The Uncanny Reader (16 page)

“Oh, you needn't imagine that anything can ever frighten me again!” Charlotte cried.

Her mother-in-law still leaned against the table. Her lips moved plaintively. “But we're going mad—we're both going mad. We both know such things are impossible.”

Her daughter-in-law looked at her with a pitying stare. “I've known for a long time now that everything was possible.”

“Even this?”

“Yes, exactly this.”

“But this letter—after all, there's nothing in this letter—”

“Perhaps there would be to him. How can I tell? I remember his saying to me once that if you were used to a handwriting the faintest stroke of it became legible. Now I see what he meant. He
was
used to it.”

“But the few strokes that I can make out are so pale. No one could possibly read that letter.”

Charlotte laughed again. “I suppose everything's pale about a ghost,” she said stridently.

“Oh, my child—my child—don't say it!”

“Why shouldn't I say it, when even the bare walls cry it out? What difference does it make if her letters are illegible to you and me? If even you can see her face on that blank wall, why shouldn't he read her writing on this blank paper? Don't you see that she's everywhere in this house, and the closer to him because to everyone else she's become invisible?” Charlotte dropped into a chair and covered her face with her hands. A turmoil of sobbing shook her from head to foot. At length a touch on her shoulder made her look up, and she saw her mother-in-law bending over her. Mrs. Ashby's face seemed to have grown still smaller and more wasted, but it had resumed its usual quiet look. Through all her tossing anguish, Charlotte felt the impact of that resolute spirit.

“Tomorrow—tomorrow. You'll see. There'll be some explanation tomorrow.”

Charlotte cut her short. “An explanation? Who's going to give it, I wonder?”

Mrs. Ashby drew back and straightened herself heroically. “Kenneth himself will,” she cried out in a strong voice. Charlotte said nothing, and the old woman went on: “But meanwhile we must act; we must notify the police. Now, without a moment's delay. We must do everything—everything.”

Charlotte stood up slowly and stiffly; her joints felt as cramped as an old woman's. “Exactly as if we thought it could do any good to do anything?”

Resolutely Mrs. Ashby cried: “Yes!” and Charlotte went up to the telephone and unhooked the receiver.

 

THE STOKER

Franz Kafka

Translated by Michael Hofmann

As the seventeen-year-old Karl Rossmann, who had been sent to America by his unfortunate parents because a maid had seduced him and had a child by him, sailed slowly into New York harbour, he suddenly saw the Statue of Liberty, which had already been in view for some time, as though in an intenser sunlight. The sword in her hand seemed only just to have been raised aloft, and the unchained winds blew about her form.

“So high,” he said to himself, and quite forgetting to disembark, he found himself gradually pushed up against the railing by the massing throng of porters.

A young man with whom he had struck up a slight acquaintance during the crossing said to him in passing: “Well, don't you want to get off yet?” “I'm all ready,” said Karl laughing to him, and in his exuberance and because he was a strong lad, he raised his suitcase on to his shoulder. But as he watched his acquaintance disappearing along with the others, swinging a cane, he realized that he had left his umbrella down in the ship. So he hurriedly asked his acquaintance, who seemed less than overjoyed about it, to be so good as to wait by his suitcase for a moment, took a quick look around for his subsequent orientation, and hurried off. Below deck, he found to his annoyance that a passage that would have considerably shortened the way for him was for the first time barred, probably something to do with the fact that all the passengers were disembarking, and so he was forced instead to make his way through numerous little rooms, along continually curving passages and down tiny flights of stairs, one after the other, and then through an empty room with an abandoned desk in it until, eventually, only ever having gone this way once or twice previously, and then in the company of others, he found that he was totally and utterly lost. Not knowing what to do, not seeing anyone, and hearing only the scraping of thousands of human feet overhead and the last, faraway wheezings of the engine, which had already been turned off, he began without thinking to knock at the little door to which he had come on his wanderings. “It's open!” came a voice from within, and Karl felt real relief as he opened the door. “Why are you banging about on the door like a madman?” asked an enormous man, barely looking at Karl. Through some kind of overhead light-shaft, a dim light, long since used up in the higher reaches of the ship, fell into the wretched cabin, in which a bed, a wardrobe, a chair and the man were all standing close together, as though in storage. “I've lost my way,” said Karl. “I never quite realized on the crossing what a terribly big ship this is.” “Well, you're right about that,” said the man with some pride, and carried on tinkering with the lock of a small suitcase, repeatedly shutting it with both hands to listen to the sound of the lock as it snapped shut. “Why don't you come in,” the man went on, “don't stand around outside.” “Aren't I bothering you?” asked Karl. “Pah, how could you bother me?” “Are you German?” Karl asked to reassure himself, as he'd heard a lot about the dangers for new arrivals in America, especially coming from Irishmen. “Yes, yes,” said the man. Still Karl hesitated. Then the man abruptly grabbed the door handle, and pulling it to, swept Karl into the room with him. “I hate it when people stand in the corridor and watch me,” said the man, going back to work on his suitcase, “the world and his wife go by outside peering in, it's quite intolerable.” “But the passage outside is completely deserted,” said Karl, who was standing squeezed uncomfortably against the bedpost. “Yes, now,” said the man. “But now is what matters,” thought Karl. “He is an unreasonable man.” “Lie down on the bed, you'll have more room that way,” said the man. Karl awkwardly clambered on to the bed, and had to laugh out loud about his first vain attempt to mount it. No sooner was he on it, though, than he cried: “Oh God, I've quite forgotten all about my suitcase!” “Where is it?” “Up on deck, an acquaintance is keeping an eye on it for me. What was his name now?” And from a secret pocket that his mother had sewn into the lining of his jacket for the crossing, he pulled a calling-card: “Butterbaum, Franz Butterbaum.” “Is the suitcase important to you?” “Of course.” “Well then, so why did you give it to a stranger?” “I forgot my umbrella down below and went to get it, but I didn't want to lug my suitcase down with me. And now I've gone and gotten completely lost.” “Are you on your own? There's no one with you?” “Yes, I'm on my own.” I should stay by this man, thought Karl, I may not find a better friend in a hurry. “And now you've lost your suitcase. Not to mention the umbrella,” and the man sat down on the chair, as though Karl's predicament was beginning to interest him. “I don't think the suitcase is lost yet.” “Think all you like,” said the man, and scratched vigorously at his short, thick, black hair. “But you should know the different ports have different morals. In Hamburg your man Butterbaum might have minded your suitcase for you, but over here, there's probably no trace of either of them any more.” “Then I'd better go back up right away,” said Karl and tried to see how he might leave. “You're staying put,” said the man, and gave him a push in the chest, that sent him sprawling back on the bed. “But why?” asked Karl angrily. “There's no point,” said the man, “in a little while I'll be going up myself, and we can go together. Either your suitcase will have been stolen and that's too bad and you can mourn its loss till the end of your days, or else the fellow's still minding it, in which case he's a fool and he might as well go on minding it, or he's an honest man and just left it there, and we'll find it more easily when the ship's emptied. Same thing with your umbrella.” “Do you know your way around the ship?” asked Karl suspiciously, and it seemed to him that the otherwise attractive idea that his belongings would be more easily found on the empty ship had some kind of hidden catch. “I'm the ship's stoker,” said the man. “You're the ship's stoker,” cried Karl joyfully, as though that surpassed all expectations, and propped himself up on his elbow to take a closer look at the man. “Just outside the room where I slept with the Slovak there was a little porthole, and through it we could see into the engine-room.” “Yes, that's where I was working,” said the stoker. “I've always been terribly interested in machinery,” said Karl, still following a particular line of thought, “and I'm sure I would have become an engineer if I hadn't had to go to America.” “Why did you have to go to America?” “Ah, never mind!” said Karl, dismissing the whole story with a wave of his hand. And he smiled at the stoker, as though asking him to take a lenient view of whatever it was he hadn't told him. “I expect there's a good reason,” said the stoker, and it was hard to tell whether he still wanted to hear it or not. “And now I might as well become a stoker,” said Karl. “My parents don't care what becomes of me.” “My job will be going,” said the stoker, and coolly thrust his hands into his pockets and kicked out his legs, which were clad in rumpled, leather-like iron-grey trousers, on to the bed to stretch them. Karl was forced to move nearer to the wall. “You're leaving the ship?” “Yup, we're off this very day.” “But what for? Don't you like it?” “Well, it's circumstances really, it's not always whether you like something or not that matters. Anyway you're right, I don't like it. You're probably not serious about saying you could become a stoker, but that's precisely how you get to be one. I'd strongly advise you against it myself. If you were intending to study in Europe, why not study here. Universities in America are incomparably better.” “That may be,” said Karl, “but I can hardly afford to study. I did once read about someone who spent his days working in a business and his nights studying, and in the end he became a doctor and I think a burgomaster, but you need a lot of stamina for that, don't you? I'm afraid I don't have that. Besides, I was never especially good at school, and wasn't at all sorry when I had to leave. Schools here are supposed to be even stricter. I hardly know any English. And there's a lot of bias against foreigners here too, I believe.” “Have you had experience of that too? That's good. Then you're the man for me. You see, this is a German ship, it belongs to the Hamburg America Line, everyone who works on it should be German. So then why is the senior engineer Rumanian? Schubal, his name is. It's incredible. And that bastard bossing Germans around on a German ship. Don't get the idea”—he was out of breath, and his hands flapped—“don't you believe that I'm complaining for the hell of it. I know you don't have any influence, and you're just a poor fellow yourself. But it's intolerable.” And he beat the table with his fist several times, not taking his eyes off it as he did so. “I've served on so many ships in my time”—and here he reeled off a list of twenty names as if it was a single word, Karl felt quite giddy—“and with distinction, I was praised, I was a worker of the kind my captains liked, I even served on the same clipper for several years”—he rose, as if that had been the high point of his life—“and here on this bathtub, where everything is done by rote, where they've no use for imagination—here I'm suddenly no good, here I'm always getting in Schubal's way, I'm lazy, I deserve to get kicked out, they only pay me my wages out of the kindness of their hearts. Does that make any sense to you? Not me.” “You mustn't stand for that,” said Karl in agitation. He had almost forgotten he was in the uncertain hold of a ship moored to the coast of an unknown continent, that's how much he felt at home on the stoker's bed. “Have you been to see the captain? Have you taken your case to him?” “Ah leave off, forget it. I don't want you here. You don't listen to what I say, and then you start giving me advice. How can I go to the captain?” And the stoker sat down again, exhausted, and buried his face in his hands.

“But it's the best advice I know,” Karl said to himself. And it seemed to him that he would have done better to fetch his suitcase, instead of offering advice which was only ignored anyway. When his father had given the suitcase into his possession, he had mused in jest: I wonder how long you'll manage to hang on to it for? And now that expensive suitcase might already be lost in earnest. His only consolation was the fact that his father couldn't possibly learn about his present fix, even if he tried to make inquiries. The shipping company would only be able to confirm that he had reached New York safely. But Karl felt sad that there were things in the suitcase that he had hardly used, although he should have done, he should have changed his shirt for example, some time ago. He had tried to make false economies; now, at the beginning of his career, when he most needed to be in clean clothes, he would have to appear in a dirty shirt. Those were fine prospects. Apart from that, the loss of his suitcase wasn't so serious, because the suit he was wearing was better than the one in the suitcase, which was really nothing better than a sort of emergency suit, which his mother had even had to mend just before his departure. Then he remembered there was a piece of Verona salami in the suitcase as well, which his mother had given him as a last-minute gift, but of which he had only been able to eat a tiny portion, since for the whole crossing he had had very little appetite and the soup that was doled out in the steerage had been plenty for him. Now, though, he would have liked to have had the salami handy, to make a present of it to the stoker, because his sort are easily won over by some small present or other. Karl knew that from the example of his father who won over all the junior employees he had to deal with by handing out cigars to them. Now the only thing Karl had left to give was his money, and if he had indeed already lost his suitcase, he wanted to leave that untouched for the moment. His thoughts returned to the suitcase, and now he really couldn't understand why, having watched it so carefully for the whole crossing that his watchfulness had almost cost him his sleep, he had now permitted that same suitcase to be taken from him so simply. He recalled the five nights during which he had incessantly suspected the little Slovak, who was sleeping a couple of places to his left, of having intentions on his suitcase. That Slovak had just been waiting for Karl, finally, sapped by exhaustion, to drop off for one instant, so that he could pull the suitcase over to himself by means of a long rod which he spent his days endlessly playing or practising with. That Slovak looked innocent enough by day, but no sooner did night fall than he would get up time and again from his bed and cast sad looks across at Karl's suitcase. Karl saw this quite clearly, someone, with the natural apprehensiveness of the emigrant, was forever lighting a little lamp somewhere, even though that was against the ship's regulations, and trying by its light to decipher the incomprehensible pamphlets of the emigration agencies. If there happened to be one such light close by, then Karl would be able to snooze a little, but if it was some way off, or even more if it was dark, then he had to keep his eyes open. His efforts had exhausted him, and now it seemed they might have been in vain. That Butterbaum had better look out, if he should ever run into him somewhere.