Flotsam

by Erich Maria Remarque

  He got up and walked back and forth in the little cell. He took long deep breaths, then he took off his coat and began to exercise. I mustn’t lose control of my nerves, he thought, otherwise I’m licked. I must stay well. He began a series of bending and twisting exercises and gradually succeeded in concentrating his attention on his body. Then came the memory of the evening at the police station in Vienna and the student who had given him boxing lessons. He smiled wryly. If it hadn’t been for him, he thought, I wouldn’t have behaved toward Ammers as I did today. If it hadn’t been for him and if it hadn’t been for Steiner … If it hadn’t been for this whole tough life. I want it to make me tough, too, but not to knock me out. I’ll defend myself. He began to strike out with his fists, moving lightly on his feet; he threw a long right into the darkness with the whole weight of his body behind it, right, left, a couple of quick uppercuts, and suddenly the ghostly figure of the white-bearded, cancer-stricken Ammers gleamed in front of him, and the fight took on pith and moment. He hit him about the head and ears with short hooks and terrific straight punches, he smashed two devastating blows to the heart, followed by a pitiless punch to the solar plexus, and it seemed to him he heard Ammers fall groaning to the floor. But that wasn’t enough. Panting with excitement, he made the shadow of his enemy get up again and again, and systematically beat him to bits, saving for the end, as a particular refinement, a couple of powerful hooks to the liver. When morning came he was so worn out and tired that he fell on the bed and went to sleep immediately, with the night fears safely behind him.

  Two days later Dr. Beer came into his cell. Kern leaped to his feet. “How is she?”

  “All right; everything normal.”

  Kern gave a sigh of relief. “How did you know I was here?”

  “That was easy. You stopped coming to see me. So you had to be here.”

  “That’s right. Does she know?”

  “Yes. When you didn’t make an appearance yesterday evening in your role of Prometheus she moved heaven and earth to get in touch with me. An hour later we knew definitely. By the way, that trick with the matches was a crazy idea.”

  “Yes, so it was. Sometimes you think you’re very smart and then you make the silliest mistakes. For the moment I’ve been sentenced to fourteen days, but probably I’ll be out in twelve days. Will she be well by then?”

  “No. At least not well enough to travel. I think we should leave her in the hospital as long as possible.”

  “Of course.” Kern thought a moment. “In that case I’ll just have to wait for her in Geneva. Anyway I couldn’t take her with me. I’ll be deported of course.”

  Beer drew a letter from his pocket. “Here, I brought you something.”

  Kern eagerly snatched the envelope, but then he put it in his pocket.

  “You can go right ahead and read it now,” Beer said. “I have time.”

  “No, I’ll read it later.”

  “Then I’ll go back to the hospital now. I’ll tell her definitely that I have seen you. Do you want to give me something to take along?” Beer took a fountain pen and writing paper out of his coat pocket. “I brought these for you.”

  “Thanks. Thanks a lot!” Kern hurriedly wrote a letter: He was all right, Ruth must get well quickly. If he were deported first he would wait for her in Geneva. Every day at twelve o’clock in front of the Post Office. Beer would give her all the details.

  He put the twenty-franc note the judge had given him in the envelope and sealed it. “Here.”

  “Don’t you want to read her letter first?” Beer asked.

  “No, not yet. Not so quickly. I have nothing else to do all day.”

  Beer gave him a startled look. Then he put the letter in his pocket. “All right, I’ll come to see you again in a couple of days.”

  “You’ll be sure to?”

  Beer laughed. “Why not?”

  “Yes, you’re right. Now everything is settled, at least in these circumstances. In the next twelve days nothing can happen. No surprises. That’s really a comforting thought.”

  When Beer had gone Kern took Ruth’s letter in his hands. So light, he thought, a scrap of paper and a few lines of writing—and yet what happiness!

  He laid the letter on the edge of his bunk and took his exercises. He knocked Ammers down again and this time gave him a couple of foul blows to the kidneys. “We won’t let it get us down,” he said to the letter, and with a beautiful straight right to the beard sent Ammers crashing to the floor again. He rested for a moment and continued his conversation with the letter. Not until afternoon when the light was beginning to fail did he open it and read the first lines. Each hour he read a little further. By evening he had come to the signature. He saw Ruth’s trembling apprehension, her love and bravery. He sprang up and went to work on Ammers again. This battle, to be honest, was a little lacking in sportsmanship. Ammers received cuffs on the ear, kicks, and finally his white beard was torn out by the roots.

  * * *

  Steiner had packed his things. He wanted to get to France. It had become dangerous in Austria and the Anschluss with Germany was only a matter of time. Besides, the Prater and Director Potzloch’s enterprise were preparing for their long winter sleep.

  Potzloch took Steiner by the hand. “We traveling people are used to partings. Somewhere or other we always meet again.”

  “Certainly.”

  “Well then!” Potzloch made a grab for his glasses. “Have a good winter. I hate farewell scenes.”

  “So do I,” Steiner replied.

  “Do you know,” Potzloch blinked, “it’s simply a matter of routine. After you’ve seen as many people come and go as I have, it all ends by being a matter of routine. As if you were going from the rifle gallery to the carrousel.”

  “A fine simile! From the rifle gallery to carrousel—and from carrousel back again to rifle gallery. It’s a magnificent simile.”

  Potzloch grinned at the flattery. “Between us, Steiner, do you know what the most terrible thing in the world is? In strict confidence it’s this: in the end everything gets to be a matter of routine.” He jammed his glasses back on his nose. “Even the so-called ecstasies.”

  “Even war,” Steiner said.

  “Even pain. Even death. I know a man who has had four wives die in the last ten years. Now he has a fifth and she’s getting sick. I don’t need to tell you he’s looking around for a sixth. All a matter of routine.”

  “Only not your own death.”

  Potzloch dismissed the thought with a wave. “You never really believe in that, Steiner. Not even in time of war; otherwise there wouldn’t be any wars. Each man thinks he’ll be the one to get by. Am I right?”

  He cocked his head on one side and looked at Steiner. Steiner nodded in amusement. Potzloch extended his hand again. “Well, so long. I’ve got to rush over to the rifle gallery and see whether they’re packing the silver service properly.”

  “So long. For my part I’ll go over to the carrousel again.”

  Potzloch grinned and bustled away.

  Steiner went to the wagon. The dry leaves rustled under his feet. Night hung silent and indifferent over the forest. From the rifle gallery came the ringing sound of hammers. A few lanterns swung in the partially dismantled carrousel.

  Steiner was about to say good-by to Lilo. She was going to stay in Vienna. Her identification papers and permit to work were only valid in Austria. She would not have gone with him even if it had been possible. She and Steiner were comrades of destiny, whom the winds of the times had blown together—and this they both knew.

  She was in the gipsy wagon setting the table. As he entered she turned around. “A letter came for you,” she said.

  Steiner took the letter and looked at the postmark. “From Switzerland. I guess it’s from our kid.” He tore open the envelope and read the letter. “Ruth’s in the hospital,” he said.

  “What’s the matter with her?” Lilo asked.

  “Inflammation of the lungs. But appare
ntly not serious. They’re in Murten. The kid makes fire signals to her every evening in front of the hospital. Perhaps I’ll run into them if I go through Switzerland.”

  Steiner stuck the letter in his breast pocket. “I hope the kid knows how to arrange things so they can get together afterwards.”

  “He will know how to arrange it,” Lilo said. “He has learned much.”

  “Yes, but just the same …”

  Steiner wanted to explain to Lilo that it would be hard for Kern when Ruth was taken out of the hospital and escorted to the border. But then he reflected that they themselves were seeing each other for the last time that evening—and that it would be better not to talk about two people who hoped to stay together or at least see each other again.

  He went to the window and looked out. In the light of carbide lamps workmen in the midway were packing the swans, horses and giraffes from the carrousel into gray sacks. The animals stood and lay around on the ground as though a bomb had suddenly shattered their happy communal life. In one of the detached gondolas two workmen were sitting and drinking beer out of bottles. They had thrown their jackets and caps over the antlers of a white stag that was leaning against a chest with its legs stretched wide apart as though transfixed in eternal flight.

  “Come,” Lilo said behind him, “supper is ready. I have made piroshki for you.”

  Steiner turned and put his arm around her shoulders.

  “Supper,” he said, “piroshki. For us roving devils simply eating together almost takes the place of home and country, doesn’t it?”

  “There is something else. But you don’t know anything about it.” She paused an instant. “You don’t know anything about it because you cannot weep and you do not understand what it means to be sad together.”

  “You’re right. That’s something I don’t know,” Steiner said. “We weren’t often sad, Lilo.”

  “No. Not you. You are savage or indifferent or you laugh or you are what you call brave. It isn’t really brave.”

  “Then what is it, Lilo?”

  “It’s the fear of giving way to your feelings. Fear of tears, fear of not being a man. In Russia men could weep and still be men and still be brave. You have never opened your heart.”

  “No,” Steiner said.

  “For what are you waiting?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t want to know, either.”

  Lilo watched him attentively. “Come and eat,” she said presently. “I shall give you bread and salt to take with you as we do in Russia, and I shall bless you before you go. O restlessness that cannot flow. Perhaps you’ll laugh at that.”

  “No.”

  She put the dish of piroshki on the table.

  “Sit down with me, Lilo.”

  She shook her head. “Today you eat alone. I shall wait on you and hand you what you eat. It is your last meal.”

  She remained standing and handed him the piroshki, the bread, the meat and the pickles. She watched him as he ate and silently she prepared his tea. She moved lithely about the little wagon with long steps, like a panther that has grown accustomed to a too-narrow cage. Her slender bronze hands cut the meat for him, and her face had a composed and enigmatic expression; to Steiner she appeared suddenly like an Old Testament figure.

  He had traded his knapsack for a bag since he had secured a passport. He opened the door of the wagon, went down the steps and left the bag outside. Then he came back.

  Lilo was standing by the table leaning on one hand. Her eyes mirrored a blind emptiness as though they saw nothing and she were already alone. Steiner went up to her. “Lilo—”

  She moved and looked at him. The expression in her eyes changed. “It’s hard to go away,” Steiner said.

  She nodded and put her arm around his neck. “I shall be really alone without you.”

  “Where are you going to go?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “You’ll be safe in Austria. Even if it becomes German.”

  “Yes.”

  She looked at him earnestly. Her eyes were very deep and brilliant.

  “Too bad, Lilo,” Steiner murmured.

  “Yes.”

  “You know why?”

  “I know, and you know about me too.”

  They went on looking at each other. “It’s strange,” Steiner said, “only a bit of time and a bit of life that stands between us. We have everything else.”

  “All time, Steiner,” Lilo answered softly, “all time and our whole lives—”

  Steiner nodded. Lilo framed his face with her hands and spoke a few words in Russian. Then she gave him a piece of bread and some salt. “Eat it when you are gone. It is to bring you bread without sorrow in foreign lands. Now go.”

  Steiner was going to kiss her. But when he looked at her he forbore to do it. “Go now,” she said softly. “Go—”

  He walked into the forest. After a while he turned around. The city of tents was swallowed in night, and there was nothing there but the immense whispering darkness and the bright rectangle of a distant open door and a tiny figure that did not wave.

  Chapter Fifteen

  AT THE END of two weeks Kern was arraigned again in the District Court. The heavy man with the apple face looked at him unhappily. “I have bad news for you, Herr Kern—”

  Kern braced himself. Four weeks, he thought. I hope it won’t be more than four weeks. If it’s necessary Beer will certainly be able to keep Ruth in the hospital that long.

  “The appeal in your behalf to the higher court has been denied. You had been in Switzerland too long. Your action could no longer be considered as arising from a state of distress. Besides, there was the affair with the policeman. You have been sentenced to fourteen days imprisonment.”

  “Fourteen days more?”

  “No. Fourteen days in all. Your detention for examination is counted in.”

  Kern took a deep breath. “And so I can be released today?”

  “Yes. All you have to do is remember you spent the time in prison and not in detention. The only bad feature is that now you have a prison record.”

  “I’ll be able to stand that.”

  The judge looked at him. “It would have been better if your name hadn’t been put in the prison record. But there was no way to help it.”

  “Will I be deported today?” Kern asked.

  “Yes. By way of Basle.”

  “By way of Basle? To Germany?” Kern gave a lightning glance around the room. He was prepared to leap out the window immediately and flee. He had heard once or twice of emigrees being deported to Germany. Most of them had been refugees who had come directly from Germany.

  The window was open and the courtroom was on the ground floor. Outside the sun was shining. Outside the branches of the apple tree were swaying in the wind, and beyond was a hedge over which one could leap, and beyond it was freedom.

  The judge shook his head. “You will be taken to France, not to Germany. Basle is on both our German and French borders.”

  “Can’t I be put across the border at Geneva?”

  “No, unfortunately that won’t do. Basle is the nearest place. We have express orders about that. Geneva is much farther.”

  Kern was silent for a moment. “Is it certain that I shall be put into France?”

  “Perfectly certain.”

  “Is no one who is arrested here without papers sent to Germany?”

  “No one so far as I know. The only place that might happen would be in the border cities. But I have heard practically nothing about it even there.”

  “It’s certain that a woman would not be sent back to Germany then?”

  “Certainly not. At all events I wouldn’t do it. Why do you ask?”

  “For no special reason. It’s just that I’ve occasionally run into women on the road who had no papers. Everything is even harder for them. That’s why I asked.”

  The judge took a document from among his papers and showed it to Kern. “Here is the order for your deportation
. Do you believe now that you’ll be taken to France?”

  “Yes.”

  The judge laid the paper back in his portfolio. “Your train leaves in two hours.”

  “And it’s quite impossible to be taken to Geneva?”

  “Quite. Refugees cost us a great deal in railroad tickets. There is a strict regulation that they must be sent to the nearest border. I really can’t help you there.”

  “If I were to pay for the trip myself could I be taken to Geneva?”

  “Yes. That would be possible. Do you want to do it?”

  “No, I haven’t enough money to do that. It was just a question.”

  “Don’t ask too many questions,” the judge said. “Actually you ought to pay your fare to Basle if you have money with you. I have refrained from inquiring.” He stood up. “Good-by. I wish you the best of luck and I hope you will get along in France! And I hope, too, things will be different before long.”

  “Yes, perhaps. Otherwise we might just as well hang ourselves right now.”

  Kern had no further opportunity to communicate with Ruth. Beer had been there on the previous day and had told him she must stay in the hospital about a week longer. He decided to write him immediately from the French border. He was sure now of the most important thing—that in no case would Ruth be sent to Germany. And that if she had money for the trip she could be taken to Geneva.

  Promptly at the end of two hours a detective in plain clothes came to get him. They walked to the station, Kern carrying his bag. Beer had got it for him the day before and brought it to him.

  They passed an inn. The windows of the dining room, which was on the ground floor, stood wide open. A group of zither players were playing a slow country waltz and a male chorus was singing. Beside the window two singers in alpine costume were yodeling. Their arms were around each other’s shoulders and they were swaying back and forth in time to the music. The detective stopped. One of the yodelers, the tenor, broke off. “Where’ve you been all this time, Max?” he asked. “Everyone’s here waiting.”