Jastrau gave a short laugh, but Steffensen went on. Was he being aggressive or was he on the defensive? His words fell from his lips in coarse lumps. His voice was hoarse and fanatical, full of animosity, and it seemed that he was only getting warmed up.
“Yes, you do know a little something about him. He’s a fine one, isn’t he? Uh—what that beast hasn’t ruined! All the fine words have lain in his filthy mouth as in a coffin filled with mud, and I’m damned if I can get them washed clean. It’s dirty material to work with. The whole language has been befouled by our ancestors. Have you ever heard my old man quote a stanza of verse? It’s disgusting the way he licks at it. A person has to create a whole new language for himself!”
“And that’s just what one does, of course,” Jastrau protested.
“So?” Steffensen said, making a face. “Do you writers do that? No. You take it over just as it is—all messed up by our elders—that’s what you do. Language is a slut. People should never have taken up with her. No, they should never have learned to talk. That’s what’s ruined our lives.”
Jastrau stared in exasperation at the dark, faceless form—an animated black mass, an arm in motion.
“What do you want to do, then?” he asked.
“Live—nothing but live. Like an animal—without words.”
“And do you?” Jastrau asked tauntingly.
“No. And that’s the hell of it,” Steffensen replied. It was a strangely hostile way of taking someone into his confidence. “I’m bound by a chain of words just like the rest of you, damn it! But I’m sure as hell going to break it, even if it takes a crime to do it. A crime. Phooey—there’s another word. They block the way to the infinite—all these stupid words—when one wants to live, that is. Because living—does that mean thinking? Does it? Or saying something? Words? Isn’t it rather going for a car ride at a hundred and twenty kilometers an hour? Or getting into a fight, or raping a girl? Why does a person have to think, anyhow?”
“Is that what you want to do?” asked Jastrau, laughing quietly. He was not going to agree with Steffensen—never. He was more inclined to annoy him, and he smiled derisively.
“Yes.” Steffensen laughed too.
“Then you had better be careful that you don’t land in the clink or tumble headfirst into religion,” Jastrau said slyly.
“Religion? Never!” Steffensen retorted roughly, shifting his position violently as if he had suddenly found himself sitting on a stone that was about to slip loose from a dark cliff and go plunging into the night.
“I just want to let you know that religion isn’t so wonderful either,” Jastrau said, suddenly becoming patronizing. “Only yesterday I was out on Stenosgade, and there I met a Jesuit who had eternity up his sleeve like a card in a game of ombre. But do you suppose he so much as gave a thought to eternity? He only sat there hoping for a chance to play with a really good opponent. A good card game was all he was looking for. Fortunately, I disappointed him. I don’t have any feel for card games.”
“I like to play well enough,” Steffensen protested.
“Can you really take an ace of spades seriously?”
“Yes—if it suits my hand, that is. Just as seriously as a poem.”
Jastrau got up in a fit of irritation.
“Oh, I don’t want to sit here and listen to this any longer!” he burst out as crudely as if it might have been Steffensen himself speaking.
“Well, that’s good. That means that now maybe I can have the forty kroner.” Steffensen got up too. As they stood directly facing each other in the darkness, they both felt the full force of their strange, wanton hostility toward each other. They felt like two hooligans who accidentally found themselves walking side by side along the sidewalk. Neither would have been surprised if the other had begun to shove him aside with his shoulder.
Then Jastrau turned on the light. The sudden glare struck their eyes with such impact that they each began to rub them. They also rubbed away some of their antagonism. And they could not fully understand the charged atmosphere that had prevailed in the darkness, the purposeless, ill-defined animosity that had striven to find expression.
“There you are,” Jastrau said, taking four ten-krone notes from his wallet. Steffensen accepted them without a word, crumpled them up casually, and stuffed them in a vest pocket.
“Shall we go now?” Jastrau said.
They had not so much as looked at each other since the light had been turned on. Jastrau turned it off again, and they left.
Once down in the street, they found themselves unable to part. Jastrau could not think of an excuse, and it occurred to him that he should have chosen to walk on out the uninteresting Istedgade in order to get rid of his guest.
But from force of habit he turned in toward the Town Hall Square. And Steffensen followed along without giving it a thought. Up the steps to the plaza in front of the railway station. Over to the parapet alongside the open cut where the tracks were. And on toward Vesterbrogade.
Neither of them said a word.
It was a mild spring evening. The sky arched black and star-strewn over Vesterbro Passage and the old railway right-of-way with its hodgepodge of low-roofed shops. It was a vast dome resembling a rural sky, flanked by the waxwork museum and the group of large structures on Reventlowsgade, which loomed up like two dark promontories. Standing beneath this wide-open expanse they both instinctively drew a deep breath of cool evening air, seasoned with gasoline and perfume and the fetid odor of many people, to which was added the acrid aroma of metal and coal smoke from the subterranean railway—a slightly intoxicating draught of poisonous liqueurs that the big city had to offer in spring.
Suddenly Steffensen stopped in front of a mysterious, portiere-hung doorway. A gilded Buddha glowed mysteriously in a narrow window. In a voice full of wisdom, Steffensen said, “We could use a highball.”
And Jastrau followed him into a very small barroom decorated in outlandish oriental style.
Behind a semicircular bar was an altar on which stood bottles and several ugly Buddhas whose eyes were equipped with colored electric light bulbs. And forming a voluptuous center of attraction in this crude world of divinity was a pink figure of a naked woman with breasts and other appurtenances. And behind the same bar stood a bartender with a round pink head, his face wreathed in a vague Buddha-like smile as he chatted with several gaudy priestesses with breasts that rested on the bar and other charms that bulged over the edges of the stools on which they sat. A phonograph droned on discreetly over in a corner. There was an odor of dusty furnishings, and one felt enclosed in a box with a lot of old rags and discarded imitation trinkets.
There were immediate signs of restlessness among the priestesses. Dark, ardent glances. An empty whiskey glass was raised to a red feminine mouth in a gesture meant to convey an impression of unspeakable thirst—a suggestive bit of pantomime. A skirt that slipped far up above the knee, up beyond the critical point where the flesh-colored stocking left off, while the creature fidgeted gracefully on the high stool—another seductive pantomime. Paying no attention, Jastrau and Steffensen found a place to sit on a little dais where there was an octagonal table. Very oriental.
When the whiskey had been ordered, the nature of their visit was established. They had indicated that they had come to drink and nothing more. And the priestesses quickly turned their backs on them. The cordon closed ranks. A row of supple female backs, restless hips, and bulging behinds shut off the view of the bartender’s pink smile.
But Jastrau and Steffensen were still in no mood for conversation. Silently, they let themselves be lulled into a torpor by the phonograph and the stuffy atmosphere. The whiskey and soda in the thick glasses had a soothing effect. Their surroundings began to take form.
“Life is so dull!” they heard a drunken voice exclaim. “We need a new world war, damn it!”
Shrill but forced laughter from the women. A “Hear! Hear!” from a deep-throated male voice in the background.
�
�The girls had life in them then. The whiskey flowed.” There was a commotion. The drunken man almost fell out of his chair.
Then the monologue was drowned out in a general hubbub. Voices from the oriental booths along the walls. Clinking of glasses. Toasts. Little squeals. Men and women entwined in intimate embraces, almost in arabesque fashion, so that their positions seemed to fit into the decor of the place.
Then suddenly Jastrau recognized a man with a thin head of hair that gave the impression of having been carefully parted over a doll-like skull. He also recognized the faint trace of a polite smile on the childish face. It was Little P.
But what was it that Little P. had in his hand? It looked like a travel folder. He was leafing through it as he laughed in a strange manner and shook his head.
A stout man with a thick, purple nose reached out for the folder.
“I bid three hundred! Three hundred!” And the stout man held up three fingers, as if he wanted to take an oath on it.
The rest of the little auction was hidden behind the black-clad back of a waiter.
“The drinks are standing and getting lukewarm,” Steffensen said.
Jastrau pulled himself together and nodded.
“It seems damned good to get away from that hole of yours over there,” Steffensen went on, raising his glass to his lips.
“You could have stayed away, you know,” said Jastrau, smiling and raising his glass. “But I take it then that you like this better than sitting around talking about lofty matters.”
“Let’s not go into that again,” Steffensen growled. “If we do, we’ll only get sore at each other.”
Jastrau leaned back in his chair and stared at the hard gloomy face and the tousled blond hair. Yes, he looked like a rowdy. He would certainly never have been served if Jastrau had not been with him.
“Listen, you,” he said suddenly, but then stopped. It was strange. Yesterday Vuldum has asked him the same question. Strange.
“What is it?” Steffensen asked.
“Why—yes, why don’t you like me?”
It was ridiculous. Sentimental. A need for sympathy? He saw Vuldum’s sharp features before him. That sterile mouth.
“Yes, why don’t you?” Jastrau repeated.
Suddenly Steffensen’s eyes assumed the same glazed whitish luster as before, and his lips grew rigid in an expression of inexplicable anger. They were thrust forward in defiance.
“Because I thought you were a genuine rebel. But let’s not talk about that now,” he added imploringly, collapsing again.
“Yes, let’s talk about it now,” Jastrau said softly. He wanted to get the better of him. “You thought I was a genuine rebel.”
“Yes.” Again Steffensen sat up straight. “That’s what we need. We’ve never really had any. And then I met a soft, pudgy bourgeois bogged down in family life and all that.”
“But I was good enough for you when you needed money,” Jastrau went on, still in a friendly tone.
“Yes, why not? When the bourgeoisie has a sentimental need to subsidize art, then let them shell out. But let’s not talk about it now.”
Once more his voice had a pleading note in it, and he lifted his glass and nodded deferentially to divert attention from the subject.
“You’re not drinking,” he said in a friendly manner.
Jastrau drank.
“Three hundred and twenty-five is the bid,” came a voice. “And not an øre more.”
“You ought to take it, Little P.,” came a woman’s voice. “For my sake, you ought to take it. You mustn’t go away—for my sake, Little P.”
“What is it they’re up to?” Steffensen asked, nodding toward Little P.
“I haven’t any idea.”
“Look, we’ve got to have another highball. I’m buying.”
“You?” Jastrau asked in surprise. “You haven’t any money.”
“Oh, no?” Steffensen grinned, pulled the four crumpled ten-krone notes from his pocket, and tossed them on the table. “I put the touch on a bourgeois boob for these—ha ha!”
“Yes—but Anna Marie—”
“What do I care?”
“But you’ll be thrown out on the street tomorrow.”
“Then I’ll simply move in with Sanders.”
Jastrau wrinkled his brows, but Steffensen went on: “Sanders is all right. If he has money, then the other fellow has money too. A person can live at his place. His door is never locked. I’ve been there when as many as five of us were sleeping up at his hole-in-the-wall. We put up there—lived there for a week. He’s the only genuine Communist in the country. Let’s drink to him. Waiter! We need more whiskey. That’s the way you ought to be. Like Sanders.”
“And Anna Marie? Will you take her along up to his place?”
“Damned if I know. What do I care?”
At that moment a wave of exultation engulfed the entire barroom. The girls leaped down from their stools and swarmed out onto the floor. And the bartender in his white jacket squeezed his way out from behind the bar and joined in the jubilation. Men and women alike got up from their tables.
“Three hundred and fifty! Three hundred and fifty! Little P. is going to stay! Hurray!”
Little P.’s pale face appeared above the heads of the customers. He bowed smilingly in all directions while the rejoicing continued.
“Oh—Little P.!” a woman shrieked. “So you’re not going away.”
Little P. raised his arm in a silent gesture and waved a handful of crackling bills in the air.
“I’m buying a round for the whole house,” he shouted in a thin voice. It was very difficult for such a puny person to measure up to the level of the enthusiasm and adulation that surrounded him. “I’m buying! Drinks for the house!” he squeaked.
“You did all right, getting that ticket for so little,” someone shouted to the merchant with the purplish nose.
“A deal is a deal,” grunted the merchant. “I have a son who can do with a trip to Canada.”
“What’s it all about?” Jastrau asked the bartender. The bartender gave him a moist, Buddha-like smile.
“Oh, Little P. has sold his ticket to Canada, that’s all. He was supposed to have been on the train an hour ago.”
Gradually peace was restored to the room. The customers found their places again. The merchant soon left.
Little P., on the other hand, walked around the room accepting congratulations, an irremovable smile on his anemic lips. The men clapped him on the shoulder. The women kissed him on both cheeks as well as square on the mouth until, crumpled and dazed as a fashion model subjected to a roll downhill but still smiling, he stood before Jastrau’s table.
“What? Is it you, maestro?”
Jastrau, infected by the general enthusiasm, embraced him cordially.
“You’re staying, Little P.! Just think, Steffensen—he’s staying. He’s not going away. He’s staying.”
“Yes, I’m staying,” replied Little P., unable to account for Jastrau’s outburst of joy. “You see, there’s no clock in this barroom, so the train got away without me. But, maestro, I’m sitting over here with a charming young lady. I’d be very happy if you’d move over to my table.”
Jastrau let himself be easily persuaded. And Steffensen lumbered along after him. His face was set in a frown.
A little Frøken Caja with a heart-shaped mouth. She became downright frightened when she saw Steffensen’s shoddy, dirty clothes. But there was also an oval-shaped Herr Dieterding with a soft voice, and she took shelter behind him. And a Frøken Bubi with a flushed face and heavy breasts. She kept leaning forward over either Little P. or a cocktail—a murky mixture with an egg yolk swimming uncomfortably around in it. “It looks like an abortion,” Steffensen managed to remark. Thereafter he was allowed to drink in peace without being bothered by the women around him.
The drinks were kept full. The damp checks accumulated on the table. Little P. smiled at everyone and shifted the three hundred and fifty kroner into his l
eft hand each time he had to take a drink, then back to the right hand when he had to pull himself together. He looked as if he intended to take the money to bed with him.
“It’s nice that I’m staying,” he peeped now and then.
Then the oval Herr Dieterding permitted himself to express some opinions about literature. And Jastrau drank several highballs on behalf of the opinions.
Steffensen emptied the glasses that were placed before him and made himself noticeable only by his presence.
But it was a mobile company. People floated about like clouds. Now a few men would appear, jovial individuals who sang “For he’s a jolly good fellow,” then several women who leaned closely over Little P., whose childish smile became more and more lost in his disintegrating features. People crowded closer and closer.
Jastrau, however, inhaled deep draughts of this fragrance of human proximity and felt happy. A woman’s fingers ran up his thigh as if playing a piano. Oh, there was no emptiness here. A woman’s silk-covered breast brushed against his nose and pressed against his eye, shutting off his vision. Oh, the fullness, the exuberance of it. Fullness, abundance—that was all that was eternal. That and the proximity of human beings. Closeness to human beings. The only thing worth living for.
But Steffensen only sat there, lonely, in the midst of the gathering, and drank. Drops of sweat rolled down his unnaturally high, pale forehead.
“Why do you hate me?” Jastrau burst out, touching glasses with him.
Steffensen waved his hand aloofly.
“But why? Why?” Jastrau repeated.
“Nobody here hates anybody,” intoned Little P. in his paternal, yet infantile, manner.
“Why should one hate anybody?” seconded the oval Herr Dieterding.
And then the human proximity came on in waves until it was like a sea, an element in which it was natural to embrace each other. Friendship. Oh, that precious feeling. Whiskey. Whiskey. Immerse yourself in whiskey and have faith in your friends—unlimited faith. Jastrau’s arm was around Little P.’s shoulder. They sat on the high stools with their backs to the bar and stared as if hypnotized at women dancing with each other—oh Sappho!—at flesh-colored legs and dapper shoes that flashed across the carpet in surely executed dance steps, heels in, heels out, acute angles, obtuse angles, the toes cutting innumerable incessant figures.
Havoc Page 20