Otto, wrapping himself in Nils, got on with his work. He did not see that Axel had left the bench and moved over on quiet feet to stand just behind him. He did not know this until Axel spoke—very calmly, very casually and in his ‘workshop’ as opposed to his ‘duty instructional’ voice. And he asked a simple, ordinary, every-day question; a question which he had probably asked of his new apprentice five or six times in the past ten days. But he asked it in German. He said, in German:
“Where is the small finishing plane?”
Otto, wrapped up in his work—as Nils should be wrapped up in his work—replied without looking up. But he replied, instinctively, in the language in which he had been addressed; in his own language. He said, in German:
“On your own bench. I put it back last night.”
Perhaps he was going to say more—but he did not, for a heavy hand fell on his shoulder and roughly jerked him around so that he was face to face with Axel, who was almost as tall as he, and his eyes were looking directly into the staring, unreadable eyes behind the thick, concave lenses. And then Axel’s right hand, its palm hard and calloused and heavy, struck him with a ringing, stunning clap across the left side of his face. Although it was struck with the open hand, the blow was so heavy, and so utterly, astonishingly unexpected, that Otto reeled. He might, indeed, have fallen had it not been for the edge of the work-bench which, crashing painfully against his back, held him upright.
He thrust himself away from it, his face lividly pale save for the angry red of the injured cheek. For an infinitesimal division of time, it was his intention to hurl himself at this man who had struck him; then, immediately, discipline locked iron fingers around his mind and he dropped his hands and stood, gazing at Axel in silence.
Axel did not move. He said, in Swedish:
“So! It is that way we treat silly children!” He paused for a long moment. “And that is what you are—a foolish child!” There was bitter contempt in the quiet, heavy voice. “I speak to you in German—and you answer in German!”
Axel’s left hand was raised now, slowly and with deliberation. Otto saw the blow coming; but he did not move as the horny palm, with a blow fully as weighty as the first, fell across the other cheek. His head rang, but he hardly blinked the vivid blue eyes. He stood rigid now, at attention.
“Now, Nils Jorgensen,” said the heavy, soft voice, “perhaps you will remember that you do not know the German language; not one single word of it! You may, perhaps, recognize it as German when it is spoken in your hearing—but even that is doubtful! . . . Get on with your work.”
Otto, with heavy heart and face burning with shame and bruises, turned back to his bench. . . .
3 SWEDEN, STOCKHOLM
Nils Jorgensen had a day off and was bound for Stockholm. He dressed in his best blue suit, which was of astonishing colour and cut, and his Aunt Kirsten tied his tie, and Axel gave him some extra money and Gertrud pouted unhappily at the thought of the girls he would see and perhaps talk with. And they all saw him safely aboard the strangely shaped single-deck bus which was the only road connection between Kornemunde and the city.
They found Nils a seat to himself, right behind the driver, and waved to him until the bus was out of sight around the bend in the road by the church, and he waved back.
The bus bumped and jiggled over the little bridge and came on to the smoother surface of the high road and gathered speed Nils settled comfortably in his seat—and Otto began to think. It was a full two weeks since the reprimand for his gross mistake; two weeks during which—he knew it, though no word of praise had been addressed to him—he had made good progress; two weeks during which he had begun, at safe times and only when alone, to become bored and impatient. Several times in the last two or three days he had been on the point of taking the plunge and at some suitable moment asking Axel how much longer he was to stay here in Kornemunde, but always, he thanked his stars, he had put it off. And now here he was, on the way to Stockholm—and something. He did not know what awaited him because Axel had said nothing except that it was time he had a day off and went into Stockholm and enjoyed himself. Nothing more than that—and nothing that he would not have said to a genuine Nils. But there had been something different in the eyes behind their thick glass—and, besides, for Otto Falken at this time there neither were nor should be holidays. Yes—something was going to happen in Stockholm; but what? And where, now he came to think of it? He felt in his breast-pocket to make sure the pencil was there; then drifted into musing with delighted admiration over the thoroughness of this great machine of which he was now a cog—and the amazing invisibility of its flawless machination.
He arrived in Stockholm just before noon. He wandered, managing to reconcile smoothly enough the bucolic awe proper to Nils with the genuine interest felt by Otto. Both Nils and Otto liked Stockholm and everything about it—its wide streets and its stone buildings and its parks and its people and its general air of making business a pleasure. But, while it was all matter for gaping to Nils, there was, for Otto, a certain unreality about the whole small, neat metropolis: it was as if this were a place apart from the stern and actual world; a place where everyone and everything pretended to be real and alive and occupied with the work of existence upon this planet, but a place which, in fact, was completely separate from the Earth and the problems of its people.
He wandered about—and went on wandering. He ate good food in an unpretentious little café near the main railway station, and went into a museum, and loafed around a pretty, obviously imaginary little park, and had a strange, throat-burning drink in a bar which was crowded with men who unmistakably followed the sea.
It was nearing four in the afternoon before he began to grow worried. In all his miles of meandering he had neither seen nor heard any hint of anything which might be the something for which he was so anxiously waiting. And yet he was sure that he had been ordered here, and for a definite purpose—and therefore if he had missed the something, it must be his own fault. Had he made some fantastic, some puerile mistake which would disgrace him? Should he, for instance, have just waited where he was when he had stepped off the bus? Surely not—since, in the absence of any other orders, it was his duty to be Nils Jorgensen—and this loafing and wandering and gaping must be proper to Nils! Should he, perhaps, as the pencil was the only ‘sign’ which he had, have been at pains to show it casually in every place he visited? Surely not, since the others must know him and therefore take the initial step.
Well, then, what was the matter? Why didn’t something happen? . . . He decided, for the want of more striking idea, that it might be as well if he stepped sufficiently out of his conception of Nils’ character as to visit parts of the town which he had hitherto avoided; parts which it seemed to him would frighten Nils by their luxury and sophistication.
This decision brought him, at some time before five, to the terraced restaurant of the Carolus; the restaurant which, although it is roofed and part of the main hotel building, seems nevertheless to be, very delightfully, part garden and part pavement. It was easy enough to act the part of Nils as he entered: his clothes, and the covert smiles which they aroused in neat men and soignée women, were sufficient insult to his personal, bodily pride to make the necessary, inner feeling of being Nils—awkward, embarrassed, out-of-place—very easy to attain. He stumbled to a corner table upon the lowest terrace. Scarlet-faced, he ordered aquavit from the card which the waiter tendered him and, when it came, discovered it to be the same burning drink that he had had in the place which was full of sailors. Only this was better stuff—much better. He felt less worried when he’d taken half of it. It was like the vodka he’d had in Paris, only pleasanter. He finished it and ordered another. He felt much better; there was no denying it. He knew his own capacity, though, and was in no danger, even with strange liquors, of allowing his mind to become even clouded. But he suddenly realized, halfway through the second drink, that he had been overanxious. There was nothing, in the absence of orders, which they could have expected him to do that he had not done. He must simply wait. He pressed his hand to his coat, over the breast-pocket, and felt the outline of the pencil again.