No one was concerned about them. It was as quiet up front as here in back—as if everyone were sleeping.
Graff pulled himself together. He had to negotiate. He must learn whatever there was yet to learn. But then—
The little chap was ready to give any further information he could. Even if nothing would probably develop between them, something would surely come of it for him. (And, God knows, he had to take whatever came!)
At first he asked whether he might drink something else and received the impatient answer: “But just order whatever you want!”
That was a super answer and was deemed worthy of a new call for Justav and a generous order.
But things still did not move on. The man made not a sound. So he had to start.
“Please don’t continue to say ‘Sie’ to me. We all say ‘Du’ to one another here, even to the gentlemen who come here. And they call me Pipel. Because I’m so little. But I’m already eighteen.”
“He’s eighteen . . . and he’s called Pipel,” thought Graff.
They sat together still longer, over an hour here in their corner.
Pipel conducted himself very decently from now on. He had understood.
Questions and answers came and went, all about only one thing. Pipel answered to the best of his ability (and entirely honestly).
After Justav was paid and had received more than the usual tip, Pipel was asked if might not be given something, too. He might! When three marks were pressed into his hand he was certain:
A Count he isn’t, but a real gentleman. He wanted to keep the man well-disposed toward him!
Between them, this was now agreed on:
That they were to meet here every day from now on (Pipel had to swear that each and every day he would be here at this hour); that he would do all he could to learn where they had taken Chick; that all the boys who escaped from institutions would came here at some time (even if only for a moment and only at times when there was nothing to fear from the cops); that among them, there would surely be one, sometime, who knew about Gunther, perhaps who even came from the same institution; and that he, Pipel, would then question him and would make an appointment, where they would meet, so that he himself could hear what he had to say. And that Pipel and the other one were then each to receive immediately twenty marks each for good and reliable news. Also that he—what was his name?—Hermann?—would come here every day, about five-thirty or six, to hear if anything had happened.
All this was agreed to. Graff left for today, to return again tomorrow.
Pipel was elated: every day food and drink and respectable table money (even if, of course, not three marks every day). Plus, he could look forward to a further twenty!
*
“Now don’t forget to come!” was his last word.
Forget to come! thought Gaff.
What else did he have to do from today on except one thing: find him again! Find him again, so as to rescue him!
Alone with the other boys Pipel was stormed with questions as never before. But he answered little. He wanted to earn the twenty marks for himself alone. He was firm about that. Always.
*
Hours afterward, late in the evening, after walking around a long time in strange streets, Hermann Graff stood at the window of his room and looked over at the bare wall. His lips were pressed together, his teeth clinched.
In his brain there was room for only one thought and it did not leave for a moment—it ruled so that no other feeling, not that of pain, not that of longing, not that of despair, not that of fear, could contend with it.
This one: I will and I must have him again, now, when he is mine—mine as never before!
I will not rest until I have him again! I alone have a right to him—I alone!
You shall not succeed in taking him from me again! You shall not succeed! And if I must perish over it, if we both perish—I will have him again. Living or dead!
3
Every day God allowed, every day when he came from work—usually directly, sometimes after going home quickly first—Hermann Graff went to the Adonis Lounge.
Each evening Pipel was the first to meet him, either regretfully shrugging his shoulders, or under the pretense of some insignificant news (but never that longed for), drawing him into the corner jealously, then not budging from his side any more.
Naturally everyone here now knew why he came. The prospect of earning twenty marks excited them extremely (for this, of course, did become known) and the name “Gunther” became a battle cry. Every escaped state ward, everyone who was only suspected of coming from an institution, was stopped and interrogated. But until now no one knew anything of Chick.
When Graff arrived, the lounge had not been open for long and was still quiet. Only the front room was lighted. The boys sat around the tables, bored themselves, and waited for evening when things picked up.
They passed the time playing cards or gossiping with one another, almost always about the same thing. Or they sat dully around the stove and warmed themselves, glad, for today, no longer to need to go out into the cold and wet. (On such days they spoke of the Passage with contempt.)
Guests were seldom here at this time. Only a singular-looking man, who was said to be an author and to write for the newspapers, was often already here, sitting among the boys and chatting with them—nice, intelligent, and interested in them.
One saw from his clever and serious face that he must have gone through a lot.
And at any moment another, a younger, taller man would come in, already half drunk and in the first stage of cocaine intoxication. He would drink, standing, always the same thing—a glass of beer and a large cognac—go out, and return in an hour.
Around this time things were still thoroughly peaceful and decent. When two of them went at one another with loud words, they were hushed again right away.
No one needed to eat anything, and most of them were unable to because their earnings from yesterday were long used up and those for today were still in the uncertain future.
Yes, they all knew why he came and they gave up on him.
At first, he would leave right away if he heard from Pipel that another day had gone by without news.
Then he took to sitting, longer and longer each day.
For where else was he to go? To his empty and barren room, alone with himself and his one thought?
*
But now he always sat up front, near the bar. He could not take much of Pipel’s chatter anymore, and the boy finally did not know what to relate, being never questioned and never receiving a real answer. He received his cup of coffee and whatever else he wanted, his cigarettes, and in a quiet handshake on departure, his table money.
Cigarettes—they all wanted them.
They approached his table: “Have you no cigarettes for me, sir?” (Or also: “Got any fer me mister?”)
Or they asked, when they were very hungry, for a sandwich and a few coins: “Have a heart!” They always got what they wanted.
But none of them exploited his always constant willingness, precisely because they knew that they got what they requested.
They probably also thought: it must not be going so good for him either, else he wouldn’t always be so sad and so quiet.
Out of a feeling of gratitude they also sat at his table and told him their stories, to cheer him up, as they said; or also because they liked to hear themselves talk. He appeared to listen but in fact their words went by him as if they were never spoken. He gradually learned all their faces and names. But he would have scarcely recognized any of them again, if he had met one on the street.
They no longer thought of approaching him in any other way. They had given up on him as a john, he was useless. A decent person, but a “miserable john.”
*
It would be wrong to say that these surroundings created in him any kind of disgust or aversion. They did not interest him. They left him indifferent. He, who once would not have been able to endure fiv
e minutes here, now sat hour after hour, indifferent but friendly to everyone and everything around him, and only thought about the one thing that he never, not for a moment, was able to forget.
The old proprietor, called Father by everyone, had lost his son in the war. Now his best helper, except for Justav, was his daughter-in-law. She was seldom seen, since she stayed mostly in her shiny-clean kitchen looking out for the welfare of her guests. But whereas Father, with his boundless good nature, was lenient with guests, that was not so with her, say, for guests who didn’t pay. And when, her child in her arm, she appeared up front in disputed cases, she finished with even the worst rowdy in no time and established peace and order again in a jiffy.
The Adonis Lounge was a gold mine. Evenings.
*
Hermann Graff sat in a corner by the bar.
When there was nothing for him to do (and there was little to do in the early hours) Father came shuffling over to his corner, stood at his table, and said a few friendly words about the weather and bad times, which had earlier been so entirely different. Or he came with a tray and two small cognacs, and invited him to drink with him. He was a good, old man, and Graff liked him. But it was always difficult for him to answer. He could not take even friendliness any more.
At the farthest table, in the darkest corner, regularly sat a young man of indeterminate age—he could be eighteen or twenty-five. With trembling hands he shook small doses of a white powder from a paper bag, divided them, folded them into paper strips, and concealed them carefully in his breast. The boys approached him, whispered secretly with him, and implored: “Leo, one for me too.” If their wish was granted (mostly, of course, only for payment), the contents of one paper were shaken onto the back of the hand and sniffed.
There was only one who really brought life into the quiet and hungry company: an unbelievably funny and somewhat effeminate sixteen-year-old lad—rosy, as well-fed as a pig, and as fresh as a dachshund. When he arrived, they all sat around him and he babbled nonstop, relating genuinely funny and mostly quite indecent tales.
One of his stories was that he had been given over by his mother—not entirely without reason, since she was outraged over his conduct and encouraged by the neighbors—to be an apprentice to a baker (for four years, contract and all agreed on). There he had seduced the apprentice on the first day, the journeyman on the second, and the master baker himself on the third, until on the fourth day he had been thrown out by the master’s jealous wife. Everyone in the lounge laughed loudly; even over the face of the quiet guest in the corner, who willy-nilly had to hear it too, there passed a weak smile. For the way the story was told, with all its details, was irresistibly funny.
Life of another kind, less pleasant and often unbearable, was brought in by Clever Walter. With his brutal nature, which already expressed itself in his forward-tilted forehead—as if he always wanted to attack someone—and usually already half drunk, he picked a quarrel with everyone in turn and acted as if he alone were boss here. Nevertheless, he was very respected as Uncle Paul’s son-in-law and twice a father. When he had made enough noise, he left again to return in the evening, when things were in full swing. Pipel named his age: just seventeen. Clever Walter also had to be listened to because he could not be ignored.
Otherwise it was usually always the same people just sitting around there—afternoon for afternoon, evening for evening. Newcomers were not welcome but were ordered to leave, especially if they were not yet eighteen.
It held together in its way, this odd society here in the Adonis Lounge.
*
If this man, who was already viewed to a certain extent as belonging here (not a customer—a “miserable john”—but otherwise a quite decent chap), ever had thoughts about his new surroundings, it was only because he continually had to think:
So he, too, frequented this place! He, too, sat around like this on so many afternoons! He listened to this nonsense and joined in the conversation.
Many weeks in the past summer! He!
At first he was only astonished—astonished over the way these young people talked about sexual things as a matter of course, as others would talk about the weather. It was this calm self-evidentness that kept their conversation from becoming unbearably vulgar.
He was also astonished over their absolute lack of willpower. They made no resistance of any kind to their life. Wherever it tossed them, there they lay—today here, tomorrow there. They never made even the slightest attempt to get up again. Everything seemed to be completely indifferent to them—whether they went entirely to ruin or not. They were all the merest children. In big things and in little: if they had money—”come into a tidy sum”—then it had to be dispersed as quickly as possible and was thrown away in the most foolish way. None among them—the majority did not even know where they were to sleep the next night—thought of taking a room and maybe paying in advance, to have a roof over his head for the next days or weeks. Here and there the most necessary thing for the moment was procured—a shirt, pants, a pair of boots—but mostly money was spent immediately in foolish extravagance.
They went with whoever took them. If a decent man came among them, one with good intentions toward one of them and ready to help bring him up again (naturally it might not be through work), that opportunity too was wasted until the gentleman, discouraged by this lethargy, dropped him again. They all returned back here again, like sheep to their accustomed stall, to live their lives until one day they had grown too old or some unexpected event, mostly of a bad sort, threw them onto other tracks. They returned here, semiconscious by day, living it up at night.
Until one after the other they each finally disappeared. No one knew where.
They all wanted, at least in gloomy hours, to get out of this life.
They were all, one as much as the other, crammed with all kinds of plans about what they wanted to do, and each day they came and told what they had in mind: There was a gentleman, a new acquaintance from just yesterday, who had promised to secure a position (only the gentleman never returned); a letter had come from home, he was to return there immediately (but the fare for the trip had to be procured first, only to be spent again right away); one already had a position and meant to start tomorrow (tomorrow he was dead certain to be here again). Plans, plans, always new ones, always newly formed, and never once seriously carried out. If one of them really stayed away and did not return, there were certain to be other reasons (they had him again).
They were often discontented and in a bad humor, but seldom unhappy. Not a single one perceived his life as a disgrace, however. He would not have understood if someone had tried to make him comprehend this. It was better not to try. One ran a bad chance doing it.
In the final analysis, they were indifferent to everything. One just had to live. So much the more when one was still young.
Live—and enjoy life as much as possible. For one was young.
*
One afternoon, toward evening, such a quiet fell over the pub that Graff looked up.
Two men had entered and were standing at the bar. One was tall and lean, with an extremely unpleasant expression on his face—mean, distrustful eyes, and an unkempt red-brown mustache over his wry mouth; the other was small, stout, and awoke trust with his round little belly and his even-tempered, smooth face.
With one stroke all conversation stopped. The boys, eight or ten in number, clearly wanted to creep behind their tables. Leo had dived into his dark corner entirely. And Pipel, who had just now been beside him, had vanished—probably under the table.
After about ten minutes, during which the two stood at the bar, drank, and conversed with Father, they left again. (Only Clever Walter had gone up to them and quite familiarly taken part in the conversation.)
It was as if they had not seen any of the others present. But it appeared to Graff that the tall one especially had sharply examined each one, even if inconspicuously.
Everyone breathed a sigh of relief when they
were gone.
Pipel’s freckled little face popped up beside him again: “The cops!”
And when he was again not understand right away:
“They were policemen. One of them is the one who arrested Chick that time.”
Graff was boiling. So that was the man Gunther had told him about. Him—he looked it, too—with that face like a bird of prey, with his piercing eyes and hooked nose.
But he was set right.
“No, no,” said Pipel, angry over so much lack of discernment, “not the tall one. He really has a heart for us and always leaves us alone. The other, the short one, he’s a louse, I tell you!”
What, the one with the even-tempered face who acted as if he saw and heard nothing? Him!
For the rest of the evening he never got rid of the thought:
Hunter and hunted! The hounds and the game! Hunting human beings!
*
When he had come here for the first time, he had known nothing at all about these boys and their life. He did not comprehend them. He did not understand them.
Now, when he saw daily how they lived, he found that there was not a great deal to understand and comprehend.
It was basically always the same for all of them: the struggle with each day, during which they were bored—if they did not sleep through it. And what lay between—the nights—they, too, were probably much alike.
Only because he had once led this life did it interest Graff. Otherwise he found it boring, empty, and bleak.
In the meantime he grasped much about Gunther only now in detail. He, too, was young. He, too, wanted to enjoy his young life. With those his own age, when possible; with older men, if it could not be helped—in loud circles, pampered and desired, surrounded by flattery and gifts, from one hour to another, slipping or snatched from one arm to another.
He grasped why so many things about his darling had appeared so strange at first and so unintelligible. He grasped what, when they had become closer, had then always driven him out and away. He grasped why he had so often come to him cross and tired—it was not his age alone, this age of moods and contradictions, it was the hangover after the drunkenness. And again and again this intoxication had vanished—to new acquaintances, new intoxications, to always new adventures, as exciting and as boring as those in his dime novels!
The Hustler: The Story of a Nameless Love From Friedrichstrasse Page 24