You Can't Go Home Again (85 page)

“But if they find, Franz, that you’re living with her in a single room?”

“Veil, zen,” he said quietly, “I may tell you zat she vill haf to go.” And then, wearily, dismissingly, in a tone of bitter indifference: “It does not matter. I do not care. I pay no attention to zese stupid people. I haf my vork, I haf my girl. And zat is all zat matters. Ven I am finished wiz my vork, I go home to my little room. My girl is zere, and zis little dog,” he said, and his face lighted up gleefully again. “Zis little dog—may I tell you somesing?—zis little dog—Pooki—ze little Scottie zat you know—I haf become quite fond of him. He is really quite nice,” said Heilig earnestly. “Ven he first came to us I hated him. My girl saw him and she fall in love wiz zis little animal,” said Heilig. “She said zat she must haf him—zat I must be buying him for her. Veil, zen,” said Heilig, quickly flipping the ash from his cigarette and moving up and down the room, “I said to her zat I vill not haf zis Gott-tam little beast about my place.” He fairly shouted these words to show the emphasis of his intention. “Veil, zen, ze girl cry. She talk alvays about zis little dog. She say zat she must haf him, zat she is going to die. Gott!” he cried gleefully again, and laughed. “It vas perfectly dret-ful. Zere vas no more peace for me. I vould go home at night and instantly she vould begin to cry and say she vill be dying if I do not buy zis little dog. So finally I say: ‘All right, haf it your own vay. I vill buy zis little animal!’” he said viciously—“‘Only for Gott’s sake, shut your crying!’ So, zen,” said Heilig impishly, “I vent to buy zis little dog, and I looked at him.” Here his voice became very droll, and with a tremendous sense of comic exaggeration his eyes narrowed, his small face puckered to a grimace, and his discoloured teeth gritted together as he snarled softly and gleefully: “I looked at zis little dog and I said—‘All right, you—you-u-u buh-loody little animalyou-u-u aww-ful—dret-ful—little bee-e-e-st—I vill take you home wiz me—but you—you-u-u damned little beast, you’”—here he gleefully and viciously shook his fist at an imaginary dog—“‘if you do some sings I do not like—if you viii be making some buh-loody awful messes in my place, I vill give you somesing to eat zat you will not enchoy’...But zen,” said Heilig, “after ve had him, I became quite fond of him. He is quite nice, really. Sometime ven I come home at night and everysing has gone badly and zere haf been so many of zese dret-ful people, he vill come and look at me. He vill talk to me. He vill say he knows zat I am so unhappy. And zat life is very hard. But zat he is my friend. Yes, he is really very nice. I like him very much.”

During this conversation the porter had come in and was now waiting for his orders. He asked George if everything was in the leather trunk. George got down on hands and knees and took a final look under the bed. The porter opened doors and drawers. Heilig himself peered inside the big wardrobe and, finding it empty, turned to George with his characteristic expression of surprise and said:

“Veil, zen, I may tell you zat I sink you have it all.”

Satisfied on this score, the porter closed the heavy trunk, locked it, and tightened the straps, while Heilig helped George stuff manuscripts, letters, and a few books into the old brief-case. Then George fastened the brief-case and gave it to the porter. He dragged the baggage out into the hall and said he would wait for them below.

George looked at his watch and found that it still lacked three-quarters of an hour until train time. He asked Heilig if they should go on immediately to the station or wait at the hotel.

“Ve can vait here,” he said. “I sink it vould be better. If you vait here anozzer half an hour, zere vould still be time.”

He offered George a cigarette and struck a match for him. Then they sat down, George at the table, Heilig upon the couch against the wall. And for a minute or two they smoked in silence.

“Vell, zen,” said Heilig quietly, “zis time it is to be good-bye…Zis time you vill really go?”

“Yes, Franz. I’ve got to go this time. I’ve missed two boats already. I can’t miss another one.”

They smoked in silence for a moment more, and then suddenly, earnestly and anxiously, Heilig said:

“Vell, zen, may I tell you somesing? I am sorry.”

“And I, too, Franz.”

Again they smoked in troubled and uneasy silence.

“You vill come back, of gourse,” said Heilig presently. And then, decisively: “You must, of gourse. Ve like you here.” Another pause, then very simply and quietly: “You know, ve do so luff you.”

George was too moved to say anything, and Heilig, peering at him quickly and anxiously, continued:

“And you like it here? You like us? Yes!” he cried emphatically, in answer to his own question. “Of gourse you do!”

“Of course, Franz.”

“Zen you must come back,” he said quietly. “It vould be quite dret-ful if you did not.” He looked at George searchingly again, but George said nothing. In a moment Heilig said: “And I—I shall hope zat ve shall meet again.”

“I hope so, too, Franz,” said George. And then, trying to throw off the sadness that had fallen on them, he went on as cheerfully as he could, voicing his desire more than his belief: “Of course we shall. I shall come back some day, and we shall sit together talking just the same as we are now.”

Heilig did not answer immediately. His small face became contorted with the look of bitter and malicious humour which George had seen upon it so often. He took off his glasses quickly, polished them, wiped his tired, weak eyes, and put his glasses on again.

“You sink so?” he said, and smiled his wry and bitter smile.

“I’m sure of it,” George said positively, and for the moment he almost believed it. “You and I and all the friends we know—we’ll sit together drinking, we’ll stay up all night and dance around the trees and go to Aenna Maentz at three o’clock in the morning for chicken soup. All of it will be the same.”

“Vell, zen, I hope zat you are right. But I am not so sure,” said Heilig quietly. “I may not be here.”

“You!” George laughed derisively. “Why what are you talking about? You know you wouldn’t be happy anywhere else. You have your work, it’s what you always wanted to do, and at last you’re in the place where you always wanted to be. Your future is mapped out clearly before you—it’s just a matter of hanging on until your superiors die off or retire. You’ll always be here!”

“I am not so sure,” he said. He puffed at his cigarette, and then continued rather hesitantly. “You see—zere are zese fools—zese stupid people!” He ground his cigarette out viciously in the ashtray, and, his face twisted in a wry smile of defiant, lacerated pride, he cried angrily: “Myself—I do not care. I do not vorry for myself. Right now I haf my little life—my little chob—my little girl—my little room. Zese people—zese fools!” he cried—“I do not notice zem. I do not see zem. It does not bozzer me,” he cried. And now, indeed, his face had become a grotesque mask. “I shall always get along,” he said. “If zey run me out—yell, zen, I may tell you zat I do not care! Zere are ozzer places!” he cried bitterly. “I can go to England, to Sveden. If zey take my chob, my girl,” he cried scornfully and waved his hand impatiently, “may I tell you zat it does not matter. I shall get along. And if zese fools—zese stupid people—if zey take my life—I do not sink zat is so terrible. You sink so? Yes?”

“Yes, I do think so, Franz. I should not like to die.”

“Vell, zen,” said Heilig quietly, “wiz you it is a different matter. You are American. Wiz us, it is not ze same. I haf seen men shot, in Munich, in Vienna—I do not sink it is too bad.” He turned and looked searchingly at George again. “No, it is not too bad,” he said.

“Oh hell, you’re talking like an idiot,” George said. “No one’s going to shoot you. No one’s going to take your job or girl away. Why, man, your job is safe. It has nothing to do with politics. And they’d never find another scholar like you. Why, they couldn’t do without you.”

He shrugged his shoulders indifferently and cynically. “I do not know,” he said. “Myself—I think ye can do wizout everybody if ye must. And perhaps ye must.”

“Must? What do you mean by that, Franz?”

Heilig did not answer for a moment. Then he said abruptly: “Now I sink zat I vill tell you somesing. In ze last year here, zese fools haf become quite dret-ful. All ze Chews haf been taken from zeir vork, zey haf nozzing to do any more. Zese people come around—some stupid people in zeir uniform”—he said contemptuously—“and zey say zat everyone must be an Aryan man—zis vonderful plue-eyed person eight feet tall who has been Aryan in his family since 1820. If zere is a little Chew back zere—zen it is a pity,” Heilig jeered. “Zis man can no more vork—he is no more in ze Cherman spirit. It is all quite stupid.” He smoked in silence for a minute or two, then continued: “Zis last year zese big fools haf been coming round to me. Zey demand to know who I am, vhere I am from—whezzer or not I haf been born or not. Zey say zat I must prove to zem zat I am an Aryan man. Ozzervise I can no longer vork in ze library.”

“But my God, Franz!” George cried, and stared at him in stupefaction. “You don’t mean to tell me that—why, you’re not a Jew,” he said, “
are
you?”

“Oh Gott no!” Heilig cried, with a sudden shout of gleeful desperation. “My dear shap, I am so Gott-tam Cherman zat it is perfectly dret-ful.”

“Well, then,” George demanded, puzzled, “what’s the trouble? Why should they bother you? Why worry about it if you’re a German?”

Heilig was silent a little while, and the look of wry, wounded humour in his small, puckered face had deepened perceptibly before he spoke again.

“My dear Chorge,” he said at last, “now I may tell you somesing. I am completely Cherman, it is true. Only, my poor dear mozzer—I do so luff her, of course—but Gott!” He laughed through his closed mouth, and there was bitter merriment in his face. “Gott! She is such a fool! Zis poor lady,” he said, a trifle contemptuously, “luffed my fazzer very much—so much, in fact, zat she did not go to ze trouble to marry him. So zese people come and ask me all zese questions: and say: Where is your fazzer!’ And of gourse I cannot tell zem. Because, alas, my dear old shap, I am zis bastard. Gott!” he cried again, and with eyes narrowed into slits he laughed bitterly out of the corner of his mouth. “It is all so dret-ful—so stupid—and so horribly funny!”

“But Franz! Surely you must know who your father is—you must have heard his name.”

“My Gott, yes!” he cried. “Zat is vhat makes it all so funny.”

“You mean you know him, then? He is living?”

“But of gourse,” said Heilig. “He is living in Berlin.”

“Do you ever see him?”

“But of gourse,” he said again. “I see him every veek. Ve are
quite
good friends.”

“But—then I don’t see what the trouble is—unless they can take your job from you because you’re a bastard. It’s embarrassing, of course, and all that, both for your father and yourself—but can’t you tell them? Can’t you explain it to them? Won’t your father help you out?”

“I am sure he vould,” said Heilig, “if I told zis sing to him. Only, I cannot tell him. You see,” he went on quietly, “my fazzer and I are quite good friends. Ve never speak about zis sing togezzer—ze vay he knew my mozzer. And now, I vould not ask him—I vould not tell him of zis trouble—I vould not vant him to help me—because it might seem zat I vas taking an adwantage. It might spoil everysing.”

“But your father—is he known here? Would these people know his name if you mentioned it?”

“Oh Gott yes!” Heilig cried out gleefully, and snuffled with bitter merriment. “Zat is vhat makes it all so horrible—and so dret-fully amusing. Zey vould know his name at vonce. Perhaps zey vill say zat I am zis little Chew and t’row me out because I am no Aryan man—and my fazzer”—Heilig choked and, snuffling, bent half over in his bitter merriment—“my fazzer is zis loyal Cherman man—zis big Nazi—zis most important person in ze Party!”

For a moment George looked at his friend—whose name, ironically, signified “the holy one”—and could not speak. This strange and moving illumination of his history explained so much about him—the growing bitterness and disdain towards everyone and everything, the sense of weary disgust and resignation, the cold venom of his humour, and that smile which kept his face almost perpetually puckered up. As he sat there, fragile, small, and graceful, smiling his wry smile, the whole legend of his life became plain. He had been life’s tender child, so sensitive, so affectionate, so amazingly intelligent. He had been the fleeceling lamb thrust out into the cold to bear the blast and to endure want and loneliness. He had been wounded cruelly. He had been warped and twisted. He had come to this, and yet he had maintained a kind of bitter integrity.

“I’m so sorry, Franz,” George said. “So damned sorry. I never knew of this.”

“Vell, zen,” said Heilig indifferently, “I may tell you zat it does not matter. It really does not matter.” He smiled his tortured smile, snuffling a little through his lips, flicked the ash from his cigarette, and shifted his position. “I shall do somesing about it. I haf engaged one of zese little men—zese dret-ful little people—vhat do you call zem?—lawyers!—O Gott, but zey are dret-ful!” he shouted gleefully. “I haf bought one of zem to make some lies for me. Zis little man wiz his papers—he vill feel around until he discover fazzers, mozzers, sisters, brozzers—everysing I need. If he cannot, if zey vill not believe—yell, zen,” said Heilig, “I must lose my chob. But it does not matter. I shall do somesing. I shall go somevhere else. I shall get along somehow. I haf done so before, and it vas not too terrible…But zese fools—zese dret-ful people!” he said with deep disgust. “Some day, my dear Chorge, you must write a bitter book. You must tell all zese people just how horrible zey are. Myself—I haf no talent. I cannot write a book. I can do nozzing but admire vhat ozzers do and know if it is good. But you must tell zese dret-ful people vhat zey are…I haf a little fantasy,” he went on with a look of impish glee. “Ven I feel bad—yen I see all zese dret-ful people valking up and down in ze Kurfürstendamm and sitting at ze tables and putting food into zeir faces—zen I imagine zat I haf a little ma-chine gun. So I take zis little ma-chine gun and go up and down, and ven I see one of zese dret-ful people I go—ping-ping-ping-pingping!” As he uttered these words in a rapid, childish key, he took aim with his hand and hooked his finger rapidly. “0 Gott!” he cried ecstatically. “I should so enchoy it if I could go around wiz zis little ma-chine gun and use it on all zese stupid fools! But I cannot. My ma-chine gun is only in imagination. Wiz you it is different. You haf a ma-chine gun zat you can truly use. And you must use it,” he said earnestly. “Some day you must write zis bitter book, and you must tell zese fools vhere zey belong. Only,” he added quickly, and turned anxiously towards George, “you must not do it yet. Or if you do, you must not say some sings in zis book zat vill make zese people angry wiz you here.”