The Post Office Girl (26 page)

“Yes,” she whispered, “I understand.”

“And in fact one evening he came to the barracks. He whistled softly as we’d arranged. Outside in the dark next to him was a woman, short and stout, her hair as slick as oil under
a bright scarf. ‘That’s him,’ Sergei said. ‘Do you want him?’ The little slit-eyed woman looked at me closely in the dark. ‘Yes,’ she said. The three of us walked along for a ways—Sergei came too. ‘So far from home, poor fellow,’ she remarked
sympathetically
to Sergei. ‘And never a woman, always with men, poor fellow … Oh, oh, oh.’ It sounded good, heartfelt, it had a nice warm sound. I knew she was taking me in out of sympathy, not love. ‘They shot my husband,’ she said then. ‘He was as big as an ash tree, strong as a young bear. He never got drunk and never beat me, he was the best in the village. Now I live with the children and my mother-in-law. God is being hard with us.’ I went with her to her house … It was white,
covered
with straw, a hut with tiny windows, all closed, and when she led me in, the smoke stung my face. The air was thick and hot, like the air in a polluted mine. She pulled me in. The bed was over the furnace, I had to climb up. Suddenly something moved and I was startled. ‘It’s the children,’ she said
reassuringly
. I realized now that the room was full of people
breathing
. There was a cough, and again she reassured me: ‘Grandma is sick, her chest is killing her.’ All the breathing, the stench in the room, I don’t know if there were five or six or more there with me, and it paralyzed me. And it seemed terrible to me to have anything to do with a woman, terrible, unspeakably terrible, with the children lying nearby in the room, and someone’s mother, I don’t know if it was hers or his. She didn’t understand my hesitation and pressed up against me. She took off my clothes, untied my shoes—she seemed almost sad—gently and tenderly she removed my jacket, she caressed me like a child. It was touching how nice she was to me … And then, slowly and insistently, she drew me to her. She had breasts as soft and warm and big as loaves of fresh bread, a tender mouth, and it moved me how humble and submissive she was … She was touching, really, I liked her, I was grateful to her, but still the horror of it was choking me. I couldn’t bear it when one of
the sleeping kids stirred or the sick grandmother groaned, and before dawn I ran out … I was terrified of being seen by the kids or the sick old lady … I’m sure they would have found it all perfectly natural for a man to be there, but I … I couldn’t do it and I ran away. She accompanied me beyond the gate,
coming
along like a dog or a cat. She let me know that from then on she belonged to me—really touching. She took me into the stable and got me some warm milk fresh from the cow, gave me some bread for the road and a pipe that must have been her husband’s, and then she asked me, no, she pleaded … meekly, deferentially: ‘You’ll come again tonight?’ … But I didn’t go again, the memory of that hut with the smoke and the kids and the grandmother and the bugs that ran over the floor was horrible to me … And yet I was grateful, and today I think of her with, yes, with a sort of love … The way she gave me the milk from the udder, the bread, her own body … And I know I hurt her feelings when I didn’t go again … And the others … they didn’t understand … They all envied me, they were all so wretched, so alone, that they envied me. Every day I resolved to go to her, and every time—”

“God,” she cried, “what’s going on?” Christine had sat up suddenly and was listening.

“Nothing,” he wanted to say. But he was frightened too. Something was happening in the hallway outside, loud voices, clamoring, shouting, utter confusion, someone screaming,
laughing
, giving orders. Something had happened. “Wait,” he said and jumped out of bed. He threw on his clothes and stood
listening
at the door: “I’ll go see.”

Something had happened. Like a sleeper groaning and crying out as he awakens from a nightmare, the hushed fleabag hotel was suddenly alive with unexplained noises. Ringing and
knocking
, the sound of people running up and down the stairs, a
telephone, footsteps, windows rattling. Shouting, talking,
confused
questions flying back and forth on every side, and voices, strange voices, knuckles rapping, fists hammering on doors, loud footsteps instead of the slap of bare feet. Something had happened. A woman screamed, men argued loudly and
heatedly
, something fell over, a chair, a car made a racket outside. The whole building seemed to be in an uproar. Christine heard quick footsteps overhead, the loud, apprehensive voice of the drunk next door, the sounds of chairs scraping and keys rattling from the rooms on either side; the whole building from
basement
to roof, every cell in the beehive was abuzz.

When Ferdinand returned he was pale and nervous, two sharp lines etched on either side of his mouth. He was
shaking
.

“What is it?” asked Christine, still huddled in bed.
Ferdinand
turned on the light. Half-naked, Christine lifted the sheet automatically.

“Nothing,” he said through his teeth. “A sweep, they’re checking the hotel.”

“Who?”

“The police!”

“Are they going to come here too?”

“Maybe. Probably. But don’t worry.”

“Can they do anything to us? … Because I’m with you?”

“No, don’t worry, I have my identification, and I registered properly downstairs, don’t worry, I’ll take care of everything. I know this kind of thing from the men’s hostel in Favoriten where I used to live, it’s just a formality … But …” Once again his face became dark and hard. “But we’re always the ones who have to go through these formalities. And sometimes they break some poor devil’s neck. It’s only us they roust out of bed in the middle of the night, they don’t chase anybody else around like dogs … But don’t worry, I’ll settle everything, but just … get dressed now …”

“Turn out the light.” Again she felt ashamed and she needed all her strength to get dressed. Her limbs were leaden. They sat back down on the bed. She had no strength left. From the first second in this awful place she’d felt a storm brewing, and now it was here.

The knocking went on downstairs. The sweep could be heard moving from room to room on the ground floor. Each time she heard them rapping on the wooden doors below, it was a blow to her heart. Ferdinand sat by her, stroking her hands. “It’s my fault, forgive me. I should have thought, but … I just didn’t have any other ideas, and I wanted … I wanted so much to be with you. Forgive me.”

He went on stroking her hands, but they were still cold and trembling. Her whole body shivered.

“Don’t worry,” he said, trying to soothe her. “There’s
nothing
they can do to you. And if … if one of those bastards gets fresh he’ll have me to deal with. I’m not that much of a
pushover
, I didn’t go through four years of hell to get leaned on by these uniformed night watchmen, I’ll give them something to think about.”

“No,” she pleaded anxiously as she saw him reach back for what she thought might be a weapon. “Please, stay calm. If you love me a little, stay calm, I’d rather…” She couldn’t go on.

The footsteps had moved upstairs and now seemed very close. Their room was the third; they heard the knocking at the first. They held their breaths. They could hear everything through the thin door. The first room took no time at all—on to the second. Three raps—knock, knock, knock—and they heard the door being flung open with a drunken shout: “Don’t you have anything better to do than harass decent people at night? Go chase the crooks, why don’t you!” A deep, harsh voice responded, “Your papers!,” then something else more quietly. “My fiancée,
jawohl
, my fiancée,” the drunk bellowed defiantly, “I can prove it. We’ve been together two years.” That
seemed to be enough, and the door banged shut.

Now it had to be their turn. There were only four or five steps between doors, and here they came, one, two, three … Christine’s blood froze. There was a knock. The police
inspector
stood discreetly at the threshold; Ferdinand faced him
calmly
. The inspector’s face was actually pleasant—round, broad, with a charming little mustache—though bright red from the tight collar of his uniform. You could see him in mufti or
shirtsleeves
, sleepily nodding along to some folk song. But now, frowning severely, he demanded, “Do you have your papers?” Ferdinand stepped forward. “Here, and my military papers too if you’re interested. A man with those isn’t surprised when things turn nasty, he knows all about that.” The inspector
ignored
the sarcasm and checked the identification against the registration slip before glancing toward Christine. Face turned away, she hunched in the chair like a prisoner in the dock. The inspector lowered his voice. “You know the lady personally … I mean … You’ve known her for a while …?” He was trying to make it easy. “Yes,” Ferdinand said. “Thank you,” the inspector said. He saluted and made as if to go, but Ferdinand, trembling with rage to see Christine humiliated and redeemed on nothing more than his say-so, took a step toward him.

“I’d just like to know if…if these night sweeps are conducted in the Hotel Bristol and other Ringstrasse hotels too, or just here?” The inspector’s face assumed an expression of cold
professionalism
. He replied dismissively, “I have no information to give you, I’m following orders. But if I were you I’d be glad I’m not investigating too closely. It may be that the
information
in the register concerning your wife” (he emphasized the word) “would not check out completely.” Ferdinand gritted his teeth and choked back his anger. He had to squeeze his hands together behind his back to keep from hitting this
representative
of the government in the face. But the inspector, seemingly accustomed to such outbursts, calmly closed the
door behind him without a second glance. Ferdinand stared at the door, seething with fury. Then he remembered
Christine
. She’d slipped down on the chair until she was almost
lying
flat—as though she’d died of fear. Ferdinand stroked her shoulder.

“See, he didn’t even ask your name…It was really just a
formality
… All they want to do is turn your life upside down with these ‘formalities’ and ruin you. I remember there was
something
in the paper a week back about how a woman threw
herself
out of a window because she was afraid she’d be turned in and her mother might find out or…she’d be tested for VD…Better to jump, three stories down…I read about it in the
paper
, two lines, two lines…It’s really just a little thing, we’re not used to it, that’s all…At least you get your own grave if you do that, not a mass grave as in the old days, that’s something we can count on now…Ten thousand deaths every day, what’s one person compared to that, if it’s somebody like us, somebody with no rights. In the good hotels they salute and they bring in the detectives just so the ladies don’t have their jewelry stolen, nobody there goes snooping around the ‘citizenry’ at night. But why should I be embarrassed?” Christine sank still lower. She remembered something—what was it the little Mannheim girl had said…The doors opened and closed there all night long. She remembered: the wide white beds bright in the early-morning light, the silent doors that seemed to be cushioned, the soft
carpets
and the vase by the bed. There everything could have been lovely and good and easy—but here…

She shuddered with revulsion. He stood next to her
hopelessly
, saying, “Calm down, calm down, calm down. It’s over now.” But her cold body still shrank from his hand.
Something
in her had torn like an overstretched sail, and her nerves were frayed. She didn’t hear him, she was listening only to the knocking that was still moving from one door to the next, one person to the next.

Now it was upstairs. The knocking was suddenly heavy and increasingly violent: “Open up! In the name of the law!” They both strained to listen in the momentary silence. Again the hammering came from upstairs, but now it was the sound of a fist, not just knuckles on wood. The thudding made its way through every door, into every heart. “Open up! Open up!” a voice commanded. Someone was apparently resisting. There was a whistle, then footsteps on the stairs; four, six, eight fists pounded on the door upstairs. “Open up! Now!” Then an impact traveled through the entire building, wood
splintered
, and a woman screamed, high, piercing, terrified, sharp as a knife. Chairs crashed to the floor, there was a struggle
going
on, bodies fell like sacks of stones, shrill screams turned to wails.

They listened as if it were them, as if it were Ferdinand
upstairs
fighting furiously with the policemen, Christine howling and writhing in their trained grips, half-clad and enraged. The scream came with horrible clarity: “I won’t go, I won’t go!” It was a wailing, screeching, frothing sound. Glass smashed—the harassed woman must have broken a window, or maybe someone else had. And now they’d grabbed her, two or three of them (that was what Ferdinand and Christine imagined), and they were dragging her along. And now they must have thrown her to the floor—the sound of her flailing and struggling came through the brick walls. And now she was being dragged through the hall and downstairs while her terrified high-pitched shrieking became more and more muffled and faint: “I won’t go! I won’t go! Let me go! Help!” Now they were downstairs. The car started up. They’d bagged her, like an animal.

Now it was quiet again, even quieter than before—gloomy, as though a thick cloud hung over the building. He tried to take her in his arms, lifting her from her chair and kissing her cold brow. But she slumped in his arms like a drunk. He kissed her, but her lips were dry and unresponsive. He tried to sit her
down on the bed; slack, dazed, and empty, she collapsed, while he bent over her, stroking her hair. Finally she opened her eyes. “Let’s get away from here,” she whispered. “Take me away, I can’t bear it. Not a second longer.” And then she knelt before him. “Take me away, I beg you. Take me away from this
terrible
place.”