2

By now it had become a habit with the desk clerk, almost a ritual, second nature, every morning at half-past nine sharp to take down the key from the board, to feel the light touch of the dry, well-kept hand as it took the key from his, to glance at the pale, severe face with the red scar on the bridge of the nose. And then, with a hint of a smile only his own wife might have noticed, to look thoughtfully after Faehmel as he ignored the elevator boy’s beckoned invitation, walked upstairs, lightly running the billiard room key across the brass balusters. Five, six, seven times the key made a ringing sound like a xylophone with only one tone. Then, half a minute later, Hugo, older of the two bellboys, came along and asked, “The usual?” Where-upon the desk clerk nodded, knowing that Hugo would now go to the restaurant, get a double cognac and a carafe of water, and disappear into the billiard room upstairs until eleven o’clock.

The desk clerk sensed something ominous in this habit of playing billiards every morning from half-past nine till eleven, always in the same bellhop’s company. Disaster or vice. Against vice there was a safeguard. Discretion. Discretion went with the room when you hired it. Discretion and money went together, abscissa and ordinate. Eyes that looked yet did not see, ears that heard yet did not hearken. Against disaster, however, no protection existed. Not all potential suicides could be spotted at the door. Indeed, were they not all potential suicides? It came, disaster, in with the suntanned actor and his seven pieces of luggage. Took the room key with a laugh. As soon as the bags were stacked, slid the pistol from his overcoat pocket, safety catch already off, and blew his brains out. Disaster came sneaking in like something from the grave, in golden shoes, with golden hair and golden teeth, grinning like a skeleton. With ghosts in vain pursuit of pleasure, who left an order for breakfast in their room at half-past ten, hung a ‘Please Do Not Disturb’ card on the outer knob, inside piled suitcases high against the door, swallowed poison pills. And long before the shocked room-service girl dropped the breakfast tray, already it was rumored through the hotel that ‘There’s a body up in Room 12.’ Rumors even spread at night, when late drinkers were slinking from the bar to their rooms and at Room 12 sensed foreboding behind the door. There were even some who could tell the silence of sleep from death’s silence. Disaster. He felt it in the air when he saw Hugo going up to the billiard room at a minute after half-past nine with a double cognac and the water carafe.

Around this time of day, too, he could ill spare the boy. A tangle of hands formed at his desk, demanding bills, grabbing an assortment of travel folders. At this time of day again and again he caught himself—a few minutes after half-past nine—getting impolite. Right now, to this schoolteacher, of all people, the ninth or tenth person to ask him how to get to the graves of the Roman children. The teacher’s reddish complexion disclosed the fact that she came from the country, her coat and gloves that she lacked the income presumptive in Prince Heinrich guests. He wondered how she happened to be regimented along with these other agitated old biddies, not one of whom felt obliged to inquire after the price of her room. Would she, now tugging self-consciously at her gloves, would she consummate the all-German miracle, against which old Jochen had bet ten marks? ‘Show me a German who ever asks how much anything costs before he buys and I’ll give you ten marks.’ No, even she wasn’t going to win him the prize. He calmed himself with an effort, pleasantly explained how to get to the graves of the Roman children.

Most of them asked straight off for the boy now slated to be in the billiard room for an hour and a half. It was he all of them wanted, to bring their luggage to the foyer, to take it to the airlines coach, to the taxi, to the railroad station. Ill-tempered globetrotters waiting in the foyer for their bills, discussing plane arrivals and departures, all of them wanted ice for their whiskey from Hugo, him alone to strike a match for the cigarette dangling unlit in their mouth, just to see how well trained he was. Hugo alone they wished to thank with a wave of languid hand. Only when Hugo was on the scene did their faces quiver in mysterious spasms, impatient faces, whose owners could hardly wait to rush, carrying their nasty tempers with them, to distant corners of the earth. They were champing at the bit, longing to ascertain in the mirrors of Persian or Upper Bavarian hotels the exact shade of their tan. Shrill female voices were calling for lost articles. It was ‘Hugo, my ring,’ ‘Hugo, my handbag,’ ‘Hugo, my lipstick.’ All of them expected Hugo to dash to the elevator, noiselessly ascend to Room 19, Room 32, Room 46 to search for ring, handbag and lipstick. And there was old Madame Musch, leading in her mongrel, which, after lapping up milk, gorging on honey and turning up his nose at fried eggs, would have to be taken out for a walk, so he might relieve his doggy needs, and revive his fading sense of smell, on kiosks, parked cars and waiting buses. Obviously only Hugo could cater to this dog’s spiritual needs. Then there was Oma Blessieck, who spent a month every year at the Prince Heinrich, while she visited her children and evermore-numerous grandchildren. Though she had hardly set foot in the place, already she was after Hugo. “Is he still here, that nice little young one who looks like an altar boy? The thin one with the auburn hair who’s so pale and always looks so serious?” The idea was to have Hugo read the local newspaper to her while she ate her breakfast, while she licked honey, drank her milk and did not turn up her nose at fried eggs. As he read, the old girl, hearing the names of streets familiar from her childhood, would look up ecstatically. Accident near Memorial Field. Robbery on Frisian Street. “I had pigtails this long when I used to go roller-skating there—this long, Hugo.” The old girl was frail, but tough. Was it for Hugo’s sake she had flown across the great ocean? “What?” she said, disappointed. “Hugo won’t be free till eleven?”

The driver of the airlines coach was standing at the revolving door, hand lifted in warning, even while complicated breakfast bills were still being added up. There sat the man who had ordered half a fried egg, indignantly rejecting the bill on which he’d been charged for a whole one. And even more indignantly rejecting the manager’s offer to cross off the item altogether, instead demanding a new bill, on which he was charged for only half a one. “I insist on it.” No doubt he traveled the world round just to collect restaurant bills charging him for half a fried egg.

“Yes, Madam,” the desk clerk said, “first left, second right, then third left again, and you’ll see the sign: ‘To the Roman Children’s Graves.’ ”

At last the driver for the bus crowd had assembled all his passengers, all the teachers had been given the right directions, all the fat pet dogs taken out to pee. But the gentleman in Room 11 was still fast asleep, had been for the past sixteen hours with a ‘Please Do Not Disturb’ card hanging outside his door. Disaster, either in Room 11 or in the billiard room. It stuck in your mind, that ceremony right in the middle of the foolish bustle of departure, key taken down from the board, faint brushing of hands, glance at the pale face, the red scar on the bridge of the nose, Hugo’s “The usual?”, your nod. Billiards from half-past nine till eleven. But the hotel underground as yet had reported nothing out of the way, either disastrous or corrupt. That fellow up there actually did play billiards from half-past nine till eleven. No partner, just himself, sipping at his cognac, at his glass of water, telling Hugo stories from way back, having Hugo tell him stories about when he was a kid. Not saying a word when the chambermaids or cleaning women stopped at the open door on their way to the laundry elevator to watch him, looking up at them from his game with a smile. No, no, that guy’s harmless.

Jochen hobbled out of the elevator with a letter in his hand, held it up, shaking his head. Jochen lived high up, under the pigeon loft, near feathered friends who brought messages from Paris and Rome, Warsaw and Copenhagen. Jochen in his made-up uniform, something between a crown prince and a noncommissioned officer, defied classification. A bit of a factotum, a bit of a gray eminence, everybody’s confidant, not a room clerk, not a waiter, but a little of all these, and something of a cook to boot. It was he who was responsible for the saying around the hotel always used to counter moral aspersions on the guests: “What would be the point in having a reputation for discretion, if everybody’s morals were above suspicion? What good is discretion when there is nothing left to be discreet about?” Something of a father-confessor, of a confidential secretary, of a pimp. Jochen, with twisted arthritic fingers opened the letter and grinned.

“You might have saved yourself the ten marks, I could have told a thousand times more—and all for free—than that little con man. Argus Information Bureau. ‘Herewith the information requested concerning Dr. Robert Faehmel, architect, resident at 7 Modest Street. Dr. Faehmel is 42 years old, a widower, two children: a son, 22, architect, not living here; a daughter, 19, at college. Dr. F,’s assests: considerable. Related on his mother’s side to the Kilbs. Nothing negative to report.’ ” Jochen chuckled. “ ‘Nothing negative to report’! As if there ever had been anything out of the way about young Faehmel. And with him there never will be. One of the few people I’d stick my hand in the fire for any time, any old time of the day. Get me? This rotten arthritic old hand, right square in the fire! You don’t have to worry about leaving that kid up there alone with him. He’s not that kind. And if he was, so what? They allow queers in the government, don’t they? But he’s not that kind. He already had a child when he was twenty, by the daughter of one of my friends. Maybe you remember the girl’s father, Schrella. He worked right here once, for a year. No? You weren’t here at the time? Then take my word for it, just let young Faehmel play his billiards in peace. A fine family. Really is. Class. I knew his grandmother, his grandfather, his mother and his uncle. They used to play billiards here themselves, fifty years ago. You wouldn’t know, of course, but the Kilbs have lived on Modest Street for three hundred years. That is, they always did—there aren’t any left any more. His mother went off the beam, lost two brothers and three of her children died. Never got over it. Fine woman. The quiet kind, if you know what I mean. Never ate a crumb more than the ration card allowed her, not an ounce more, and her children didn’t get more than was coming to them, either, not from her. Crazy, of course. Whatever she got extra, she’d just give it all away. And she always got plenty: they owned big farms, and the Abbot of St. Anthony’s, down there in the Kissa Valley, he sent her tubs of butter, jars of honey, bread and so on. But she never ate any of it, or gave any of it to her children. They had to eat that sawdust bread with artificially colored marmalade, while their mother gave all the other stuff away. She even gave away money. Seen her do it myself. Must have been in ’16 or ’17—used to see her coming out the front door with the bread and the jars of honey. 1917! Can you imagine what it was like then? But none of you can remember. You can’t imagine what it meant, honey in 1917, or in the winter of ’41–’42. Or the way she went down to the freight yard and tried to go along in the cars with the Jews. Screwball, they said. They locked her up in the looney bin, but for my money she wasn’t crazy at all. She was the kind of woman you only see in the old pictures in the museums. I’d go right down the line for her son, and if he doesn’t get first-class, number one service, things are going to hum around this joint. I don’t care if ninety-nine old women are asking for Hugo. If Herr Faehmel wants the kid with him, then he’s going to get him and don’t you forget it. Argus Information Bureau! Just imagine paying those fakers ten marks! Now I suppose you’re going to tell me you don’t know his father, old man Faehmel? Good! You do know him. But I bet you never thought he might be the father of the one playing billiards up there. Sure, everybody and his brother knows old man Faehmel. Came here fifty years ago in one of his uncle’s hand-me-down suits with a couple of bucks in his pocket. He used to play billiards right here, too, at that time, here in the Prince Heinrich, before you even knew what a hotel was. Some desk-clerk you are! Leave that one upstairs be, then. He’ll never do anything foolish or cause any harm. Worst he might do is get teed off in a nice quiet way. He was the best man at the plate and the best hundred-meter-dash man this old town’s ever had. He was tough, and if he had to be hard, he was hard, all right. He just couldn’t stand seeing some people giving other people a rough time. And if you can’t stand that kind of stuff, first thing you know you’re mixed up in politics. He was in politics when he was nineteen years old. They’d have cut his head off or locked him up for twenty years if he hadn’t fooled them and taken off. That’s right, you don’t need to look so surprised. He got away and stayed away for three or four years. I don’t know exactly what went wrong, I never heard. All I know is that old Schrella was mixed up in it, and the daughter, too, the one young Faehmel had the baby by later on. Well, he came back and they didn’t lay a finger on him. Went into the army, the Engineers. I can see him now, home on leave in his uniform with the black piping on it. Don’t gawk at me with that dumb look on your face. Was he a Communist? How should I know whether he was or he wasn’t. And supposing he was, every decent man’s been one sometime or other. Go on and have breakfast; I’ll be able to manage the old hens.”

Disaster or vice, they hung in the air, but Jochen had always been too harmless himself to foresense suicide, to believe agitated guests able to tell the difference between the silence of sleep and death’s silence behind closed doors. He pretended to be cunning and corrupt, but all the while he believed in people.

“Well, there you are,” said the desk clerk. “I’m going to get my breakfast. Just don’t let anyone barge in on him, will you, he’s very fussy about it.” He put the red card on the counter for Jochen. “Available only to my mother, my father, my daughter, my son and Mr. Schrella. Otherwise to no one.”

Schrella! Was he still alive? The thought startled Jochen. But surely they must have done away with him. Or did he have a son?

It knocked for a loop, this aroma, everything that had been smoked in the foyer for the past couple of weeks. It was a fragrance you carried ahead of you like a banner. Here I come, Mr. Big, conquering hero whom none can resist. Six feet two, gray-haired, middle forties, suit of board-chairman quality; salesmen, storekeepers, artists never clad thus. This was official elegance, Jochen could smell it. Here was a minister of state, perhaps an ambassador, exuding importance and fat with signatures of almost law-making dominion, breezing through padded, steely, triple-plated antechamber doors, sweeping aside all opposition with snowplow shoulders, all the while radiating kindly courtesy, which you knew was a veneer, even as he made way for Oma to let her retrieve that repulsive doggy of hers from the second boy, Erich. He even helped the old bag of bones reach for and take hold of the stair railing. “Don’t mention it, Madam.”

“Nettlinger.”

“Can I help you, sir?”

“I have to speak to Dr. Faehmel. It’s urgent. At once. Official business.”

Shake of the head, soft demur, as he toyed with the red card. Mother, father, son, daughter, Schrella. Nettlinger not wanted.

“But I know he’s here.”

Nettlinger? Haven’t I heard that name somewhere before? It’s the kind of face that must have made some sort of impression I wouldn’t want to forget. I’ve heard that name before, many years ago, and I said to myself at the time, make a note of that boy, don’t forget him. But now I can’t remember what it was about him I wasn’t supposed to forget. Anyway—watch out! If I knew all the things he’s done, no doubt I’d be sick to my stomach. If I had to sit and watch the film of his life they’re going to run off for that bastard’s benefit on Doomsday, I’d puke myself into a puddle. He’s the type that has the gold teeth ripped out of corpses, that orders kids’ heads shaved. Catastrophe? Vice? No, murder in the air.

And characters like that never know when and when not to tip. That’s all you need, to tell class. Now, for instance, might be the right moment for a cigar. But not for a tip, and never for such a big one as that twenty-mark bill which he’s pushing across the counter with a grin. How stupid can you get? People like that don’t even begin to know how to act, haven’t the faintest idea how to handle a hotel clerk. As if secrets were for sale at the Prince Heinrich! As if a guest who paid forty or sixty marks for his room could be had for one green twenty. Twenty marks from a stranger whose only reference was his expensive cigar and his fancy suit. And that was the type, mind you, that got to be a cabinet minister, a diplomat, even, and yet didn’t even know how to grease a palm, most ticklish of all arts. Gloomily Jochen shook his head, left the green bill untouched. Their right hand is full of bribes.

Can you beat it! A blue bank note was being added to the green one, raising the bid to thirty; a dense cloud of Partagas Eminentes was puffed into Jochen’s face.

Blow away, pal, blow your four-mark cigar smoke in my face, and cough up another bill, a violet one, if you want to. Jochen’s not for sale. Not for you and not for three thousand in bills. I haven’t cottoned to many people in my life, but I happen to like that young fellow up there. Tough luck, pal, you and your important face and that hand of yours always itching to sign something, tough luck, but you got here a minute and a half too late. You ought to know that folding money isn’t down my alley. In case you don’t realize it, I’ve got a notarized contract right in my pocket, which says that the rest of my life I can live in my little room up under the roof and keep pigeons. For breakfast and lunch I have the choice of the menu, on top of that a hundred and fifty marks cash every month, three times more than I really need for my kind of tobacco. I have friends, too, in Copenhagen, Paris, Warsaw and Rome. If you only knew how carrier-pigeon people stick together! But of course you don’t. All you think you know is that money is everything. That’s what you and your kind tell each other. Naturally, you think, naturally a hotel clerk will do anything for money; he’d sell his grandmother down the river for a fifty-mark note. There’s only one thing I’m not allowed to do, my friend, one single curb on my freedom. When I’m down here working the desk I can’t smoke my pipe. And this exception I regret for the first time today. But for that I’d show you and your Partagas Eminentes a cloud or two of smoke; I’d turn you into a herring. To make it plain and simple, you can kiss my arse a hundred and twenty-seven times. Faehmel’s not for sale to you, friend. He’ll play billiards up there without being bothered from half-past nine till eleven. Not that I can’t think of something better for him to be doing, namely sitting in your place in the ministry. Or, even better, throwing a few bombs the way he did as a young fellow, to put the fear of God into bags of crap like you. If you don’t mind, my friend, when he feels like playing billiards from half-past nine till eleven, then billiards he’s going to play. You can put your cabbage back in your pocket and call it a day, and if you flash another bill in my face, I won’t be responsible for what happens. I’ve had to swallow tactlessness by the gallon, put up with bad taste by the ton and not say a word. I’ve written down adulterers and queers by the dozen on the register, guys wearing the horns and wives on the warpath. But don’t ever get the idea that was all in the cards when I was born. I was always a good boy, used to serve Mass, as no doubt you did yourself, and sang the songs of Father Kolping and St. Aloysius in the Kolping Glee Club. Pretty soon I was twenty, with six years’ service in this fleabag behind me. And if I haven’t lost all faith entirely in humanity since then, it’s only because of people like young Faehmel up there and his mother. Put your money in your pocket, take that cigar out of your mouth and bow down, then, before an old man who’s wrung more dirty water out of his mittens than you ever knew existed. Then let the boy back there open the door for you, and scram.

“Have I got it right? You want to talk with the manager, sonny?”

First he went red, then quite blue with rage. Damn it all, there I go, thinking out loud again. Did I get too palsy with him? Hope not, that would be an awful mistake, never forgive myself for it. For it’ll be a long day when I get palsy with the likes of him.

Where do I get my nerve? I’m an old man, nearly seventy, I was thinking out loud. I’m a bit soft in the head, I’m slipping upstairs, a fit subject for protection under the mental incompetence act and social security, such as it is.

Department of Defense and Armament? That’s all I need! Round there to the left for the manager, please, then second door to the right, you’ll see the complaint book bound in morocco. And if you ever order fried eggs in this place, and if I happen to be in the kitchen when the order comes through, it’ll be my pleasure in person to spit a gob into the frying pan for you. A kiss for you, in with the melted butter. And don’t mention it, sir.

“I told you once, sir. Left that way, second door on the right, manager’s office. Complaint book bound in morocco. You’d like me to tell him you’re coming? Certainly. Operator. Manager, please, desk clerk speaking. Yes, sir, a gentleman—what’s the name? Nettlinger, excuse me, Doctor Nettlinger wishes to speak to you at once. About what? To complain about me. That’s right. Thank you. The manager’s waiting for you, sir. Madam? Yes, Madam, parade and fireworks this evening, first street on the left, then second right, third left again, and you see the sign: ‘To the Roman Children’s Graves.’ No trouble at all, don’t mention it. Thank you very much.” One mark’s not to be despised from a good old girl of a school-teacher like that. Yes, just look at me, taking little tips with a smile, and turning down the big ones. Roman children’s graves, there you have something clear and simple. You’ll never see me turn up my nose at the widow’s mite. And tips are a bellhop’s very life and soul. “Yes, just around the corner—absolutely right.”

I can tell if they’re out for a shack job even before they step out of the taxi, I can smell it a mile away. I know all the angles cold. The timid ones, for instance, it’s written all over them so plain I feel like telling them, it’s not as bad as that, children, it’s all happened before, I’ve spent fifty years in the hotel game, rely on me to make it easy. Fifty-nine marks eighty, tips included, for a double room. You’ve got a little consideration coming for that kind of money. However, eager as you may be, just don’t start doing it in the elevator. Making love in the Prince Heinrich takes place behind double doors. Don’t be so bashful, folks, don’t be so timid. If you only knew. I mean, how many people have hauled their ashes in these rooms, made sacred by high prices. Religious ones and unreligious, good ones and bad. Double room with bath, bottle of champagne, room service. Cigarettes. Breakfast at half-past ten. Very good, sir. Sign here, please, no here, sir—and I hope you’re not so stupid as to sign your right name. This thing really does go to the police, then it’s stamped, it becomes a document and can be used as evidence. Don’t gamble on the powers that be, young fellow. The more there are of them, the more pinches they need to keep them busy. Maybe you were a Communist once yourself, in which case keep your eye peeled extra sharp. I used to be one. And a Catholic, too. Sort of stuff that doesn’t come out in the wash. Even today there are certain people I just can’t stand hearing run down. Whoever makes a crack about the Virgin Mary or Father Kolping better watch his step. Boy, Room 42. That way to the elevator, sir.

There they are, just the ones I was expecting, a pair of them on the loose, bold as brass, nothing to hide, making sure the world knows how free and easy they are. Why do you have to make such a production out of it, why lay on that I’ve-got-nothing-to-hide stuff with a trowel? If you really haven’t got anything to hide, then you don’t need to hide it. Sign here, please, sir, no here. With this dumb babe you’ve got in tow, I certainly wouldn’t want to have anything to hide. Not with this one. Love is like tipping. Pure matter of instinct. You can tell by looking at a woman whether it’s worthwhile to have something to hide with her. With this one it isn’t, believe me, my boy. Sixty marks for the night, plus champagne in the room plus tips plus breakfast plus everything else you have to give her: just not worth it. You could get a better deal from a good honest whore who knows her business. Boy, show the lady and gentleman to Room 43. Dear God, how stupid can you get! “The manager? Yes sir, coming sir, yes sir.”

Of course people like you are practically born to be hotel managers. It’s like women having certain organs removed. No more problems then. But what’s love without problems? And if a man has his conscience out, not even a cynic is left. Take trouble away, and you’re human no longer. I trained you as a bellboy, you spent four years under my wing. Then you took a look around the world, went to different schools, learned languages. In officers’ clubs, Allied and un-allied, you sweated out a fearful hosing from conquerors and conquered. Then you came back here on the double, and the first question that crossed your lips when you arrived, so sleek and plump and conscienceless, was, ‘Is old Jochen still around?’ And here he is, the same old potato, my boy.

“You’ve insulted this gentleman, Kuhlgamme.”

“Not on purpose, sir. In fact, it wasn’t an insult at all. I could name you a hundred people who would be proud to have me call them sonny.”

The crowning impertinence. Incredible.

“It just slipped out, Dr. Nettlinger, sir. I’m an old man, you might say I’m half covered by Paragraph 51.”

“The gentleman demands an apology.”

“And right away. It’s carrying things pretty far, if I may say so, to be talked to like that by a bellhop.”

“Apologize to the gentleman.”

“Beg your pardon, sir.”

“Not in that tone.”

“Which tone would you like? Beg your pardon, sir, beg your pardon, sir, beg your pardon, sir. Those are the only three tones I have to pick and choose from. So, if you don’t mind, select the one that suits you. Look here, I don’t mind being used for a doormat. I’ll kneel right down here on the carpet quick as a wink and kiss the man’s boots, old as I am, even if I have an apology coming to me, too. Attempted bribery, sir. The honor of our old and famous hotel is at stake. A trade secret for thirty lousy marks? I’m the one who feels insulted. And the hotel’s been insulted, the place where I’ve worked for more than fifty years. Fifty-six, to be exact.”

“I demand you put an end to this ridiculous and painful scene.”

“Show the gentleman to the billiard room at once, Kuhlgamme.”

“No.”

“You will show the gentleman to the billiard room.”

“No.”

“I’d hate to see all the years you’ve given to this hotel, Kuhlgamme, go down the drain for not carrying out a simple order.”

“In this hotel, sir, when a guest says he doesn’t want to be disturbed, that’s an order, and it’s never been broken once. Except, naturally, if it’s a Higher Power. Secret police. Then our hands would be tied.”

“Consider me a Higher Power.”

“You mean you’re from the secret police?”

“I’m not going to put up with this kind of talk.”

“Show the gentleman to the billiard room, Kuhlgamme.”

“Do you want to be the first, sir, to smirch the banner of discretion?”

“Then I’ll take you to the billiard room myself, Doctor.”

“Over my dead body, sir.”

You have to be as old and corrupt as I am to know that certain things are not for sale. Vice stops being vice when there’s no virtue. And what virtue is you can never know, until you realize that even a whore will turn down some clients. But I should have known you were a bastard. Up there in my room I spent week after week with you, teaching you how to accept tips discreetly, practising with coins, groschen and marks and folding money, too. It’s something one must know, how to take money discreetly, for tips are the life and soul of our profession. I tried to hammer it into your thick skull, no easy job. Even then you tried to gyp me. Pulling a fast one like trying to make me think we had used only three marks instead of four when we were practising! You’ve always been a bastard. You never learned some things just aren’t done. And now you’re at it again. Not that meanwhile you haven’t learned to rake in the tips, but I bet these here were not even thirty pieces of silver.

“Get back to the reception desk at once, Kuhlgamme, I’ll take care of this matter myself. Step aside. Or else.”

Only over my dead body, and just look, it’s ten to eleven already. In ten minutes he’ll be coming down the staircase anyway. If you had any sense we could have skipped the whole production. But even ten minutes—only over my dead body. You’ve never learned what honor is because you’ve never known dishonor. Here I take my stand, Jochen, corrupt and jam-packed with rottenness from head to toe. But only over my dead body will you ever get into that billiard room.