The Berlin Stories Read Online Free PDF Page A

embarrassed and uncertain whether to stare the eye out of its hole or merely pretend that I hadn’t seen it. Ostentatiously, I examined the ceiling, the floor, the walls; then ventured a furtive glance to make sure that it had gone. It hadn’t. Vexed, I turned my back on the door altogether. Nearly a minute passed.
    When, finally, I did turn round it was because the other door, the Export and Import door, had opened. A young man stood on the threshold.
    “Is Mr. Norris in?” I asked.
    The young man eyed me suspiciously. He had watery light yellow eyes and a blotched complexion the colour of porridge. His head was huge and round, set awkwardly on a short plump body. He wore a smart lounge suit and patent-leather shoes. I didn’t like the look of him at all.
    “Have you an appointment?”
    “Yes.” My tone was extremely curt.
    At once, the young man’s face curved into oily smiles. “Oh, it’s Mr. Bradshaw? One moment, if you please.”
    And, to my astonishment, he closed the door in my face, only to reappear an instant later at the left-hand door, standing aside for me to enter the flat. This behaviour seemed all the more extraordinary because, as I noticed immediately I was inside, the Private side of the entrance hall was divided from the Export side only by a thick hanging curtain.
    “Mr. Norris wishes me to say that he will be with you in one moment,” said the big-headed young man, treading delicately across the thick carpet on the toes of his patent-leather shoes. He spoke very softly, as if he were afraid of being overheard. Opening the door of a large sitting-room, he silently motioned me to take a chair, and withdrew.
    Left alone, I looked round me, slightly mystified. Everything was in good taste, the furniture, the carpet, the colour scheme. But the room was curiously without character. It was like a room on the stage or in the window of a high-class furnishing store; elegant, expensive, discreet. I had expected Mr. Norris’ background to be altogether more exotic; something Chinese would have suited him, with golden and scarlet dragons.
    The young man had left the door ajar. From somewhere just outside I heard him say, presumably into a telephone: “The gentleman is here, sir.” And now, with even greater distinctness, Mr. Norris’ voice was audible as he replied, from behind a door in the opposite wall of the sitting-room: “Oh, is he? Thank you.”
    I wanted to laugh. This little comedy was so unnecessary as to seem slightly sinister. A moment later Mr. Norris himself came into the room, nervously rubbing his manicured hands together.
    “My dear boy, this is indeed an honour! Delighted to welcome you under the shadow of my humble roof-tree.”
    He didn’t look well, I thought. His face wasn’t so rosy today, and there were rings under his eyes. He sat down for a moment in an armchair, but rose again immediately, as if he were not in the mood for sitting still. He must have been wearing a different wig, for the joins in this one showed as plain as murder.
    “You’d like to see over the flat, I expect?” he asked, nervously touching his temples with the tips of his fingers.
    “I should, very much.” I smiled, puzzled because Mr. Norris was obviously in a great hurry about something. With fussy haste, he took me by the elbow, steering me towards the door in the opposite wall, from which he himself had just emerged.
    “We’ll go this way first, yes.”
    But hardly had we taken a couple of steps when there was a sudden outburst of voices from the entrance hall.
    “You can’t. It’s impossible,” came the voice of the young man who had ushered me into the flat. And a strange, loud, angry voice answered: “That’s a dirty lie! I tell you he’s here!”
    Mr. Norris stopped as suddenly as if he’d been shot. “Oh dear!” he whispered, hardly audible. “Oh dear!” Stricken with indecision and alarm, he stood still in the middle of the room, as though desperately considering which way