‘One needs,’ said Alois, ‘to go out into the streets and earn a living. You can’t remain in the paddock for ever. In the parlance of the race course, you should test yourself over the flat. One must gain form.’ He paused and looked sharply at his brother who, with eyes half-closed and a vacant expression on his face, appeared about to fall sideways on to the cushions. ‘You seem to require an inordinate amount of sleep,’ he remarked as mildly as he was able. ‘In my opinion it’s due to lack of fresh air and stimulation, but perhaps there’s a medical explanation. Possibly we should let Dr Kephalus examine you.’
‘That man!’ said Adolf, roused. ‘He’d be better employed in a butcher’s shop.’
‘There I sympathise with you,’ agreed Alois. ‘It’s difficult to think of the exact word to describe him.’
‘“Disgusting” springs readily to mind,’ said Adolf. He was now wide-awake and prepared to discuss Dr Kephalus at length.
Alois cut him short. If Meyer considered the doctor brilliant and dedicated – why, then he must be. What Adolf thought was of little importance. ‘I myself,’ he said righteously, ‘have learnt to keep my own council. Things go on here that I don’t approve of, but I neither interfere nor criticise.’
‘What things?’ asked Adolf.
‘I’ve my livelihood to think of,’ replied Alois cryptically. ‘Besides, it’s not my house.’
‘Kephalus offered to supply me with certain documents,’ said Adolf.
At this Alois abruptly stood and held up his hand for silence. ‘Say no more,’ he ordered. ‘I refuse to be involved. It’s none of my business.’
‘Someone,’ insinuated Adolf, ‘was involved in the first place. I never mentioned my papers.’ He thought his brother ridiculous, standing there with one arm raised as though halting the traffic, his face turned to the baby who, bored and fretful, was uttering querulous little cries like a hen scratching in a yard.
‘Now look here,’ shouted Alois, adopting a bullying tone. ‘There’s something we must resolve here and now. I simply can’t go on supporting you. It’s not as if you’re crippled or have a weak heart. We haven’t met in fifteen years. Why should I put food in your mouth?’
‘Why indeed,’ murmured Adolf sarcastically. The way Alois expressed it he might have been a fledgling in a nest, beak constantly open for worms. He knew he was in the wrong. He tried to assume an attitude of contrition, of self-abasement. Nothing happened. He continued to feel contempt for his expensively clothed brother. ‘I expect,’ he couldn’t resist saying, ‘it’s on account of your superior and unselfish nature.’
Alois, infuriated, was on the point of frog-marching him down the stairs and booting him out of the door when he suddenly noticed the section of twisted metal up-ended against the skirting board. Sobered, he made one last effort. Taking care to avoid darling Pat’s sticky and outstretched hands, he began to walk round and round the table. ‘I’ll make myself plain,’ he announced firmly. ‘You can’t stay here any longer. Not unless you’re willing to work. That’s my final word.’
Instantly Adolf was alarmed. This time he was convinced his brother was serious. He was certain he would never survive another winter in Vienna – destitute, the authorities searching for him. ‘I’m not afraid to work,’ he cried. ‘I’ve shovelled snow before now. I’ve shovelled till the skin swelled up in blisters.’
‘There’s not much call for that here,’ said Alois. ‘Mostly it rains. I had something less strenuous in mind. And in beautiful surroundings. As an artist you know better than I how important such things are. You couldn’t fail to be impressed … such ceilings … such decor … the most sumptuous rooms imaginable.’ He was carried away by his own eloquence. As he spoke he trailed his fingers expressively in the air, conjuring marvels. The child at the table followed the movements of his father’s hand and, mistaking the ring he wore for a bright toy, wriggled frantically in his chair. ‘You have never seen such statues … Each article of furniture is exquisitely carved … The curtains are magnificent. You’ll be serving people of refinement and learning, rubbing shoulders with the highest in the land. You will swoon at the exchange of ideas. Believe me, it will come as a revelation to you – the main carpet alone is worth a thousand pounds.’ Alois was standing stock-still now, one hand upraised above the whiteness of his cuff. He appeared to hold his brother’s future between thumb and forefinger like a rose.
‘Serving!’ said Adolf.
‘It’s not all that definite,’ Alois said hastily. ‘I may not be able to swing it. I can but try. I suggest you meet me outside the Adelphi at six this evening. The front entrance. Be sure to polish your boots and wear the white shirt.’ Relieved that he had managed to refrain from violence, he added generously: ‘As a gambling man I’d put my money on you every time. You’re a winner if ever I saw one. You have so many advantages – youth, an excellent brain, a good background—’
‘Background,’ repeated Adolf.
‘Decent parents, a stable home. As a man grows older he realises these things.’ Alois glanced sentimentally in the direction of old man Hitler and bowed his head.
Outraged by this lamentable distortion of the truth, Adolf jumped to his feet.
‘Decent?’ he bellowed. ‘He was illegitimate and so were you. He married three blasted times. You were beaten so regularly that if you dropped those elegant trousers we’d still see the marks of his belt.’
‘It takes two to make the bargain,’ muttered Alois. ‘One adjusts, one appreciates—’
‘One bloody doesn’t,’ cried Adolf. ‘He was a bastard. Both of you. Bastards.’ And gibbering with loathing he ran to the hat-stand and leaping in the air spat a gob of saliva at the photograph on the wall.
The baby, startled, arched its back and screamed.
14
Yet at precisely six o’clock Adolf was waiting outside the Adelphi Hotel. His white shirt had proved unwearable; the collar was frayed beyond repair. Reluctantly Bridget had lent him a tray-cloth embroidered at the edges with bunches of cherries, which in some fashion he had stuffed inside the revers of his black coat. He waited for what seemed like a long time, holding a newspaper over his head to protect himself from the rain. Several times he started to climb the steps towards the commissionaire who guarded the entrance to the building, and on each occasion he lost courage half-way up and turned back. He wouldn’t risk a rebuff. He constantly rearranged the white cloth more securely inside his coat, fumbling there in the drizzle like a woman adjusting a troublesome shoulder strap. Below him in the main thoroughfare the pedestrians swarmed amid the tram-cars and the bicycles; they surged backwards and forwards across the street, intent on appointments and destinations. Everyone, it seemed, save him, had some place to go, some function to perform. The ramp on which he stood was flooded with light. Along the entire length of the hotel dark figures were silhouetted against the brightness, seated at tables, standing, gesticulating; floor after floor of blazing windows rose into the night. When taxi-cabs approached the kerb, the commissionaire hurtled down the steps holding aloft a large brown umbrella. As the cabs rolled to a halt he tugged open the doors and the occupants ducked into the light. Between one dry interior and another the women hovered for a moment, jostling for space and hoisting their skirts above the wet paving stones. Then Adolf scurried out of their way, fearful of being ordered to move on, his head bent underneath the piece of sodden newspaper. It was torture to him. As the women pranced upwards under the bobbing umbrella, he distinctly heard them sniggering. He watched like a beggar as the gentlemen followed more leisurely and entered the revolving doors. Laughter spilled down the steps as they spun round into the glittering foyer. All that remained of their giddy ascent of wealth and privilege was a faint aroma of perfume and cigars.
Thinking perhaps that he had misunderstood his brother’s instructions, Adolf trailed up the alleyway and loitered outside the tradesmen’s entrance. From inside came a continuous din of banging doors and voices raised. Round his feet cats cir
cled, waiting for food. Throwing away his newspaper he sat on a dustbin for half an hour. He remembered Meyer telling him that the site on which the hotel was built had once been a place for picnicking. It amused him, perched on his bin, overshadowed by cast iron and bricks, the stench of decaying food in his nostrils and a gush of greasy water from kitchens and laundry constantly flooding into the gutter, to think that he sat in a strawberry field. It was only when he looked upwards to where the stars should have been that he felt depressed and out of sorts. At last, abandoning all hope of meeting Alois, he stood, shook himself like a dog and descending the hill again turned into Lime Street.
He wasn’t too disturbed. After all he couldn’t be blamed. He had arrived in the right place at the right time. Bridget would vouch for him. She had been annoyed, to say the least, by his gesture of defiance towards old man Hitler. ‘You’d think it was cuckoo time,’ was all she’d said; but those rosy patches had ebbed from her cheeks when she wiped the spittle from the hat-stand. She was however a Catholic and frightened of irritating God. She’d have to tell the truth, and she’d have to be believed. Why else would he have borrowed that ridiculous bib and spent an hour buffing the leather of his boots with a scrap of silk petticoat? He wasn’t sure why Alois had failed to show up. Doubtless at this moment he was propping up some bar, talking of razor blades.
When Adolf crossed the road and began to walk down Church Street he was revolted to see that the shop windows were filled with seasonal displays. The dummies in fur coats sat on sledges festooned with sprigs of holly and piled high with scarlet-ribboned packages. St Nicholas, a sack on his shoulder, stood in a meadow of cottonwool sprinkled with mica. Above the scarves and the handkerchieves and the blouses with the Peter Pan collars hung glass baubles and paper lanterns. He found such sights detestable. The night his mother died he had run to fetch Dr Bloch, and on their return, thrusting open the door, the candles had wavered in the draught. In his mother’s eyes he saw reflected those tiny flickering lights. When she was dead Dr Bloch had closed her lids with two deft dabs of his thumb. The candles on the tree burned on.
Nauseated by the appearance of a stuffed robin in the window of a jeweller’s shop, perched on a papier mâché log with a loop of pearls dangling from its beak, Adolf recrossed the road to Clayton Square. Despite the rain the old women draped in shawls were selling fruit, though for some reason they had abandoned their usual pitch on the pavement and now stood well back against the facade of the restaurant. Naphtha flares set in buckets were spaced at intervals along the cobblestones, and a policeman, holding a lantern, patrolled up and down. Avoiding him, Adolf made a small detour round the square and hovered outside the picture house, peering in through the doors at the signed photographs of glamorous actresses, faces posed peek-a-boo over milk-white shoulders or haughtily smiling with black lips curved above a mist of furs. He couldn’t afford to go inside and he couldn’t go home. Not yet. At this hour Bridget would be crooning her Irish lullabys as she sponged the baby in front of the fire.
Regretfully he turned away from the lighted doors and walked across the cobblestones towards the main street. He fell full-length over the trunk of a giant tree that was lying on the ground, its branches tied with cord. For a moment he lay there believing himself to have been miraculously transported to the pine forests of Leonding.
He was plucked upright by the policeman, who demanded to know if he was blind as well as clumsy. A small crowd had lined up in the square, separated from the winded Adolf by the barrier of the furled Christmas tree. He put his left foot to the ground and winced. Among the interested spectators stood a young woman with a painted face and a whalebone comb stuck in her wet hair. Clambering over the obstruction she poked Adolf’s lacerated chin with her finger and told him he was bleeding.
‘Thank you, thank you,’ he muttered, horribly embarrassed. He was convinced she was a prostitute.
‘What do you think those are for?’ asked the policeman, indicating the row of buckets lit with flames. He held his lantern higher and scrutinised the tree for damage. ‘It’s Corporation property,’ he warned.
‘Bugger the corporation,’ cried the young woman. ‘Can’t you see he’s hurt hisself?’ Protectively she put one arm round Adolf and began to push him further on down the street.
Desperately he glanced back and seeing a face he instantly recognised shouted: ‘Please, I need assistance.’
The man he so imploringly addressed stared at him, hesitated, and vaulted agilely across the tree. Catching up with them, he spoke to the girl. She frowned, her hand resting on Adolf’s waist.
‘Be off with you,’ ordered the man.
At this the girl, glancing uneasily in the direction of the policeman, relinquished her hold and walked sulkily away. It was then that Adolf realised that he didn’t know the bearded man after all. Conscious of some monstrous error, he gazed bewildered into the stranger’s blue eyes and gritting his teeth manufully hobbled off down the street with as much speed as he could muster.
Not until he was approaching Hope Street did he slacken his pace. How, he wondered, had he made such a bloomer? The man hadn’t known him from Adam. Possibly it had been a trick of the firelight – and yet … and yet … he could have sworn it was a face he knew. Mortified, he limped beside the railings of the cemetery, praying he wouldn’t meet. Dr Kephalus. Thank God his ankle wasn’t badly sprained. Already he felt less pain. It was a mercy, he thought, that he hadn’t broken his leg. Alois, being a racing man, would probably have considered it kinder to shoot him.
He had decided when he reached the house to sneak into Meyer’s room and bathe his foot. He could rest there until Bridget had gone to bed. But when he let himself into the hall, the door to the fiddler’s room was open. He caught a glimpse of Mary O’Leary’s backside as he crept like a thief up the stairs. What a dilemma! He was anxious to avoid Bridget – some time during his upsetting evening he had unaccountably mislaid the tray cloth embroidered with cherries. He wouldn’t be at all surprised if the obliging prostitute hadn’t whipped it from his breast when she first accosted him. Leaning against the banisters he removed his boots and carrying them in his arms stealthily passed the second landing and continued upwards.
It was pitch dark on the third floor. He tapped blindly along the passageway, groping for doors. One was padlocked, and the second, though not bolted in any way, refused to budge. He was frightened of putting his shoulder to the panelling in case he made a noise. With the third and final door at the extreme end of the corridor he struck lucky. It opened without a sound. Ahead of him he saw the dull gleam of window panes. Cautiously he closed the door behind him and limped forwards. He was looking down into the dance half across the street. For a time he watched the couples bounding and cavorting under the crimson streamers. He caught himself smiling with second-hand enjoyment. Sheepishly he glanced away and saw in the street below, leaning against the railings of a house, the solitary figure of a man with his arms crossed upon his chest. He appeared to be staring steadfastly at the shuttered windows of Meyer’s room. Though it was too dark to see his features, Adolf knew immediately who he was. I’m afraid, he thought, and he ducked down out of sight, his knees trembling beneath him. For several weeks he had pushed from his mind his encounter with the mysterious stranger on the boat and the apparition of the bearded man on his balcony above the river. Now the nightmare was upon him again. He began to crawl on all fours towards the door. The pressure of the darkness seemed to advance like a tidal wave – he felt he was being pushed backwards. As he scuttled feebly over the rough floorboards a fearful racket broke out in the house next door. First there was a tremendous banging from below and then muffled footsteps pounding along passageways. Panic-stricken, Adolf clawed his way up the wall. He couldn’t find the door knob; his fingers clutched something small and metallic, and the next instant electric light flooded the room. He spun round, mouth wide with shock.
The only furniture was a mattress on the floor, piled with rolls of pa
per. Above the window and along the length of the right-hand wall the plaster was peeling and ringed with patches of damp. Clearly the room was in the process of redecoration, for the wall to Adolf’s left, from skirting board to picture rail, was covered in immaculately stretched paper. He slid downwards on to his haunches and stared in puzzlement at the pattern of full-blown roses on a cream ground. Was it possible that Meyer had secretly been preparing this room for him all along? It was the only logical explanation when he considered Meyer’s deliberate questioning of him as to the length of his stay. Forgetting the sinister loiterer in the street below, Adolf crouched dreamily against the door, building shelves in his mind and stacking them with books. He didn’t care for roses, but none the less …
Without warning a section of the newly decorated wall collapsed inwards and, as if fired through a paper hoop, a man with a bandage about his temples shot into the room. Lifting Adolf by the lapels of his coat he flung him aside and was out of the door and running down the stairs in a matter of seconds. Adolf was left in a heap on the floor, facing a jagged black hole in the wall, its edges scalloped with loops of torn paper printed with flowers. A fine drift of white dust began to settle on him. For a moment he lay there stunned, astonished that no sound had escaped his lips. Then he heard shouts coming from somewhere beyond the break in the wall. Scrambling to his feet, he had the presence of mind to switch off the light before fleeing down the passage.
15
He could get no sense out of either Bridget or Mary O’Leary, both of whom happened to be on the second-floor landing when he came barefooted down the stairs. They professed to have heard nothing out of the ordinary. Adolf pushed past them and looked excitedly about the sitting room.
‘He had a bandage on his head,’ he shouted. ‘His shirt was unbuttoned at the front.’ He tore open his coat and thumped his breast. ‘I saw clearly a triangle of hair, just here.’
Young Adolf Page 7