fervently. “O Lord, holy benefactor.”
Somewhat disgusted, the Rittmeister looked for a place in a second-class smoking compartment right in front. Sitting down comfortably in the corner he lit a cigarette. All in all, he had done a good day’s work. Tomorrow the harvest could begin in real earnest.
Rumbling and puffing, the train got under way, steamed out of the sooty, neglected hall with its broken windows. The Rittmeister was waiting for the guard to pass, as he then intended to have a nap.
At last the man came, punched the ticket and gave it back. He did not go, however, but stood as if expecting something.
“Well?” asked the Rittmeister sleepily. “Rather hot outside, what?”
“Aren’t you the gentleman with the Polish reapers?” asked the guard.
“Certainly.” The Rittmeister sat up.
“I only wanted to report,” said the guard with a trace of malicious joy, “that they all alighted at Schlesische Bahnhof. Made themselves scarce.”
“What?” shouted the Rittmeister and leaped toward the compartment door.
VI
The train gathered more speed. It dipped into the tunnel; the lighted platform was left behind.
Pagel sat on the fire extinguisher box in the overcrowded smoking carriage and lit a Lucky Strike from the packet he had just bought with the proceeds of their goods and chattels. Splendid! He had last smoked on his way home from gambling the night before; therefore this cigarette tasted all the better. “Lucky Strike,” it was called. If his school English had not quite forsaken him it meant that this fortunate cigarette ought to be an omen for the rest of the day.
The fat man over there snorted angrily, rustled his newspaper, looked around restlessly—all that won’t help, Pagel thought; we know it already: the dollar is valued at 760,000 marks, an advance of over fifty per cent. The cigarette merchant, thank God, didn’t know it or else he couldn’t have afforded this cigarette. You too have backed the wrong horse, fatty; your snorting gives you away, you’re furious. But it won’t help you. This is an ingenious, entirely modern postwar invention; they rob you of one-half of the money in your pocket without touching the pocket or the money. Yes, brilliant brains, brilliant brains. The question now is whether my friend Zecke has backed the right or the wrong horse. If he’s backed the wrong one he may be rather hard of hearing, though this isn’t certain; but if devaluation has suited his purpose he won’t mind parting with a handful of 1,000,000-mark notes. Even 2,000,000-mark notes had been current for a day or two; Pagel had seen them in the gambling club. For a change they were printed on both sides and looked like genuine money, not like those scraps of white paper printed on one side only. People were already saying that these 2,000,000-mark notes would forever remain the highest denomination; and because of such a fairy tale the fat man snorted, having perhaps believed in fairy tales.
It was unlikely that Zecke had backed the wrong horse. As long as Pagel could remember Zecke had always backed the right one. He had never made a mistake in summing up a teacher; he had had a hunch as to what questions would be asked, what themes would be set, in the examination papers. In the war he had been the first to organize a magnificent system of leave in order to distribute Salvarsan in the Balkans and in Turkey. And when this business became precarious he was again the first who, before he gave it up entirely, filled the Salvarsan packages with rubbish. Then he had exported sixth-rate singing and dancing girls to the Bosphorus. A choice fellow, all in all; a fool in some respects, in others as sharp as a needle. After the war he had gone in for yarn—what he now dealt in, Heaven alone knew. It didn’t matter to him—he would have made a corner in bull elephants had there been any money in them.
Really, when one came to think of it, there was no reason why this so-called friend should give away his money—Pagel admitted it. He had never hitherto attempted to touch him. But another feeling dwelt also in Wolfgang Pagel’s breast—the feeling that Zecke was now “ripe,” that he would undoubtedly do what was expected of him. A gambler’s instinct, so to speak: a hunch, the devil knew why. He would certainly give the money. There were such moments. Suddenly you did something which you would not have done yesterday at any price. And out of that automatically followed something else—for instance, this evening you would win a tremendous sum—and again everything was suddenly changed. Life would run at right angles to its hitherto straight course. One could buy twenty tenement houses in the city (the hovels were to be had for next to nothing) or open a giant super bar (eighty girls behind the counter)—not a bad idea, indeed; or for a change you need do nothing at all, sit and twiddle your thumbs, take a real rest, eat and drink well and enjoy Peter. Or still better, buy a car and travel with Peter all over the world. Show her everything—churches, paintings, everything; the girl had potentialities—of course. Did anybody deny it? He didn’t, in any case; a splendid girl, never awkward! (Or hardly ever.)
Retired Second Lieutenant Wolfgang Pagel alighted at Podbielskiallee and sauntered down a street or two to the Zecke villa. In the heat. Lazily and leisurely. Now he stood in front of the house; that is to say, in front of the front garden, the laid-out grounds, the park. And not directly in front of it; there was, of course, a wrought-iron railing and some hewn stone (let us say limestone) in the form of pillars. And a very small brass plate was also there, inscribed with nothing else but “von Zecke,” with a brass bell-push. Well polished. One couldn’t see much of the house—it was hidden behind bushes and trees; one only got an impression of big shining windows and of a gracefully designed housefront, not too tall.
Pagel took a look at the whole bundle of tricks; there was plenty of time. Then he turned round and had a look at the villas on the other side. Pompous. So here dwelt the grand folks who could not under any circumstances live in a backyard off Alexanderplatz. Himself Wolfgang Pagel considered capable of both; at one time Dahlem, at another Alexanderplatz; he didn’t mind which. But perhaps he was living not in Dahlem but in Georgenkirchstrasse just because he didn’t mind.
He turned round again and eyed the name plate, bell-push, flowerbeds, lawn, house-front. It remained a puzzle why Zecke should burden himself with such stuff, for after all it was a burden, owning a house, a huge villa, almost a palace, which eternally demanded something of you: either to pay the taxes or have it done up or see about electric current failing or the coke that had to be bought. Zecke, in any case, must have changed a good deal. Formerly he, too, would have thought it a burden. The last time he saw him Zecke had had two very elegant bachelor rooms in Kurfurstendamm (with girl-friend, telephone and bath)—and that was more in keeping with him. Not this.
Possibly he was married. Any incredible change in a friend was explained by the fact of his having married, of a woman being there. Well, one would probably see her, and she would guess immediately that this old friend of her husband’s wanted to touch them for some money. Whereupon she would treat him with a mixture of annoyance and contempt. But for all he cared she could do as she pleased; the man who in the evening prowled about as the unwanted gambler was proof against female moods.
He was just about to ring the bell—one had to do it sooner or later, however pleasant it might be to stand lazily in the sun and think of the nice sum of money which he was going to lift from Zecke presently—when he remembered in time that he still carried nearly a hundred thousand marks in his pocket. To be sure, there was the saying that money is attracted by money, but this proverb was not properly worded. It ought to run—a lot of money attracts a lot of money. And that hardly applied to the sum Pagel was carrying. In the circumstances it would be better if he stood before Zecke utterly penniless. One pleaded for a loan much more convincingly when one hadn’t even got the fare home. For his hundred thousand he could get, say, two small cognacs, and these would add weight to his application for a loan.
He sauntered down the street, went to the right, then the left, again right, and to and fro; but it proved difficult to convert his money into alcohol. In this very smart residential district there seemed to be neither shops nor taverns. Everything, of course, was brought to the door; such people kept wine and schnapps by the cellarful.
Pagel came across a newspaper seller, but he didn’t want to invest his money in newspapers. No, thanks, he didn’t want to have anything to do with them. When he read the headline: “Trade Barriers Lifted in the Occupied Territory,” it didn’t matter to him. Do what you liked about it, it was bosh anyway.
Next he came across a flower girl selling roses at a bus stop. The idea of appearing with a miserable bunch of roses before Herr von Zecke, who had a whole garden full of them, was so attractive that Pagel almost bought some. But he shrugged his shoulders and walked on. He was not quite sure whether Zecke would see the funny side of it.
The money must be got rid of, however. So much was certain. He would most have preferred to give it to a
