Again and again Studmann said to himself that this was the best solution. What sense is there in my going up again? he kept thinking. I shall merely quarrel with Prackwitz, and he’ll just go on playing. No, I’ll ring up the police at the next cafe. I know that would be the most effective lesson for him; there’s nothing he hates more than being conspicuous, and if his identity were established by the police, that would rid him of any further desire to gamble. He still thinks he’s sitting in the casino—surrounded by beggars and swindlers.… It will do him good!
Yes, the organizers would be punished, but both the indiscreet Prackwitz and young Pagel, who seemed to have lost all his bearings, would be warned. Nevertheless, Studmann continued to fight for the strength to carry out his decision. Yet he felt reluctant to do the right thing, because one didn’t bring a friend into contact with the police—not even if one’s intention was for the best. First let him settle with the girl, then decide.
He waited for her expectantly, but again she said nothing, and whispered for a long time with the chauffeur.
“That’s too far, Fraulein,” he heard the driver say. “I’m going off duty soon.”
At last he gave way. “But, Fraulein, if that’s also no good …”
They drove on, endlessly. Deserted, almost black streets. Broken street lamps. For economy’s sake only every sixth or eighth one was burning.
The girl was muttering automatically “Oh, God—Oh, God,” and after each “Oh, God” she knocked her head against the back of the cab.
Von Studmann could see himself in the telephone booth of a cafe: “Please give me the police station, gambling squad …” But perhaps there wouldn’t be a telephone booth, and he’d have to phone at the counter; then the people would think he was a fleeced gambler wanting to revenge himself … It looked very indecent, but it was decent. “It—is—decent!” Studmann said it to himself again and again. Formerly people had been luckier; then decent things had also looked decent. He was decent as well this afternoon. He could have knocked this wretched Baron down dead. And he paid for his decency by rolling drunk down the steps—what a life!
If only he’d been in the country with the rescued Prackwitz—in the peace and quiet, with long-lasting patience.
At last the taxi stopped. The girl got out and stumbled toward a house, cursing. In the uncertain light von Studmann saw only dark house-fronts. Not one cafe. Not a soul. Something like a shop, a chemist’s apparently. The girl knocked at a ground-floor window next to the shop door, waited, knocked again.
“Where are we?” von Studmann asked the driver.
“Near Warschauer Brucke,” said the man sullenly. “Are you paying for the taxi? It’ll cost you a mint of money.”
“Yes,” said Studmann.
The window on the ground floor had opened; a large pale head above a white nightshirt appeared and seemed to be whispering maledictions. The girl pleaded and begged in a mournful whine.
“He’s not dishing any up,” said the driver. “What do you expect, being dragged out of his bed in the middle of the night like that? And he can go to jail for it. A skirt like that won’t keep her mouth shut. Well, what did I tell you!”
The nightshirt had angrily shouted, “No! No!” and slammed the window. The girl could be heard weeping, inconsolable and at the same time angry. Von Studmann could already see her collapsing. He got out of the taxi to help her.
But she was on him with several very quick, short steps.
“What’s the idea?” he cried.
She had wrenched the walking stick from his hand and ran, before he could get it away from her, back to the window—all without a word, sobbing. This sobbing was particularly horrible. And now she had shattered the windowpane with one blow. Loudly the glass rattled on to the pavement …
“Swindler! Fat pig!” screamed the girl. “Are you going to give me the snow?”
“Let’s shove off,” suggested the driver. “The cops must have heard that. Look, now the windows are being lit up.”
And, indeed, here and there in the dark house-fronts appeared lights. A weak high voice shouted, “Quiet!”
But it was quiet now, for the two by the broken window were whispering to each other. The pale-faced man was no longer cursing, or only softly.
“There you are!” drawled the driver. “Them that starts with such people have got to do what they want. She doesn’t care whether the cops come and shut up his shop so long as she gets her dope. Shall we drive on?”
But Studmann could not make up his mind to do this. Even if the girl had behaved irresponsibly and meanly, he couldn’t drive off and leave her in the street, when the police might come strolling round the corner at any moment. And then there was that other business—that if she got her snow, then he would ring up the police. Once again he saw himself with the receiver in hand: “Gambling division of the criminal police, please.” There was nothing else for it. Prackwitz must be saved. One had one’s obligations.
The girl was back, and von Studmann had no need to ask whether her expedition was successful. The way she suddenly regarded him, the way she addressed him, the way he began to exist for her again, made it easy to guess that she had got her snow and had already sniffed it.
“Well?” she asked challengingly and held his stick out to him. “Who are you? Oh, yes, you’re the pal of the young man who hit me. Nice friends you have, I must say, hitting a lady in the kisser!”
“You are wrong,” said von Studmann politely. “It was not the young man—who, by the way, isn’t my friend —who hit you like that. It was someone else, one of the two men who always stand next to the croupier.”
“Do you mean Curly Willi? No, don’t spring any yarns on me—I wasn’t born yesterday. It was your pal, the one who brought you along. Well, I’ll pay him out!”
“Shall we drive on?” suggested von Studmann. He felt dog-tired, tired of this woman and of her cheeky, quarrelsome tone, tired of this aimless wandering about in the gigantic city, tired of all the disorder, the filth, the wrangling.
“Of course we’ll drive on!” she said at once. “Do you think I’m going to pad the hoof to the West End? Driver, Wittenbergplatz.”
But now the driver rebelled, and since he didn’t find it necessary to speak like a gentleman, and since the gent had declared himself ready to pay the fare, he didn’t mince his words, but told her plainly what he thought of an old doper like her who broke windows. He announced that he wouldn’t drive her a step farther, not to save his life! He declared he would have chucked her out long ago if the gent hadn’t been there …
This abuse made little impression on the lady. She was used to it; in some ways quarreling was her natural element. It enlivened her, and the drug she had just taken lent wings to a fancy which proved vastly superior to that of the rather dense driver. She would report him to his employer. She had a friend—she had noted the number of his car. He needn’t be surprised if he found his tires slit tomorrow morning!
A silly, endless altercation. The exhausted von Studmann wanted to put an end to it, but he lacked animation and was no match for them. When would it end? Windows were being lit up again, voices were again calling for quiet …
“But I say, please …” he protested feebly.
Suddenly the noise was over, the quarrel at an end. It had not even been pointless: the parties had come to a friendly understanding. True, they were not going to drive as far as Wittenbergplatz, but all the same they were going to drive “a step,” namely as far as Alexanderplatz.
“My garage is close by there,” explained the driver, and this explanation prevented von Studmann from reflecting any further on their objective, Alexanderplatz. For otherwise it would undoubtedly have occurred to him that in Alexanderplatz stood the very Police Headquarters whose gambling squad he now had to phone up, seeing that the girl had obtained what she wanted. But he could think of nothing except of getting into the taxi again and being able to settle down comfortably. He was really very tired. It would be good if he could now have forty winks. Sleep is never so good as in a softly rattling car. But it wasn’t worth sleeping between here and Alexanderplatz—it would make him feel even more tired. He lit a cigarette.
“You might offer a lady a cigarette!”
“Help yourself!” said von Studmann, and offered her his case.
“No thanks!” she said sharply. “Do you think I need your rotten cigarettes? I’ve got some myself. You should be polite to a lady.”
