Flotsam (10 page)

KERN WAS SITTING
on the wall of the old Jewish cemetery, counting his money in the shine of a street light. He had been peddling all day in the neighborhood of Holy Cross Mountain. It was a poor district, but Kern knew that poverty inclines people toward charity and not toward calling the police. He had earned thirty-eight crowns. It had been a good day.

He put the money in his pocket and tried to decipher the names on the weather-beaten headstones beside him, leaning haphazardly against the wall. “Rabbi Israel Loew,” he said aloud, “dead long years ago, certainly a man of great learning in your time and now a handful of dust and bones down there, what do you think I should do now? Go home and be satisfied or go on working and try to raise my profits to fifty crowns?”

He drew out a five-crown piece. “So it doesn’t matter much to you, old man? Well then, let’s put the question to the emigrees’ goddess—Chance. Heads we’ll be satisfied, tails we’ll go on peddling.”

He spun the coin in the air and tried to catch it. It rolled out of his hand and fell on the grave. Kern climbed over the
wall and carefully picked it up. “Tails! And on your grave! You’re giving me your personal advice, Rabbi! Off we go!”

He approached the nearest house as though about to storm a fortress.

On the ground floor no one answered. Kern waited a while and then went up the stairs. On the second floor a pretty maid came to the door. She caught sight of the brief case, made a wry face, and closed the door without saying a word.

Kern went on up to the third floor. After he had rung twice a man came to the door wearing an unbuttoned vest. Kern had hardly begun to speak when the man indignantly interrupted him. “Toilet water? Perfume? What a nerve! Man, can’t you read? Trying to sell me, the district agent for Leo’s Toilet Preparations, me of all people, your rubbish! Get out!”

He slammed the door. Kern struck a match and looked at the brass plate on the door. It was true; Josef Schimek was himself a wholesale dealer in perfume, toilet water, and soap.

Kern shook his head. “Rabbi Israel Loew,” he murmured, “what’s the meaning of this? Is it possible we didn’t understand each other?”

On the fourth floor he rang again. A friendly fat woman opened the door. “Come right in,” she said pleasantly when she saw him. “You’re a German, aren’t you? A refugee? Just come right in!”

Kern followed her into the kitchen. “Sit down,” said the woman. “I’m sure you must be tired.”

“Not very.”

It was the first time since he had been in Prague that anyone had offered Kern a chair. He seized the rare opportunity and sat down. Excuse me, Rabbi, he thought, I was premature. Excuse me, Rabbi Israel, I am young. Then he unpacked his wares.

The fat woman stood comfortably in front of him with her arms crossed over her stomach watching him. “Is that perfume?” she asked, pointing to a little bottle.

“Yes.” Kern had really expected her to be interested in the soap. He lifted the bottle as though it were a precious jewel. “This is the famous Farr perfume. A product of the Kern Company. Something quite out of the ordinary! Not like that lye made by the Leo Company that Herr Schimek represents.”

“Well, well—”

Kern opened the bottle and gave it to the woman to smell. Then he took a little glass rod and rubbed some of it on her fat hand. “Try it yourself.”

The woman sniffed at the back of her hand and nodded. “It smells good. But haven’t you anything but those little bottles?”

“Here’s a larger one. And then I have one that is very big. This one. But it costs forty crowns.”

“That makes no difference. It’s the big one I want; I’ll take it.”

Kern could hardly believe his ears. That meant eighteen crowns profit. “If you take the big one I’ll give you a cake of almond soap free,” he announced happily.

“Fine. One can always use soap.”

The woman took the bottle and the soap and went into the next room. Kern meanwhile put away his things. Through the half-open door came the smell of cooked meat. He determined to treat himself to a first-class dinner. The soup at the eating place on Wenceslaus Square wasn’t really filling.

The woman came back. “Well, thank you very much, and good-by,” she said cordially. “Here’s a sandwich to take with you.”

“Thanks.” Kern stood there waiting.

“Was there something else?” the woman asked.

“Well, yes.” Kern laughed. “You haven’t given me the money yet.”

“Money? What money?”

“The forty crowns,” Kern said in amazement.

“Oh, so that’s it! Anton!” the woman shouted into the next room. “Come here a minute, will you? There’s someone here asking for money.”

A man in suspenders and a sweat-stained shirt came out of the next room. He was wiping his mustache and chewing. Kern saw that there was a strip of braid down his trousers, and a nasty suspicion suddenly rose in his mind. “Money?” the man asked hoarsely, digging a finger into his ear.

“Forty crowns,” Kern replied. “But you can just give me the bottle back if that’s too much. And you can keep the soap.”

“Well, well!” The man came closer. He smelled of stale sweat and fresh, boiled loin of pork. “Come with me, my boy.” He went to the door of the next room and opened it wide. “Do you know what that is?” he asked, pointing to the coat of a uniform hanging on a chair. “Do you want me to put that on and go with you to the police station?”

Kern recoiled a step. He already saw himself in jail serving a two weeks’ sentence for illegal peddling. “I have a residential permit,” he said as casually as he could. “I can show it to you.”

“You’d better show me your permit to work,” the man replied, staring at Kern.

“That’s at the hotel.”

“Then we can go straight to the hotel. Or would you prefer to call the bottle a present, eh?”

“Oh, all right.” Kern turned toward the door.

“Here, don’t forget your sandwich,” the woman said, grinning broadly.

“Thanks, I don’t want it.” Kern opened the door.

“Just listen to that. He’s ungrateful too!”

Kern shut the door behind him and went quickly down the stairs. He didn’t hear the thundering laughter that followed his flight. “Magnificent, Anton!” the woman said proudly. “Did you see the way he skipped? As if he had bees in his pants. Even quicker than the old Jew this afternoon. I’ll bet he took you for a police captain and saw himself already in the coop!”

Anton grinned. “They’re all afraid of any kind of a uniform! Even if it belongs to a postman. That’s gravy for us. We’re not doing so badly with the emigrees, are we?” He put his arm around his wife’s breasts.

“That’s a good perfume.” She pressed herself against him. “Better than the hair tonic we got from the old Jew this afternoon.”

Anton hitched up his trousers. “Slather yourself with it tonight and I’ll have a countess in bed with me. Is there still some pork in the pot?”

When he was on the street Kern stopped. “Rabbi Israel Loew,” he said miserably, looking in the direction of the cemetery, “that was a fine trick you played on me! Forty crowns. Forty-three really, counting the cake of soap. That’s a net loss of twenty-four.”

He went back to the hotel. “Has anyone been here to see me?” he asked the doorman.

The latter shook his head. “Not a soul.”

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely. Not even the President of Czechoslovakia.”

“He wasn’t the one I was expecting,” Kern said.

He went upstairs. It was strange he had not heard from his father. Perhaps he really wasn’t there; or he might have been picked up by the police in the meantime. He decided to wait a few days more and then go again to Frau Ekowski’s.

In his room he found the man named Rabe who screamed at night. He was just starting to undress.

“Going to bed so early?” Kern asked. “Before nine o’clock?”

Rabe nodded. “It’s the best thing for me to do. Then I shall sleep until midnight. That’s the time I always get my attacks. It was at midnight that they usually came for us when we were in the bunker. After that I shall sit up for a couple of hours at the window. Then I can take a sleeping powder and get through the night all right.”

He placed a glass of water beside his bed. “Do you know what calms me most when I sit by the window at night? Saying poems to myself. Old poems from my school days.”

“Poems?” Kern asked in amazement.

“Yes, very simple ones. For example, the one they sing to children in the evening:—

He stood in his white underwear like a tired, friendly ghost in the half-darkened room, and slowly repeated the verses of the lullaby in a monotonous voice, staring with lifeless eyes through the window out into the night.

“It calms me,” he repeated, and smiled. “I don’t know why, but it comforts me.”

“Really?” Kern said.

“It sounds crazy, but it does calm me. Afterwards I feel quiet and somehow as if I were at home.”

Kern was uncomfortable. His skin felt prickly. “I don’t know any poems by heart,” he said. “I have forgotten them all. It seems an eternity since I was in school.”

“I had forgotten them too. But now suddenly I remember them all again.”

Kern nodded and stood up. He wanted to get out of the room. Then Rabe could sleep and he wouldn’t have to think about him.

“If one only knew what to do with the evenings!” Kern said. “Evenings are the worst time of all. I haven’t had anything to read for a long while. And to sit down there and discuss for the hundredth time how fine things used to be in Germany, and when they’re going to be better again, that’s something I just can’t stand.”

Rabe sat down on his bed. “Go to the movies. That’s the best way to kill an evening. Afterwards you don’t know what you’ve seen; but at least you haven’t been thinking about anything.”

He took off his socks. Kern watched him thoughtfully. “The movies …” he said. It occurred to him that perhaps he could invite the girl from next door to go with him. “Do you know the people here in the hotel?” he asked.

Rabe laid his socks on a chair and wiggled his bare toes. “A few. Why?” He stared at his toes as though he had never seen them before.

“The ones in the next room?”

Rabe reflected. “Old Schimanowska lives there. She was a famous actress before the war.”

“I don’t mean her.”

“He means Ruth Holland, a pretty young girl,” said the
man with the eyeglasses who was the third occupant of the room. He had been standing listening in the doorway for some time. His name was Marill, and he had formerly been a delegate to the Reichstag. “That’s right, isn’t it, Kern, you old Don Juan?”

Kern blushed.

“It’s strange,” Marill went on. “People blush at the most natural things. But never at mean ones. How was business today, Kern?”

“A complete catastrophe. I lost money.”

“Then spend some more. That’s the best way to keep from getting complexes.”

“I was going to,” Kern said. “I’m planning to go to the movies.”

“Bravo. With Ruth Holland, I assume, judging from your cautious inquiries.”

“I don’t know. I haven’t met her.”

“You haven’t met most people. You have to get started sometime. Get going, Kern. Courage is the fairest adornment of youth.”

“Do you think she’d go with me?”

“Of course. That’s one of the advantages of this filthy life of ours. What with fear and boredom, everyone’s thankful to be distracted. So no false modesty! Fire away and forget your cold feet!”

“Go to the Rialto,” Rabe said from the bed. “ ‘Morocco’ is playing there. I’ve found that foreign countries are best for distraction.”

“ ‘Morocco’ is always good,” Marill remarked, “even for young girls.”

Rabe sighed and drew the covers around him. “Sometimes I wish I could sleep for ten years.”

“Then you’d like to be ten years older?” Marill asked.

Rabe looked at him. “No,” he said, “then my children would be grown up.”

Kern knocked at the door of the next room. A voice from inside answered indistinctly. He opened the door and stopped short. He had come eye to eye with Schimanowska.

She had a face like a barn owl. The heavy rolls of fat were covered with thick white powder and gave the appearance of a snow-covered mountain landscape. Her black eyes were like deep-set holes and she stared at Kern as though she might fly at him any moment with her claws. In her hands she held a brilliant red shawl with some knitting needles sticking in it. Suddenly her face was contorted and Kern thought that she was going to leap upon him. But then a kind of smile came over her features. “What do you want, my young friend?” she asked in a resonant, moving, dramatic voice.

“I’d like to speak to Fräulein Holland.”

The smile disappeared as though it had been wiped off.

“Oh really?”

Schimanowska looked at Kern contemptuously and then set up a great clatter with her knitting needles.

Ruth Holland was crouched on her bed. She had been reading. Kern saw it was the same bed by which he had stood the night before. He felt his color mounting. “There’s something I want to ask you,” he said.

The girl got up and went out into the hall with him. Schimanowska’s snort, like that of a wounded horse, followed them.

“I wanted to ask if you’d go to the movies with me,” Kern said when they were outside. “I have two tickets,” he added untruthfully.

Ruth Holland looked at him.

“Or perhaps you have some other engagement?”

She shook her head. “No, I have no engagement.”

“Then come along. Why should you sit all evening in that room?”

“Oh, I’m used to it.”

“So much the worse. After two minutes I was glad to get out again. I thought I was going to be eaten alive.”

The girl laughed. Suddenly she seemed very childlike.

“Schimanowska just looks that way. She has a kind heart.”

“Maybe so. But you can’t see it by looking at her. The picture starts in fifteen minutes. Shall we go?”

“All right,” Ruth Holland said, and it was as if she were making a resolve.