In the meantime the life of the harbour was going on outside the windows. A flat barge carrying a mountain of barrels, which must have been miraculously laden so as not to start rolling, passed by and plunged the room into near-darkness. Little motorboats, which Karl would have been in good position to examine if he’d had the leisure, pursued their dead straight courses, responsive to every twitch of the hands of the men standing at their wheels. Strange floats surfaced occasionally from the turbulent water, only to become swamped again and sink astonishingly from sight. Boats from the great liners were rowed ashore by toiling sailors, full of passengers who obediently kept their places and sat quietly and expectantly, even though a few couldn’t refrain from turning their heads this way and that to look at the change of scene. All was endless movement, a restlessness communicated by the restless element to the helpless men and their works.
Everything enjoined haste, precision, clarity of representation—and what was the stoker doing? He was talking himself into a lather, his trembling hands could no longer hold the papers by the window-sill. He was deluged with complaints about Schubal that came to him from every direction, and one of which in his opinion would have sufficed to completely bury Schubal, but all he could put across to the captain was just a mishmash of all of them. The man with the bamboo cane had begun whistling quietly up at the ceiling, the men from the port authority had the officer at their table again, and showed no sign of relinquishing him, the chief cashier was obviously only constrained by the calm of the captain from the intervention he was all too eager to make. The sergeant was waiting at attention for an imminent order from the captain regarding the stoker.
At that Karl could no longer stand idly by. He walked slowly up to the group, rapidly considering how best to approach the affair. It was really high time to stop. Much more of it and the two of them might easily find themselves slung out of the office. The captain was a good man and he might at that very moment have some particular grounds, so Karl thought, to show himself to be a fair master, but for all that he wasn’t a musical instrument to be played into the ground—which was precisely how the stoker was treating him, albeit from a soul that was illimitably indignant.
So Karl said to the stoker: “You’ll have to explain it all much more clearly and simply, the captain can’t respond to what you’re telling him now. In order to be able to follow your account, he would have to know the first and last names of every single machinist and errand boy. Put your complaints in order, say the most important thing first, and then go through the others in order of decreasing importance, perhaps you won’t even be called upon to mention most of them that way. You always explained it so clearly to me.” If America was the sort of place where they stole suitcases then the occasional lie was permissible, he thought in extenuation.
If only it had helped! But was it not already too late? The stoker broke off the moment he heard the familiar voice, but with eyes dimmed with the tears of offended male honour, of frightful memories and the dire need of the moment, he barely even recognized Karl. How could he, Karl suddenly thought as the two of them silently confronted one another, how could he suddenly change his whole manner of speaking, it must seem to him that he had already said all there was to say, without anything to show for it, and, conversely, that he had said nothing at all, and he couldn’t presume that the gentlemen would willingly listen to everything. And at such a moment, his solitary supporter, Karl, comes along wanting to give him a piece of advice, but instead only shows that all is lost.
“If only I’d come earlier, instead of looking out of the window,” Karl said to himself, he lowered his gaze before the stoker, and smacked his hands against his trouser seams in acknowledgement that all hope was gone.
But the stoker misunderstood him, he probably sensed some veiled reproach from Karl and hoping to reason him out of it, he now, to cap everything, began quarrelling with Karl. Now: with the gentlemen at the round table incensed at the pointless noise which was interrupting them in their important work, with the chief cashier increasingly baffled by the captain’s patience and on the point of erupting, with the servant once more back in the camp of his masters, wildly eyeing the stoker, and finally, even the man with the little bamboo cane, to whom the captain sent friendly looks from time to time, seeming completely indifferent to the stoker, yes, even disgusted by him, and pulling out a little notebook, and clearly engaged with something entirely different, continually looking between the notebook and Karl.
“I know, I know,” said Karl, who had difficulty in warding off the tirade which the stoker now directed at him, but still keeping a friendly smile on his face. “You’re right, you’re right, I never doubted that.” He felt like grasping the gesticulating hands of the other, for fear of being hit, even better he would have liked to go into a corner with him and whisper one or two quiet soothing words into his ear, that none of the others needed to hear. But the stoker was out of control. Karl even started to draw comfort from the thought that in an emergency the stoker, with strength born of desperation, could vanquish all the other seven men in the room. Admittedly, on the desk there was, as he saw at a glance, a centrepiece with far too many electrical buttons on it. Simply pressing a hand down on that could turn the whole ship against them, and fill its corridors with their enemies.
Then the so entirely uninvolved man with the bamboo cane stepped up to Karl and asked, not loudly, but quite audibly over the stoker’s shouting: “What is your name please?” At that moment, as though it had been a cue for someone behind the door there was a knock. The servant glanced at the captain, who nodded. So the servant went over to the door and opened it. Outside, in an old frogged coat, stood a man of medium build, not really suited, to go by his appearance, to working with machines, and yet—this was Schubal. If Karl hadn’t known it from looking at everyone’s eyes, which showed a certain satisfaction—from which even the captain himself was not exempt—he must have learned it from the stoker who, to his alarm, tensed his arms and clenched his fists, as though that clenching was the most important thing to him, something for which he would willingly give all the life in his body. All his strength, even what kept him on his feet, was invested there.
So there was the enemy all sprightly and snug in his Sunday suit, with an account book under his arm, probably the wages and work record of the stoker, looking round into the eyes of all those present, one after the other, quite shamelessly gauging the mood of each one of them. All seven were his friends, for even if the captain had entertained, or had seemed to entertain, certain reservations about him before, after what the stoker had put him through, Schubal probably seemed free from any stain. One couldn’t be too hard on a man like the stoker, and if Schubal was guilty of anything, then it was the fact that he hadn’t been able to break the rebellious spirits of the stoker in time to prevent him from daring to appear before the captain today.
It was perhaps still reasonable to expect that the confrontation between the stoker and Schubal would have much the same effect before this company as before a higher assembly, because even if Schubal was a skilful dissembler, he surely couldn’t keep it up right to the end. Just a quick flash of his wickedness would be enough to make it apparent to the gentlemen, and Karl wanted to provoke it. He was already acquainted with the respective acuity, the weaknesses and the moods of the company, so, at least from that point of view, his time here hadn’t been wasted. If only the stoker had been in better shape, but he seemed completely out of commission. If Schubal had been dangled in front of him, he would probably have been able to split his hated skull open with his bare fists like a nut in a thin shell. But even to walk the few paces to reach him seemed to be beyond him. Why had Karl failed to predict the wholly predictable eventuality, that Schubal would at some stage present himself in person, either under his own steam, or else summoned by the captain. Why hadn’t Karl formulated a precise plan of attack with the stoker on their way here instead of turning up hopelessly unprepared, thinking it was enough to s
tep through the door? Was the stoker even still capable of speech, could he say yes and no under a cross-examination, which itself would only become necessary in the most favourable circumstances. He stood there, feet apart, knees slightly bent, head a little raised, and the air coming and going through his open mouth, as though he had no lungs in him with which to breathe.
Karl for his part felt stronger and more alert than he had ever done at home. If only his parents could see him, fighting for a good cause in a strange land before distinguished people, and while he hadn’t won yet, he was absolutely ready for the final push. Would they change their minds about him? Sit him down between them and praise him? For once look into his eyes that shone with devotion to them? Doubtful questions, and hardly the time to start asking them now!
“I have come because I believe the stoker is accusing me of some dishonesty or other. One of the kitchen maids told me she had seen him on his way here. Captain, gentlemen, I’m prepared to refute any accusation against me with the help of these written records, and, if need be, by the evidence of some impartial and unprejudiced witnesses, who are waiting outside the door.” Thus Schubal. It was the clear speech of a man, and to judge by the change in the expressions of the listeners, it was as though they had heard human sounds for the first time in a long while. What they failed to realize was that even that fine speech was full of holes. Why was “dishonesty” the first important word to occur to him? Perhaps the charges against him should have begun with that, rather than with national bias? A kitchen maid had seen the stoker on his way to the office, and straightaway drawn the right conclusion? Was it not guilt sharpening his understanding? And he had come with witnesses, and impartial and unprejudiced witnesses at that? It was a swindle, one big swindle, and the gentlemen stood for it and thought it was a proper way to behave? Why had he almost certainly allowed so much time to elapse between the maid’s report and his arrival here, if not for the purpose of letting the stoker so tire everybody out that they lost their power of judgement, which was what Schubal would have good reason to fear? Had he not been loitering behind the door for a long time and only knocked when that one gentleman’s irrelevant question suggested to him that the stoker was finished?
It was all so clear, and in spite of himself Schubal only confirmed it, but the gentlemen still needed to have it put to them even more unambiguously. They needed shaking up. So, Karl, hurry up and use the time before the witnesses appear and muddy everything.
Just at that moment, though, the captain motioned to Schubal “enough,” and he—his affair for the moment put back a little—promptly walked off and began a quiet conversation with the servant, who had straightaway allied himself with him, a conversation not without its share of sidelong glances at the stoker and Karl, and gestures of great conviction. It seemed that Schubal was rehearsing his next big speech.
“Didn’t you want to ask the young man here a question, Mr. Jakob?” said the captain to the man with the bamboo cane breaking the silence.
“Indeed I did,” he replied, thanking him for the courtesy with a little bow. And he asked Karl again: “What is your name please?”
Karl, believing it was in the interest of the principal cause to get the stubborn questioner over with quickly, replied curtly and without, as was his habit, producing his passport, which he would have had to look for first, “Karl Rossmann.”
“But,” said the man addressed as Jakob, taking a step backwards with a smile of near-disbelief. The captain too, the chief cashier, the ship’s officer, even the servant clearly displayed an excessive degree of surprise on hearing Karl’s name. Only the gentlemen from the port authority remained indifferent.
“But,” repeated Mr. Jakob and rather stiffly walked up to Karl, “then I’m your Uncle Jakob, and you’re my dear nephew. Didn’t I know it all along,” he said to the captain, before hugging and kissing Karl, who submitted quietly.
“What’s your name?” asked Karl, once he felt he had been released, very politely but quite unmoved, and trying to see what consequences this new turn of events might have for the stoker. For the moment there was at least no suggestion that Schubal could draw any advantage from it.
“Don’t you see you’re a very lucky young man,” said the captain, who thought the question might have hurt the dignity of Mr. Jakob who had gone over to the window, obviously in order to keep the others from seeing the emotion on his face, which he kept dabbing at with a handkerchief. “The man who has presented himself to you as your uncle is the state councillor Edward Jakob. You now have a glittering career ahead of you, which you surely cannot have expected. Try to understand that, though it isn’t easy, and pull yourself together.”
“I do indeed have an Uncle Jakob in America,” said Karl to the captain, “but if I understood you correctly, it was the state councillor’s surname that was Jakob.”
“That’s correct,” said the captain expectantly.
“Well, my Uncle Jakob, who is my mother’s brother, is Jakob by his first name, while his surname is of course the same as my mother’s maiden name which is Bendelmayer.”
“Gentlemen, I ask you,” cried the state councillor, returning from his restorative visit to the window, with reference to Karl’s explanation. Everyone, with the exception of the port officials, burst out laughing, some as though moved, others more inscrutably.
But what I said wasn’t so foolish, thought Karl.
“Gentlemen,” reiterated the state councillor, “without your meaning to, or my meaning you to, you are here witnessing a little family scene, and I feel I owe you some explanation, seeing as only the captain here”—an exchange of bows took place at this point—“is completely in the picture.”
“Now I really must pay attention to every word,” Karl said to himself, and he was glad when he saw out of the corner of his eye that animation was beginning to return to the figure of the stoker.
“In the long years of my stay in America—although the word stay hardly does justice to the American citizen I have so wholeheartedly become—in all those years I have lived completely cut off from my relatives in Europe, for reasons that are firstly not relevant here, and secondly would distress me too much in the telling. I even dread the moment when I shall be compelled to relate them to my nephew, when a few home truths about his parents and their ilk will become unavoidable.”
“He really is my uncle, no question,” Karl said to himself, as he listened. “I expect he’s just had his name changed.”
“My dear nephew has simply been got rid of by his parents—yes, let’s just use the phrase, as it describes what happened—simply got rid of, the way you put the cat out if it’s making a nuisance of itself. It’s not my intention to gloss over what my nephew did to deserve such treatment—glossing over isn’t the American way—but his transgression is such that the mere naming of it provides an excuse.”
That sounds all right, thought Karl, but I don’t want him to tell them all. How does he know about it anyway? Who would have told him? But let’s see, maybe he does know everything.
“What happened,” the uncle went on, resting his weight on the little bamboo cane and rocking back and forth a little, which robbed the matter of some of the unnecessary solemnity it would certainly have otherwise had—“what happened is that he was seduced by a maidservant, one Johanna Brummer, a woman of some thirty-five years of age. In using the word seduced, I have no wish to insult my nephew, but it’s difficult to think of another word that would be applicable.”
Karl, who had already moved quite close to his uncle, turned round at this point to see what impact the story was having on the faces of the listeners. There was no laughter from any of them, they were all listening quietly and gravely: it’s not done to laugh at the nephew of a state councillor at the first opportunity that comes along. If anything, one might have said that the stoker was smiling very faintly at Karl, but, in the first place, that was encouraging as a further sign of life on his part, and, in the second place, it was excusable
since back in the cabin Karl had tried to keep secret a matter that was now being so openly aired.
The Uncanny Reader Page 14
