The Eye of the Abyss Read Free Page A

and worried. Schmidt recalled how his colleague had said to him several times: Jesus Christ! Look at you, never drunk, nails always immaculate – were, even as a junior clerk when the Chief Clerk lined us up for inspection each morning.You’re a bloody cameo of a man, not a gram of frivolity, do you ever open up even to your wife? Now Wagner drew on his cigarette, smiled sceptically, possibly at the fate which had dealt him this anonymous, cipher-like friend.
    â€˜Heinrich, I’m not ready to talk,’ said Schmidt. ‘Let’s keep it under observation. As a nation we’ve been brought out of difficult times on to a new course. Obviously there’ve been negative events. Will the progress wash them away? We’ll see.You’re quick, I’m slower, and I’m reserving my position.’
    â€˜Jesus, you speak like this while that madman rants away in Berlin! While he hoodwinks the stupid British and French leaders!’
    Schmidt turned his head quickly and put a hand up to his false eye. ‘Take care,’ he said quietly.
    Wagner shrugged, swallowed a draught of beer, lifted his strained face to the church steeple. He said tersely: ‘Why don’t you look up from that damned underworld of green ink, have a look at the real world? Listen, if I take your remarks at face value, I say: Hurry up. Decide where you stand. It shouldn’t be too hard, should it, after what the bastards did to you?’
    Schmidt thought: Why did I make that weak-kneed little speech? Better to have said nothing, as usual.Yet he’d felt impelled to speak along those lines. A kind of camouflage? In aid of what?
    It was chilly, and this would be the last time they’d sit outside. An inner voice told him: ‘Go home to your wife and daughter, forget the auditing life, today’s events – at least for tonight.’
    They finished their beer.

    Wagner said, ‘I’m going to listen to Mozart, my maid’ll have soup ready. Two consolations to end an unnerving day. Going home sober.’ He grinned at his colleague. Schmidt was more the good servant of the bank than he was. Nonetheless, something wasn’t ringing true about him tonight.
    A spindle-legged man in a long black overcoat and a black hat with a whitish face hurried past, dived into the gloom – an impressionistic blur. The Wertheim men were gripped by his tension. Instantly Schmidt recalled the haggard face of the shopkeeper he’d seen that morning.
    Wagner shook his head. ‘Like a rat into a drainpipe.’
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    The auditor took the tram out to his suburb, watching the streets, frowning over Wagner. His colleague claimed he was a follower of Calvinist doctrines, but he wasn’t the calm type. From now on he must curb his tongue. Herr Wertheim might or mightn’t have ‘lost his marbles’ but he’d selected this new route and thus Wagner was going to take it – as were they all. In a kind of metallic wardance exaggerated by its emptiness, the tramcar rattled from the shut-down finance district into the city’s heart, which was blazing with electric light. Café life unrolled in a procession of animated showcases thronged with patrons. The cinemas were full. A huge billboard advertised the idolised Hans Albers, in Gold. Helga kept up with the latest cinema. They’d agreed they both preferred foreign films, even the B-grade Hollywoods, to the monotonous, propagandist offerings of the Third Reich. Surprising his wife, Schmidt liked the Westerns.
    He brooded on the scene, and a memory of the district in 1934 came: dead-spirited as a strike-bound town. No strikes these days, secure jobs everywhere.
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    â€˜It’s been an interesting day,’ Schmidt said to his wife. He spoke with a formality he sometimes regretted, but couldn’t
break. The maid had cleared the dinner table. He told Helga of the day’s momentous event. He rarely discussed bank business, ran