Flotsam (38 page)

“When are you moving on?” Beer asked.

“At eleven o’clock. Before that I’ll bring back your badge.”

“Fine. I’ll be waiting for you with a bottle of brandy.”

Steiner went off. He rang at Ammers’ door. The maid opened it. “I’d like to speak to Herr Ammers,” he said shortly. “My name is Huber.” The maid disappeared and came back. “What did you want to see him about?”

Aha, Steiner thought, that’s because Kern was here. He knew that Kern had not been asked. “A Party matter,” he explained shortly.

This time Ammers himself appeared and stared at Steiner eagerly. Steiner raised his hand casually. “Party Member Ammers?”

“Yes.”

Steiner turned over the lapel of his coat and showed the badge. “Huber,” he explained. “I represent the Foreign Division and I want to ask a few questions.”

Ammers stood in a stiff, bowed position. “Please come in, Herr—Herr—”

“Huber. Simply Huber. You know—the enemy have ears everywhere.”

“I know! This is a great honor, Herr Huber.”

Steiner had calculated correctly. It never occurred to Ammers to distrust him. Obedience and fear of the Gestapo were much too deep in his bones. And even if he had been distrustful, he could have done nothing to Steiner in Switzerland. Steiner had an Austrian passport in the name of Huber. To what extent he was connected with the German organization no one could find out. Not even the German Embassy, which had long ago lost track of all the secret propaganda measures.

Ammers led Steiner into the living room. “Take a seat, Ammers,” Steiner said, and himself sat down in Ammers’ chair.

He leafed through the contents of the portfolio. “You know, Party Member Ammers, that we have one general principle in our foreign activities—silence.”

Ammers nodded.

“We expected that in your case too. Silent activity. Now we hear you have made an unnecessary disturbance in the case of a young emigree!”

Ammers leaped from his chair. “That criminal! He made me absolutely sick, sick and ridiculous. The scoundrel—”

“Ridiculous?” Steiner interrupted him cuttingly. “Publicly ridiculous? Friend Ammers—”

“Not publicly, not publicly!” Ammers saw he had made a mistake. He almost fell over himself with excitement. “Only in my own eyes, I mean—”

Steiner looked at him piercingly. “Ammers!” he then said slowly. “A true member of the Party is never ridiculous, even in his own eyes! What’s the matter with you, man? Have the Democratic moles been gnawing away at the roots of your
principles?
Ridiculous
—there is no such word in our vocabulary! It’s the others who are thoroughly ridiculous, do you understand?”

“Yes, of course, of course!” Ammers wiped his forehead. He already half saw himself in a concentration camp to freshen up his principles. “It was just this one case! Otherwise I’m strong as steel. My loyalty is unshakable—”

Steiner let him go on talking for a while. Then he cut him short. “All right, Party Member. I hope nothing of this sort will happen again. Pay no more attention to emigrees, understand? We’re glad to be rid of them.”

Ammers nodded eagerly. He stood up and brought a crystal decanter and two silver liqueur glasses with long stems and gold inlay from the sideboard. Steiner looked at his preparations with horror. “What’s this?” he asked.

“Cognac. I thought perhaps you would like a little refreshment.”

“You only serve cognac this way when it’s very bad, Ammers,” Steiner said with a touch of geniality, “or if you’re giving it to a member of some order dedicated to chastity. Bring me a plain tumbler that’s not too small.”

“Very good!” Ammers was delighted that the ice seemed to be broken.

Steiner drank. The cognac was fairly good. But that was not thanks to Ammers. There was no bad cognac in Switzerland.

Steiner took the blue portfolio out of the leather brief case Beer had loaned him. “Here, by the way, is something else, friend. Strictly confidential. You know that our propaganda in Switzerland has not been going as well as it should?”

“Yes,” Ammers agreed eagerly. “I’ve always said that myself.”

“All right.” Steiner genially dismissed the difficulty. “That’s
going to be changed. We’re going to establish a secret fund.” He glanced at his list. “We already have several large gifts. But smaller contributions are also welcome. This attractive house belongs to you, doesn’t it?”

“Yes. To be sure there are two large mortgages on it. And so to all intents and purposes it really belongs to the bank,” Ammers announced hurriedly.

“The mortgages are there so you’ll have less taxes to pay. A Party member who owns a house is no four-flusher who doesn’t have enough money in the bank. How much shall I put you down for?”

Ammers looked nonplused. “It’s not at all a bad thing for you just now,” Steiner said encouragingly. “We’ll naturally send the list of names to Berlin. I think we can put you down for fifty francs.”

Ammers appeared relieved. He had counted on a hundred at least. He knew how insatiable the Party was. “Why, of course,” he agreed immediately. “Or perhaps sixty,” he added.

“Good, we’ll say sixty then.” Steiner made a note. “Have you any given name beside Heinz?”

“Heinz, Karl, Goswin—Goswin with an S.”

“Goswin is an unusual name.”

“Yes, but thoroughly German! Old German. There was a king named Goswin during the Migration of Nations.”

“I can well believe it!”

Ammers laid down on the table a note for fifty francs and one for ten. Steiner pocketed the money. “A receipt is out of the question,” he said. “You understand why?”

“Of course! Secrecy! Here in Switzerland!” Ammers winked slyly.

“And no unnecessary rows in the future, Party Member! Keeping quiet is half the battle! Always remember that!”

“Certainly! I know how to behave! This was only an unfortunate accident.”

Steiner walked through the winding streets back to Dr. Beer’s. He grinned contentedly. Cancer of the liver! That Kern! How he’d look when he got the sixty francs from this expedition of revenge!

THERE WAS A KNOCK
. Ruth listened intently. She was alone. Since morning Kern had been out looking for work. For an instant she hesitated, then she got up quietly, went into Kern’s room and shut the communicating door behind her. The two rooms were situated around the corner from each other. This was an advantage in case of raids. You could reach the corridor from either room without being seen by anyone standing in front of the other door.

Ruth noiselessly closed the outer door of Kern’s room. Then she walked along the corridor and around the corner.

A man about forty years old was standing in front of her door. Ruth knew him by sight. His name was Brose and he lived in the hotel. For seven months his wife had been sick in bed. They lived on a small stipend from the Refugees’ Aid and on a little money they had brought with them. This was no secret. In the Hotel Verdun each knew almost all there was to know about everyone else.

“Do you want to see me?” Ruth asked.

“Yes. I wanted to ask you a favor. You’re Fräulein Holland, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“My name is Brose and I live on the floor below you,” the man said in embarrassment. “My wife is sick and I have to go out to look for work. So I wanted to ask whether, perhaps, you had a little time—”

Brose had a narrow, tormented face. Ruth knew that almost everyone in the hotel ran from him at sight. He was always looking for company for his wife.

“She’s alone a great deal—and you must know what that’s like. It’s easy for her to lose hope. There are days when she’s especially sad. But if she has a little company she gets better at once. I thought perhaps you too would like some conversation. My wife is intelligent—”

Ruth was just learning to knit pullover sweaters out of light cashmere wool; she had been told there was a Russian firm in the Champs Elysées that would buy them in order to resell at three times the price. She wanted to go on working and probably would have refused to accompany Brose, but this pathetic word of praise, “My wife is intelligent,” was decisive. In a strange way it made her feel ashamed. “Wait a minute,” she said. “I’ll get a few things and then I’ll go with you.”

She fetched her wool and the pattern and went downstairs with Brose. His wife was lying in bed in a little room that faced toward the street. Brose’s face changed as he entered with Ruth. It radiated forced cheerfulness. “Lucy, here is Fräulein Holland,” he said eagerly. “She wants to keep you company for a while.”

Two dark eyes in a waxen pale face turned suspiciously
toward Ruth. “Well, then, I’ll go now,” Brose said hurriedly. “I’ll be back tonight. I’m sure I’ll get something today. Good-by.”

He waved to them, smiling, and closed the door behind him.

After a while the pale woman said, “He got you to come, didn’t he?”

Ruth started to contradict her, but then she just nodded.

“That’s what I thought. Thanks for coming; but I can get along all right by myself. Don’t let me disturb you in your work. I can get some sleep.”

“I haven’t any plans,” Ruth said. “I’m just learning to knit and I can do that just as well here. I brought my wool and needles with me.”

“There are pleasanter things than sitting with an invalid,” the woman said wearily.

“Certainly. But it’s better than sitting alone.”

“Everyone says that just to comfort me,” the woman murmured. “I know, people are always trying to comfort the sick. Why don’t you admit you find it repulsive to sit with an unknown, bad-tempered invalid and that you’re only doing it because my husband persuaded you to?”

“That’s right,” Ruth replied. “And I have no intention of comforting you. But I’m glad to have a chance to talk to someone.”

“But you could go outdoors,” the sick woman said.

“I don’t care much for that.”

Ruth glanced up when there was no answer. She saw a face from which all control had vanished. The sick woman had propped herself up and was staring at her, and suddenly tears streamed from her eyes. For an instant her face was inundated. “My God,” she sobbed. “You can say that—and I—If I could only get out on the streets just once more—”

She fell back among the pillows. Ruth had risen. She saw the gray-white shoulders shake, she saw the miserable bedstead in the dusty afternoon light; and she saw beyond it the cold sunny street, the houses with their little iron balconies—and towering over the roofs a gigantic electric sign, the advertisement for Dubonnet
apéritif
, senselessly shining in broad afternoon; and for a moment it seemed to her as if all this were very far away, on some other planet.

The woman stopped crying. Slowly she straightened up. “You’re still there?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“I’m nervous and hysterical. Sometimes I have days like this. Please don’t be angry with me.”

“No. I was thoughtless, that’s all.”

Ruth sat down again beside the bed. She laid the sweater pattern she had brought with her in front of her and went on copying it. She did not look at the sick woman. She did not want to see that uncontrolled face again. Her own good health seemed in bad taste by contrast.

“You’re not holding the needles right,” the sick woman said presently. “And that’s slowing you up. This is the way to do it.”

She took the needles and showed Ruth. Then she took the part Ruth had knitted out of her hands and looked at it. “You’ve dropped a stitch here,” she explained. “We’ll have to unravel it. Look, this way!”

Ruth glanced up. The sick woman was smiling at her. Her face was now attentive and animated and entirely absorbed in her work. It showed no trace of the former outburst. Her pale hands were working easily and quickly. “There,” she said eagerly. “Now you try it.”

Ruth took the knitting. Strange, she thought in amazement;
is it terrible that something like this can change so quickly or is it a tremendous comfort?

When Brose returned that evening the room was dark. Beyond the window was the apple-green evening sky and the huge flaming-red Dubonnet sign. “Lucy?” he said into the darkness.

The woman in the bed stirred and now Brose could see her face. It had a soft reddish glow from the reflection of the electric sign—as though a miracle had happened and she had suddenly become well.

“Were you asleep?” he asked.

“No, I’ve just been lying quietly.”

“Has Fräulein Holland been gone long?”

“No, only for a few minutes.”

“Lucy.” He seated himself cautiously on the edge of the bed.

“My dear.” She stroked his hand. “Did you find anything?”

“Not yet. But I will in time.”

For a while the woman lay in silence. “I am such a burden to you, Otto,” she said presently.

“How can you say such a thing, Lucy! What would I be without you?”

“You would be free. You could do what you liked. You could even go back to Germany and work.”

“Could I?”

“Yes,” she said. “Get a divorce from me. Back there they’ll think very highly of you for doing it.”

“The noble Aryan finally takes thought for the purity of his blood and divorces the Jewess, eh?” Brose asked.