Is there anything so sad as this sight, which seems so emblematic? All around stroll the war-profiteers with their X-ray vision, and in the midst of everything a mounted dog. The human race has lost, all hail to the animal. We have been through the war that was the last hurrah of cavalry, and at the end of it dogs ride around on men.

Der Neue Tag, 1 August 1919

 

3. Millionaire for an Hour

Every so often, I like to spend a little time in the lobby of the big hotel where visitors from hard-currency nations come to stay. The coffered ceiling consists of so many gorgeous panels, and in the middle of each one sprouts an electric light. The lamps look like glass flowers, shaded by golden leaves.

The ceiling is low but expansive, the furniture likewise. Everything here tends to breadth and luxury. The low ceiling murmurs: Don’t get up! The broad armchairs say: Kick your shoes off!

I kick off one of my shoes and look with a deal of satisfaction at the crease of my trouser-leg (my only pair, but let that go). I also take pride in the state of my toe caps, which have just had a good shine from the soft flannel cloth of the man on Unter den Linden.

After just a quarter of an hour of sitting like that, and feeling flush and expansive, I start to think I am someone from a hard-­currency country, and am staying at the hotel.

The messenger boy who is delivering a letter gives my shiny toecaps a wide berth. The messenger boy has no idea I don’t live here. When I call him, he comes to a stop outside the charmed hard-currency nimbus in whose centre I am sitting, and doffs his brown cap to me with an angular movement of his well-trained arm. He has big blue eyes and gives me his best awestruck stare. He has whole magazines of respect in his eyes. He is apple-cheeked and smells pleasantly of milk, like a clean baby. He has been studying deference to his hard-currency elders for all of two years now.

The white napkin of the waiter starts to twitch respectfully at about ten paces. The hotel manager, striding across the tasteful ornaments of his Smyrna carpet with the dignity of a Grand Vizier, inclines his head when I look at him.

After a while, I shift my focus to my brother millionaires. They are very well dressed. The men smell of new leather luggage and English shaving cream and coal. The women disperse gentle hints of a Russian scent across the room. The bittersweet aroma tickles my nostrils, only to disappear again.

The millionaires are gifted poseurs. The younger ones wear belted lemon-lime raincoats with discreet matte buckles. Their hats are for the most part dove-grey and have a hint of a dent at the top (that might almost be an accident). Their gloves are white, their shoes are brown or tan, and when the young millionaires sit down, they give their trousers a little tweak at the knees to show off their silk socks.

The old millionaires seem generally unaware of the season. It’s not the state of the mercury but the state of the market that matters. The old millionaires sit there in their winter wool coats and padded gloves, and they keep a freshly guillotined cigar clenched so expectantly between their teeth that a waiter leaps by with tails aflutter, in mid-air striking a match on the emery board so as to have it ready when he alights.

I get to know people here: a man with whiskers who looks like a Hamburg senator (and he has the thick ‘s’ to match). Protracted negotiations with a belted youth. The subject is petroleum. The youth seems to be from Poland. He has a piece of paper in his top pocket. Every so often he gives it a meaningful tap.