Flotsam (31 page)

Finally he got up and went back to his own room. He saw the ties lying on the table. Mechanically he got out a pair of scissors and began to cut the ties into pieces methodically, strip by strip. He did not let the fragments fall to the floor but pedantically gathered them up in the hollow of his hand and arranged them on the table in multicolored piles. In the midst of this automatic activity he suddenly realized what he was doing; he laid aside the scissors and stopped. But he forgot immediately what he had done. He walked stiffly across the room and sat down in a corner. He remained crouching there, continually rubbing his hands with a strangely weary, old man’s gesture, as though he were cold and no longer possessed the vitality to warm himself.

JUST AS KERN WAS
throwing the last of his matches into the air a hand fell on his shoulder. “What’s going on here?”

He jumped and, turning, saw a uniform. “Nothing,” he stammered. “Excuse me. It’s just a foolish game, nothing more.”

The officer scrutinized him carefully. It was not the same one who had arrested him at Ammers’ house. Kern looked anxiously up at the window. Ruth was no longer to be seen. Possibly she had not noticed anything; it was so dark. “I really beg your pardon,” he said lightly, attempting a carefree smile. “It was just a sort of joke. You can see for yourself no harm could come from it. Just a few matches, that was all. I was trying to light a cigarette. It wouldn’t burn properly, so I took a half-dozen matches at once and very nearly burned my fingers.”

He laughed, waved his hand, and started to go on. But the officer kept hold of him. “Just a minute. You’re not Swiss, are you?”

“Why do you think that?”

“I can tell by the way you talk. Why are you lying?”

“I’m not lying at all,” Kern replied. “I was just interested in how you knew right away.”

The officer looked at him suspiciously. “Perhaps we ought—” he murmured and turned on his flashlight. “Listen,” he said suddenly, and his voice had a different ring, “do you know Herr Ammers?”

“Never heard of him,” Kern replied as calmly as he could.

“Where do you live?”

“I only got here this morning. I was just going to look for an inn. Could you recommend me? One that’s not too expensive.”

“First of all come with me. There’s a formal complaint by Herr Ammers that fits you exactly. We’ll begin by looking into that.”

Kern went along. He cursed himself for not having been more alert. The officer must have stolen up behind him on rubber soles. For a week everything had gone well and probably that was the trouble. He had got to feeling too safe. Surreptitiously he glanced about for a chance to run away, but the way was too short; a few minutes later they were at the police station.

The officer who had let him escape the first time was sitting at a table writing. Kern felt encouraged. “Is this the man?” asked the officer who had brought him in.

The first officer gave Kern a quick glance. “Might be. I can’t say for sure. It was too dark.”

“Then I’ll call up Ammers. He’ll know him.”

He went out. “My boy,” said the first officer, “I thought you were gone long ago. Now things are going to be tough. Ammers lodged a complaint.”

“Can’t I run away again?” Kern asked quickly. “You know that—”

“Out of the question. The only way is through the anteroom over there and that’s where your friend’s standing telephoning. No—you’re up a creek now. And you tumbled into the hands of the sharpest man on our force, a fellow who’s after promotion.”

“Damnation!”

“Yes. Particularly since you ran away once. I had to make a report of that at the time because I knew Ammers would be snooping around.”

“Jesus!” Kern said, taking a step backward.

“You might even say Jesus Christ,” the officer remarked. “It won’t help you this time. You’ll get a couple of weeks.”

A few minutes later Ammers came in. He had run so fast that he was panting. His pointed beard glistened. “Of course,” he said, “that’s the man! As big as life, the impudent scoundrel!”

Kern looked at him.

“This is one time he won’t slip through your fingers, eh?” Ammers asked.

“No, this time he won’t,” the policeman agreed.

“The mills of the gods grind slow,” Ammers declaimed unctuously, “but they grind exceeding fine. The jug that goes too often to the well will be broken.”

“Do you know you have cancer of the liver?” Kern interrupted him. He hardly knew what he was saying or how he had hit upon the idea. He was suddenly raging mad, and without fully realizing his misfortune he concentrated all his thoughts automatically on a single point, to hurt Ammers in some way. He could not strike him, for that would increase his sentence.

“What?” In his amazement Ammers forgot to shut his mouth.

“Cancer of the liver; a typical case.” Kern saw that his blow had struck home. Immediately he followed it up. “In a year the intolerable pain will set in. You will have a frightful death! Nothing to be done about it either! Nothing!”

“Why, that—”

“The mills of the gods …” Kern hissed. “What did you say? Slow, very slow!”

“Officer,” Ammers chattered, “I demand that you protect me from this individual.”

“Draw up your will,” Kern snapped. “It’s the one thing left for you to do. You’ll be eaten out and rotted from the inside!”

“Officer!” Ammers looked around wildly seeking help. “It’s your duty to defend me from these insults.”

The first officer looked at him curiously. “So far he hasn’t insulted you,” he announced, “up to now he’s just made a medical diagnosis.”

“I demand that it be put on record,” Ammers screamed.

“Just look.” Kern pointed his finger at Ammers, who shrank back as though it were a snake. “The leaden-gray color of the skin during excitement, the yellowish eyeballs—unmistakable symptoms. A candidate for death! All you can do for him is to pray.”

“Candidate for death,” bawled Ammers, “put candidate for death in the record.”

“Candidate for death is not an insult either,” explained the first officer with visible enjoyment. “You won’t be able to make a complaint stick on that ground. We’re all candidates for death.”

“The liver rots inside your living body!” Kern saw that Ammers had suddenly grown pale. He took a step forward. Ammers drew back as though fleeing Satan. “At first you don’t notice anything,” Kern explained in triumphant rage. “There
is hardly enough to make a diagnosis. But when you notice it it’s already too late. Cancer of the liver! The slowest and most dreadful death there is!”

Ammers could only stare at Kern. He made no reply. Involuntarily he pressed his hand in the region of his liver.

“Now you be quiet!” snarled the second officer with sudden severity. “There’s been enough of this! Take a seat over there and answer our questions. How long have you been in Switzerland?”

Kern was arraigned next morning before the District Court. The judge was a stout middle-aged man with a round red face. He was humane, but he could not help Kern. The law was clear.

“Why didn’t you report to the police after illegally crossing the border?” he asked.

“Then I’d have been put straight out of the country again,” Kern answered wearily.

“Yes, of course you would.”

“And on the other side I’d have had to report to the nearest police station at once if I didn’t want to break the law there. Then the next night they’d have brought me back to Switzerland. And from Switzerland back to the same place again. Then back to Switzerland. I’d have slowly starved to death between the customs houses, and if I hadn’t, I’d have wandered forever from one police station to the other. What is there for us to do except break the laws?”

The judge shrugged. “I cannot help you. It is my duty to sentence you. The minimum punishment is fourteen days in prison. That is the law. We have it to protect our country from being flooded with refugees.”

“I know.”

The judge glanced at his notes. “All that I can do is to make a recommendation in your behalf to the Superior Court that you be given detention and not a prison sentence.”

“Many thanks,” Kern said. “But it’s all one to me. I have no pride left.”

“It is not all one by any means,” the judge explained with some vehemence. “On the contrary it is of great importance for full civil rights. If you are simply placed in detention then you will have no prison record. Perhaps that’s something you hadn’t thought about.”

Kern looked for a while at the good-natured, unsuspecting man. “Full civil rights …” he said then. “What would I do with them? Why I haven’t even the commonest civil rights. I am a shadow, a ghost, a dead man in the eyes of society. What have I to do with what you call full civil rights?”

The judge was silent for a while. “But you’ll have to get papers of some sort,” he said finally. “Perhaps an application could be made through a German consulate for identification papers.”

“That was done a year ago by a Czechoslovakian court. The application was denied. We no longer exist so far as Germany is concerned. And for the rest of the world only as prey for the police.”

The judge shook his head. “Hasn’t the League of Nations done anything for you yet? After all there are many thousands of you; and you have to be allowed to exist somehow!”

“The League of Nations has spent a couple of years debating whether to give us identification papers,” Kern replied patiently. “Each country represented there is trying to dump us on some other country. And so in all probability it will go on for a number of years.”

“And meanwhile—”

“Meanwhile—you can see for yourself!”

“But, my God!” the judge said suddenly and helplessly in his soft, broad Swiss dialect. “Why, that’s a terrific problem! What’s to become of all of you?”

“I don’t know. The more important thing is: What’s to happen to me now?”

The judge ran his hand over his glistening face and looked at Kern. “I have a son,” he said, “who is just about as old as you. If I were to picture him being hunted from place to place for no other reason than that he had been born—”

“I have a father,” Kern replied. “If you were to see him …”

He glanced out the window. The autumn sun was shining peacefully on an apple tree in full fruit. Out there was freedom. Out there was Ruth.

“I should like to ask you a question,” the judge said after a while. “It has no bearing on your case. But I should like to ask it nevertheless. Do you still believe in anything at all?”

“Oh, yes. I believe in holy egoism! In heartlessness! In lies! In hardness of heart!”

“That’s what I feared. But what else could one expect?”

“That isn’t all,” Kern replied calmly. “I also believe in kindness and comradeship, in love and helpfulness. I have run into them more often perhaps than many people who have had an easy time.”

The judge got up and moved heavily around his chair to face Kern. “It’s good to hear that,” he murmured. “If I only knew what I could do for you!”

“Nothing,” Kern said. “By this time I know something about the laws, too, and I have a friend who’s a specialist. Send me to jail.”

“I will hold you for examination and send your case to the higher court.”

“If it’s going to lighten the sentence, fine. But if it’s going to take longer, I’d rather go to jail.”

“It won’t take longer. I’ll see to that.”

The judge took a huge wallet out of his pocket. “There is only this simple form of help,” he said uncertainly, taking out a folded bill. “It distresses me that I can do nothing more for you.”

Kern took the money. “It’s the only thing that really helps us,” he replied, and thought:
Twenty francs! What luck! That will be enough to get Ruth to the border
.

Kern did not dare to write to her. It might have resulted in their finding out that she had been in the country for some time and then she might be arrested. As it was, she would probably just be asked to leave the country, or if luck was with her she might simply be released from the hospital.

The first evening he was unhappy and restless and could not sleep. He saw Ruth lying feverish on her bed and woke up because he dreamed she was being buried. He crouched on the plank bed and remained for a long time with his arms wrapped around his knees. He was determined not to let this panic get the upper hand, but at the same time he felt that it might be stronger than he was. It’s the night, he thought, the night and the night fears. Daylight fears have a reasonable basis, but night fears are limitless.

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.