My curiosity was far from being satisfied. The obvious thing was to question Otto, but where was I to find him? I decided to try Olga’s for a start. Anni, I knew, rented a bedroom there.
I hadn’t seen Olga since that party in the small hours of the New Year; but Arthur, who sometimes visited her in the way of business, had told me a good deal about her from time to time. Like most people who still contrived to earn a living in those bankrupt days, she was a woman of numerous occupations. “Not to put too fine a point upon it,” as Arthur was fond of saying, she was a procuress, a cocaine-seller and a receiver of stolen goods; she also let lodgings, took in washing and, when in the mood, did exquisite fancy needlework.
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Arthur once showed me a table-centre she had given him for Christmas which was quite a work of art.
I found the house without difficulty and passed under the archway into the court. The courtyard was narrow and deep, like a coffin standing on end. The head of the coffin rested on the earth, for the house-fronts inclined slightly inwards. They were held apart by huge timber baulks, spanning the gap, high up, against the grey square of sky. Down here, at the bottom, where the rays of the sun could never penetrate, there was a deep twilight, like the light in a mountain gorge. On three sides of the court were windows; on the fourth, an immense blank wall, about eighty feet high, whose plaster surface had swollen into blisters and burst, leaving raw, sooty scars. At the foot of this ghastly precipice stood a queer little hut, probably an outdoor lavatory. Beside it was a broken hand-cart with only one wheel, and a printed notice, now almost illegible, stating the hours at which the inhabitants of the tenement were allowed to beat their carpets.
The staircase, even at this hour of the afternoon, was very dark. I stumbled up it, counting the landings, and knocked at a door which I hoped was the right one. There was a shuffle of slippers, a clink of keys, and the door opened a little way, on the chain.
“Who’s there?” a woman’s voice asked.
“William,” I said.
The name made no impression. The door began, doubtfully, to shut.
“A friend of Arthur’s,” I added hastily, trying to make my voice sound reassuring. I couldn’t see what sort of person I was talking to; inside the flat it was pitch black. It was like speaking to a priest in a confessional.
“Wait a minute,” said the voice.
The door shut and the slippers shuffled away. Other footsteps returned. The door reopened and the electric light was switched on in the narrow hall. On the threshold stood Olga herself. Her mighty form was enveloped in a kimono of garish colours which she wore with the majesty of a
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priestess in her ceremonial robes. I hadn’t remembered her as being quite so enormous.
“Well?” she said. “What do you want?”
She hadn’t recognized me. For all she knew I might be a detective. Her tone was aggressive and harsh; it showed not the least trace of hesitation or fear. She was ready for all her enemies. Her hard blue eyes, ceaselessly watchful as the eyes of a tigress, moved away over my shoulder into the gloomy well of the staircase. She was wondering whether I had come alone.
“May I speak to Frl. Anni?” I said politely.
“You can’t. She’s busy.”
My English accent had reassured her, however; for she added briefly: “Come inside,” and turned, leading the way into the sitting-room. She left me with entire indifference to shut the outer door. I did so meekly and followed.
Standing on the sitting-room table was Otto, in his shirtsleeves, tinkering with the converted gasolier.
“Why, it’s Willi!” he cried, jumping down and dealing me a staggering clap on the shoulder.
We shook hands. Olga lowered herself into a chair facing mine with the deliberation and sinister dignity of a fortuneteller. The bracelets jangled harshly on her swollen wrists. I wondered how old she was; perhaps not more than thirty-five, for there were no wrinkles on her puffy, waxen face. I didn’t much like her hearing what I had to say to Otto, but she had plainly no intention of moving as long as I was in the flat. Her blue doll’s eyes held mine in a brutal, unwinking regard.
“Haven’t I seen you somewhere before?”
“You’ve seen me in this room,” I said, “drunk.”
“So.” Olga’s bosom shook silently. She had laughed.
“Did you see Arthur before he left?” I asked Otto, at the end of a long pause.
Yes, Anni and Otto had both seen him, though quite by chance, as it appeared. Happening to look in on the Sunday afternoon, they had discovered Arthur in the midst of his
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packing. There had been a great deal of telephoning and running hither and thither. And then Schmidt had appeared. He and Arthur had retired into the bedroom for a conference, and soon Otto and Anni had heard loud, angry voices. Schmidt had come out of the bedroom, with Arthur following him in a state of ineffectual rage. Otto hadn’t been able to understand very clearly what it was all about, but the Baron had had something to do with it, and money. Arthur was angry because of something Schmidt had said to the Baron; Schmidt was insulting and contemptuous by turns. Arthur had cried: “You’ve shown not only the blackest ingratitude, but downright treachery!” Otto was quite positive about this. The phrase seemed to have made a special impression on him; perhaps because the word “treachery” had a definitely political flavour in his mind. Indeed, he quite took it for granted that Schmidt had somehow betrayed the Communist Party. “The very first time I saw him, I said to Anni, 1 shouldn’t wonder if he’s been sent to spy on Arthur. He looks like a Nazi, with that great big swollen head of his.’ “
What followed had confirmed Otto in his opinion. Schmidt had been just about to leave the flat when he turned and said to Arthur:
“Well,. I’m off. I’ll leave you to the tender mercies of your precious communist friends. And when they’ve swindled you out of your last pfennig …”
He hadn’t got any farther. For Otto, puzzled by all this talk and relieved at last to hear something which he could understand and resent, had taken Schmidt out of the flat by the back of the collar and sent him flying downstairs with a hearty kick on the bottom. Otto, in his narrative, dwelt on the kick with special pride and pleasure. It had been one of le kicks of his life, an inspired kick, beautifully judged and timed. He was anxious that I should understand just how and where it had landed. He made me stand up, and touched me lightly on the buttock with his toe. I was a little uneasy, knowing what an effort of self-control it cost him not to let By.
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“My word, Willi, you should have heard him land! Bing! Bong! Crash! For a minute he didn’t seem to know where he was or what had happened to him. And then he began to blubber, just like a baby. I was so weak with laughing at him you could have pushed me downstairs with one finger.”