Flotsam (40 page)

“Today the bread tastes like beefsteak,” Kern said. “Like good juicy beefsteak with fried onions.”

“It seems to me it tastes like chicken,” Ruth replied, “like a young broiler with fresh green salad on the side.”

“Possibly it does on your end. Give me a slice of it. I could easily manage some chicken too.”

Ruth cut a thick slice from the long loaf of white French bread. “Here,” she said, “this is a second joint. Or would you rather have some of the breast?”

Kern laughed. “Ruth, if I didn’t have you I’d be ready now to quarrel with God.”

“And without you I’d lie down on the bed and howl.”

There was a knock. “Brose,” Kern said gloomily. “Of course, right in the middle of a tender love scene.”

“Come in,” Ruth called.

The door opened. “No,” Kern said. “That’s not possible! I’m dreaming!” He got up cautiously as if he were trying not to frighten away a phantom. “Steiner!” he stammered. The phantom grinned. “Steiner!” Kern cried. “God in heaven, it’s Steiner!”

“A good memory is the basis of friendship and the ruin of love,” Steiner replied. “Excuse me, Ruth, for marching in with a maxim—but I have just run into my old friend Marill downstairs. And so something like this was almost inevitable.”

“Where did you come from?” Kern asked. “Straight from Vienna?”

“From Vienna. Round about by way of Murten.”

“What?” Kern took a step backward. “By way of Murten?”

Ruth laughed. “Murten was the scene of our disgrace, Steiner. I got sick there—and this veteran of the borders was picked up by the police. That name has a cheerless sound for us—Murten.”

Steiner grinned. “That’s why I went there. I avenged you, children.” He produced his wallet and took out of it sixty Swiss francs. “Here you are. This is fourteen dollars, or about three hundred and fifty French francs. A gift from Ammers.”

Kern looked at him in bewilderment. “Ammers?” he said, “three hundred and fifty francs?”

“I’ll explain it to you later, my boy. Put it in your pocket. And now let’s have a look at you!” He scrutinized them. “Hollow cheeks, undernourished, cocoa and water for supper—and you haven’t said a word to anyone, eh?”

“Not yet,” Kern replied. “Every time we were on the point of it, Marill would invite us for a meal. As though he had some sixth sense.”

“He has another beside that. For pictures. Did he drag you off to the museum after the meal? That’s the usual penalty.”

“Yes, to Cézanne, van Gogh, Manet, Renoir and Degas.”

“Aha! To the Impressionists. Then you had your midday meal with him. After dinner he takes one to Rembrandt, Goya and El Greco. But come along now, children, put on your things! The restaurants of the city of Paris are blazing with lights and waiting for us!”

“We’ve just—”

“So I see!” Steiner interrupted grimly. “Put on your things at once! I’m dripping with money.”

“We’ve got our things on already.”

“Is that so! Sold your coats to a fellow believer who unquestionably swindled you—”

“No,” Ruth said.

“My child, there are dishonest Jews too. Holy though your people appear to me at the moment as a race of martyrs! Well then, come along! We’ll investigate the racial problems of roast chickens.”

“Well, spill it. What’s up?” Steiner said after the meal.

“There’s been a kind of jinx,” Kern said. “Paris is not only the city of toilet water, soap and perfume, it is also the city of safety pins, shoelaces, buttons and apparently holy pictures as well. Peddling is almost impossible here. I’ve tried a lot of different jobs—I’ve washed dishes, carried market baskets, addressed envelopes, traded in toys—none of it was any real good. It was all in-and-out stuff. Ruth had a job for two weeks
cleaning an office; then the company went bankrupt and she got nothing for her pains. For sweaters made of cashmere wool, she was offered exactly as much as the wool cost. As a result—”

He opened his jacket. “As a result I’m going around like a rich American. Marvelous when one hasn’t a coat. Perhaps she’ll knit this kind of sweater for you, too, Steiner—”

“I still have enough wool for one,” Ruth said. “Black, to be sure. Do you like black?”

“And how! Black’s the right color for us.” Steiner lit a cigarette. “Well, that’s clear enough! Did you sell your coats or pawn them?”

“Pawned them first, then sold them.”

“Sure. The usual way. Have you ever been to the Café Maurice?”

“No. Only to the Alsace.”

“Good. Then we’ll just go to the Maurice. There’s a man named Dickmann there. He knows everything. All about coats too. I want to ask him about a more important matter as well. About the International Exposition that’s coming this year.”

“The International Exposition?”

“Yes, Baby,” Steiner said. “There’s supposed to be work. And I hear they’re not too fussy about papers.”

“How long have you actually been in Paris, Steiner, to have found out all this?”

“Four days. Before that I was in Strassburg. There was something I had to look after there. I found you through Klassmann. Ran into him at the Prefecture. I have a passport, children. In a couple of days I’m going to move into the Hotel International. I like the name.”

———

The Café Maurice was like the Café Sperler in Vienna and the Café Greif in Zürich. It was a typical emigrees’ exchange. Steiner ordered coffee for Kern and Ruth and then went across the room to speak to a middle-aged man. They conversed for a time, then the man glanced appraisingly at Kern and Ruth and went out.

“That was Dickmann,” Steiner said. “He knows everything. I was right about the Exposition, Kern. The Foreign Pavilions are being built now. They are being paid for by the foreign governments. They bring some of their own workmen with them, but for day laborers’ jobs, digging and that sort of thing, they hire their people here. And there’s our big chance! Since the wages are paid by the foreign Committees, the French don’t pay much attention to who works there. We’ll have a try at it tomorrow morning early. There are a lot of emigrees working already. We’re cheaper than the French—that’s our advantage!”

Dickmann came back carrying two coats over his arm. “I think these will fit.”

“Try on this coat,” Steiner said to Kern. “You first. Then Ruth will try the other. Resistance is useless.”

The coats fitted perfectly. Ruth’s even had a shabby little fur collar. Dickmann smiled faintly. “I’ve a good eye,” he said.

“Are these the best of your cast-off junk, Heinrich?” Steiner asked.

Dickmann looked offended. “The coats are all right. Not new, as you can see. The one with the fur collar used to belong to a countess. In exile, of course,” he added, catching Steiner’s eye. “It’s genuine raccoon, Josef. Not rabbit.”

“All right. We’ll take them. I’ll be back tomorrow morning and fix things up with you.”

“You needn’t. You can just take them. I’ve got a lot more than that to pay you back for.”

“Nonsense.”

“Yes, I have. Take them and forget about it. I certainly was in a hell of a mess that time. Good God!”

“How are things otherwise?” Steiner asked.

Dickmann shrugged his shoulders. “I make enough for the children and me. But it’s disgusting to live on rubbish.”

Steiner laughed. “Don’t get sentimental, Heinrich. I’m a forger, cardsharp, vagabond; I’ve been guilty of assault and battery and resisting the police and a lot more beside—and nevertheless my conscience is all right.”

Dickmann nodded. “My youngest is sick. Grippe. Fever. But fever doesn’t mean much with children, does it?”

He looked imploringly at Steiner. The latter shook his head: “Speeds up the healing process, that’s all.”

“I’ll just go home a little earlier tonight.”

Steiner ordered a cognac. “Baby,” he said to Kern, “have one too?”

“Listen, Steiner—” Kern began.

Steiner silenced him. “Don’t talk. These are Christmas presents that cost me nothing, as you just saw. A cognac, Ruth? You’ll have one, won’t you?”

“Yes.”

“New coats! Work in sight!” Kern drank his cognac. “Existence is beginning to be interesting.”

“Don’t fool yourself.” Steiner grinned. “Later on, when you have enough work, it will be the time when you didn’t have to work that will seem the interesting part of your life. Wonderful
stories for your grandchildren playing about your knees. ‘In those days in Paris—’ ”

Dickmann went by. He bowed wearily to them and walked toward the door.

Steiner looked after him. “He was once a Social Democratic burgomaster. Five children. Wife’s dead. He’s a good beggar. Dignified. Knows everything. Does everything. Trades with everyone. His specialty is secondhand clothes. His soul’s a little too tender, as often happens with Social Democrats. That’s why they’re such bad politicians.”

The café began to fill up. Those who intended to sleep came in and began to jockey for corner places for the night. Steiner finished his cognac. “The proprietor is a splendid fellow. Lets anyone sleep here who can find a place. Free. Or for the price of a cup of coffee. If dives like this didn’t exist things would look bad for a lot of people.”

He got up. “We’ll be moving, children.”

They went outside. It was windy and cold. Ruth turned up the raccoon collar of her new coat and drew it close around her. She smiled up at Steiner. He nodded. “Warmth, little Ruth! Everything in the world is dependent on just a little warmth.”

He motioned to an old flower woman who was shuffling by. She came trotting up. “Violets,” she cackled. “Fresh violets from the Riviera.”

“What a city! Violets in the middle of the street in December!” Steiner selected a bunch and gave them to Ruth. “Violets for luck! Useless flowers! Useless things! They’re what give the greatest warmth.” He winked at Kern. “A lesson in living, Marill would say.”

THEY WERE SITTING
in the canteen of the International Exposition. It had been pay day. Kern arranged the thin paper notes in a circle around his plate. “Two hundred and seventy francs!” he said. “Earned in a single week! And this is the third time it’s happened! It’s like a fairy tale.”

Marill looked at him for a moment in amusement. Then he raised his glass to Steiner. “We’ll shudder and drink a toast to paper, my dear Huber. It is astounding what power it has gained over people. Our ancient forefathers trembled in their caves for fear of thunder and lightning, tigers and earthquakes; our more recent forebears trembled at swords, robbers, epidemics and God; but we tremble at the printed word—be it on a banknote or a passport. Neanderthal man died by the club; the Roman by the sword; the man of the Middle Ages by the plague; and all it takes to extinguish us is a few scraps of printed paper.”

“Or to bring us to life,” Kern added and looked at the notes of the Bank of France lying around his plate.

Marill looked at him askance. “What do you make of this boy?” he asked Steiner. “Turning into something, isn’t he?”

“You bet! He thrives on the raw winds of exile. Now he’s even able to kill the point of a story.”

“I knew him when he was a mere child,” Marill explained. “Tender and trusting. A couple of months ago.”

Steiner laughed. “He lives in a topsy-turvy century. A time when it’s easy to be rubbed out—but also a time when you mature fast.”

Marill took a sip of the light red wine. “A topsy-turvy century,” he repeated; “the great unrest. Ludwig Kern, the young Vandal in the second Migration of Nations.”

“That doesn’t fit,” Kern retorted. “I’m a young half-Jew in the second Exodus from Egypt.”

Marill looked at Steiner reproachfully. “Your pupil, Huber,” he said.

“No—he learned the trick of aphorisms from you, Marill. Besides, a steady weekly wage improves the wit of any young man. Long live the return of the prodigal son to the pay roll!” Steiner turned toward Kern. “Put the money in your pocket, Baby. Otherwise it will fly away. Money doesn’t like the light.”

“I’ll give it to you,” Kern said. “Then it’ll be gone right away. You’re due for a lot more than this from me.”

“Just get this straight. I’m a long way from being rich enough to have money paid back to me.”

Kern looked at him. Then he put the money in his pocket. “How long are the stores open tonight?” he asked.

“Why?”

“This is New Year’s Eve.”

“Till seven, Kern,” Marill said. “Are you planning to buy something to drink for tonight? It’s cheaper here in the canteen. Excellent Martinique rum.”

“No, no drinks.”

“Aha! Apparently you’re getting ready to spend the last day of the year in the ways of bourgeois sentiment, eh?”

“That’s about it.” Kern got up. “I’m going to Salomon Levi’s. Perhaps he’s sentimental today, too, and has topsy-turvy prices.”

“In topsy-turvy times the prices rise,” Marill replied. “But go ahead, Kern! Habit is nothing—impulse all! And don’t get so engrossed in your haggling as to forget dinner at eight for the old warriors of the emigration, at Mère Margot’s.”

Salomon Levi was a nimble, weaselly little man with a trembling, ragged, goat’s beard. He lived in a dark, vaulted room amid clocks, musical instruments, worn rugs, oil paintings, kitchen utensils, plaster gnomes and porcelain animals. In the window were artificial pearls, cheap imitation jewelry, old silver ornaments, watches and old coins mixed helter-skelter together.