Flotsam (34 page)

“Of course. It’s a blue sweater with a red band. Now do you believe me?”

Vogt smiled. He drew a small book out of his pocket. “Take this in exchange.”

It was Hölderlin’s poems. “That will be much harder for you to get along without,” Kern said.

“Not at all. I know most of them by heart.”

Kern went into Geneva. For two hours he slept in a church and at twelve o’clock he was standing in front of the Main Post Office. He knew Ruth couldn’t possibly be there so soon, but nevertheless he waited until two. Then he consulted Binder’s list of addresses. Once more his luck was good. By evening he had earned seventeen francs and thereupon he went to the police.

It was Saturday night and noisy. At eleven o’clock two drunks were brought in; they immediately vomited all over the place and then began to sing. Toward one o’clock there were five of them.

At two Vogt was brought in.

“It must be a jinx,” he said in a melancholy voice. “But never mind, at least we’re together.”

An hour later they were taken out. The night was cold. The stars twinkled and looked very far off. The half-moon was as bright as molten metal.

The policeman stopped. “You turn to the right here, then—”

“I know,” Kern interrupted him, “I know this road well.”

“Good luck then!”

They walked on across the narrow strip of no man’s land between border and border.

Contrary to their expectation, they were not sent back that night but taken to the prefecture. There a deposition was taken down and they were fed. The following night they were deported again.

It was windy and overcast. Vogt was very tired. He scarcely
spoke and seemed almost ready to give up. When they had gone a way beyond the border they rested in a haystack. Vogt slept until morning like a dead man.

He woke up as the sun was rising. He did not stir, he simply opened his eyes. There was something strangely moving for Kern about this slender, motionless figure under the thin overcoat, this bit of humanity with its great, calm, wide-open eyes.

They were lying on a gentle slope from which they could look out at the city and Lake Leman, bathed in the morning light. Smoke from the chimneys of the houses was rising into the clear air, awakening memories of warmth, security, beds and breakfast. The sun sparkled on the wrinkled surface of the Lake. Vogt quietly watched as the thin drifting mists were sucked up by the sun and vanished, and the white massif of Mont Blanc slowly emerged from behind tattered clouds, gleaming like the bright walls of a lofty heavenly Jerusalem.

Toward nine they started on. They came to Geneva and took the road along the Lake. After a while Vogt stopped. “Just look at that!” he said.

“What?”

Vogt pointed to a palatial building standing in a large park. The vast edifice shone in the sun like a stronghold of security and well-ordered life. The magnificent park was resplendent with the red and gold of autumn foliage. Automobiles were parked in long rows in the broad entrance court, and crowds of contented people were walking in and out.

“Marvelous!” Kern said. “Looks as if the Emperor of Switzerland lived here.”

“Don’t you know what that is?”

Kern shook his head.

“That’s the Palace of the League of Nations,” Vogt said in a voice tinged with sorrow and irony.

Kern looked at him in amazement.

Vogt nodded. “That’s the place where our fate has been debated for years. Whether we are to be given identification papers and made human beings again or not.”

An open Cadillac pulled out of the row of cars and glided toward the exit. A number of elegantly dressed young people were in it, among them a girl in a mink coat. She laughed and waved to a second car, making an engagement to lunch beside the Lake.

“Yes,” Vogt said presently. “Do you understand now why it takes so long?”

“Yes,” Kern replied.

“Hopeless, isn’t it?”

Kern shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t think those people are in any great hurry.”

A doorman approached and suspiciously examined Kern and Vogt. “Are you looking for someone?”

Kern shook his head.

“Then what do you want?” the doorman asked.

Vogt looked at Kern. A weary spark of humor gleamed in his eyes. “Nothing,” he said to the doorman. “We’re just tourists. Simple pilgrims on God’s earth.”

“In that case it would be better for you to move on,” said the doorman, thinking of crackpot anarchists.

“Yes,” Vogt said. “Probably that would be better.”

They went along the Rue de Mont Blanc looking in the shop windows. Vogt stopped in front of a jewelry store. “I’ll say good-by here.”

“Where are you going now?” Kern asked.

“Not far. I’m going into this store.”

Kern did not understand; he looked through the plate glass at the display of diamonds, rubies, and emeralds arranged on gray velvet.

“I don’t think you’ll have any luck,” he said. “It’s well known that jewelers are hard-hearted. Perhaps because they constantly associate with stones. They never give anything.”

“I don’t expect them to. I’m just going to steal something.”

“What?” Kern looked doubtfully at Vogt. “Are you serious? You won’t get away with it in your condition.”

“I don’t expect to. That’s why I’m doing it.”

“I don’t understand,” Kern said.

“You’ll understand in a minute. I’ve thought it over carefully. It’s my one chance of getting through the winter. I’ll get at least a couple of months for this. I have no choice. I’m in pretty bad shape. Another few weeks of the border would finish me. I must do it.”

“But—” Kern began.

“I know everything that you’re going to say.” Vogt’s face sagged suddenly as though the threads that had held it together had been torn. “I can’t go on—” he murmured. “Good-by.”

Kern saw it was useless to say anything more. He pressed Vogt’s limp hand. “I hope you’ll get well soon.”

“Yes, I hope so. The prison here is all right.”

Vogt waited until Kern had gone some distance and then entered the shop. Kern stopped at the corner and watched the entrance, pretending that he was waiting for a trolley. After a while he saw a young man dash out of the store and presently return with a policeman. I hope he gets some rest now, he thought as he went on.

* * *

A short distance outside Vienna, Steiner got a lift and was taken as far as the border. He did not want to take the chance of showing his passport to the Austrian customs officials and so he got out before they reached the border and went the rest of the way on foot. About ten o’clock in the evening he presented himself at the customs office and reported that he had just been sent out of Switzerland.

“All right,” said an old customs man with a Franz Josef beard. “We’re used to that. We’ll send you back early tomorrow morning. Find a seat for yourself somewhere.”

Steiner sat down outside in front of the customs house and smoked. It was peaceful. The customs man on duty was dozing. Only occasionally a car came by. About an hour later the man with the beard stepped out. “Tell me,” he asked Steiner, “are you an Austrian?”

Steiner was immediately alarmed. He had sewed his passport into his hat. “What makes you think that?” he inquired casually. “If I were an Austrian I wouldn’t be a refugee, would I?”

The customs man struck his forehead with the flat of his hand so that his silvery beard shook. “Of course! Of course! The things a fellow forgets! I only asked you because I thought if you were an Austrian you might be able to play tarots.”

“I can play tarots. I learned it as a youngster during the war. For a time I was in an Austrian division.”

“Splendid! Splendid!” The Emperor Franz Josef slapped Steiner on the shoulder. “Why you’re almost a fellow countryman. How about it? Will you join us? We need just one extra.”

“Of course.”

They went inside. An hour later Steiner had won seven schillings. He didn’t play in the manner of Fred the cardsharp—he
played honestly. But he played so much better than the customs men that he always won whenever his hand was any good at all.

At eleven o’clock they ate together. The customs men said it was their breakfast; they were on duty until eight o’clock in the morning. The breakfast was abundant and good. Afterward they went on playing. Steiner got a good hand. The Austrian customs men played against him with the courage of desperation. By eight o’clock they were calling each other by their first names. By three o’clock they were saying “
du.
” By four o’clock they knew each other so well that phrases such as “son of a bitch,” “sprig of Satan,” “horse’s ass” no longer counted as insults but were spontaneous expressions of amazement, admiration and affection.

At five o’clock the customs man on duty came in. “Children, it’s high time to get Josef across the border.”

There was silence all around. All eyes were turned toward the money that lay in front of Steiner. The Emperor Franz Josef was the first to speak. “What’s won is won,” he said resignedly. “He’s rooked us for fair. Now he goes off like an autumn swallow, the bastard!”

“I had good cards,” Steiner replied. “Damned good cards.”

“That’s just it!” the Emperor Franz Josef said in a melancholy voice. “You had good cards. Tomorrow perhaps we will have good cards. But then you won’t be here any more. There’s injustice in it somewhere.”

“That’s right. But where will you find justice, brother?”

“Justice among card players lies in the fact that the winner must give a chance for revenge. Then if he wins again there’s nothing you can do about it. But this way—” The Emperor Franz Josef raised his hands despairingly. “There’s something unsatisfactory about this.”

“But, children,” Steiner said, “if that’s all that’s bothering you! You put me across the border, tomorrow evening the Swiss will put me back again—and I’ll give you your chance.”

The Emperor Franz Josef clapped his hands resoundingly.

“That’s the very thing!” he shouted in relief. “We couldn’t propose it to you ourselves, you know. Because we’re officers of the State. It’s all right for us to play cards with you. That’s not forbidden. But we must not encourage you to recross the border. If you come of your own accord that’s something else again.”

“I’ll come,” Steiner said. “You can count on it.”

He reported at the Swiss border station and said he wanted to go back to Austria that night. They did not send him to the police station but kept him there. It was Sunday. Right next to the customs building was a small inn. There was a lot going on that afternoon; but in the evening after eight o’clock it quieted down.

A few customs men who were having their vacation sat around in the main room. They had visited their friends and now they began to play jass. Before Steiner realized what was happening he was in the game.

The Swiss were wonderful players. They had iron nerve and enormous luck. By ten o’clock they had taken eight francs away from Steiner; around midnight he had made up five. But at two o’clock when the restaurant was closed he had lost thirteen francs.

The Swiss treated him to a couple of large glasses of brandy. He needed them, for the night was cold and he had to wade across the Rhine.

On the far side he caught sight of a dark shape against the
sky. It was the Emperor Franz Josef. The moon was behind his head like a saint’s halo.

Steiner dried himself. His teeth were chattering. He drank the remainder of the brandy the Swiss had given him and got dressed. Then he approached the lonesome figure.

“Where have you been?” Franz Josef greeted him. “I’ve been waiting for you since one o’clock. We thought you might lose your way and so I’ve been standing here.”

Steiner laughed. “The Swiss held me up.”

“Well, hurry up now! We’ve only got two-and-a-half hours left.”

The battle began at once. At five o’clock it was still undecided; the Austrians happened to have held good cards. The Emperor Franz Josef threw his hand on the table. “What a break, now of all times!”

He put on his coat and fastened the buckle of his sword. “Come along, pal! There’s nothing for it. Duty is duty. We’ll have to put you across the border.”

He and Steiner walked toward the border. Franz Josef was smoking a fragrant Nigeria cigarette. “Do you know,” he said after a while, “I have a feeling the Swiss are especially on the lookout tonight. They’re waiting for you to come across, don’t you think?”

“Quite possibly,” Steiner replied.

“Maybe it would be wiser to send you back tomorrow night. Then they’d think you’d got by us and would not be so much on the alert.”

“That’s reasonable.”

Franz Josef stopped. “Look over there! Something gleamed. That was a flashlight. Now there on that side! Did you see it?”

“Very clearly.” Steiner grinned. He hadn’t seen anything, but he knew what the old customs man wanted.

Franz Josef scratched his silvery beard. Then he squinted slyly at Steiner. “You couldn’t possibly get through. That’s evident. Don’t you think so too? We’ve got to go back, pal. I’m sorry, but the border is closely watched. We can’t do a thing except wait till tomorrow. I’ll make a report about it.”

“All right.”

They played until eight in the morning. Steiner lost seventeen schillings, but he was still twenty-two ahead of the game. Franz Josef wrote his report and turned Steiner over to the customs men who relieved him.

The daytime customs men were punctilious and formal. They locked Steiner up at the police station. He slept there the whole day. Promptly at eight o’clock the Emperor Franz Josef appeared to take him triumphantly to the customs house.

There was a short but hearty meal; then the battle began. At two-hour intervals one of the customs men was changed for the one who was coming off duty. Steiner stayed at the table until five in the morning. At twelve-fifteen Emperor Franz Josef burned off the top layer of his beard in the excitement. He had thought there was a cigarette in his mouth and had tried to light it. It was an hallucination due to the fact that for an hour he had had only spades and clubs. He saw black dots where there was nothing at all.

Steiner utterly routed the customs force. He wrought especial havoc between three o’clock and five. In his desperation Franz Josef fetched reinforcements. He telephoned to the tarots champion of Buchs, who came tearing up on his motorcycle. It did no good. Steiner took him too. For the first time since he had known Him, God was on the side of the needy. Steiner held such cards that he regretted only one thing—that he was not playing with millionaires.