“We have arrived at our destination, my dear Christopher! Out you get!”
A manservant in a striped jacket opened the door. The dog jumped out, and Bernhard and I followed. Resting his hand upon my shoulder, he steered me across the hall and up the stairs. I was aware of a rich carpet and framed engravings. He opened the door of a luxurious pink-and-white bedroom, with a luscious quilted silk eiderdown on the bed. Beyond was a bathroom, gleaming with polished silver, and hung with fleecy white towels.
Bernhard grinned:
“Poor Christopher! I fear you are disappointed in our cottage? It is too large for you, too ostentatious? You were looking forward to the pleasure of sleeping on the floor — amidst the black-beetles?”
The atmosphere of this joke surrounded us through dinner. As the manservant brought in each new course on its silver dish, Bernhard would catch my eye and smile a deprecatory smile. The dining-room was tame baroque, elegant, and rather colourless. I asked him when the villa had been built.
“My father built this house in 1904. He wanted to make it as much as possible like an English home — for my mother’s sake . . .”
After dinner, we walked down the windy garden, in the darkness. A strong wind was blowing up through the trees, from over the water. I followed Bernhard, stumbling against the body of the terrier which kept running between my legs, down flights of stone steps to a landing-stage. The dark lake was full of waves, and beyond, in the direction of Potsdam, a sprinkle of bobbing lights were comet-tailed in the black water. On the parapet, a dismantled gas-bracket rattled in the wind, and, below us, the waves splashed uncannily soft and wet, against unseen stone.
“When I was a boy, I used to come down these steps in the winter evenings and stand for hours here . . .” Bernhard had begun to speak. His voice was pitched so low that I could hardly hear it; his face was turned away from me, in the darkness, looking out over the lake. When a stronger puff of wind blew, his words came more distinctly — as though the wind itself were talking: “That was during the War-time. My elder brother had been killed, right at the beginning of the War . . . Later, certain business rivals of my father began to make propaganda against him, because his wife was an English woman, so that nobody would come to visit us, and it was rumoured that we were spies. At last, even the local tradespeople did not wish to call at the house . . . It was all rather ridiculous, and at the same time rather terrible, that human beings could be possessed by such malice . . .”
I shivered a little, peering out over the water. It was cold. Bernhard’s soft, careful voice continued in my ear:
“I used to stand here on those winter evenings and pretend to myself that I was the last human being left alive in the world . . . I was a queer sort of boy, I suppose . . . I never got on well with other boys, although I wished very much to be popular and to have friends. Perhaps that was my mistake — I was too eager to be friendly. The boys saw this and it made them cruel to me. Objectively, I can understand that . . . possibly I might even have been capable of cruelty myself, had circumstances been otherwise. It is difficult to say . . . But, being what I was, school was a kind of Chinese torture . . . So you can understand that I liked to come down here at night to the lake, and be alone. And then there was the War . . . At this time, I believed that the War would go on for ten, or fifteen, or even twenty years. I knew that I myself should soon be called up. Curiously enough, I don’t remember that I felt at all afraid. I accepted it. It seemed quite natural that we should all have to die. I suppose that this was the general wartime mentality. But I think that, in my case, there was also something characteristically Semitic in my attitude . . . It is very difficult to speak quite impartially of these things. Sometimes one is unwilling to make certain admissions to oneself, because they are displeasing to one’s self-esteem . . .”
We turned slowly and began to climb the slope of the garden from the lake. Now and then, I heard the panting of the terrier, out hunting in the dark. Bernhard’s voice went on, hesitating, choosing its words:
“After my brother had been killed, my mother scarcely ever left this house and its grounds. I think she tried to forget that such a land as Germany existed. She began to study Hebrew and to concentrate her whole mind upon ancient Jewish history and literature. I suppose that this is really symptomatic of a modern phase of Jewish development — this turning away from European culture and European traditions. I am aware of it, sometimes, in myself . . . I remember my mother going about the house like a person walking in sleep. She grudged every moment which she did not spend at her studies, and this was rather terrible because, all the while, she was dying of cancer . . . As soon as she knew what was the matter with her, she refused to see a doctor. She feared an operation . . . At last, when the pain became very bad, she killed herself . . .”
We had reached the house, Bernhard opened a glass door, and we passed through a little conservatory into a big drawing-room full of jumping shadows from the fire burning in an open English fireplace. Bernhard switched on a number of lamps, making the room quite dazzlingly bright.
“Need we have so much illumination?” I asked. “I think the firelight is much nicer.”
“Do you?” Bernhard smiled subtly. “So do I . . . But I thought, somehow, you would prefer the lamps.”
“Why on earth should I?” I mistrusted his tone at once.
“I don’t know. It’s merely part of my conception of your character. How very foolish I am!”
Bernhard’s voice was mocking. I made no reply. He got up and turned out all but one small lamp on a table at my side. There was a long silence.
“Would you care to listen to the wireless?”
This time his tone made me smile: “You don’t have to entertain me, you know! I’m perfectly happy just sitting here by the fire.”
“If you are happy, then I am glad . . . It was foolish of me — I had formed the opposite impression.”
“What do you mean?”
“I was afraid, perhaps, that you were feeling bored.”
“Of course not! What nonsense!”
“You are very polite, Christopher. You are always very polite. But I can read quite clearly what you are thinking . . .” I had never heard Bernhard’s voice sound like this, before; it was really hostile: “You are wondering why I brought you to this house. Above all, you are wondering why I told you what I told you just now.”
“I’m glad you told me . . .”
“No, Christopher. That is not true. You are a little shocked. One does not speak of such things, you think. It disgusts your English public-school training, a little — this Jewish emotionalism. You like to flatter yourself that you are a man of the world and that no form of weakness disgusts you, but your training is too strong for you. People ought not to talk to each other like this, you feel. It is not good form.”
“Bernhard, you’re being fantastic!”
“Am I? Perhaps . . . But I do not think so. Never mind . . . Since you wish to know, I will try to explain to you why I brought you here . . . I wished to make an experiment.”
“An experiment? Upon me, you mean?”
“No. An experiment upon myself. That is to say . . . For ten years, I have never spoken intimately, as I have spoken to you tonight, to any human soul . . . I wonder if you can put yourself in my place, imagine what that means? And this evening . . . Perhaps, after all, it is impossible to explain . . . Let me put it another way. I bring you down here, to this house, which has no associations for you. You have no reason to feel oppressed by the past. Then I tell you my story . . . It is possible that, in this way, one can lay ghosts . . . I express myself very badly. Does it sound very absurd as I say it?”
“No. Not in the least . . . But why did you choose me for your experiment?”
“Your voice was very hard as you said that, Christopher. You are thinking that you despise me.”
“No, Bernhard. I’m thinking that you must despise me . . . I often wonder why you have anything to do with me at all.
I feel sometimes that you actually dislike me, and that you say and do things to show it — and yet, in a way, I suppose you don’t, or you wouldn’t keep asking me to come and see you . . . All the same, I’m getting rather tired of what you call your experiments. Tonight wasn’t the first of them by any means. The experiments fail, and then you’re angry with me. I must say, I think that’s very unjust . . . But what I can’t stand is that you show your resentment by adopting this mock-humble attitude . . . Actually, you’re the least humble person I’ve ever met.”
Bernhard was silent. He had lit a cigarette, and now expelled the smoke slowly through his nostrils. At last he said:
“I wonder if you are right . . . I think not altogether. But partly . . . Yes, there is some quality in you which attracts me and which I very much envy, and yet this very quality of yours also arouses my antagonism . . . Perhaps that is merely because I also am partly English, and you represent to me an aspect of my own character . . . No, that is not true, either . . . It is not so simple as I would wish . . . I’m afraid,” Bernhard passed his hand, with a wearily humorous gesture, over his forehead and eyes, “that I am a quite unnecessarily complicated piece of mechanism.”
There was a moment’s silence. Then he added:
“But this is all stupid egotistical talk. You must forgive me. I have no right to speak to you in this way.”
He rose to his feet, went softly across the room, and switched on the wireless. In rising, he had rested his hand for an instant on my shoulder. Followed by the first strains of the music, he came back to his chair before the fire, smiling. His smile was soft, and yet curiously hostile. It had the hostility of something ancient. I thought of one of the Oriental statuettes in his flat.
“This evening,” he smiled softly, “they are relaying the last act of Die Meistersinger.”
“Very interesting,” I said.
Half an hour later, Bernhard took me up to my bedroom door, his hand upon my shoulder, still smiling. Next morning, at breakfast, he looked tired, but was gay and amusing. He did not in any way refer to our conversation of the evening before.
We drove back to Berlin, and he dropped me on the corner of the Nollendorfplatz.
“Ring me up soon,” I said.
“Of course. Early next week.”
“And thank you very much.”
“Thank you for coming, my dear Christopher.”
I didn’t see him again for nearly six months.
One Sunday, early in August, a referendum was held to decide the fate of the Brüning government. I was back at Frl. Schroeder’s; lying in bed through the beautiful hot weather, cursing my toe: I had cut it on a piece of tin, bathing for the last time at Ruegen, and now it had suddenly festered and was full of poison. I was quite delighted when Bernhard unexpectedly rang me up.
“You remember a certain little country cottage on the shores of the Wannsee? You do? I was wondering if you would care to spend a few hours there, this afternoon . . . Yes, your landlady has told me already about your misfortune. I am so sorry . . . I can send the car for you. I think it will be good to escape for a little from this city? You can do whatever you like there — just lie quiet and rest. Nobody will interfere with your liberty.”
Soon after lunch, the car duly arrived to pick me up. It was a glorious afternoon, and, during the drive, I blessed Bernhard for his kindness. But, when we arrived at the villa, I got a nasty shock: the lawn was crowded with people.
I was really annoyed. It was a dirty trick, I thought. Here was I, in my oldest clothes, with a bandaged foot and a stick, lured into the middle of a slap-up garden-party! And here was Bernhard in flannel trousers and a boyish jumper. It was astonishing how young he looked. Bounding to meet me, he vaulted over the low railing:
“Christopher! Here you are at last! Make yourself comfortable!”
In spite of my protests, he forcibly removed my coat and hat. As ill-luck would have it, I was wearing braces. Most of the other guests were in smart Riviera flannels. Smiling sourly, adopting instinctively the armour of sulky eccentricity which protects me on such occasions, I advanced hobbling into their midst. Several couples were dancing to a portable gramophone; two young men were pillow-fighting with cushions, cheered on by their respective women; most of the party were lying chatting on rugs on the grass. It was all so very informal, and the footmen and the chauffeurs stood discreetly aside, watching their antics, like the nurse-maids of titled children.
What were they doing here? Why had Bernhard asked them? Was this another and more elaborate attempt to exorcize his ghosts? No, I decided; it was more probably only a duty-party, given once a year, to all the relatives, friends and dependants of the family. And mine was just another name to be ticked off, far down the list. Well, it was silly to be ungracious. I was here. I would enjoy myself.
Then, to my great surprise, I saw Natalia. She was dressed in some light yellow material, with small puffed sleeves, and carried a big straw hat in her hand. She looked so pretty that I should hardly have recognized her. She advanced gaily to welcome me:
“Ah, Christopher! You know, I am so pleased!”
“Where have you been, all this time?”
“In Paris . . . You did not know? Truthfully? I await always a letter from you — and there is nothing!”
“But, Natalia, you never sent me your address.”
“Oh, I did!”
“Well, in that case, I never got the letter . . . I’ve been away too, you know.”
“So? You have been away? Then I’m sorry . . . I can’t help you!”
We both laughed. Natalia’s laugh had changed, like everything else about her. It was no longer the laugh of the severe schoolgirl who had ordered me to read Jacobsen and Goethe. And there was a dreamy, delighted smile upon her face — as though, I thought, she were listening, all the time, to lively, pleasant music. Despite her obvious pleasure at seeing me again, she seemed hardly to be attending to our conversation.
“And what are you doing in Paris? Are you studying art, as you wanted to?”
“But of course!”
“Do you like it?”
“Wonderful!” Natalia nodded vigorously. Her eyes were sparkling. But the word seemed intended to describe something else.
“Is your mother with you?”
“Yes. Yes . . .”
“Have you got a flat together?”
“Yes . . .” Again she nodded. “A flat . . . Oh, it’s wonderful!”
“And you go back there, soon?”
“Why, yes . . . Of course! Tomorrow!” She seemed quite surprised that I should ask the question — surprised that the whole world didn’t know . . . How well I knew that feeling! I was certain, now: Natalia was in love.
We talked for several minutes more — Natalia always smiling, always dreamily listening, but not to me. Then, all at once, she was in a hurry. She was late, she said. She’d got to pack. She must go at once. She squeezed my hand, and I watched her run gaily across the lawn to a waiting car. She had forgotten, even, to ask me to write, or to give me her address. As I waved goodbye to her, my poisoned toe gave a sharp twinge of envy.
Later, the younger members of the party bathed, splashing about in the dirty lake-water at the foot of the stone stairs. Bernhard bathed, too. He had a white, strangely innocent body, like a baby’s, with a baby’s round, slightly protruding stomach. He laughed and splashed and shouted louder than anybody. When he caught my eye, he made more noise than ever — was it, I imagined, with a certain defiance? Was he thinking, as I was, of what he had told me, standing in this very place, six months ago? “Come in, too, Christopher!” he shouted. “It’ll do your foot good!” When, at last, they had all come out of the water and were drying themselves, he and a few other young men chased each other, laughing, among the garden trees.
Yet, in spite of all Bernhard’s frisking, the party didn’t really “go.” It split up into groups and cliques; and, even when the fun was at its height, at least a quarter of the guests wer
e talking politics in low, serious voices. Indeed, some of them had so obviously come to Bernhard’s house merely to meet each other and to discuss their own private affairs that they scarcely troubled to pretend to take part in the sociabilities. They might as well have been sitting in their own offices, or at home.
When it got dark, a girl began to sing. She sang in Russian, and, as always, it sounded sad. The footmen brought out glasses and a huge bowl of claret-cup. It was getting chilly on the lawn. There were millions of stars. Out on the great calm brimming lake, the last ghost-like sails were tacking hither and thither with the faint uncertain night-breeze. The gramophone played. I lay back on the cushions, listening to a Jewish surgeon who argued that France cannot understand Germany because the French have experienced nothing comparable to the neurotic post-War life of the German people. A girl laughed suddenly, shrilly, from the middle of a group of young men. Over there, in the city, the votes were being counted. I thought of Natalia: she has escaped — none too soon, perhaps. However often the decision may be delayed, all these people are ultimately doomed. This evening is the dress-rehearsal of a disaster. It is like the last night of an epoch.
At half past ten, the party began to break up. We all stood about in the hall or around the front door while someone telephoned through to Berlin to get the news. A few moments’ hushed waiting, and the dark listening face at the telephone relaxed into a smile. The Government was safe, he told us. Several of the guests cheered, semi-ironical but relieved. I turned to find Bernhard at my elbow: “Once again, Capitalism is saved.” He was subtly smiling.
He had arranged that I should be taken home in the dicky of a Berlin-bound car. As we came to the Tauentzienstrasse, they were selling papers with the news of the shooting on the Bülowplatz. I thought of our party lying out there on the lawn by the lake, drinking our claret-cup while the gramophone played; and of that police-officer, revolver in hand, stumbling mortally wounded up the cinema steps to fall dead at the feet of a cardboard figure advertising a comic film.
The Berlin Stories Page 39