“Sir,” I cried imploringly. “Could I shave myself quickly? My shaving things are in the suitcase here. I really would be very quick. Please let me.”
“Out of the question, Sommer,” said Fritsch coldly. “How much time do you think I’ve got? Besides, you can’t keep your wife waiting that long.”
“But it’s so important for me to make a fairly decent impression at this first meeting! Whatever will my wife think of me?”
“As far as that goes, Sommer,” said Fritsch, “I don’t think shaving would improve your beauty much. If your wife can put up with your nose, she should be able to stand a few bristles.”
“But she’s never seen my nose yet!” I cried, still more desperately. “That only happened in remand prison!”
But it was no use, Fritsch remained implacable, and I had to go with him, the saddest figure in the world, even the civilian clothes the doctor graciously allowed me, could not help much. Besides, they were completely crumpled through being in the suitcase so long.
With the warder, I enter the administration building. The corridor before me is long, gloomy and dark, my knees are shaking and I would like to lean against the wall for a minute, to rest and compose myself. But the head-warder’s voice sounds peremptorily behind me: “Come on, come on, Sommer! Third door on the right!”
If only he wouldn’t shout so loud and in such military fashion, Magda can hear him by now!
A hand on the knob, and the door opens! Useless to hesitate, in this life you are driven forward pitilessly.
There is no rest, no remission.
I see Magda. She has been sitting by the window, now she gets up and looks towards me. Momentarily I notice the expression of puzzled astonishment in her face. But already I hurry over to her, my arms wide open, I cry, “Magda, Magda, so you’ve come! I’m so thankful.…”
I fold her in my arms, I try to kiss her on the mouth, as in the old days, the old days that are going to come again—and I notice an expression of shuddering resistance in her face.
“Please don’t,” she whispers, still in my arms, suddenly almost breathless. “Not here, please!”
I have let her go, all my joy is extinguished, a cold ominous silence overtakes me. She looks at me, the expression of confused astonishment still in her face.
“I hardly recognised you,” she whispers, still breathless, “what’s happened to you? What’s the matter with your—” she dare not say the word.… “What has changed you so much?”
Head-warder Fritsch is sitting on a chair behind us, and now he loudly clears his throat. I know that it is not permissible for us to stand here whispering by the window. With a pretence at light-heartedness, I say “Shan’t we sit at the table here, Magda?”
We do so. Then: “You find I’ve changed? You don’t like my looks? Well, to tell you the truth, I didn’t like them either, when I saw myself quite recently in the mirror for the first time again.” (I shouldn’t have said that. Head-warder Fritsch may ask me later where I got the mirror from, and then I’ll have got Herbst into trouble. Mirrors are forbidden in the wards. You can’t be careful enough in this place!) I quickly laugh: “But one gets used to it, Magda, I don’t look so bad as you think; I’ve got better rather than worse.…” At these last words, into which I put deep meaning, I have noticeably lowered my voice. But Magda takes no notice.
“What’s the matter with your—nose?”
At last she manages to utter the word, even if only after a brief hesitation.
“It looks really bad, Erwin.”
“A fellow-prisoner tried to bite it off, while we were still in the remand prison,” I explain. “It was that Lobedanz who stole your silverware, you know, Magda.”
She only looks at me, with a slight twitch of the mouth. Perhaps I shouldn’t have said that, either; perhaps Magda thinks it was I who stole her silverware in the first place. But no, she can’t think anything so stupid and unjust, the silver was bought out of my own money, so it was my silver, one can’t speak of theft in such a case.
“I tried to get it back for you, but unfortunately without success. You haven’t heard any more about it, Magda?”
She shakes her head as if it were all quite unimportant.
“You’re changed in other ways, Erwin,” she maintains. “Your voice sounds quite different, much louder.…”
“There’s fifty-six of us in one block, Magda,” I explain. “Over thirty men eat in the one room with me, so you have to strain your voice a bit if you want to make yourself understood.”
“I see.”
She smiles weakly, defensively.
“You lead a very changed life, don’t you, considering you were always so much for keeping to yourself.”
But again, with irritating obstinacy, she returns to my appearance, she can’t get over it.
“But you really look bad, Erwin. Is anything the matter?”
“Nothing,” I say deliberately. “Practically nothing. A few boils, look, I’ve got some on my neck here, and on my back … but one gets used to them, everyone in this place has them …” (Head-warder Fritsch clears his throat warningly. Perhaps this is unseemly criticism of the institution. But I would not dream of taking any notice of that.)
I continue, “And if I look thin and rather grey, well, Magda, we don’t get roast goose and red cabbage here every day. Generally we’re fed on good hot water.…”
Now my rage has run away with me, rage over the rejection of my love, over Magda’s horror of me: I speak with a voice trembling with scorn, I want to wound her to the heart, since I cannot move it. Head-warder Fritsch says threateningly: “One more remark like that, Sommer, and I’ll break this visit up and report you.”
Magda turns to him: “Oh, please don’t be cross with him! You can’t imagine how changed he is. He must have been having a terrible time!”
Her voice trembles, I listen to this weakening feminine voice with greedy delight.
“A little while ago he was a fine good-looking man—and now I wouldn’t have known him in the street!”
A few tears well up from the depths of her eyes and run slowly down her cheeks. I note them with delight. No, they do not move me. Nothing can soften my heart now, she has offended me too deeply! But I enjoy seeing her suffer too: she ought to be made to feel, and at last she does feel, what she has done to me, how seriously she has harmed me with her spying and her talk, what a fate she has brought down on my head. Magda continues, in almost feverish agitation, half turned to the head-warder, half to me: “But I can send you what you need, Erwin! If only I had known! May I send him a parcel of things to eat, Herr—?”
“That’s quite in order, Frau Sommer,” says Fritsch graciously. “Tobacco is allowed too. A great many things are allowed here—But,” he continues and looks at Magda, blinking out of his fat face, “you must remember many of these patients really don’t know when they’ve had enough. They eat and eat—a whole parcel, two loaves in one day! And then they’re ill and we have trouble with them. You mustn’t believe everything the patients tell you.”
And I have to sit quiet and listen to this common liar. The fat Fritsch is my superior, I dare not contradict him. I think of the figures of starvation back there, who eat potato peelings and lick off the table every drop of spilt gravy, and my rage rises within me again. But I control myself, I quickly say with a smile: “Thank you very much for your good intentions, Magda, but I really don’t need anything. Head-warder Fritsch is quite right: the patients don’t know when to stop. But thank the Lord I don’t belong among them. Please God I’ll soon be out of here.…”
Magda looks at me in confusion.
“But you yourself just spoke about getting water, Erwin …” she said.