The Old Flame

(1946)

You ask me why I’m sitting here, an old lonely and embittered bachelor? Couldn’t I have got myself a wife, like other men? And why is there no gossip about me?

Of course I could have married, and I was once the subject of gossip too. It’s so long ago now that it’s almost not true any more; the only one who knows about it still is me, and maybe Ria. But I don’t think she remembers; I think she’ll have forgotten long ago.

I called her Ria, that was my pet name for her. Her real name was Erika von Schütz, and her father owned a large estate in the east. They were both haughty characters, I often saw father and daughter riding past me, but they never returned the greeting of their poor inspector, who was fed on groats and skim milk in the officials’ house, while they got through menus of God knows how many courses. I didn’t mind them being haughty and seeing through me; at that time you took it for granted that people came in two kinds, rich and poor, and that being poor was actually a disgrace.

It’s even possible I revered Erika von Schütz doubly on account of her haughtiness, she whom I thought of as Ria, and who made my heart skip a beat when I saw her from a distance. She seemed so utterly beyond me. Later on, after I’d been working on the estate for some time, she would sometimes use me as an errand boy: I had to walk her horse up and down, or deliver a note to a certain gentleman on another estate, and once I even had to stand guard outside the gazebo when she was in there with a gentleman, in case her father surprised them.

When she was forced to talk to me on such occasions, her face took on such a disdainful, almost nauseated expression it was as though she was looking at a spider or some other foul creature. And for all that, I loved her – loved her with the whole force of my hot young heart, and each one of her contemptuously uttered words sounded like exquisite music in my ears. Once, on one such occasion, she surprisingly said to me: ‘Do you know you’re actually quite a presentable fellow, considering, Wrede?’ And straight after that: ‘But the maids will have told you that often enough! Now scram, get lost, stop staring at me! And I want a reply by four o’clock, have you got that?!’

And she swung her horse around so abruptly that its hindquarters almost knocked me over, and cantered off down a narrow path through the undergrowth, with the twigs whistling about her ears, but still scorning to bend her neck! This, by the way, was the only time she addressed me in any personal way, gave me to understand she had ever seen my face before. Otherwise she always acted as though she couldn’t quite place me or remember my name. In anyone else such a pretence would have seemed foolish, but in her it seemed charming – mind you, I was helplessly in love with her. Often I would go to the stables late at night and bring her horse a piece of bread or some sugar, so as to do something for her every day.

One day I had a falling-out with her father, Herr Valdemar von Schütz, or rather, he fell out with me. I was said to have overpaid one of his workmen. He sacked me on the spot, he barely allowed me to spend the night on the estate. I was able to show him a moment later that he’d made a mistake, but he still thought it better we kept with the immediate dismissal.

‘What I’ve once said holds. I don’t care to have people working for me for a long time anyway; they get used to me, and that’s no good. It’s a new broom that sweeps properly. You can take the rest of your month’s wage out of petty cash.’ And with that he left me.

I was rather downcast; I hadn’t any savings, and at that time jobs in the country were few and far between. When Ria phoned me shortly after, and asked me to run an errand for her in the park, I answered her insolently that I had no time for that. I had to close the books and pack my things, I was leaving! With that I hung up, and was happy for the first time to have shown her a bit of willpower, and not always have been her skivvy!

She didn’t leave me feeling triumphant for long; fifteen minutes later she was in my room, watching my packing contemptuously, and sat down on the window seat. She tossed me a cigarette, lit another one, and said with infinite arrogance: ‘What’s got into you, Wrede? When I say go somewhere, you go, and when I say stay, you stay! So you’re staying and you’ll continue to be my go-between!’ And she gave me a sneering smile.

Face to face with her like that, my courage almost disappeared; but I was able to tell her that it was difficult for me to obey both her father and herself. He had given me the sack, while she was telling me to stay!

‘I see!’ she said. ‘Herr von Schütz was pleased to dismiss you? And the reason? Bound to be something involving a girl!’

I told her the reason.

‘Is that it?’ she asked, and looked at me thoughtfully. ‘Of course it’s difficult for you to find a way of going and staying. But not for me. I want you to be in the park at ten tonight, in the usual place, and have your case with you. It’s possible I’ll know of a post for you!’

I stammered a few words of thanks. But she cut me off. ‘Bah!’ she cried. ‘Haven’t you got ears? I said it’s possible. It’s also possible I’ll leave you standing in the park all night, never to see me again. So I would say my goodbyes if I were you, to your girlfriends too!’

With those words her face took on the expression of disgust again. I told her I didn’t have any, and that that was the truth. Ever since I first saw Ria, I had eyes for no other woman, all others might as well not exist so far as I was concerned. But she wasn’t listening. She walked out of my room as if I didn’t exist – yes, she brushed so close past me, I was forced to take a hurried step back. Then I was left to pack again on my own. I stubbed out the cigarette she had started and then tossed and put it in my wallet like a holy relic.

Of course I was careful not to say goodbye to anyone – it would have given rise to questions, what was I doing so late. At ten o’clock I was at the park, prepared to wait up half or even all the night. But luckily it wasn’t that bad. I didn’t see her in person, but her maid, an elderly, rather sharp-tongued woman, came along and led me into the manor house. On the ground floor there seemed to be a party in progress, all the windows were lit up. I could hear music and laughter, the bright clinking of glasses. I was taken up the dimly lit service staircase into the side wing of the first floor, into a little storage room, where discarded and broken furniture was left to gather dust. But I wasn’t too disappointed by that, because I knew she lived in the same wing. I was braced for a long wait, but I was at least sure I would see her tonight. And anyway: even being under the same roof with her made me happy.

I sat for hours in that junk room, and dreamed of the bliss of seeing her come through the door. From time to time I went up to the window and looked out at the park at night. The nearest trees were lit from the light coming from the ground-floor rooms; the party was still in progress. But up in the sky, the stars had a festive glitter of their own, an everlasting light over us unfortunates. In these hours of waiting I learned what it meant to love. I lived in this waiting, which made me happy. I was expecting nothing but a few arrogant words and an errand, maybe with an address where I might apply for a new job.

But all that didn’t concern me really. I was with her, in the same building, she would come to me in this very room! Oh, how lovely it is to be young and willing to love without the tormenting need to possess! Today I am an old man who has achieved much in his life, but if you ask me when I was happiest, my answer would be: during those hours of waiting in the manor house, when I hovered over my love as weightlessly as a water lily in a pond!

Finally, I fell asleep waiting, even youth needs a rest sometimes. I awoke to feel someone toying with my hair. An incredible feeling of bliss came over me. I sat up on the old chaise and stared at Ria in wonder. She was wearing a low-cut evening gown, her dazzling white bust and shoulders blinded me as though I had stared at the sun.

‘Ah, Werner, Werner,’ said Ria, with her fingers still in my hair. ‘It’s almost morning, and instead of waiting for me, you’re asleep. I thought at least you truly loved me!’

I was so confused that I could think of nothing to say. She put both her arms around me and kissed me on the lips. She pulled me against her heaving bust, I smelled her sweet scent, under her kiss my senses almost perished … We clasped each other like two people drowning in the water, only accelerating their end. The waters of love closed over our heads!

After a while, she said: ‘Come, let’s eat!’

She took me to her bedroom. A table had been set for two, there was a bottle of wine in an ice bucket. Suddenly I was no longer a poor field inspector on skim milk groats, I was a great man. But it felt perfectly natural, nothing could surprise me really, after the great miracle of her loving me!

‘Tuck in, Werner!’ she said. ‘No, you have to bump glasses with the bride first! The way you’re looking at me – didn’t you know I was getting engaged tonight?’

‘Is it—?’ I asked, and named the man I had taken so many letters to.

‘No!’ she shook her head. ‘It’s someone else. Someone you don’t know. But it doesn’t matter who it is – the hell with him!’ And with that she hurled her glass against the mirror, sending the shards flying. ‘Here’s to the two of us – and après nous le déluge!’

So began the charmed days and nights in which I thought I was living in a dream or fairy story. Ria was utterly different, she seemed to live for me. No arrogant words any more, no wounding remarks. By day she was out a lot, often coming back only for a brief moment, to wake me with a kiss from my slumbers or dreams, and then running out again. Or we spent a quarter of an hour talking, never about our daily life, but about blessed South Sea islands, a Robinsonade for the pair of us, an end of the world that only we had survived.

We were the only two people in the world, and apart from her I only saw her elderly, sharp-tongued maid, who never said a word to me, but who tidied the room and ignored me. How long did our good fortune last? How would I know, my friend, I didn’t count the days, everything seemed to merge into one until I had her in my arms again. A week, two weeks – does the summer count its roses? Oh, but I was happy, superhumanly happy. It was enough for a whole lifetime, as you see; I still rave about it like a schoolboy, even in spite of the bad ending!

One day, when I was crossing the landing to the bathroom, I suddenly saw Herr Valdemar von Schütz in front of me. I had stopped thinking of him; presumably he too would have forgotten all about me. For a moment he stood there like a goose in a thunderstorm, then in accordance with his nature he started shouting and screaming – probably he had seen me come out of his daughter’s room. He waved his riding crop under my nose.

But straight away the elderly maid was on the scene. She begged him not to do anything to me. She freely admitted she had smuggled me into the manor house as her lover. She was only human, and it wouldn’t happen again. Just so long as he didn’t do anything to me, I would leave immediately …

I must admit, she was a remarkable old creature, unhesitatingly taking the fall for her mistress. She had to push her sentences into the short intervals of his yelling, but she did it very deftly. Very canny too was her repeated insistence that he not do anything to hurt me! That directed him towards the best way of venting his rage. A fiendishly clever woman. At last Herr von Schütz got the message. He drew the riding crop across my face in a slashing blow, so that the skin seemed to explode. Following that first blow came many others: a man discovers his appetite while eating. I was horsewhipped out of the house in best style. I took to my heels. He gave chase, and the whip whistled on my back.

Finally I got out of the house. On the terrace were the dogs, loafing. He went on whipping me, and sicced them onto me with a sharp hiss. Finally he stood and watched as I tried to fight them off with kicks and oaths, while trying to find my way out of the park. It must have been an extremely amusing sight, me trying to keep six or eight dogs at bay. There was one little dachshund in particular who kept getting under my guard and nipping me on the legs.

Herr von Schütz’s humour was finally stirred too, and he started laughing loudly. And suddenly standing next to him was Ria, my beloved Ria who an hour or two before had lain in my arms, and now she was laughing, laughing heartily and uncomplicatedly at her lover in distress, yes, she was even siccing the dogs onto me: ‘Gettim, Waldmann! Give it to him, Harras! Oh, poor Rex, that was a mean kick!’

And then she was laughing again. Her laugh was still ringing in my ears as I stood in the kitchen of one of the estate workers, cooling my cut and burning face in a wet cloth. I still had it in my ears weeks and months later; I can still hear it now we are both old, Ria and I.

Yes, she is still alive, as I happen to know. But I doubt if she ever thinks of her little interlude with Field Inspector Wrede. Perhaps her whole life is put together from such episodes. There are many women who never have a great experience, because they give themselves to a series of shifting trivialities.

I could have seen her later, Ria. It would only have taken a little help from my side, an invitation from an acquaintance, and we would have faced each other again: mistress and slave. But what would have been the point? I’m not one to poke around in old ashy embers in the hope of getting them to flame up again. Our fire won’t ever burn as it did in our younger days. Anyway: I once experienced a great joy, everything subsequent can only be lesser. You can only love like that once in your life, so selflessly, so regardless of ego!

And further: you will admit, my friend, the experience was rather unsettling. For all the happiness I enjoyed, I was left with a deep suspicion of women. I was never able to persuade myself to place my heart in the hands of one of the moody, whimsical creatures again. So I remained alone, an old and lonely bachelor with a single experience of love in the course of a long life. Perhaps you won’t understand me, but – it’s the way I am! No one can escape their own skin – or wants to.

★

The speaker looked pensively at his glass of wine, raised it, and said: ‘You were marvellous, Ria! Like a goddess you came down from the clouds to the delectation of a poor mortal! Then you returned to your Olympus!’ He emptied his glass and threw it at the mirror: the shards fell tinkling to the ground. ‘The hell with women!’ he said.