Young Gerber (Pushkin Collection) by Torberg Friedrich

Author:Torberg, Friedrich [Torberg, Friedrich]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Pushkin Press
Published: 2012-09-05T16:00:00+00:00

“I love you very much, too.”

It is past midnight when Kurt returns to the inn from his walk through the silent streets of the little resort.

His room is on the first floor. He slowly climbs the creaking wooden staircase, turns into the dimly lit corridor—when Otto Engelhart suddenly materializes in a doorway, leaning against the doorpost, looking past him but looking at him as well. It is a little unsettling. Kurt stops.

“You went to see Lisa?” asks Otto Engelhart, but still not looking him in the face.

“Yes,” says Kurt frankly. “You asked me to go yourself.”

The other man nods slowly, as if thinking hard. Then he turns his face to Kurt, swings around abruptly, goes through the doorway and lets the door latch behind him.

Kurt watches, shaking his head, and is about to go on, but something he saw in Otto’s face holds him back. He is in a good, calm mood; maybe he can do something about this dark figure, who seems so hard that he might hurt himself on his own sharp edges.

Curiously, Kurt opens the door.

Otto Engelhart is lying across the bed on his stomach, turned away from him, his head and arms hanging limp over the other side of the bed. All at once a long shiver runs through his body.

Shaken himself, Kurt stands there. Is the unemotional Otto actually weeping?

He goes carefully up to the bed, leans over the man lying there, and gently touches his shoulder.

Otto Engelhart sits up, staring at him as if he were a ghost.

“What do you want?”

Kurt sits down on the bed beside him. “Otto—”

Until now he has avoided addressing Otto by his first name, and he is bewildered to find himself doing it now. Uncertainly, hastily, he begins to speak. “Don’t be childish, what’s got into your head? It would hurt me if you were upset because I went to see Lisa. I mean, you know me, you know who I am.” That was ridiculous; he goes on faster, yes, he admits that he is not indifferent to Lisa, he has never made any secret of it, on the contrary, he will say so to anyone, and for that very reason—Kurt doesn’t know quite what to say to get Otto responding—“You really don’t have to be jealous on account of me, Otto!”

Embarrassed, he gets to his feet and walks up and down the room a couple of times. Then he stops in front of Otto, who is still staring at the floor.

“Jealous?” says Otto Engelhart with a strange smile, taking a deep breath. “I wish to God there was something to be jealous about.”

Kurt is looking at him in surprise.

“That’s right, no need to wonder. But it’s not my fault. Jealous? She doesn’t love anyone. No one. Not me. Not you. No one. I give her all I have. Someone will come along and give her more. But she doesn’t take it. Jealous…”

He has spoken these words jerkily, they are simple but still not clear. Kurt has some inkling

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