“As a matter of fact, Frau Nowak, that’s partly why I came down to see you to-day. I’ve decided to go into a cheaper room and I was wondering if there was anywhere round here you could recommend me?”
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“Oh dear, Herr Christoph, I am sorry!”
She was quite genuinely shocked: “But you can’t live in this part of the towna gentleman like you! Oh, no. I’m afraid it wouldn’t suit you at all.”
“I’m not so particular as you think, perhaps. I just want a quiet, clean room for about twenty marks a month. It doesn’t matter how small it is. I’m out most of the day.”
She shook her head doubtfully: “Well, Herr Christoph, I shall have to see if I can’t think of something… .”
“Isn’t dinner ready yet, mother?” asked Otto, appearing in shirtsleeves at the doorway of the inner room: “I’m nearly starving!”
“How do you expect it to be ready when I have to spend the whole morning slaving for you, you great lump of laziness!” cried Frau Nowak, shrilly, at the top of her voice. Then, transposing without the least pause into her ingratiating social tone, she added: “Don’t you see who’s here?”
“Why … it’s Christoph!” Otto, as usual, had begun acting at once. His face was slowly illuminated by a sunrise of extreme joy. His cheeks dimpled with smiles. He sprang forward, throwing one arm around my neck, wringing my hand: “Christoph, you old soul, where have you been hiding all this time?” His voice became languishing, reproachfuclass="underline" “We’ve missed you so much! Why have you never come to see us?”
“Herr Christoph is a very busy gentleman,” put in Frau Nowak reprovingly: “He’s got no time to waste running after a do-nothing like you.”
Otto grinned, winked at me: then he turned reproachfully upon Frau Nowak:
“Mother, what are you thinking of? Are you going to let Christoph sit there without so much as a cup of coffee? He must be thirsty, after climbing all these stairs!”
“What you mean is, Otto, that you’re thirsty, don’t you? No, thank you, Frau Nowak, I won’t have anythingreally. And I won’t keep you from your cooking any longer… . Look here, Otto, will you come out with me now and help me find a room? I’ve just been telling your mother that I’m
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coming to live in this neighbourhood… . You shall have your cup of coffee with me outside.”
“What, Christophyou’re going to live here, in Hallesches Tor!” Otto began dancing with excitement: “Oh, mother, won’t that be grand! Oh, I am so pleased!”
“You may just as well go out and have a look round with Herr Christoph, now,” said Frau Nowak. “Dinner won’t be ready for at least an hour, yet. You’re only in my way here. Not you, Herr Christoph, of course. You’ll come back and have something to eat with us, won’t you?”
“Well, Frau Nowak, it’s very kind of you indeed, but I’m afraid I can’t to-day. I shall have to be getting back home.”
“Just give me a crust of bread before I go, mother,” begged Otto piteously. “I’m so empty that my head’s spinning round like a top.”
“All right,” said Frau Nowak, cutting a slice of bread and half throwing it at him in her vexation, “but don’t blame me if there’s nothing in the house this evening when you want to make one of your sandwiches… . Goodbye, Herr Christoph. It was very kind of you to come and see us. If you really decide to live near here, I hope you’ll look in often … though I doubt if you’ll find anything to your liking. It won’t be what you’ve been accustomed to… .”
As Otto was about to follow me out of the flat she called him back. I heard them arguing; then the door shut. I descended slowly the five flights of stairs to the courtyard. The bottom of the court was clammy and dark, although the sun was shining on a cldud in the sky overhead. Broken buckets, wheels off prams and bits of bicycle tyre lay scattered about like things which have fallen down a well.
It was a minute or two before Otto came clattering down the stairs to join me:
“Mother didn’t like to ask you,” he told me, breathless. “She was afraid you’d be annoyed… . But I said that I was sure you’d far rather be with us, where you can do just what you like and you know everything’s clean, than in a strange house full of bugs… . Do say yes, Christoph, please! It’ll be such
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fun! You and I can sleep in the back room. You can have Lothar’s bedhe won’t mind. He can share the double-bed with Grete… . And in the mornings you can stay in bed as long as ever you like. If you want, 111 bring your breakfast… . You will come, won’t you?” And so it was settled.
My first evening as a lodger at the Nowaks was something of a ceremony. I arrived with my two suitcases soon after five o’clock, to find Frau Nowak already cooking the evening meal. Otto whispered to me that we were to have lung hash, as a special treat.
“I’m afraid you won’t think very much of our food,” said Frau Nowak, “after what you’ve been used to. But we’ll do our best.” She was all smiles, bubbling over with excitement. I smiled and smiled, feeling awkward and in the way. At length, I clambered over the living-room furniture and sat down on my bed. There was no space to unpack in, and nowhere, apparently, to put my clothes. At the living-room table, Grete was playing with her cigarette-cards and transfers. She was a lumpish child of twelve years old, pretty in a sugary way, but round-shouldered and too fat. My presence made her very self-conscious. She wriggled, smirked and kept calling out, in an affected, sing-song, “grown-up” voice:
“Mummy! Come and look at the pretty flowers!”
“I’ve got no time for your pretty flowers,” exclaimed Frau Nowak at length, in great exasperation: “Here am I, with a daughter the size of an elephant, having to slave all by myself, cooking the supper!”
“Quite right, mother!” cried Otto, gleefully joining in. He turned upon Grete, righteously indignant: “Why don’t you help her, I should like to know? You’re fat enough. You sit around all day doing nothing. Get off that chair this instant, do you hear! And put those filthy cards away, or I’ll burn them!”
He grabbed at the cards with one hand and gave Grete a
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slap across the face with the other. Grete, who obviously wasn’t hurt, at once set up a loud, theatrical waiclass="underline" “Oh, Otto, you’ve hurt me!” She covered her face with her hands and peeped at me between the fingers.
“Will you leave that child alone!” cried Frau Nowak shrilly from the kitchen. “I should like to know who you are, to talk about laziness! And you, Grete, just you stop that howlingor I’ll tell Otto to hit you properly, so that you’ll have something to cry for. You two between you, you drive me distracted.”
“But, mother!” Otto ran into the kitchen, took her round the waist and began kissing her: “Poor little Mummy, little Mutti, little Muttchen,” he crooned, in tones of the most mawkish solicitude. “You have to work so hard and Otto’s so horrid to you. But he doesn’t mean to be, you knowhe’s just stupid… . Shall I fetch the coal up for you tomorrow, Mummy? Would you like that?”
“Let go of me, you great humbug!” cried Frau Nowak, laughing and struggling. “I don’t want any of your soft soap! Much you care for your poor old mother! Leave me to get on with my work in peace.”
“Otto’s not a bad boy,” she continued Jto me, when he had let go of her at last, “but he’s such a scatterbrain. Quite the opposite of my Lotharthere’s a model son for you! He’s not too proud to do any job, whatever it is, and when he’s scraped a few groschen together, instead of spending them on himself he comes straight to me and says: ‘Here you are, mother. Just buy yourself a pair of warm house-shoes for the winter.’ ” Frau Nowak held out her hand to me with the gesture of giving money. Like Otto, she had the trick of acting every scene she described.