Flotsam (11 page)

At the ticket window Kern hurried ahead. “Just a minute, I’m going to pick up the tickets. They’re being held for me.”

He bought two tickets and hoped she hadn’t noticed. But in a moment that didn’t matter; the important thing was that she was sitting beside him.

The room grew dark. On the screen appeared the native quarter of Marrakesh. The wastes of the desert blazed, sun-drenched and exotic, and through the hot African night came the monotonous and exciting beat of the tambourines and flutes.…

Ruth Holland leaned back in her seat. The music swept over her like a warm rain—a warm, monotonous rain from which memory arose tormentingly.…

She was standing beside the moat in Nuremberg. It was April. In front of her in the darkness stood the student Herbert Binding with a crumpled newspaper clenched in his hand.

“You understand what I mean, Ruth?”

“Yes, I understand, Herbert! It’s easy to understand.”

Binding nervously twisted the copy of the
Stürmer
. “My name in the paper for keeping company with a Jewess! For being a profaner of the race! That means ruin, do you understand?”

“Yes, Herbert. My name is in the newspaper too.”

“That’s something entirely different! How can it affect you? You can’t go to the University even as it is.”

“You’re right, Herbert.”

“So this is the end, isn’t it? We’ve separated, and we’ll have nothing more to do with each other.”

“Nothing more. And now good-by.”

She turned around and walked away.

“Wait—Ruth—listen a minute!”

She stopped and he came up to her. His face was so close to hers in the darkness that she could feel his breath. “Listen,” he said, “where are you going now?”

“Home.”

“You don’t have to right away—” His breathing became heavier. “We understand each other, don’t we? And that’s not going to change! But after all you could—we could—it just happens that tonight there is no one at my house, you understand, and we wouldn’t be seen.” He reached for her arm. “We don’t have to part like this, so formally I mean; we could just once more—”

“Go!” she said. “At once!”

“But be reasonable, Ruth.” He put his arm around her shoulders.

She looked again at the handsome face, at the blue eyes, at the waves of blond hair—the face she had loved and had implicitly trusted. Then she struck it. “Go!” she screamed, tears streaming from her eyes. “Go!”

Binding recoiled. “What, strike me? Why, you dirty Jewish slut! Would you strike me?”

He seemed about to spring at her.

“Go!” she screamed shrilly.

He looked around. “Shut your mouth!” he hissed. “Do you want to bring down the whole neighborhood on my neck? Maybe that would suit your plans! I’m going, yes, indeed, I’m going! Thank God I’m rid of you!”

“
Quand l’amour meurt …
” sang the woman on the screen, her dark voice drifting through the noise and smoke of the Moroccan Café. Ruth ran her hand across her forehead.

Compared to that, all the rest had been unimportant—the anxiety of the relatives with whom she was living; her uncle’s urgent advice to take a trip so that he would not become involved; the anonymous letter informing her that if she did not disappear within three days her hair would be cut off and she would be pulled through the streets in a cart, with placards on her breast and back labeling her as a defiler of the race; the visit to her mother’s grave; the wet morning when she had stood in front of the War Memorial from which the name of her father, who had fallen in Flanders in 1916, had been scratched out because he was a Jew; and then the hasty, lonesome trip across the border to Prague, taking with her her mother’s few pieces of jewelry …

Once more the music of flutes and tambourines came from the screen. Above it rolled the march of the Foreign Legion—a quick, stirring clarion-call above the company of those proceeding into the wilderness, fighters without home or country.

Kern bent toward Ruth Holland. “Do you like it?”

“Yes.”

He reached in his pocket and handed her a small bottle. “Eau de Cologne,” he whispered. “It’s hot in here. Perhaps you will find this refreshing.”

“Thanks.” She sprinkled a few drops on her hand. Kern did not see that suddenly there were tears in her eyes.

“Thanks,” she said again.

* * *

Steiner was sitting in the Hellebarde Café for the second time. He handed the waiter a five-schilling note and ordered coffee.

“Want me to telephone?” the waiter asked.

Steiner nodded. He had played cards a few times and with varying luck in other bars and now possessed about five hundred schillings.

The waiter brought him a stack of newspapers and went away. Steiner picked up one of the papers and began to read, but he soon laid it aside; he wasn’t much interested in what was happening in the world. For someone swimming under water only one thing matters: to get to the surface again; the color of the fishes isn’t important.

The waiter put a cup of coffee and a glass of water in front of him. “The gentlemen will be here in an hour.”

He remained standing beside the table. “Fine weather today, isn’t it?” he asked after a while.

Steiner nodded and stared at the wall on which hung an exhortation to prolong your life by drinking malt beer.

The waiter shuffled back behind the counter. But presently he returned, bringing a second glass on a tray.

“I don’t want that,” Steiner said. “Bring me a Kirsch.”

“Yes, sir, at once.”

“Have one yourself.”

The waiter bowed. “Thank you, sir. You have some feeling for people like us. That’s rare nowadays.”

“Nonsense,” Steiner said. “I’m bored, that’s all.”

“I’ve known people to hit on worse ideas when they were bored,” the waiter said.

He tossed off his drink and began to scratch his throat. “I know why you’re here, sir,” he confided. “And if you’ll let me give you some advice, I’d like to recommend the dead Austrian. There are dead Rumanians, too, and they’re cheaper—but who knows how to speak Rumanian?”

Steiner looked at him narrowly.

The waiter stopped scratching his throat and began massaging the back of his neck. Simultaneously he scratched the ground with one foot like a dog. “Of course the best of all would be an American or an Englishman,” he said thoughtfully. “But when do you find an American dying in Austria? And if that should happen, in an automobile accident for instance, how are you going to get hold of his passport?”

“I think a German passport is better than an Austrian,” Steiner said. “Harder to check on.”

“That’s true. But all you can get with it is a permit for residence, not for work. But if you take the dead Austrian you can work anywhere in the country.”

“Till you’re caught.”

“Yes, of course, but who’s ever caught in Austria? Only the wrong people—”

Steiner had to laugh. “You know, I might be the wrong person. Just the same it’s dangerous.”

“As for that, sir,” the waiter said, “they say that it’s even dangerous to pick your nose.”

“Yes; but you don’t get put in the penitentiary for that.”

The waiter began cautiously rubbing his nose—but he
didn’t pick it. “I mean it all for the best, sir,” he said. “And I’ve had a lot of experience here. A dead Austrian is much the best buy.”

It was about ten o’clock when the two dealers in passports arrived. The conversation was carried on by one of them, a lively birdlike fellow. The other sat there, large and bloated, saying nothing.

The spokesman brought out a German passport. “We have talked this over with our associates. You can have your own name put on it. The personal description will be washed out and your own substituted. Except, of course, the place of birth. You will have to accept Augsburg for that because that’s where the seal is from. All this will come to two hundred schillings more, naturally enough. It’s precision work, you understand.”

“I haven’t that much money,” Steiner said. “And I don’t attach any importance to my name.”

“Then take it the way it is. We’ll just change the photograph and we’ll make you a present of the raised lettering that runs along the edge of the picture.”

“No good. I want to work, and with this passport I won’t be able to get a permit.”

The spokesman shrugged his shoulders. “In that case there’s only the Austrian. With that you can work.”

“And suppose someone makes inquiries at the office where it was issued?”

“Who’s going to? Unless you get into trouble.”

“Three hundred schillings,” Steiner said.

The spokesman started. “We have fixed prices,” he said in an injured tone. “Five hundred, not a groschen less.”

Steiner was silent.

“Now if it had been the German passport, we might have made a deal. They’re common enough. But an Austrian passport is very rare. When does an Austrian need a passport? Not when he’s at home, and when does he ever go abroad? Especially now, with the embargo on currency! It’s a gift at five hundred.”

“Three hundred and fifty.”

The spokesman became excited. “Three hundred and fifty is what I myself paid the bereaved family. You have no idea how much work this sort of thing requires. Commissions and expenses, too. Conscience comes very high, my friend. To snatch something like this, fresh from the grave, you have to lay down cold cash and lots of it. Money’s the only thing that dries tears and assuages grief. You can have it for four hundred and fifty. We’re losing money, but we like you.”

They agreed at four hundred. Steiner brought out a photograph which he had had made for a schilling at an automat. The two took it away and came back in an hour with the passport in order. Steiner paid them and put it in his pocket.

“Good luck,” said the spokesman. “And now let me give you a tip. When it runs out there is one way of extending it. Wash out the date and change it. The only trouble is with the visas. The longer you can get along without them, the better—you can extend the date correspondingly.”

“Why, we could have done that now,” Steiner said.

The spokesman shook his head. “It’s better for you as it is. You have a genuine passport which you might have found. Changing a photograph isn’t as serious as forgery. And you have a year’s time. A lot can happen in a year.”

“Let’s hope so.”

“You’ll be discreet about all this, won’t you? It’s to everyone’s
advantage. Of course if you have a customer who means business—you know how to reach us. Till then, good night.”

“Good night.”

“
Strszecz miecze
,” said the silent man.

“He doesn’t speak German,” said the spokesman, grinning at Steiner’s expression. “But he has a wonderful touch with seals. Only strictly serious customers, remember.”

Steiner went to the station. He had left his knapsack in the checkroom there. On the previous evening he had left the rooming house and had spent the night on a bench in the park. In the morning he shaved off his mustache in the station washroom, and after that he had his picture taken. He was filled with exuberant satisfaction. Now he was the workman Johann Huber from Graz.

On the way he stopped suddenly. There was still one score to be settled from the time when his name had been Steiner. He went to a telephone and looked for a number. “Leopold Schaefer,” he murmured to himself. “Number 27, Trautenau Alley.” The name was branded in his memory.

He found the number and called up. A woman answered.

“Is Officer Schaefer at home?” he asked.

“Yes. I’ll call him right away.”

“That’s not necessary,” Steiner replied quickly. “This is the police station at Elisabeth Promenade. There will be a riot at twelve o’clock. Policeman Schaefer is to report here at a quarter of twelve. Have you got that?”

“Yes. At quarter of twelve.”

“Good.” Steiner hung up.

Trautenau Alley was a narrow, silent street of bleak, cheap
houses. Steiner examined Number 27 carefully. There was nothing to distinguish it from the others; but it seemed to him especially repulsive. Then he went on a way and waited.

Officer Schaefer came blustering importantly out of the house. Steiner approached him so that they would meet at a dark spot. Then he lurched against him with his shoulder.

Schaefer reeled. “Are you drunk, fellow?” he roared. “Can’t you see that you have before you an officer on duty?”

“No,” Steiner replied. “I only see a God-damn’ son of a bitch! A son of a bitch, understand?”

Schaefer was speechless for a moment. “Man,” he said then in a low voice, “you must be crazy. I’ll make you pay for this. Come on, off to the station-house!”

He tried to draw his revolver. Steiner kicked him in the arm, moved in suddenly and did the most insulting thing one man can do to another; he struck Schaefer with his open hand on both sides of the face.

The policeman emitted a gurgle and leaped at him. Steiner ducked to the side and landed a left hook on Schaefer’s nose which immediately began to bleed. “Son of a bitch!” he growled. “Miserable turd! Cowardly carcass!”

He chopped his lips with a sharp right and felt the teeth break under his knuckles. Schaefer reeled. “Help!” he shouted in a high thick voice.

“Shut your trap,” Steiner snarled, and placed a sharp right to the chin followed by a short left straight to the solar plexus. Schaefer gave a gulp like a bullfrog and pitched to the ground like a pillar.

Lights went on in a few windows. “What’s the matter this time?” a voice cried.

“Nothing,” Steiner replied from the darkness, “only a drunk.”

“Devil take these rumpots!” the voice shouted angrily. “Cart him off to the police!”

“That’s just where he’s going!”

“Smack him a couple of times on his drunken snout.”

The window was slammed shut. Steiner grinned and disappeared around the nearest corner. He was sure that Schaefer had not recognized him with his altered face. He crossed a few more streets until he came to a populated district. Then he walked more slowly.

Magnificent and yet enough to make you puke, he thought. Such a laughable little bit of revenge! But it makes up for years of flight and submission. You have to take your opportunities as they come. He stopped under a street light and took out his passport. Johann Huber! Workman! You are dead and moldering somewhere in the soil of Graz, but your passport is still alive and valid in the eyes of the authorities. I, Josef Steiner, am alive; but without a passport I am dead in the eyes of the authorities. He laughed aloud. Let’s exchange, Johann Huber! Give me your paper life and take my paperless death. If the living won’t help us, it’s up to the dead!