Nightmare in Berlin by Hans Fallada Page A

weakness.
    The best times, though, were when all the regulars came together around their table in this hotel. Unfortunately this only happened once or twice a month at most, whenever the circuit judge came over from the district town to hold the appointed court session in the little town. Then the hotelier would get straight on the telephone and notify a local landowner, the dentist, an agricultural-products wholesaler, and also Dr. Doll — but not the old vet, who turned up anyway.
    How Doll had become a part of this motley company he was hardly able to say himself in later years. To begin with — and this was years earlier, at the time of his first marriage, when he was working a smallholding near the little town — he had probably been intrigued by such a mixed bag of drinking companions, and more especially by the stories they had to tell. The old judge in particular excelled in this regard, and told a far better story than the vet, whose jokes were often rather too broad, not to say downright vulgar. But Doll had quickly realised that even these people were utterly mediocre. By the second evening, the old circuit judge had to repeat the same stories; he only knew ten or a dozen, but he was more than happy to tell them a hundred times. It also became increasingly obvious that he liked to be given food for free, and to short-change the staff when it came to handing over his ration coupons. The dentist’s head was filled with stories about women; his day job was just a pretext for him to grope his female patients while they were lying back in the dentist’s chair. And as for the old vet, he was just an old soak who became more greedy and tiresome with every passing day.
    It was the same story with the others: a dull, commonplace bunch, along with their sly landlord, who was only interested in making money. So Doll didn’t always take up the invitation when he was summoned by telephone to join the other regulars. But he came often enough, maybe just because he fancied a few drinks or because he was fond of good wine himself, and because village life at home was even more dull than this crowd. He came and drank and played the generous host, being still fairly well fixed for money at that time, and any freeloaders, from the greedy vet to the cautious circuit judge, did well by him. On particularly good nights, the fat, white-haired hotelier would crawl into the furthest recesses of his cellar and emerge with bottles of Burgundy lagged with dust, or bottles of ‘Mumm extra dry’. To go with the red wine he would serve fine cheeses — no mention of ration coupons! — which they ate in little wedges straight out of their hands. These were blissful times for the old vet, and his friendship with Doll seemed firmly established.
    But that changed, and as is usually the case when male friends have a falling-out, it was all because of a woman. Quite how the old circuit judge came to meet this radiant young woman was a mystery; at all events, when Dr. Doll arrived a little late one evening to join the assembled company, he met there the wife of a Berlin factory-owner who had built himself a cabin on the shore of one of the many lakes in the area, so that he could come and enjoy some weekend fishing.
    But on this particular evening the husband had stayed behind in Berlin, and his young wife was sitting alone among the all-male regulars gathered around the table. She tossed her strawberry-blonde locks, and gazed attentively at whoever was speaking, with her long, slender face and her lovely blood-red mouth — it was just as if this mouth was actually looking at you. Then she would throw her head back, her little white throat seeming to dance with laughter — heavens above, how she could laugh, my God, how young she was! Doll shoved the old vet aside and sat down next to this amazing youthful apparition, who was now sitting on the long corner sofa in between Doll and the old circuit