going to make fun of me …’
‘I’m listening.’ She had settled on the window seat and was looking alternately at her young man and the moonlit landscape. She was quite happy to look at it now, and very pleasant it looked too.
‘All right; so at Bergmanns I was head salesman and got a hundred and seventy marks.’
‘A hundred and seventy marks for a head salesman!’
‘Will you be quiet! I was always the one to serve Mr EmilKleinholz. He used up a lot of suits. He drinks, you see. He has to, for business reasons, with the farmers and the landowners. But he can’t hold his drink. He falls down in the street and ruins his suits.’
‘Shame! What does he look like?’
‘Listen, will you! It was always me that had to serve him. Neither the boss nor the boss’s wife could get him to order anything. If I wasn’t there, they never had any luck with him, but I always sold him something. And all the time Kleinholz kept on at me about if I ever felt like a change and if I ever got fed up working for a Jewish firm, that he had a good clean Aryan business, and a good job as a book-keeper, and I’d earn more with him too … But I thought: you can talk away! I know when I’m well off, and old Bergmann is not at all bad and always fair to his employees.’
‘So why did you leave him and go to Kleinholz?’
‘It was over a complete trifle. You see, Lammchen, the custom here in Ducherow is that every morning the shops send their apprentices to get the mail from the post office. The other people in our line all do it: Sterns and Neuwirths, and Moses Minden. And the apprentices are strictly forbidden to show each other the mail. And the name of the sender has to be heavily crossed out straight away, so that our competitors don’t know who we’re buying from. But the apprentices were all at school together and they get nattering and forget the crossing out. And some of the businesses actually encourage them to nose around, Moses Minden in particular.’
‘How petty everything is here!’ said Lammchen.
‘It’s just as petty in big places. So what happened was that the Veterans’ Association wanted to order three hundred windcheaters. And we four clothing businesses were all asked for a quote. The competition were nosing around to find where we were getting our designs from. And because we didn’t trust the apprentices, I said to Bergmann: “I’ll go myself, I’ll get the post for the time being.” ’
‘So? Did they find out?’ asked Lammchen eagerly.
‘No,’ he said, highly affronted. ‘Of course not. If an apprentice so much as squinted at my parcels from ten metres away, I threatened to give him a clip round the ear. We got the order.’
‘Oh, come on Sonny, will you get to the point? When are we coming to the girl who isn’t what I think? All that is no reason for you leaving Bergmanns.’
‘I told you,’ he said, embarrassed. ‘It was all over a trifle. I fetched the mail myself for two weeks. And the boss’s wife thought it was a very good arrangement, because there was never anything for me to do in the shop between eight and nine anyway, and in that time, while I was away, the apprentices could sweep the store-room. And so she simply declared, “Mr Pinneberg can get the mail every day”, and I said, “No, that’s not my job. A head salesman doesn’t run round town with the parcels.” And she said, “Oh yes you will!” and I said, “No, I won’t” and in the end we both got into a temper, and I said to her: “You can’t order me around. It was Mr Bergmann who employed me.” ’
‘And what did he say?’
‘What could he say? He couldn’t put his wife in the wrong! He tried hard to persuade me, and in the end he said, very embarrassed, when I kept on saying No: “In that case, we’re going to have to go our separate ways, Mr Pinneberg!” And I’d really got going by that time, so I said, “All right, I’ll leave on the first day of next month.” And he
‘I’m listening.’ She had settled on the window seat and was looking alternately at her young man and the moonlit landscape. She was quite happy to look at it now, and very pleasant it looked too.
‘All right; so at Bergmanns I was head salesman and got a hundred and seventy marks.’
‘A hundred and seventy marks for a head salesman!’
‘Will you be quiet! I was always the one to serve Mr EmilKleinholz. He used up a lot of suits. He drinks, you see. He has to, for business reasons, with the farmers and the landowners. But he can’t hold his drink. He falls down in the street and ruins his suits.’
‘Shame! What does he look like?’
‘Listen, will you! It was always me that had to serve him. Neither the boss nor the boss’s wife could get him to order anything. If I wasn’t there, they never had any luck with him, but I always sold him something. And all the time Kleinholz kept on at me about if I ever felt like a change and if I ever got fed up working for a Jewish firm, that he had a good clean Aryan business, and a good job as a book-keeper, and I’d earn more with him too … But I thought: you can talk away! I know when I’m well off, and old Bergmann is not at all bad and always fair to his employees.’
‘So why did you leave him and go to Kleinholz?’
‘It was over a complete trifle. You see, Lammchen, the custom here in Ducherow is that every morning the shops send their apprentices to get the mail from the post office. The other people in our line all do it: Sterns and Neuwirths, and Moses Minden. And the apprentices are strictly forbidden to show each other the mail. And the name of the sender has to be heavily crossed out straight away, so that our competitors don’t know who we’re buying from. But the apprentices were all at school together and they get nattering and forget the crossing out. And some of the businesses actually encourage them to nose around, Moses Minden in particular.’
‘How petty everything is here!’ said Lammchen.
‘It’s just as petty in big places. So what happened was that the Veterans’ Association wanted to order three hundred windcheaters. And we four clothing businesses were all asked for a quote. The competition were nosing around to find where we were getting our designs from. And because we didn’t trust the apprentices, I said to Bergmann: “I’ll go myself, I’ll get the post for the time being.” ’
‘So? Did they find out?’ asked Lammchen eagerly.
‘No,’ he said, highly affronted. ‘Of course not. If an apprentice so much as squinted at my parcels from ten metres away, I threatened to give him a clip round the ear. We got the order.’
‘Oh, come on Sonny, will you get to the point? When are we coming to the girl who isn’t what I think? All that is no reason for you leaving Bergmanns.’
‘I told you,’ he said, embarrassed. ‘It was all over a trifle. I fetched the mail myself for two weeks. And the boss’s wife thought it was a very good arrangement, because there was never anything for me to do in the shop between eight and nine anyway, and in that time, while I was away, the apprentices could sweep the store-room. And so she simply declared, “Mr Pinneberg can get the mail every day”, and I said, “No, that’s not my job. A head salesman doesn’t run round town with the parcels.” And she said, “Oh yes you will!” and I said, “No, I won’t” and in the end we both got into a temper, and I said to her: “You can’t order me around. It was Mr Bergmann who employed me.” ’
‘And what did he say?’
‘What could he say? He couldn’t put his wife in the wrong! He tried hard to persuade me, and in the end he said, very embarrassed, when I kept on saying No: “In that case, we’re going to have to go our separate ways, Mr Pinneberg!” And I’d really got going by that time, so I said, “All right, I’ll leave on the first day of next month.” And he
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