the wild threat in his voice, but outwardly I was quite calm as I asked: “And what sort of business are you talking about, Lobedanz?”
He passed his hand over his eyes as if wiping away some evil picture, and began to smile, insinuatingly, softly. He had himself under control again.
“What sort of business, sir?”
He smiled more broadly, his finger joints cracked.
“The gentleman knows best how much money he drew out of the bank, and how much he wants to give me.”
I was dumbfounded by his impudence. I had expected that he would claim the silver, and was already half prepared to let him have it, but that he should ask for a share of my precious money, that was something I hadn’t anticipated.
“You’re a fool, Lobedanz,” I laughed. “Moreover, you didn’t pay proper attention. I didn’t get a pfennig from the bank. My wife had blocked my account. I’m not allowed to draw any more money out, do you understand?”
He listened to me in gloomy silence. I reached into the side-pocket of my jacket and took out what was left of the money I had taken from Magda’s cashbox.
“Here, see for yourself. That’s all the money I possess.”
I held the money out to him. His dark suspicious glance wandered from my face to the money in my hand.
“How much is there?” he asked in a faltering voice. “Show me.”
He stood quite near to me, his eyes close to the money. Then surprising me with a sudden lunge he reached into my breast pocket and tore out the bundles of money. One or two fell on to the dirty wet asphalt floor of the lavatory—we both bent down after them simultaneously. His hands were quicker, but realising the futility of trying to pick up the money. I seized him by the throat, I hung tightly on to him, determined never to let him go until he had given in, until I had my money back.… He tried to defend himself, but his defence was hindered by his greed. With both hands he was holding on to the money that he could not bear to relinquish.
He jerked his knee up against my stomach. A moment later, we were both rolling on the floor, I still hanging on to his throat, his limbs wildly threshing, like a fish the angler pulls in to land … then his limbs went slack, from his throat came a horrible rattle … I let go of him and tried to open his hand … I would like to know what our honest postmaster Winder can have thought when he found two men struggling wildly on the lavatory floor, when all he wanted was to settle peacefully his morning business! “Gentlemen! Please!” he cried in a high startled voice. “Here, in the toilet! Gentlemen!”
Lobedanz, who had got his breath back, saw his chance—with one bound he was up, grabbed the suitcase, pushed the postmaster aside, and was out of the lavatory, before you could count three. I stood giddy and benumbed, unable to make any quick decision. I went towards one of the basins, turning my back on the bewildered and indignant postmaster. He said “Herr Sommer, if I’m not mistaken. I’m surprised, Herr Sommer. I’m really surprised at you!” For a moment I felt his stabbing glance at my back, then a closet-door closed, a lock clicked, clothes rustled—I was alone and able to make my exit. And just at that moment when I was about to leave the convenience, absolutely desperate, without money, my glance fell on a blue package, and, look, there crumpled and soiled, lay a bundle of hundred-mark notes—a round thousand in ten hundred-mark notes!
21
Nobody who has just lost a beautiful cowhide suitcase with his best things and all his silver, nobody who has just lost four out of five thousand marks, can have the slightest idea how happy I was, as I left my native town a quarter of an hour later in a second-class compartment. Heaven knows how it was, but I really felt I had got rid of Lobedanz remarkably cheaply and I thanked God that I had at any rate salvaged a thousand marks from the disaster.
Of course I must confess, this feeling of happiness was considerably helped by the fact that despite the struggle, I had found the brandy-bottle intact and unspilt in my trousers pocket. I had already taken a long drink from it, and this drink no doubt contributed substantially to my optimistic assessment of the situation. Comfortably I gazed at the green fields gliding by, with grazing cows and peaceful woods, and I had not the slightest care for the future. For the time being, I had enough to live on (and to drink), and what came after would somehow settle itself. I would manage somehow; I felt I had emerged from the day’s adventures with complete success, for I marked up the visit to the waiting-room and the bank as victories to my own credit, and I took the defeat at Lobedanz’s hands with a calm shrug of my shoulders, as an inevitable accident of nature.
About midday, I reached my destination (which I had only chosen to mislead anyone who might be following me). It was a small health-resort, little known but well kept. I ate in an hotel by the water (green eels with dill sauce and cucumber salad) and let the sun shine on my head as I drank a fine fully-matured burgundy, and reflected what a comfortable life I could lead now, as a retired businessman and semi-bachelor. After the meal I sauntered through the town, bought a brief-case, two pairs of silk pyjamas (I had never before possessed any so gaudy) some fine toilet things, scented soap, and some rather sharp French perfume with which I had already been sprayed on approval—and I joked in such a superior, charming, mondaine way with the young salesgirls that I, at least, came to have a lively respect for my own hitherto-unused talents as a gallant and a ladykiller.
As a logical consequence I immediately bought some scented cachous at a chemist. Then I went to the best hotel in the square, to which was attached a wine-shop, to buy some schnaps. I had the good fortune to meet the owner himself, a stout white-haired man whose blossoming red face told of many bottles of burgundy emptied in peace and comfort. He smiled a little at my primitive request for corn-liquor, recommended and sold me an amber-yellow Saxon schnaps, and then drew my attention to a highly alcoholic plum-brandy from the Black Forest, a real wood-cutters’ tipple for icy winter days, he called it. He poured me out a little glass to try, and I must confess I was so enthusiastic about it, that I quickly followed the first glass with a whole sequence of others. This was just the thing for me, an exaltation far above my hitherto primitive experience—burning and pungent and retaining in itself something of the sweetness of ripe fruit. I bought five bottles straight away, a handy-sized parcel was made of my purchases; in another shop I obtained a strong corkscrew, and so I wandered back to the station, well-provided and in a most cheerful mood.