The Eternal Philistine

by Odon Von Horvath

  “You now know how highly I esteem the gentleman count, but he was, nevertheless, right about one thing, namely about taking that trip. If I had all of your money right now, I’d drop everything as it stands and get out into the world.”

  “So that’s her being perfectly frank,” thought Kobler, reassured. At that point he grew conspicuously domineering. “Tell me, Frau Perzl, why do you always eavesdrop on me when I’m attending to guests?”

  “But I didn’t eavesdrop,” objected Perzl, gesticulating wildly. “I was just listening to the radio, but I couldn’t hear a peep of the classical quartette because the gentlemen were speaking their minds so loudly. Believe me, I’d rather have edified myself with the music than overheard your vulgar ranting and raving.”

  “It’s okay, Frau Perzl, I didn’t mean it like that,” said Kobler, initiating his retreat while she was reveling in her wronged innocence.

  “When I think about all those foreign countries,” she said, “I get all dreamy—that’s how much I yearn for Abbazia!”

  Kobler paced up and down.

  “I find all of that talk about the wide world,” said Kobler, “really very interesting. That is, I’ve often thought one should get acquainted with the world abroad in order to expand one’s own horizon. For me, as a young businessman, it’d be especially crummy if I didn’t get out of here, because you’ve got to acquaint yourself with the foreign sales methods. Like, for example, a convertible with a jump seat—how do people sell them in Poland and Greece? Of course, it’ll mostly be just nuances, but often it comes down to such nuances. Customer service keeps getting harder and harder. People keep getting more and more demanding and—” He paused because a spine-chilling thought had suddenly seized him: “What guarantee do I have that I’ll find another Portschinger?”

  “Nobody is going to give you one, Alfons Kobler, no god and no hog,” he thought to himself. He stared sorrowfully into space. “Nothing is ever good or cheap enough for these customers,” he thought sadly, and gave a weary smile.

  “You’ll surely learn many things abroad that you’ll be able to exploit magnificently,” Perzl consoled him. “The art treasures alone that you’re going to see! The Louvre in Paris, and in the Doge’s Palace there’s a portrait hanging of an old doge who always stares at you no matter where you’re standing. But especially Florence! And the Roman Forum in Rome! The whole of the ancient world!”

  But Kobler rebuffed her. “I’ve got absolutely no time for art! Do you think I’m unworldly or something? Only the wives of rich Jews, like Frau Automo-bear, are interested in such things. She was just smitten with the Gothic age and let herself get worked over by some belletrist.”

  Perzl gave a dejected nod. “It used to be different,” she said.

  “With me, everything has got to have some sense,” averred Kobler. “Didn’t you hear what the count had to say about the Egyptian with the pyramids? Now you see, that would have some sense!”

  Perzl kept getting more and more dejected. “With all my heart, I wouldn’t begrudge you it, my dear sir!” she shrieked frantically. “If only my poor son also had some sense and had found himself a rich Egyptian instead of that lousy bitch of a typist. O lord forgive her her sins!”

  She started sobbing.

  “Are you familiar with Sopot?” asked Kobler.

  “I’m only familiar with stuff as it was before the war. I used to travel a lot with my late husband. He even took me up to Mount Vesuvius. Oh, how I’d love to go back up there again!”

  She started crying.

  “Calm down,” said Kobler. “If it can’t be done, it can’t be done.”

  “I, too, take solace in that,” whimpered Perzl before pulling herself together.

  “Forgive me for bothering you.” She smiled sorrowfully. “But if I were you, I’d travel to Barcelona first thing tomorrow—right now there’s a World’s Fair going on there. You don’t even need to stay in a luxury hotel; you can easily meet those Egyptian women in the pavilions. It’s always like that at World’s Fairs. At the World’s Fair in Paris I once lost my late husband and, just then, an elegant gentleman accosted me. As I look at him, he opens up his overcoat and hasn’t got anything on underneath. I only mention this in passing.”

  CHAPTER 6

  KOBLER ENTERED A GOVERNMENT-RUN TRAVEL agency because he knew that information could be obtained there for free. He wanted to make inquiries about Barcelona and the simplest way of getting there. You see, he had abandoned Sopot because Perzl had convinced him that a considerably larger assortment of Egyptian women could be found at an exhibition of the entire world than in the most luxurious of luxury hotels. Besides, this way he could spare himself all the costs of luxury hotels, and should nothing come of his plans with the Egyptian women (which he by no means feared, but he planned for every contingency), he could always go to the automobile pavilion, where he could get an overview of the worldwide automotive industry at a glance and fill in the gaps in his knowledge about it. “I’ll combine business with utility,” he said to himself.

  Posters of palm trees and icebergs were hanging in the government-run travel agency. You had the feeling that you were no longer in Schellingstrasse.

  Nearly every clerk seemed to speak several languages, and Kobler listened reverently. He was standing at the counter entitled “Abroad.”

  Two upper-class ladies and an elderly gentleman with a well-groomed beard were already standing in front of him. The ladies were speaking Russian; they were emigrants. The clerk was also an emigrant. The ladies were placing great demands on him. He had to tell them where the sun was presently shining, whether in Lido, Cannes, or Deauville. They would travel to Dalmatia either way, said the ladies. The price was, after all, irrelevant, even if Dalmatia should turn out to be cheaper.

  The elderly gentleman with the well-groomed beard was a delegate from Hungary. He called himself a democrat and was just reading in his Hungarian newspaper how democracy was going belly-up. He nodded his approval.

  One of the ladies darted a look at him. It looked real good. Just as Kobler was getting upset about not being an emigrant, the bearded democrat got upset about MacDonald. “Every democrat ought to be exterminated,” he thought.

  Finally the two ladies left. The clerk seemed to know them very well because he kissed one of their hands. They did, after all, come in every week and make inquiries about all sorts of routes. They still had not traveled anywhere yet, though, because they only just got by with their money. And so they got the prospectus every week and that sufficed. On weekends the clerk would sometimes go canoeing with the lady whose hand he kissed.

  “Now, finally, I would like to go to Hajdúszoboszló in a sleeping car,” said the guy with the beard impatiently, and then gave Kobler a belligerent look.

  “What’s up with him?” thought Kobler.

  “Wonder if that’s another democrat,” thought the democrat.

  “Unfortunately, I cannot give you a ticket to Hajdúszoboszló,” said the clerk. “I only have one as far as Budapest.”

  “That’s an outrage!” said the beard indignantly. “I shall lodge a complaint with my good friend, the Royal Hungarian Minister of Trade!”

  “I’m a clerk,” said the clerk, “I’m just doing my duty—I can’t do anything about it. Which class would you like?”

  The guy with the beard looked at him in an inexpressibly wistful and hurt manner. “First, of course.” He nodded sadly. “Poor Hungary!” randomly crossed his mind just as Kobler accidentally stepped on his corn. “What do you think you’re doing there!?” roared the beard.

  “My apologies,” said Kobler.

  “Well, that’s surely a democrat!” hissed the democrat in Hungarian.

  “Please, just wait a few moments. I’ve got to have somebody check to see if there are still seats available in the sleeping car to Budapest,” said the clerk. Then he turned to Kobler. “Where to?”

  “To Barcelona,” he answered, as though it were just around the corner.


  The beard pricked up his ears. “Barcelona,” he reflected, “that was one of the centers of the anarchist movement before Primo di Rivera. He stepped on my corn and he’s riding third class, too!”

  “Barcelona is far away,” said the clerk. Kobler nodded.

  The beard could not help but nod and was upset about it.

  “Barcelona is really far away,” said the clerk. “How do you want to get there? Via Switzerland or Italy? Are you traveling to the World’s Fair? All right, listen up: go there via Italy and return via Switzerland. The cost and distance are immaterial, right? The trip there and back will take ninety-three hours, naturally with the express train. You’re going to need a visa for France and Spain. All taken care of! You won’t need one for Austria, Italy, or Switzerland. All taken care of! If you depart from here, you’ll be at the German border by 10:32 and in Innsbruck by 13:05. I’ll write it all down for you. 13:28 departure from Innsbruck; 15:23 arrival in Brennero; 15:30 departure from Brennero; 20:50 arrival in Verona; 21:44 departure from Verona; 00:13 arrival in Milano; 03:29 departure from Milano; 07:04 departure from Genova; 11:27 arrival in Ventimiglia; 18:40 arrival in Marseille; 05:16 arrival at Portbou, the Spanish border; 10:00 arrival in Barcelona; 11:00 departure from Barcelona.

  Cerberes, Tarscon, Lyon, Geneva, Bern, Basel: the clerk wrote down all the arrival and departure times for his return journey, too. He even knew the numbers by heart.

  “Well, that’s one mnemonic acrobat,” thought Kobler. “A circus!”

  “So third class, there and back, will only cost 127 marks and 54 pfennigs,” said the circus.

  There and back?! Kobler was delighted.

  “Is that all? It’s not possible,” he gaped.

  “Actually, yes,” the clerk was quick to reassure him. “Germany is, as you know, one of the most expensive countries in Europe because it lost the war. France and Italy are considerably cheaper because they have inflation. Only Spain and Switzerland are still more expensive than Germany.”

  “You are forgetting the remnants of Greater Hungary,” interjected the beard suddenly. “The remnants of Greater Hungary are even cheaper than Germany, despite having lost everything in the war. It was hacked to pieces, my dear sirs! Serbia and Croatia are, by contrast, even cheaper than the remnants of Greater Hungary because America won the war. Even though, militarily speaking, we won the war!”

  “In the end, it doesn’t seem to matter one bit who wins such a war,” said Kobler. The beard glared at him indignantly. “Aha, that’s a Bolshevik!” he thought.

  “The neutral countries are the best off—they’re the richest ones today,” said the clerk, closing the debate.

  Kobler was genuinely aggrieved that Spain and Switzerland had not also been involved in the World War.

  CHAPTER 7

  ON THE EVENING BEFORE HIS TRIP TO THE World’s Fair, Kobler stepped into the Schellingsalon, a restaurant and café in the Schellingstrasse where he was a regular. He went there to impress people. He ordered the roast pork with a mixed salad.

  “Anything else?” asked the waitress.

  “I’m going to Barcelona,” he said.

  “Huh, how could you be so stupid!” she said, and walked off. Just then Herr Kastner walked by his table.

  “I’m going to Barcelona,” Kobler shouted out to him, but Herr Kastner was already long gone.

  Even Herr Dünzl walked past him. “You’re going to Barcelona?” asked Dünzl caustically. “My dear boy, at serious times like these—”

  “Hush,” Kobler cut him off, disgruntled. The Count Blanquez also walked by.

  “I’m going to Barcelona,” said Kobler.

  “Since when, then?” inquired the count.

  “Since today,” said Kobler.

  “Well, then, that means you’ve got a whole day to pester me,” said the count. Herr Schaal also walked by.

  “I’m going to Barcelona,” said Kobler.

  “Bon voyage,” said the good old Herr Schaal, and then sat down at another table.

  Kobler was shaken. After all, he wanted to impress people and it was not working at all. He skulked into the bathroom with his head ducked down.

  “Do you want ten or fifteen?” asked the attentive old Rosa.

  “I’m going to Barcelona,” he muttered.

  “What’s wrong with you?!” blurted out the good old lady, aghast. Kobler remained firmly silent, leaving the old lady to her suspicions. When he had returned to his seat, she peered out at him through the crack in the door with her haggard eyes, wondering whether he had ordered another beer. Yes, he had indeed already ordered his second beer because, having been unable to impress anybody, he had gulped the first down hastily. “It’s like everything’s been bewitched!” he said to himself.

  And there she was, Fräulein Anna Pollinger.

  “I’m going to Barcelona,” he greeted her.

  “Why?” she asked, eyeing him with horror. He basked in her gaze.

  “There’s an international World’s Fair going on there right now.” He gave her a cruel smile. And it made him feel good, even though he had otherwise always been respectful to her.

  He was exceedingly considerate in helping her to remove her coat, neatly draping it over a chair, albeit with a rather snide expression on his face. She sat down next to him and began fiddling with a loose button on her sleeve. The button was only there for decoration. She ripped it off.

  Just then Anna started looking around the restaurant. Deep in thought, she nodded to Herr Schaal, who did not even know her.

  “To Barcelona.” she said, “I’d sure like to go there too.”

  “And so why don’t you?” asked Kobler snobbishly.

  “Don’t ask such dumb questions,” she said.

  Have you all heard the fairy tale of Fräulein Pollinger? Perhaps there’s still somebody out there who hasn’t, and it might be worthwhile for everybody to hear it one more time. Well …

  Once upon a time there was a young lady who was never really able to catch the attention of the more well-to-do gentlemen because she only earned 110 marks a month, had just an average figure and an average face—it being neither unpleasant nor especially pretty, just decent. She worked in the office of a rental car agency, but at best could afford a bicycle on an installment plan. She was permitted to ride on the back of a motorcycle every once in a while, but something was often expected of her in return. Despite everything, she was quite sweet-tempered and did not shut herself off to men. But she would only ever go out with one guy at a time—experience had taught her that much. Often she did not exactly love this one particular guy, but she took comfort in being able to sit next to him in the Schellingsalon or elsewhere. She did not want to yearn for anything, but if she ended up doing it anyway, everything seemed insipid to her. She would rarely speak; she only ever listened to what the gentlemen were saying amongst each other. Then she secretly made fun of them because, after all, the gentlemen did not actually have anything to say. These gentlemen would rarely speak to her, and if they did it was usually only when they felt the urge to do it. During the first few sentences she would often be spiteful and malicious, but then she soon let herself go again. She was indifferent to practically everything in her life, and it had to be like that, otherwise she would not have been able to bear it. It was only when she was feeling ill that she would think about herself more intensely.

  At one point she went out with a gentleman by the name of Fritz for well over a year. Toward the end of October she said, “If I got pregnant right now it’d be the biggest disaster.” She was shocked by her words.

  “Why are you crying?” asked Fritz. “I don’t like it when you cry. All Saints’ Day falls on a Saturday this year, so there’s an extra day off and we can take a hike in the mountains.” And then he explained to her that all the physical stress during the climb down would, as is generally known, see to it that she didn’t get pregnant.

  So she climbed with Fritz up the west side of the Wasserkarspitze
, which stands 2,037 meters above yonder sea. It was already night when they reached the summit, but up above there were stars in the sky. There was a fog in the valley below; it slowly wafted up toward them. Everything in the world was very quiet, and then Anna said, “The fog looks like it has all the unborn souls flying around in it.” But Fritz did not respond to this tone.

  Ever since this hike in the mountains she had had a sickly pallor. She never really fully recovered and every so often her womb area hurt her like crazy. But she did not hold it against any of the gentlemen; she just had a strong constitution. There are people out there that you just can’t kill. And so she lived happily ever after.

  So in mid-September she was sitting next to Kobler in the Schellingsalon. She ordered just a small glass of dark beer. She had already eaten her supper, two little rolls of bread and butter, at the rental car company because that night, by way of exception, she had to work until nine o’clock. On average, she would have to do this, by way of exception, four times a week. Of course she was not paid for working overtime because after all, if she wanted to be jobless, she had the right to quit on the first of every month.

  “Give me a bit of your potato salad,” she said suddenly because, suddenly, she just had to eat something else.

  “Sure,” said Kobler, at once feeling as though he should be ashamed of himself for going to Barcelona.

  “It’s going to be very exhausting,” he said.

  “So I guess that means there’s nothing doing tonight,” she said.

  “Right,” he said.

  CHAPTER 8

  THE EXPRESS TRAIN THAT WAS TO TAKE KOBLER across the German border departed punctually because the gentleman with the red uniform cap raised his baton punctually. “Now that’s German punctuality for you,” he heard somebody say in a Hanoverian accent.