Stefan Heym

by The Eyes of Reason

  “Joseph is unimportant,” he said suddenly. “So is Thomas. You’re the one who counts.”

  She smiled, and the smile made her come alive and made him aware of her lips, her body, the way her hair framed her forehead. He stepped away from her and sat down at the table, leaning his elbows on it and lowering his face into his opened hands.

  “Let me explain something,” he began. “Thomas and Joseph and I were always close to one another when we had the same opponent—whether it was our father, or the Nazis. Group fears produce group loyalties, if you understand what I’m getting at.”

  She was not sure that she did, and was afraid that he was edging away from the dilemma which had brought her to him; but she said nothing.

  He went on, speaking from under the screen of his fingers. “It’s not a specific Benda problem, this drifting apart—it’s everywhere. I began to worry about it when I lived up at your house—that long ago. I think the event that drove in the wedge was victory. I can imagine how it must have been—bells, flowers, parades. But then the morning after, with the headache: Now that we have it, this victory, this freedom, what are we going to do with it? Who shall have the power forced out of the hands of the Nazis? In what direction shall it be employed? And with that, our fine unity begins to show cracks. The nation splits up again, the political parties fall out, people are choosing sides—”

  “But this is a small family!”

  He took his hands off his face and looked full at her. “And what makes us so extra special?”

  Half of what he’d said had escaped her. Yet she was frightened, for Thomas, for Karel, for herself. If nations and families were to be rent apart, she would have to choose. She didn’t want to. She wanted the present haphazard status to last, with all it entailed—her marriage, and Karel...

  “I quote you today’s price for unity in this family!” she heard him say. She stared at him apprehensively. “Support for Joseph,” he said, “for all that Joseph does, in the Benda Works, in Martinice, and in politics.”

  “Yes, that’s possible.” She picked up her glass of mineral water, her eyes following the string of infinitesimally small pearls that bubbled from its bottom. As far as her errand for Lida was concerned—that was settled. But everything else—the unspoken and half-spoken questions which could not be formulated and which had prompted her to follow Lida’s lead—was left unanswered.

  “I could try; what can we lose?” he said, cornered by her disquiet and his fear that he had let her down. “And suppose we succeed. Suppose we let Joseph barge in on Thomas and overwhelm him with brotherly love and brotherly energy, and the book—”

  He stopped. The glass had slipped from her hand and broken, and the water, glistening, was gathering in small puddles on the linoleum.

  “That’s all right!” He rushed over and raised her up to keep her from wiping up the mess and cutting her hands. And as he had her panic-stricken face close to him, and as her defenses were down, the truth suddenly flashed before him: He was the threat to the book, and the book was her tie to Thomas and the buttress of her life with his brother.

  He let go of her and went to the kitchen and came back with a pail and a rag. For a minute, he worked, collecting the shards and mopping up the water.

  When he had finished, and had put the pail and rag away, and returned to stand disheveled before her, she said tonelessly, “What is to become of us, Karel?”

  “The two of us?”

  She nodded with a smile that was sadly crooked.

  “God knows,” he said.

  The bell shrilled into their silence.

  “That’ll probably be the Stepaneks’ baby,” Karel said. “I’ve got my night’s work cut out for me.” He went to the door.

  But it was Thomas.

  “Kitty here?” he said brusquely, and noticing her coat on the clothes tree, “I see she is.” He disregarded Karel, who asked him to take off his topcoat and come in and sit down; he stood for a moment undecided, and as if listening to something inside of himself; then his lips set in their usual line of annoyance and he said, “She didn’t tell me she was going here, you know? I guessed it.”

  Karel said nothing. Kitty was coming out of the living room. Thomas looked at her, or beyond her, but paid no attention to the slight flush on her cheeks.

  “It was lonely up there,” he said. “Not a sound in the house. It disturbed me. I had to stop work.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Kitty. “Had I known, I would have been back sooner. As it was, Karel and I fell to talking—you must come in, Thomas, and have a look at his office and his equipment. It’s fabulous, it’s all modern and quite new and a pleasure to work with.”

  Thomas let his topcoat slide over Karel’s arm. “So?” he said. “Is that so?” He raised his brows apologetically and turned to Karel, “I must be a creature of habit. I hardly notice Kitty around the house, until she isn’t there.”

  If he had planned to plant his foot on his claim, he could not have done it more effectively. Like the blind children, he was above evil and above questioning, and like the blind, he had a terrific hold on everything he touched.

  He walked ahead of Kitty and Karel into the living room, glanced around without any curiosity, and said, “You really should get married, Karel. Marry anyone! It’s not bad!”

  Before Karel could laugh, he passed on to the next, “What did you talk about? Family? Did you know that Lida had Kitty for tea? It’s pitiful. Not even Kitty would fall for that kind of thing. But once you touch politics, you get vulgar, that’s how it is.”

  He gazed at his brother until Karel mumbled agreement, then he went on, “You must come up to the house sometime. You must not feel that you’ve already imposed on us enough; it was no imposition at all, and we like to have you. There’s always a meal. You don’t work that hard?”

  “I keep busy,” said Karel.

  “It must be very frustrating,” said Thomas. “You cure a person, and another one gets sick. Where there’s poverty, there’s also sickness.”

  “Yes,” said Karel, feeling trapped. “That’s approximately it.” He watched Thomas get up unconcernedly and tap Kitty’s shoulder and heard his languid, “Shall we go home, darling? It’s late! Or is there anything else?”

  “No,” said Kitty, “let’s go.” Her eyes were dull. The rush of guilt had long subsided, and she looked as if she had been drained of some vital fluid.

  Karel accompanied her and Thomas down the stairs and unlocked the house door for them. He stood in the doorway and watched them walk up the street until they disappeared. He breathed in the sharp night air. It would have been better, he thought, if Thomas had made a scene; much better. Except there was nothing to make a scene over, and there never would be.

  Poor Kitty.

  CHAPTER NINE

  JOSEPH came into the furnace hall at Benda. He glanced up at the age-spotted dial of the great clock mounted under the roof, and saw that it showed close to two. The workers on the platform around the furnace pretended not to see him, but he knew that they were conscious of him and were observing every shading of his features. They were no longer in fear of him as they had been before the nationalization; they had learned that he could not fire them without involving himself in a drawn-out rigmarole with the Works Council. They were probably asking themselves what he wanted, ambling through the hall without apparent purpose, giving them an occasional smile of encouragement.

  He stopped his tour to watch the team working under Master Viteslav Czerny. They were making glass pitchers ordered by a firm in Switzerland, three thousand of them. The team had been at it for days, and by now its routine was so pat that the men didn’t have to think about what they were doing.

  To Joseph a pitcher like that wasn’t just an item to be shipped off and sold for twelve crowns, of which the team would receive one third to be split up among the six of them according to their share in the work and their skill. It was a small part of his life. He still could stand there and watch them ma
ke each piece, fascinated by its growth and by the miracle of something being created out of nothing through the labor of the human hand.

  He doubted if the little master or any of the men, intent only on their own role, ever followed the process through all the way and were aware of the majesty in it. The gatherer dipping a blowpipe into the pan filled with molten glass inside the furnace, and withdrawing it with a bullet of fire attached to its end—how could he see more than this? All the man did was to judge the moment when the gob at the end of his pipe had achieved the right consistency, puff slightly into the pipe and hand it quickly to the first blower. The first blower dipped it back into the pan and brought it out of the melt with the exact amount of molten glass to make the body of the pitcher. That was this worker’s great art, the uncanny gift of measure by eye, the twist of the arm in lifting out of the furnace the viscous matter clinging to the original gob.

  Once Joseph’s father had made him try the trick. He had spilled the glass over the platform, where it had cooled in a few seconds and become pancake-flat with hundreds of brittle rays stretching away from it. The men had laughed.

  Joseph chuckled at the memory as he saw the first blower raise his pipe, like a trumpeter raising his instrument for a solo, swing it and draw fiery arcs and then lower it down to his feet, rotating it and blowing all the while until the fireball at its end reached the desired size.

  The workers appeared to be completely indifferent to the glowing arcs curving within inches of them. They went about barefoot or in worn-out slippers, in flimsy pants and ragged open shirts, spurning illusory protections, relying on themselves and each other to stop the swinging fire just short of their skins.

  Joseph’s eyes returned to the creation. The second blower had grabbed the pipe and was stepping to the rim of the platform. The white heat of the glass had changed into yellow as the man suspended it into the beech-wood form whose two halves, wetted through and through, were held open by the helper. The helper closed the form, and steam rose into Joseph’s face. Through it, Joseph saw the second blower up on the platform twirl his pipe and blow until his cheeks billowed out and his eyes protruded. A bell-shaped cap of glass oozed out of the top of the form, linking the end of the pipe to the fetus inside the wood. A nod from the blower, and the helper opened the form. This was the moment of birth, to Joseph always charged with a thrill although he had witnessed it countless times. At the end of the pipe, still held to it by the cap, hung a pitcher.

  Master Czerny brushed by Joseph, filling his nostrils with the pungent smell of sweat.

  “Give me that rod!” said Joseph, and took out of the master’s hands the thin iron bar he was holding. Viteslav Czerny glanced at him sourly; if Joseph messed the job, he and his team would be out four crowns. But Joseph was already pressing the tip of the rod to the bottom of the pitcher, which, still hot, stuck to it easily. Up on the platform the blower softly, almost lovingly, knocked against his pipe, detaching the glass cap from the top of the pitcher. Its bottom safely adhering to the tip of the rod, the pitcher changed hands to Joseph.

  Joseph looked up impatiently. Everything now was speed and precision, every second cooling the glass might make it too cold to work with. But there was the fellow he was waiting for! From the end of his pipe, the second gatherer let dangle before Joseph a blob of glass, stretched by its own weight into the shape of a cocktail sausage. Joseph reached for the master’s iron tweezers, grabbed the end of the sausage and pasted it, hot, to the side of the pitcher. Twisting off the other end, he attached that, too, aligning it to the top, and forming a handle.

  By now, Joseph felt the sweat on his upper lip and his chest. It tickled him, but he had no hand free to wipe or to scratch. His hands were busy rotating the pitcher and stretching the handle with a wooden stick until dexterous manipulation and its own gravity had given the pliable glass of the handle a perfect curve.

  Joseph held the finished piece up to Master Czerny. “Pretty good, no?”

  “Pretty good,” said the thin little man, already working on the next pitcher. “Would you like to switch jobs?”

  Joseph guffawed and lightly slapped the other’s bony shoulder. “Sometimes I feel like it, I honestly do. When I look at the pile of responsibilities I have, I consider you fellows lucky!”

  Viteslav Czerny did not answer. Apparently, he felt the conversation was closed. Joseph bent down to the helper who sat on an overturned box, hunched over the form which his crippled hands were opening and closing according to the signals from the second blower.

  “How are you coming along, Blaha?” asked Joseph.

  Blaha grunted something.

  Joseph would not be discouraged. “This is only a beginning,” he said. “Later on, I’ll be able to give you a better job.”

  Blaha glanced at the helpers of the other teams. They were either women or boys just out of school. “I’m not complaining,” he said finally.

  “I didn’t say you were. You’re getting your old pay, regularly?”

  “Yes, Mr. Benda.”

  Blaha hunched deeper over the form. His apron was stretched taut over his legs and could not hide the trembling of his knees. The helper’s work was by no means easy, Joseph knew that. For eight hours, with two half-hour breaks, Blaha sat crouched at the foot of the platform, seeing fiery balls descend in front of his eyes and iridescent pitchers rise up again to heights beyond his reach.

  Joseph looked up at the clock. The red flag and the Czech flag suspended next to it wafted gently in the hot air from the furnace. Any second now, the bell would sound: two o’clock. He had timed his inspection right. The men would quit work, and he would casually stand in the doorway and be able to say a few words to each of them as they trooped out. He didn’t care if some of them thought he was electioneering; most of them would feel flattered and like it.

  Sometimes, he despised himself. What were they, what did they have to offer that he had to sidle up to them? A vote—that’s what they had. Democracy, with all its by-products—that’s what they had.

  They were so well off, they didn’t even appreciate it. A whole afternoon and evening belonged to them, with nothing to do but putter around the house, or read the newspaper, or play with their kids, or sleep. He, however, would have to drive over to Martinice. One of the furnaces at Hammer was producing, at last; he must see to it that they executed the latest batch of orders from the new Glass Institute in Prague, which was establishing itself as a solid export monopoly. He must discuss the work schedule with the Martinice foremen and listen to them whine about the threatened deportation to Germany. He must arrange for them to make their promised deliveries to Lida at Vesely’s. At home, at least, he wanted his peace. But he wouldn’t even have his evening at home. Instead, he would grab a bite to eat in Martinice, and from there drive directly to the district office of Dolezhal’s Party in Limberk, to spend half the night in planning the details of his campaign—where he was to speak and when, what public appearances he was to make and in which capacity.

  Joseph saw the workers finishing up, placing their pipes against the iron racks on the platform, and piling their forms and ladles on the work benches. The bell went off with its rusty quaver, the hour hand moved to the 2, the minute hand jumped across the 12, another workday was over.

  Joseph found himself caught in the bustle of workers streaming toward the doorway. Some of them were courteous enough to make room for him, but he waved them on good-naturedly, indicating by his gesture that they had done the hard part of the labor and therefore deserved to be let out first.

  They were the sort of people who responded kindly to kindliness, because they had never been spoiled by too much of it, and because they were simple and forgot their grudges easily. Joseph had little love for them as a mass; he did like them as individuals, and this feeling transmitted itself easily to the men.

  They stopped to nod to him or to shake his hand; knowing each of them, he could say the right things, ask the right questions, make the right joke
s. Master Viteslav Czerny, now relieved from the pressure of work, remarked that Joseph was still able to turn out a pretty good piece of hollow ware, and cackled he would hand over his job to Joseph any day! Those on Czerny’s team who had seen Joseph attach the handle to the pitcher, assented noisily. Even Blaha bore Joseph’s crack, “On your way, now, man! Don’t be late, or those kids of yours will start their dinner without you!” Everybody laughed at that, because Blaha was known to be a strict disciplinarian at home. And Joseph, who was by nature unsophisticated, began to enjoy himself and to warm up in the sun of public favor.

  Gradually, however, he sensed a disturbing influence. Not that the men had ceased to be friendly—they had to get through the doorway, after all, and to go home—it was something else.

  Over the heads of the others, he discovered Kravat’s eyes observing him caustically below their pushed-up brows. Kravat must have been standing there quite a while, having his own thoughts about the show.

  Joseph’s jokes became less inspired, his words less assured, his handshakes less hearty. The effect of this on the men still around him was immediate; their smiles waned, their expressions grew wary, they withdrew into themselves; and the last workers walked by Joseph and out of the hall without so much as a glance.

  Kravat was scratching his pate as he faced his chief in the empty doorway. Joseph glowered at him, silently. After a while, his face changed, a twinkle appeared at his eyes, and he began to laugh.

  “Well, what do you think of it, Kravat?” he said.

  “Not bad!”

  Kravat went ahead of Joseph to the platform. Some helpers brought in a trough full of finely ground shards of old green glass, and left.