Hobohemians

56Willy got ready to smile at Viktor.—No wonder he gets sick after prologue of starvation. Twenty years of a life like his. Creeping up at nights into strange houses to doss on the top floor where interruption unlikely. Twice ten years of borrowed pennies, none of the bulwarks cowardice sets against privation. No stomach, no teeth, no hair, hardening of the arteries, congestion of the brain, abysmal depressions and one ungrateful little bitch of a model. It is like meeting myself at forty. She always complains of living with an old man: ‘People stare at me. I am a young girl, with an old man.’—Why hadn’t she got other people then?—The Russian café in the Nürnbergstrasse a few doors past the red lit homosexual café. A young girl, pale and with dilated lustrous eyes in a crescent of chattering men. A young silently sitting girl beside discursive impotent looking men.—That’s how I first saw Lotte, six months before Viktor spoke to me. Went there with Power, the chemical Englishman. Never seen such a wonderful girl. Knew later she looked like that because of drugs, going home afterwards with the journalist reading mooney poetry to her. I must have gone every evening for a week, gazing at her, whipping myself into heroics of romanticism, going out lonely and agog with cherry brandy into moonlit cooling streets. I knew she was a girl for me, knew she was one of those set down irrevocably as mine. Suddenly stopped going I suppose. Then came my great tears in the morning passion for the Roumanian girl, messing me up for six months. And then at the end of all that, back to the Romanisches Café, a coffee, the Indian, yes I come here sometimes, heart-beat, it’s the girl from the café. All arranged. Indubitably. Funny I should know first glance, girl for me. When I sat here with the limping Indian correspondent, she smiled at me. Said afterwards, almost sincerely, that she hadn’t. Then got Viktor to speak to me.—

57“Guten Abend [Good evening], Viktor. Have you seen Ali?”

58Viktor turned his back on Lotte and Heinke. “I don’t speak to Heinke now. He’s just a shopboy playing at artist. Shouldn’t sit at a table with people like us. He is only fit to associate with cattle like Lotte.”

59Ali turned the corner from the other room. Over a fur-lined coat bargained for six months long, bold eyes swept round to Willy. His full-cheeked Persian face softened. He stopped and waved his bowler hat.

* * *

60Ali put on his bowler.—Willy is smiling at Viktor. Looks recovered from his bad temper. He needn’t have been angry, it was all his doing. He encouraged it. Always getting upset like that about a girl. English sentimentality. Crying over that university girl. All these Europeans make fusses like that about women, except Heinke. Gets them young and leaves them early. It’s only like having a beefsteak. Why make a scene about it? I couldn’t help it. I said I wouldn’t if she didn’t want to. Even if I promised, he put her off on me. He didn’t want her. When he left us like that on the pavement he told me to take her home. I tried to keep my word: ‘You sleep in my bed, Lotte. I’ll sleep on my couch.’—It was she kept on saying she was cold, cold. I couldn’t drive her out when she crept in so quickly. She made me. She’s a beast anyway, saying afterwards: ‘You’re not as good as your friend.’—How could I feel like it, after promising Willy? She said: ‘Your English friend is the nicest man I know. Will he be angry with me to-morrow? He wanted me to come with you, didn’t he? Don’t tell him.’—What can he expect? Getting sentimental over German girls when he’d been saying he was mad for Natalie. Just go in the lavatory.—