Flotsam (20 page)

THE SQUARE IN FRONT
of the University lay empty in the afternoon sunlight. The sky was clear and blue and above the roofs circled a flock of restless swallows. Kern was standing at the edge of the square waiting for Ruth.

The first students began to come through the big doors and down the steps. Kern craned his neck, searching for Ruth’s brown beret. She was usually one of the first to come. But he did not see her. And then suddenly no more students were coming out. Instead a number of those who were outside were turning back. Something seemed to be wrong.

Suddenly, as though propelled by an explosion, a wildly confused and struggling mass of students poured out of the doorway. It was a free-for-all. Now Kern could distinguish the shouts: “Out with the Jews!” “Beat up the sons of Moses!” “Knock out their crooked teeth!” “Off with them to Palestine!”

He walked quickly across the square and stood by the right wing of the building. He had to avoid getting mixed up in the fight; at the same time he wanted to be as close as possible, so he could take Ruth away.

A small group of some thirty students were trying to escape. Packed close together, they were pushing their way down the stairs. They were surrounded by about a hundred others who were striking at them from all sides.

“Shove them apart!” shouted a big black-haired student who looked more Jewish than most of those under attack. “Get them one at a time!”

He put himself at the head of a group which, with wild shouts, drove a wedge into the crowd of Jews and then he began to seize individuals one at a time and throw them to the others who at once went to work belaboring them with fists, book satchels and canes.

Kern looked anxiously around for Ruth. He could not see her anywhere and he hoped she had stayed inside the University. At the top of the steps stood two professors. One of them had a rosy face and a gray Franz-Josef beard, parted in the middle; he was smiling and rubbing his hands. The other, a lean severe individual, was looking down impassively at the turmoil.

Some policemen came up hurriedly from the far side of the square. The one in front stopped near Kern. “Halt!” he said to the two others. “Don’t interfere with this!”

The two stopped. “Jews, eh?” one of them asked.

The first nodded. Then he noticed Kern and looked at him sharply. Kern pretended he had heard nothing. Deliberately he lighted a cigarette and moved on a few steps with apparent aimlessness. The policemen folded their arms and watched the fight with relish.

A little Jewish student escaped from the tumult. He stood still for an instant as though dazed. Then he saw the policemen and ran up to them. “Come!” he shouted. “Quick! Help! They’re being killed.”

The policemen looked at him as though at some strange insect. They made no reply. The little fellow stared at them a moment in bewilderment. Then he turned without another word and went back toward the fight. He hadn’t gone ten steps when two students separated themselves from the seething mass and plunged toward him. “Izzy!” one of them shouted. “Izzy’s yammering for justice! You’ll get it!”

He knocked him down with a resounding blow in the face. The youngster tried to get up. The other flattened him with a kick in the stomach. Then the two seized him by the legs and began to drag him over the pavement as though he were a wheelbarrow. The little fellow was clawing vainly for a finger-hold on the stones. His white face staring back at the policemen was a mask of horror. His mouth was a gaping black hole from which blood ran out over his chin. He did not scream.

Kern’s gums felt dry. It seemed to him that he had to throw himself on the attackers. But he saw the policemen were watching him and, stiff and convulsed with rage, he walked across to the other corner of the square.

The two students passed close to him with their victim. Their teeth flashed as they laughed and their faces showed no trace of cruelty. They were simply beaming with candid, innocent pleasure—as though they were playing some game and not dragging a bleeding human being.

Suddenly help came. A big, fair-haired student, who had hitherto been standing idle, frowned with disgust as the little fellow was dragged past him. He pushed up the sleeves of his coat, took a couple of leisurely strides and with two short, powerful blows knocked the little fellow’s tormentors to the ground.

He picked up the dirt-covered youngster by the collar of his coat and put him on his feet. “There you are,” he growled. “Now get out of here quick!”

Thereupon, in the same slow and deliberate fashion, he approached the seething pile. He picked out the black-haired leader and gave him such a frightful crack on the nose, followed immediately by a quick blow to the jaw, that he fell groaning to the pavement.

At that instant Kern caught sight of Ruth. She had lost her beret and was standing at the edge of the crowd. He ran to her. “Quick! Come quick, Ruth! We’ve got to get away from here!”

She didn’t recognize him at first. “The police,” she stammered, pale with emotion. “The police ought to help!”

“The police aren’t going to help. They mustn’t catch us here. We’ve got to get away, Ruth!”

“Yes.” She looked at him as though she were waking up. Her expression changed. It was as if she were going to cry. “Yes, Ludwig,” she said in a strange, broken voice. “Come along.”

“Yes, hurry!” Kern took her arm and pulled her with him.

There was a shout behind him. The group of Jewish students had succeeded in breaking through. Some of them were running across the square. The fight changed ground, and suddenly Kern and Ruth were in the middle of it.

“Ah, Rebecca! Sarah!” One of the attackers tried to get his hands on Ruth.

Kern felt something like the snapping of a spring. He was much surprised to see the student slowly collapse to one side. He was not conscious of having hit him.

“Pretty punch!” someone beside him said admiringly.

It was the big fair-haired student, who had seized two others and was engaged in knocking their heads together. “No harm done,” he said, dropping them like wet sacks and making a grab for two more.

Kern felt a cane strike his arm. He leaped forward, striking about him in a red fog. He smashed a pair of eyeglasses and jumped aside to avoid someone. Then there was a dreadful roaring in his head and the red fog turned black.

He came to at the police station. His collar was torn, his cheek was bleeding and his head kept on roaring. He sat up.

“Hello,” said a voice beside him. It was the big blond student.

“Damn it!” Kern said. “Where are we?”

The other laughed. “In detention, my friend. A day or two and then they’ll let us out.”

“They won’t let me out.” Kern looked around. There were eight of them there. All Jews, except for the blond student. Ruth was not among them.

The student laughed again. “Why are you peering around like that? You think they pinched the wrong ones? You’re mistaken, my friend. The guilty ones are not the attackers but those they attack. They are the cause of the disturbance. It’s the latest psychology.”

“Did you see what happened to the girl who was with me?” Kern asked.

“The girl?” The blond student reflected. “Nothing will have happened to her. What would happen? After all, girls don’t get mixed up in a fist fight.”

“Are you sure of that?”

“Yes. Fairly. And besides, the police got there just then.”

Kern stared in front of him. The police. That was just it. But Ruth’s passport was still valid. They couldn’t do much to her. But even that was too much.

“Was anyone besides us arrested?” he asked.

The student shook his head. “I don’t think so. I was the last one. And they hesitated about running me in.”

“Are you sure you were the last?”

“Yes. Otherwise the rest would be here. We’re still at the police station, you know.”

Kern sighed with relief. Perhaps nothing had happened to Ruth.

The blond student looked at him ironically. “Feel sunk, don’t you? That’s the way it always is when you’re innocent. It’s easier when you’ve done something to deserve punishment. You know, I’m the only one who belongs here according to the good old-fashioned ideas of right and wrong. I got into it of my own free will. And I’m glad I did.”

“It was decent of you,” Kern said.

“The hell with decency!” The blond student made a sweeping gesture. “I’m an anti-Semite from away back. But you can’t just stand and watch a slaughter like that. Incidentally, that was a pretty straight right of yours. Sharp and quick. Ever studied boxing?”

“No.”

“Then you ought to learn. You have natural ability. Only you’re too much of a hothead. If I were the Jewish Pope I’d ordain an hour’s boxing lesson every day for my people. You’d see how quick the boys would get respect for you.”

Kern cautiously felt his head. “At the moment I’m not in the mood for boxing.”

“Rubber blackjack,” the student commented matter-of-factly. “Our brave police force. Always on the winning side. Tonight your head will be better. Then we’ll begin to practise. We’ve got to have something to do.” He drew his long legs up on the bench and looked around. “We’ve been here two hours
already! Damned boring spot. If we only had a deck of cards. Surely someone here would know how to play blackjack or one of those games.” He measured the Jewish students with a contemptuous look.

“I have a deck with me.” Kern reached in his pocket. Steiner had made him a present of the pack that had belonged to the pickpocket. Since that time he had carried it with him constantly as a sort of talisman.

The student looked at him admiringly. “Good for you! Now don’t tell me that the only thing you can play is bridge. Every Jew can play bridge and nothing else.”

“I’m a half-Jew. I play skat, faro, jass and poker,” Kern replied with pride.

“First-rate! You’re ahead of me there. I can’t play jass.”

“It’s a Swiss game. I’ll teach you if you like.”

“Good. In return I’ll give you boxing lessons. An exchange of spiritual values.”

They played until evening. The Jewish students meanwhile discussed politics and justice. They reached no conclusion. Kern and the student played jass at first, and later poker. At poker Kern won seven schillings. He had learned Steiner’s lessons well. Gradually his head became clearer. He avoided thinking about Ruth. There was nothing he could do for her; brooding about her would make him dull. And he wanted to have his wits about him when he was brought before the judge.

The student threw down the cards and paid Kern. “Now we come to the second part,” he said. “Come on! We’re going to make a second Dempsey out of you.”

Kern got up. He was still very weak. “I don’t think I can do it,” he said. “My head won’t stand another blow.”

“Your head was clear enough to win seven schillings from me,” the student replied grinning. “Come on, down with the inner cur! Give the Aryan ruffian inside you a chance to speak. Muzzle your humane Jewish half.”

“I’ve been doing that for a year.”

“Splendid! For the time being, then, we’ll spare your head. Let’s begin with the legs. The chief thing about boxing is to be light on your feet. You must dance. Dancing you knock out your opponents’ teeth. Applied Nietzsche!”

The student assumed position, bent his knees, and took a number of steps alternately forward and back. “Imitate that.”

Kern imitated it.

The Jewish students had stopped disputing. One of them, with eyeglasses, got up. “Would you teach me too?” he asked.

“Of course! Off with your glasses and at it!” The blond student slapped him on the shoulder. “Rise and foam, blood of Maccabees!”

Two more pupils applied. The rest remained seated on the bench, disdainful but curious.

“Two on the right. Two on the left.” The blond student directed. “Now for a lightning course. We are going to make up for thousands of years of neglect in your education in barbarism. You don’t hit with your arm, you hit with your whole body—”

He took off his coat. The others followed suit. Then he gave a short explanation of body movement and drilled them in it. The four hopped about zealously in the half-darkened cell.

The blond student cast a fatherly glance over his sweating pupils. “There,” he announced after a while, “you’ve got that now. Practise it while you serve your week for inciting noble Aryans to race hatred. Now stop for a couple of minutes. Take
a deep breath! And now I’ll show you the short punch, the tricky middle ground of boxing.”

He showed them how it was done. Then he rolled his coat into a ball and, holding it at the height of a man’s head, made the others practise hitting it.

Just as they were getting well warmed up the door opened. A jailer came in with two steaming basins. “Why, this is—” Quickly he set down the basins and shouted back into the corridor: “Guard! Hurry! This crowd is going on fighting right here in the police station!”

Two guards rushed in. The blond student quietly laid down his coat. The four boxing pupils had quickly effaced themselves in the corners. “Rhinoceros!” the blond student said with great authority to the jailer. “Blockhead! Miserable prison oaf!” He turned to the guard. “What you see here,” he said, “is an instruction period in modern humanism. Your appearance, with your eager hands on your blackjacks, is unnecessary. Understand?”