The Black Obelisk Read Free

yourselves and try—"
    "Heinrich," Georg interrupts him mildly, "we know you work yourself to the bone. But today we're living in a time when every sale makes us poorer. For years there has been an inflation. Since the war, Heinrich. But this year the inflation has turned into galloping consumption. That's why figures no longer mean—"
    "I know that myself. I'm no idiot."
    No one says anything to that. Only idiots make such statements. And to contradict them is useless. That is something I have learned on the Sundays I spend at the insane asylum. Heinrich gets out a notebook. "The memorial cost us fifty thousand when we bought it. You would think that three-quarters of a million would mean a neat little profit."
    He is dabbling in sarcasm again. He thinks he must use it on me because I was once a schoolteacher. That was shortly after the war, in an isolated village on the heath—nine long months until I made my escape, with winter loneliness howling like a dog at my heels.
    "It would have been an even bigger profit if in place of the magnificent cross you had sold that damned obelisk out there," I say. "Your late father bought it for even less sixty years ago when the business was founded—for something like fifty marks, according to tradition."
    "The obelisk? What's the obelisk got to do with this? The obelisk is unsalable, any child knows that."
    "For that very reason," I say, "no tears would be shed if you had got rid of it. But it's a pity about the cross. We'll have to replace it at great expense."
    Heinrich Kroll snorts. He had polyps in his thick nose and gets stuffed up easily. "Are you by any chance trying to tell me that it would cost three-quarters of a million to buy a memorial cross today?"
    "That's something we'll find out soon enough," Georg Kroll says. "Riesenfeld will be here tomorrow. We'll have to place a new order with the Odenwald Granite Works; there's not much left on inventory."
    "We still have the obelisk," I suggest maliciously.
    "Why don't you sell that yourself?" Heinrich snaps. "So Riesenfeld is coming tomorrow; well, I'll stay and have a talk with him myself. Then we'll see where prices stand."
    Georg and I exchange glances. We know that we will keep Heinrich away from Riesenfeld even if we have to make him drunk or pour castor oil in his morning beer. That honest, old-fashioned businessman would bore Riesenfeld to death with his war experiences and stories of the good old times when a mark was still a mark and honesty was the mark of honor, as our beloved field marshal has so aptly put it. Heinrich dotes on such platitudes; not Riesenfeld. For Riesenfeld, honesty is what you demand from someone else when it's to his disadvantage, and from yourself when you can gain by it.
    "Prices change daily," Georg says. "There's nothing to talk about."
    "Really? Perhaps you, too, think I got a bad price?"
    "That depends. Did you bring the money with you?"
    Heinrich stares at Georg. "Bring it with me? What in blazes are you talking about? How could I bring the money when we haven't even made delivery? You know that's impossible!"
    "It isn't impossible at all." I reply. "On the contrary, it's common practice today. It's called payment in advance."
    "Payment in advance!" Heinrich's fat snout twitches contemptuously. "What does a schoolteacher like you know about it? In our business how can you demand payment in advance? From the sorrowing relatives when the wreathes on the grave haven't even begun to wilt! Are you going to demand money at such a moment for something that hasn't been delivered?"
    "Of course! When else? That's when they're weak and it's easy to get money out of them."
    "They're weak then? Don't make me laugh! That's when they're harder than steel! After all the expense for the coffin, the pastor, the grave, the flowers, the wake—why, you couldn't get so much as a ten-thousand advance, young man! First, people have to recover! Before they pay they have to see what they have ordered standing