by Joseph Roth
Like the cholera he raged in the land, did Inspector Eibenschütz. Then he returned home, that is, to the border tavern at Szwaby, and drank.
It sometimes happened during one of his terrible official visits, that the wife and children of a tradesman would throw themselves on their knees before him and implore him not to make a report. They would cling to his fur. They would not let him go. But the red-haired Piotrak stood immobile beside him. No wife, no children dared approach him because he was in uniform. Eibenschütz would say: Why not let him go? Whom has he ever harmed? They all rob one another in these parts. Let him go, Eibenschütz! But it was the old, the former Eibenschütz who spoke thus. The new Eibenschütz said: The law is the law and there stands Sergeant Piotrak and I myself was a soldier for twelve years, and what’s more, I myself am very unhappy. And my heart is not in my job. And all the time Piotrak seemed to nod assent with his red head to everything the new Eibenschütz said.
35
At the end of February Eibenschütz received notification of the decease of the convict Leibusch Jadlowker, the supervision of whom had for certain reasons been entrusted to the Inspector.
On the evening of the same day, as if he had known, Kapturak reappeared at the inn after a long interval. He made the usual obeisance and sat down at the table at which Eibenschütz, Sameschkin, Euphemia and the new sergeant Piotrak were sitting.
Everyone played tarock, Kapturak lost. For all this, he was inordinately cheerful.
It was not clear why. Besides the usual stupid expressions and meaningless phrases which tarock players employ he uttered new, freshly invented and even more meaningless ones, such as: ‘The pig has wind!’ or: ‘I’m losing my braces’ – or even: ‘Dung is gold’ and more in a similar vein. In the middle of these expressions and as he sat there, appearing to reflect tensely which card to play next, he said, as if absentmindedly and in the tone of voice in which he had just been repeating his nonsensical phrases: ‘Herr Inspector, so things have worked out for you? Your enemy is dead?’ ‘What enemy?’ asked Eibenschütz. ‘Jadlowker!’ And at the same moment Kapturak laid a card on the table. ‘He was one of the cholera convicts,’ he continued, ‘and he caught it. He’s been rotting under the ground for months. His worms have stuffed themselves by now.’ Euphemia said: ‘It’s not true;’ she turned very pale. ‘Yes, it is true!’ said Eibenschütz, ‘I have the official report.’ Euphemia rose, without a word. She went upstairs to weep. Sameschkin was the first to lay down his cards and the only one to say: ‘I’m not playing any more!’ Even the red-haired gendarme Piotrak put his cards down; Kapturak alone went on as if he were playing against himself. Then, abruptly, he too laid down his cards as if he had made a sudden decision and said: ‘Then we mortgagees shall inherit this inn, that makes six of us.’ And he looked at the Inspector.
It had grown very quiet at the table, the good Sameschkin could hardly bear it. He got up and went to the music-box at the bar, to throw in a dreier. The music-box immediately began to spew out the Rákóczy March in a splendid blare of brass. Through the blustering noise Kapturak said to the gendarme: ‘You know, since you’ve been here our Inspector has become very strict. All the tradesmen curse him and three have already lost their licence on his account.’ ‘I do my duty,’ said Eibenschütz. And he thought of Euphemia and of the old Eibenschütz he had once been, and of his dead wife, and especially of Euphemia, yes, he thought especially of Euphemia and that he was now truly a forsaken man in a forsaken neighbourhood.
‘You don’t always do your duty,’ said Kapturak very quietly. But at that moment the music-box had stopped blustering so that even the quiet words rang out very loudly. ‘How does it come about that you never inspect a certain shop? You know the one I mean!’ Eibenschütz knew well which shop Kapturak had in mind, but he asked: ‘Which then?’ ‘Singer’s,’ said Kapturak. ‘Where’s this Singer?’ asked the gendarme Piotrak. ‘In Zlotogrod, in the centre of Zlotogrod,’ replied Kapturak, ‘right beside the fishwife Czackes, whose licence you took away three weeks ago!’ The gendarme threw a questioning, suspicious glance at Eibenschütz. ‘Tomorrow we’ll go and have a look!’ said the Inspector. Suddenly he felt a great fear of Kapturak as well as of the gendarme. He felt he must have another small glassful.
‘Tomorrow we’ll go and have a look!’ he repeated.
Kapturak gave a wide and soundless smile. His thin lips bared a total of four yellow teeth, two above, two below; they seemed ready to chew up his own smile.
It was true that Inspector Eibenschütz had never yet taken a look at Singer’s shop. It was the only one in the district, to be sure. Despite his great honesty and sense of official duty he had quite deliberately refrained from troubling the Singers.
Besides, it was such a miserable shop that it stood out even among the exceedingly miserable shops of the neighbourhood. It did not even have a sign but a common slate, on which Frau Blume Singer renewed her name in chalk every few days, and especially when it had rained and the writing had become illegible. It was a tiny little house; it consisted of one room and a kitchen, and the kitchen also served as the shop. On a tiny rectangle of open ground before the entrance lay a dungheap of moderate size and beside it stood a wooden booth. This was the lavatory of the Singer family. Not far from it, usually on the rubbish heap, which was now covered by a thick crust of snow and ice, the two Singer boys played in the few hours they did not have to devote to study. For they had to study. At least one of them was destined one day to become his father Mendel’s heir.
Alas! It was not a question of a material inheritance. God forbid! It was merely the reputation of a learned and righteous man. In the room behind the kitchen and the shop Mendel Singer studied day and night, between the two beds, each of which was pushed against one of the walls. On the floor, in the middle, lay the straw palliasses of the children.
Mendel Singer had never concerned himself with anything other than holy and pious words and many pupils came to him. He lived wretchedly but he required nothing whatever. Twice a week, on Mondays and Thursdays, he fasted. On ordinary days he took only soup. He slurped it from a wooden dish with a wooden spoon. Only on Friday nights did he eat trout in sauce with horseradish. Everyone in the little town knew him. Twice a day they saw him running to the prayer-house, there and back. He hurried along on thin legs, in white stockings and sandals, which he covered with heavy galoshes in winter. His coat danced in the wind. His heavy fur cap sat low over his eyes, a fringed pelt. His sparse beard waved. The hard prow of his nose thrust against the air, as if it wanted to carve out a path for his face. He saw nothing and no one. He was engrossed and lost in his humility and in his piety, in thoughts of the holy words which he had just read and in joyful anticipation of those yet to be read. Everyone respected him, even the peasants of the neighbourhood came to him when they were in distress, asking for his advice and intercession. Although he appeared never to have seen the world and men, it was nevertheless evident that he understood both the world and men. His advice was excellent and his intercessions helped.
His wife concerned herself with the earthly matters of everyday life. She had scraped together the money for the licence and for the purchase of goods by begging from the rich and well-to-do people of Zlotogrod. Alas! What goods! One could get onions, milk, cheese, eggs, garlic, dried figs, raisins, almonds, nutmegs and saffron. But how minute were the quantities and how frightful was the condition of these provisions! Everything was in a muddle in the small, dark-blue, lime-washed kitchen. It looked as if the children were playing at being shopkeepers. The small sack holding the onions and the garlic rested on the large bucket which contained the sour milk. Raisins and almonds stood in little heaps on the cream cheese, separated by greaseproof paper from what was underneath. Beside the two cream jars crouched the two yellow cats, guardian lions of a kind. In the middle, a pair of large rusty scales hung down from the ceiling on a black wooden hook. And the weights stood on the window-sill.
The kind of people who might
have been poor enough to have shopped at Blume Singer’s did not exist in the neighbourhood. And yet they still managed to live, despite everything – for God helps the poor. He bestows a little compassion on the rich, so that from time to time one of them comes and buys something which he does not need and which he will throw away in the street.
36
This, then, was the shop which Inspector Eibenschütz invaded the following morning, together with the gendarme Piotrak. Although a severe frost prevailed, a good dozen people nevertheless collected in front of the shop and the children ran out from the Jewish school opposite. It was about eight in the morning and Mendel Singer emerged from the prayer-house. When he saw the assembly before the little house he was alarmed, for he feared his house was burning. Some of the curious ran up to him and cried: ‘The gendarme has come! The Inspector has come!’ He rushed inside. And he was even more alarmed than he would have been by a fire. A real gendarme with a rifle stood there while Eibenschütz checked the goods, the scales and the weights. The two cats had disappeared.
The cream was sour, the milk curdled, the cheese wormy, the onions rotten, the raisins mouldy, the figs withered, the scales unsteady and the weights false. Now it came to official procedure. Everything must be written down. When the gendarme pulled out his big official black calico notebook, Mendel Singer and his wife felt as if he were drawing the most dangerous of all his dangerous weapons against them both. The Inspector dictated and the red-haired gendarme wrote. A fire would have been a bagatelle.
The penalty amounted to exactly two gulden and seventy-five kreuzer. The business was not to be continued until the fine had been settled. The purchase of new scales and new weights cost a further three gulden. Where is a Mendel Singer to find two gulden seventy-five and a further three? God is very kind but he does not concern himself with such trivial amounts.
Mendel Singer reflected on all this. That is why he went up to the Inspector, took off his fur cap and said: ‘Your Excellency, Herr General, I beg you, strike everything out. As you can see, I have a wife and children!’
Eibenschütz saw the lean raised hands, the meagre bony cheeks, the poor sparse beard and the black, moist, imploring eyes. He wanted to say something. He wanted, for example, to say: ‘It’s no good, old chap, it’s the law.’ He even wanted to say: ‘I hate this law and myself into the bargain.’ But he said nothing. Why did he not say anything? Because God had closed his mouth and the gendarme was pushing Mendel Singer away. One glance from him was enough. One glance from him was like a fist. And off they went, with weights, scales and the black book.
If Frau Mendel sold anything more today, be it only a single almond, she would be locked up for four months.
The few onlookers and the children who had loitered outside ran off.
‘We shouldn’t have done that!’ said Eibenschütz to Piotrak. ‘In spite of it all he’s an honest man!’
‘No one is honest!’ said the gendarme Piotrak, ‘and the law’s the law.’ But even the gendarme was not entirely happy.
They drove to the office and deposited the articles with the clerk and they both felt that they needed a drink. Good! So they drove to Litwak’s inn.
It was Wednesday that day and market day in Zlotogrod, so the inn was full of peasants, Jews, cattle-dealers and horse-copers. When the Inspector and the gendarme sat down at the great table at which a good two dozen people were already squatting beside each other on smoothly scrubbed benches, a suspicious muttering and whispering arose. Then people began to speak louder and someone mentioned the name of Mendel Singer.
At that moment a thickset, broad-shouldered, heavily-bearded man got up from the bench opposite. In a great arch he spat across the table, across all the glasses and, with masterly accuracy of aim, right into the Inspector’s glass. ‘There’s more where that came from!’ he cried and a great tumult arose. Everyone got up from the benches and Eibenschütz and the gendarme tried to climb over the table. They reached the door, but at that moment the broad-shouldered, bearded man had already pushed it open. For a short time they still saw him running along on the white snow-covered road. He ran very fast, a dark stooping streak on the white snow, towards the pine forest that fringed both sides of the road. He disappeared to the left, as if the forest had swallowed him up.
It was afternoon, it was already beginning to get dark. The snow was taking on a light bluish tinge.
‘We’ll get him alright,’ said the gendarme.
They turned back.
The gendarme Piotrak was really very uneasy about it. Had he not been wearing his full equipment and his heavy winter boots, as prescribed by regulations, he might well have been able to pursue the light-footed one. However, he was certain that he would find him and deal with him in the end, and that was some comfort. Probably he was a dangerous criminal. One would hope that he was a dangerous criminal.
The gendarme Piotrak questioned everyone in the tavern but not a single person chose to know the miscreant. ‘He’s not from this neighbourhood!’ they said.
However, Eibenschütz had the feeling that he had already seen the man somewhere. He did not know where and when. Night prevailed inside his poor head and there was no sign of dawn. He drank to lighten the darkness but it only grew darker. All around he sensed a great animosity among all the people, as never before.
They got up eventually, climbed onto the sleigh and drove to Szwaby. ‘Kapturak will know who it was,’ said the gendarme on the way.
The Inspector could not think of anything to say. After a while he said: ‘It’s all the same to me!’
‘Not to me!’ said the obstinate Piotrak.
37
Jadlowker had been sitting in Kapturak’s house for several weeks now. He could not stand it, so he made an excursion. He thought that on a market day in Zlotogrod he would not encounter any acquaintances, not even in Litwak’s inn. Would you believe it! Along came the new gendarme and his old enemy, Eibenschütz. It was thoughtless, even careless, to attract attention by spitting.
He took a very roundabout way to get back to Kapturak’s house from the forest into which he had fled. The frost was severe; fortunately one could risk walking over the bogs. He waited in the forest until night had completely set in. Then he marched southwards, along the whole length of the curve which the marshes formed round the little town. The frost was certainly a blessing but he was horribly cold. His whole body felt stung and scourged. In the short fur coat Jadlowker was wearing he froze just as much as if he had been dressed only in a shirt.
It was already far into the night when he reached Kapturak’s house. Now the fear which he had suppressed with all his might on the way began to fill him with redoubled strength: namely, the fear that the gendarme might already be there, waiting for him. He decided to tap very softly on the window shutter. He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw Kapturak step outside. Kapturak beckoned him in. A new fear gripped him: could one trust even Kapturak? – But whom else? he presently said to himself, and he came closer.
They went in. Kapturak sent his wife out into the kitchen. ‘Sit down, Jadlowker,’ said Kapturak. ‘What are you up to? Do you want to destroy yourself and me as well? Are you a grown man? Are you a youth? Are you playing pranks? Schoolboy pranks?’
‘I couldn’t help myself,’ said Jadlowker.
‘You were probably recognized,’ said Kapturak. ‘I heard all about it afterwards from Litwak. I knew at once it was you. Naturally, I didn’t show any sign. What are you going to do now?’
The half-frozen and perplexed Jadlowker – his ears burned like red lamps on both sides – said: ‘I don’t know!’
‘I’ve decided,’ declared Kapturak, ‘to shut you up. You’ll be better off here with me than in Zloczow jail.’
Where does one hide an endangered guest? Inexperienced people hide him in the cellar. And that is a mistake. If there’s a house search, the first place the gendarmes go to is the cellar. No one can escape from a cellar. Experienced people, on the other hand,
shut up an endangered guest in the attic. That is where the gendarmes go last of all. Besides, it is easier to hear what is going on from up there. Thirdly, there is a skylight. One has fresh air and one can make a quick getaway.
So Jadlowker mounted the steep ladder that led to the attic. A chair and a palliasse, a bottle of schnapps and a jug of water were also allotted to him.
Kapturak wished him goodnight, promised to bring him food regularly, and went away. As a precaution he slipped the bolt which was fixed to the trap-door of the attic. When he had climbed down the ladder he stood there for a while and reflected. He reflected whether he should take the ladder away or not. And he finally decided to take it away. He carried it into the yard and leaned it against the roof. He had made up his mind to use only the skylight when passing Jadlowker his food.
It was cold in the attic, colder even than in the cell, and Jadlowker tore open the palliasse at the top end and slid right down into the sack and put his fur coat over his head. Through the open skylight, which did not shut, the clear frosty night shimmered bluish-white. Before he fell asleep he noticed the motionless bats which were hibernating all around on the washing-lines above his head. For the first time in his life the lawless Jadlowker was afraid. And this fear was enough to send him into a deep, though restless, sleep.
He awoke early in the morning; the bitter breath of the icy morning woke him. He crept out of his sack with difficulty, took a swallow from the flask, put on his fur coat and went to the skylight. Flocks of crows recently woken from their sleep circled round the roofs, looking as if they were flying only in order to warm themselves. He saw the red sun rise, it looked like an orange, and at the sight of it he felt hungry. He knew he would have to wait for a good two hours before Kapturak would arrive with his food. He listened at the trap-door, for a good two hours he was occupied with nothing else than his hunger. It was as if his hunger were an affair of the head and not of the stomach. At last Kapturak appeared with tea and bread, not at the door, however, but at the skylight. He passed everything through very slowly; on the short journey up the ladder the tea had already grown cold, so severe was the frost. Jadlowker ate and drank hastily. He asked only, ‘Anything new?’ ‘Not yet,’ answered Kapturak, climbed down the ladder again, and placed it a little to one side.
