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 Kurfürstendamm (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 beggar—that always brought luck. But here in Dahlem there were no beggars; they found it better to sit in Alexanderplatz among the poor, who always managed to spare something.
For a time Wolfgang followed an elderly skinny lady whose worn short jacket, with its faded lilac facings and black bugles, gave him the impression of a poor woman ashamed to beg. Then he gave up the idea of pressing the money into her hand. It would be the worst possible omen if he did not rid himself of it at the first try, but had it thrust back on him.
Finally the dog turned up. Pagel was sitting, enjoying himself in a quiet way, on a bench, and he whistled to a stray brown-and-white fox terrier. The dog was brimming over with whimsical energies; he barked at the cajoler defiantly; challengingly; then, suddenly becoming amiable, he put his head scrutinizingly on one side and wagged his stump of tail. Wolf had almost got him when, in a flash, he was yelping joyfully on the other side of the ornamental gardens, while a maidservant swinging a leash hurried after him, calling in a despairing voice: “Schnapps, Schnapps.”
Confronted by the choice between the peacefully smoking man and the excited girl, the terrier decided in favor of the man. Beseechingly he pressed his nose against Pagel’s leg, and in his eyes could be read an invitation to a new game. Wolf shoved the notes under his collar just as the girl approached, hot and indignant. “Let our dog go,” she gasped.
“Ah, Fräulein,” said Wolfgang, “we men are all for Schnapps. And,” he added, for in the fresh summer dress there was a pleasing girl, “and for love.”
“Oh, you!” said the girl, and her annoyed face changed so suddenly that Wolfgang had to smile. “You’ve no idea,” she went on, trying to put the dancing, barking terrier on the lead, “what a lot of trouble I have with the dog. And gentlemen are always speaking to me—but what’s this?” she asked, surprised, for she had felt the paper under the collar.
“A letter,” said Pagel, departing. “A letter for you. You must have noticed that I’ve been following you every morning for a week. But read it later, when you’re alone. It explains everything. So long.”
And he went hastily round the corner, for her face was shining too brightly for him to wish to see her discover the truth. And round another corner. Now he could probably slow down, safe. He was sweating again; as a matter of fact, however slowly he walked, he had been sweating ever since alighting at Podbielskiallee. And suddenly it struck him that it was not the warmth of the sun which made him so hot; at any rate, not the sun only. No, it was something different, something quite different. He was agitated, he was afraid.
With a start he stopped and looked round. Silently in the midday light the villas stood within the shelter of the pines. Somewhere a vacuum cleaner was humming. Everything he had done up to now to delay pressing the bell had been inspired by fear. And the fear had started much earlier than that; otherwise he would not have bought his Lucky Strike cigarettes instead of breakfast for both. Had it not been for fear he would not have let the pawnbroker have their things. “Yes,” said he, and went slowly on, “the end is at hand.” He saw their situation as it really was—in debt, with nothing for the following day, Petra almost naked in a stinking den, he himself in the wealthy quarter in his shabby field-gray tunic, and not even the fare home in his pocket.
I must persuade him to give us money, he thought. Even if it’s only a very little.
But it was lunacy, utter madness, to expect a loan from Zecke. Nothing that he knew of Zecke entitled him to expect him to lend money—with very little prospect of getting it back. Suppose he said no? (And he would, of course, say no, Wolfgang needn’t worry himself about that.)
The long, rather wide avenue, at the end of which Zecke’s villa was situated, opened before him. He went along slowly at first, then quicker and quicker, as if he were running down a steep hill toward his fate.
He must say yes, Pagel thought. Even if he gives ever so little. Then I’ll finish with gambling. I can still become a taxi driver—Gottschalk has definitely promised me his second car. Then Petra will have an easier time, too.
Now he was quite close to the villa; he saw again the limestone and railings, brass plate and bell-push. Hesitatingly he crossed the street. But he would say no, of course … Oh, damn, damn!—for at the end of the street he saw a girl approaching; the fox terrier straining and yelping at the leash revealed who she was. And between the argument there and the request here, hunter and hunted, he pushed the button and sighed with relief when the electric door-catch softly burred. Without a glance at the approaching girl he carefully pulled the door to behind him and breathed again as a turn of the path brought him under the cover of bushes.
After all, Zecke could only say no, but this wench could make an infernal row—Wolfgang hated scenes with women. You never knew where they would end.