Havoc

by Havoc (retail) (epub)

  At that moment, Jastrau happened to look at Steffensen. His eyes were bloodshot, and a drop of blood had collected in the corner of each eye. Wisps of hair hung down over his forehead.

  “What a sight you are!” Jastrau observed.

  “Do you think perhaps you look any better?” said Steffensen with a grin. “A rum pudding that has been stepped on.”

  Jastrau had no desire to look in a mirror. He was aware at once that what Steffensen had said was true. His face was sweaty. His cheeks hung loose and flabby, and he could almost feel them quivering.

  “But look here,” said Steffensen after they had seated themselves at a small table near the window, “are you really serious about this business with Bernhard?”

  “Yes-s,” Jastrau said, drawing the word out. A bright, sunny day. Women out on the sidewalk. Yes, this was the table at which he had sat. “Yes, I want to know—”

  “Oh—you only want to know,” Steffensen sneered, gulping down a glass of beer. “If that’s all you want, I can damn well tell you about it. He did it in order to make society ripe for the proletarian revolution. You see, every bourgeois marriage that goes to hell is further proof of the eternal truth of Communism and all that sort of hogwash. Is that all you want to listen to?”

  Jastrau compressed his lips in malicious scorn. “I want to see him—the beast.”

  “And then?”

  “I don’t know. But I want to have him here in front of me and see him squirm. Because he may be a Communist, but a comrade—”

  “And then?” Steffensen’s bloodshot eyes assumed their glassy luster.

  “I don’t know what I’ll do then.” Jastrau gasped for breath.

  “The only logical thing to do is beat him up.”

  “Oh, you and your logic—”

  “Because it isn’t enough just to talk to him, I tell you.” Steffensen sneered as he uttered the word “talk,” and then improved upon it. “To have a conversation with him—is that what you want? That would be just dandy.”

  “Now finish your drink, so we can get going,” Jastrau exclaimed impatiently, and got up.

  They hurried along the dark Abel Cathrinesgade, crossed Vestebrogade with its stream of luminous traffic, an artery of fire pulsing through the night, and disappeared into the obscurity of Stenosgade. To their right in the darkness rose the Catholic church with its murky walls. A light was visible through the arched window of one of the parlors.

  “Look in there—that’s where they talk about logic,” Jastrau remarked spitefully as they walked by. “That might be something for you.”

  Steffensen did not reply, but trudged along with hands in his pockets.

  “Now we’ll soon be there,” he mumbled.

  At the corner of Vodroffsvej there was a jumble of low buildings, a moss-coated summerhouse that looked like a dilapidated bandstand, some board fences, and a stretch of uneven pavement leading to a five-story building that seemed completely out of place in the surroundings, but merely erected on edge, so to speak, because of a vague premonition that some day tall buildings would be constructed in the neighborhood. In back of the house, a yard the width of an alley lay squeezed in between the building and the Svineryggen slope.

  It was one of innumerable, ill-conceived “suburban spots” close to the center of Copenhagen.

  Steffensen ran up the stairs ahead of Jastrau until he reached the attic, where he pushed open a door without knocking. A macabre glow of green light spilled out onto the dark stair landing, and the thick tobacco smoke that poured out was like steam from a laundry, so pallid did it appear in the strange light. And the hum of voices that they had been able to hear even down on the first floor now rose to a roar.

  There were people there.

  Had Jastrau expected to find Sanders alone? Had be dreamed of confronting him in an empty attic room with bare walls and the barren appearance of a place suited for a murder? He had forgotten that Sanders was never alone.

  Steffensen had not stopped, and Jastrau followed him. They found themselves in a small room that gave the impression of a hole-in-the-wall in overpopulated Moscow. Here no one was alone.

  A couple of sofas on which some young people were curled up and crowded together like vipers in a nest. Cushions on the floor. People there as well. Young students and workers with hair brushed back and Byronic collars of dubious cleanness. Young girls with bobbed hair and a contemptuously independent attitude. Cigarette butts everywhere. Teacups on the floor and on the bookshelves, shoved in between the books. Some photographs of structural steel work on the walls—the modern concept of beauty—and an enormous picture of Lenin with his massive, saintly head and sardonic smile.

  Sanders stood up, a solitary erect figure amidst the teeming, mobile mass that stirred like a brood of newly hatched chicks. The glow from a green-shaded lamp that stood on a low table cast his gigantic shadow on the wall so that the head was deflected at a right angle against the ceiling.

  “What do you want?” Sanders asked in a tone of authority. He seemed to be standing on a pedestal of people.

  “A talk with you,” Steffensen replied with restraint, thrusting his pale face forward. The multitude of heads looked up, mercilessly delineated in the green light. Curiosity. And contempt as well.

  “You’re breaking into an editorial meeting. Is it something that concerns Aktion, or is it personal? I can well imagine it’s personal,” Sanders concluded sarcastically. Lenin’s smile was doubled; it shone from many faces, and was multiplied many times over. The entire group smiled sardonically, even the women with bobbed hair.

  “Yes, it’s personal,” Jastrau said quietly. This feeling of group participation overwhelmed him.

  Sanders directed his dark smoldering eyes at him and with a wave of the hand indicated the entire editorial board. His shadow on the wall made the gesture still more world-encompassing.

  “As you see, Ole, we’re not alone,” he said. Then he added with pointed irony: “Although, for that matter, you’re not afraid to discuss your private life in public.”

  “Nor are you afraid to take advantage of what a drunken man says in a bar, and then go and tell his wife about it. Is that what you call comradeship?” Jastrau asked in a sudden fit of rage. The green hospital light dazzled him, reaching into the innermost recesses of his consciousness. For a moment he felt himself blinded by anger, as if by an enormous outburst of light.

  “Oh, do we have to listen to this?” exclaimed a young worker on the floor as he raised himself on an elbow. “What do we care about all this gibberish? Let’s throw them out.”

  There was a restless movement among the crowd. Through the flickering light which still shimmered before his eyes he could detect dark, ominous looks.

  “No, no,” Sanders exclaimed and made an admonitory gesture. His shadow resembled a statue of a naval hero. “This is Editor Jastrau, and he did me a favor once that I won’t forget.”

  “Throw them out,” someone yelled.

  “Who’s going to be tossed out of here?” Steffensen said as he reached out with a long arm and grabbed a student by his Byron collar. With a sudden jerk to one side, the student tore himself loose. Arms went up in an aggressive manner around Steffensen. The crowd began to stir. One of the girls put her hands to her head and cried “Oh!” Some cups rattled.

  But Jastrau had regained control of himself. “Stop it now, Steffensen,” he said.

  “I think we’d better go outside and talk alone for a little while,” Sanders shouted. “But the rest of you can go on. I’ll be right back.”

  He cast a sidelong glance at one of the editorial committee members, took Jastrau by the arm, and led him out into the hallway. Steffensen followed them with a hangdog look.

  “Why in the world did you do it?” Jastrau asked as they descended the dark stairway. He had gently freed himself from Sanders’s grasp, but he could still feel the pressure on his arm.

  “Do what? Oh, you mean why did I go home and tell your wife about it?” Sa
nders cut loose with a melancholy laugh. “Do I really have to defend myself for that?”

  “You’ve done me a great deal of harm.”

  “Uuh,” Steffensen growled from behind them. “Go downstairs now and give each other a couple of punches instead of this drivel.”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact that’s what we should do,” Jastrau exclaimed suddenly, turning to face Sanders.

  They could barely see each other on the dark staircase.

  “All right, as far as I’m concerned, but what good will that do?” Sanders asked in a tone that seemed to indicate a shrug of the shoulders. And Jastrau understood. What good would a fistfight do?

  “From my point of view,” Sanders went on, “I don’t have the slightest idea of what you want of me—not the slightest, I tell you. What is there to reproach me for? Two people, both of whom I regard highly, are wearing each other ragged in an unhappy marriage, and I—well, what shall I say—it’s idiotic that I have to stand here and explain. Your wife was too good to go on living in ignorance of it—that’s the whole story.”

  “Now we’re getting somewhere,” Steffensen growled sullenly. “Didn’t I tell you so?”

  Jastrau leaned against the staircase railing. Then he took an indecisive step down.

  From up in the attic came a mumble of voices.

  “But what business was it of yours, Sanders?” he asked glumly.

  “Marriage—” Sanders began didactically.

  “Oh, don’t give me any of your theorizing,” Jastrau interrupted testily.

  Steffensen sat down on the stairs with a deep sigh.

  “What do you want me to do?” Sanders asked ironically. “Shall we really go down and swap punches?”

  “That wouldn’t be theorizing,” Jastrau exclaimed heatedly, trying to look Sanders in the eye. He saw nothing but a shadowy figure on the dark stairway. “It was your damned rotten nature that was to blame for it all. As soon as you smell a woman you become pathological—morbid.”

  Steffensen laughed approvingly.

  “Well, what of it?” Sanders asked, a lilting tone of scorn in his voice. “What are you driving at, Ole? I’ll freely admit that I’m pathological. Come to think of it, that’s a strong word. But so what, Ole? I admit it. But then you must also admit that your marriage was unhappy.”

  “Was it?” Jastrau stopped. Then he suddenly burst out: “But was that any concern of yours?”

  “No. And was it any concern of all the others there in the bar?” Sanders asked irascibly. “But we’re going around in circles, Ole, and neither you nor I have time for that. The point I want to make is that your marriage didn’t work out because marriage is a poor form of relationship between the sexes.”

  He leaned toward Jastrau. They stood on the stairs, engaged in discussion as if in a contemporary stage play. Above them Steffensen sat in an ungainly hunched-up position, since stairways are not made to sit on. He yawned loudly.

  “And that’s what I meant, Ole. Call me pathological or whatever else you wish. What does it matter? And suppose those people up there”—he gave a toss of his head—“are a bunch of nitwits, which as a matter of fact they are, what difference does it make? Because we’re the ones who are going to prevail. We can’t help but prevail. Sound reason indicates as much, and any fool can see it as soon as his eyes are opened to it. Lenin, he was only an instrument, he said, and I, perhaps I’m a poor miserable instrument, but I go along the same way, doing the best I can. So you see, Ole, I can’t take you and your marriage seriously. I can’t do it. It’s only one of the millions of symptoms that indicate that we’re right—those nitwits up there and I. And I can well understand that the loss of the boy is painful to you. But after all, I was only the pathological individual who broke up something that had gone to pieces anyway—because I don’t suppose you suspected me of being in love with your wife, did you?”

  “If only you had been,” Jastrau replied wearily. He moved down a step, for now he wanted to go. Steffensen moved a step lower. He was following him in a sitting position. “Then I would have understood you better,” Jastrau added.

  Sanders laughed scornfully.

  “Yes, of course. A bourgeois love affair with a diabolical seducer—that you would have understood. But that something is finished—that you can’t understand.”

  “No, I don’t understand anything,” Jastrau replied bitterly.

  “But had I known there would be trouble, then, of course, you realize that—”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Ole—” Now there was a trace of a whimper in Sanders’s voice. It rose in pitch, as if he were about to break into tears, and Jastrau pricked up his ears and listened, listened through the darkness. Through a window he could look down onto the dark pavement with its light and shadow from a street lamp.

  “Ole—” The voice broke. “Are we on bad terms—then?”

  “Yes.”

  Sanders turned and began to walk up the stairs. His footsteps had a melancholy, thoughtful sound. Then they became more hurried. He was getting back to the editorial conference, and Jastrau could tell that now his thoughts were only on it. There was a sudden hubbub of voices as the door above opened, then once more a subdued mumbling.

  “We might have saved ourselves the trouble,” said Steffensen, getting up from his hard seat on the stairway and stretching his legs.

  “Are you any wiser than you were before?” he went on, jutting his woebegone face forth into the light from the street lamp as they stood on the corner of Gammel Kongevej. He was sober now.

  “Well, yes. Yes, I guess I am,” Jastrau replied, staring down the street. Something had been silently resolved. Not justly, not unjustly, but clearly and indispensably. And it had happened so calmly, as when during his childhood he had fervently placed a checkmark in a secondhand dealer’s catalog beside the name of a book he ardently wanted, and then at once the desire for it had imperceptibly disappeared. He had placed a checkmark on Sanders, and suddenly the desire for revenge had cooled. No hot, blinding fog. No impulsive, sudden fit of rage. Jastrau felt a sense of relief.

  But Steffensen trudged along beside him with long, lurching seaman’s steps and his cap pulled askew over his forehead.

  “That was an illogical business,” he muttered.

  “Oh, you and your logic! Go on down into Stenosgade. Yes, we can at least see if there’s still a light in one of the parlors,” Jastrau said cheerfully. A feeling of joy and liberation surged through him. The summer night was luminous. The lights shone brightly.

  They turned into Stenosgade and stopped on the sidewalk across from the Catholic church. Jastrau stretched and jumped up a bit to see if he could get a glimpse into the lighted parlor. Was it Father Garhammer who was sitting in there? He could not be sure. He thought it was a Jesuit who had his back turned toward them, but the window was too high and there was a lace curtain that frustrated his curiosity.

  “Look. In there they’re discussing logic.”

  “Yes, you’ve mentioned that often enough,” protested Steffensen, who was filling his pipe. “But what kind of logic?”

  “The logic of eternity, Steffensen. Tell me, Steffensen, do you believe in a world order that came into being at a definite time?” he said goadingly. “Or has the world order always existed? What do you say, Steffensen? You’re interested in logic, so that ought to be right up your alley.”

  Steffensen carefully lighted his pipe.

  “That’s not logic,” he snarled around his pipestem. “It’s nothing but a stupid question that doesn’t concern me in the least.”

  Jastrau laughed.

  “That’s what you think. But now listen to this. If you believe in an eternal world order—one that never had a beginning—then you also have to believe that this world we live in is perfect.”

  “Oh, go to hell.”

  “Or else you have to believe in eternal recurrence—the same thing over and over again. Isn’t that right, Steffensen? And that’s rather amusin
g to think about—that everything will be repeated eternally, that you and Anna Marie will live in my apartment on Istedgade—”

  Steffensen slowly took the pipe out of his mouth.

  “Have you gone off your rocker?”

  “No, Steffensen,” Jastrau rattled on. “Let me finish, and you listen. If the world order had no beginning, then it must have run through all the possibilities for change, isn’t that right?”

  “Aw—”

  “And among the infinite possibilities is also the possibility of repetition, and if there is a possibility of one repetition, there must also be a possibility of infinite repetitions. Otherwise the world order has not been infinite. Tralum, tralum, Steffensen. Call it logic or barrel-organ lyricism—as far as I’m concerned you can call it what you will.”

  Jastrau laughed hilariously, but Steffensen would not unbend. “And then?” he asked slowly.

  “Do you believe we live in a perfect world?”

  “Ha—!”

  “No, you can’t brush it off that way, Steffensen. Either that, or you have to believe in eternal recurrence.”

  “That’s a hell of a thought.”

  “There, you see? And if you won’t have it either way, you must believe that the world order had a beginning in time.”

  “Well, and then—”

  “Then it must necessarily have come into being out of nothing. It was created, Steffensen, my boy. And consequently we have arrived at the concept of the Creator—we believe, we all believe, in God—tralum.”

  Steffensen did not reply.

  He stared gloomily over at the windows of the lighted parlor and the dark, closed church. Then, as if lost in thought, he sent a cloud of white smoke out into the night air.

  “Well, hadn’t we better go home and get some sleep, you old logician?” said Jastrau with a grin.

  Steffensen nodded silently, and they walked down Vesterbrogade. Jastrau kept an eye out for women. He was in a sparkling mood. “Just look at her,” he said playfully as a trim little craft sailed quietly by, leaving an aroma of feminine corporeality and perfume lingering in the night air. The darkness made the girls’ eyes big.