The Passenger

by Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz

  Adieu, Ursula Angelhof, he thought, taking his leave in silence. It’s fine with me that it all turned out this way. That you didn’t come. Besides, he consoled himself as he left the café, if I absolutely want to see her again I can always look up her address in the telephone book. But it’s really not that important to me.

  He headed to the train station. On the way he faulted himself for having thought too little about his wife during the past few days.

  On the other hand, he rationalized, I’m sure Elfriede’s all right, I’ve written to her, and I’ve sent her telegrams. I’ve also thought about her, quite often as a matter of fact! But really I should have thought about her more. We’ve been separated for three days. Outwardly our family may be torn apart, but inwardly we should be united. Well … we’ve lived together in the past and we’ll live together in the future, but it’s genuinely hard to imagine everything will be the way it once was, the way it was just four days ago.

  And even if things do calm down outside, will I ever be able to recover the calm I had on the inside? Everything has changed, after all. That inner security is now gone, and my life is nothing but a series of accidents—I’m completely at the mercy of chance. It’s almost as though the subject has become the object.

  He had reached the train station and purchased a ticket to Küstrin.

  As he climbed up the stone stairs to the platform, his thoughts again turned to Ursula Angelhof: How beautiful it could have been. Why did I show up too late? I missed her on purpose, and she could have made such a difference. She could have helped by providing some connection to the times we’re in. After all, she belongs to the times, she accepts them as they are, and she seems more than a match for them. Yes indeed, he thought, now getting angry: brutality plus romanticism. Ignorance plus insolence. She may have a motion-picture soul—that’s the character of the times—but she is charming! Which is something that can’t be said about the times.

  He took his seat in the train and was leaning back into the plush cushion when he remembered that he’d forgotten to telephone his sister. I’ll call her from Küstrin, he decided. Then he started reading the paper.

  After stepping off the train in Küstrin he stayed on the platform, unable to make up his mind about what to do next.

  First I’ll call Ernst, he thought. Then again, if he isn’t home I’ll end up having to explain myself to a housekeeper.

  The stationmaster, who had an empty but self-important expression, was pacing up and down the platform with his hands behind his back. It was clear he didn’t want to interrupt this activity, so Silbermann was forced to walk alongside him to inquire about a telephone, and had to repeat his question before the man emerged from the fog of his officialdom and finally led Silbermann to a small booth.

  Silbermann picked up the receiver, put ten pfennigs in the slot, and dialed the number. Then he turned around and looked through the glass pane only to see the stationmaster still standing there, watching him with watery blue eyes.

  When he noticed Silbermann looking at him, he saluted by touching his red cap, then did an about-face and resumed his pacing.

  Strange, thought Silbermann, with a bad feeling in his stomach. Maybe I shouldn’t have asked, who knows?

  His brother-in-law answered.

  “Hello, Ernst,” said Silbermann, agitated. “It’s Otto. You’re probably surprised, am I right? I just arrived in Küstrin. How are you all? How is Elfriede?”

  Ernst Hollberg didn’t answer right away. Finally he said, “I see. Thanks, we’re all doing well. Elfriede and Hilde just went into town half an hour ago to do some shopping. That’s a pity, because otherwise you could talk with her yourself.”

  “Has she calmed down? Did anything happen to her?”

  “No, there’s nothing for you to be worried about. And how are you doing?”

  Hollberg had never been especially animated, nevertheless Silbermann felt more than a little irritated by how unconcerned he sounded.

  “Perhaps you can imagine,” he replied reproachfully.

  “Yes, well … so what do you intend to do? Not that it’s any of my business. Nor do I particularly want to know the details! But what are you thinking, looking ahead?”

  “If it’s fine with you I’d like to spend a few days at your place, to gather my wits. It’s been three days since I slept in a bed.”

  “I see. Well, that won’t really work, you know. You don’t have to worry about Elfriede at all. She can stay with us for as long as she wants, but in your case I’m afraid that won’t be possible. I hope you understand. If the party caught wind of it I’d be finished. However, if you need money—I can’t offer very much at the moment, but of course I’d be happy to give you a few hundred marks.”

  “I want to speak with Elfriede!” Silbermann was practically shouting. “As far as I’m concerned she’s not staying one more hour at your place. This is utterly absurd! Now when I need you and ask for a ridiculously small favor you turn me away! Have you completely forgotten what I did for you?”

  “Please don’t get so worked up, Otto,” said Hollberg, whose voice now sounded annoyed. “I can’t wreck my whole life to let you stay here two or three days! No one could expect me to let you bring about my ruin just because you helped me out once upon a time. If the party finds out that I’m related by marriage to a Jew, and that I even let him live in my house, then I might as well straightaway get packing.”

  “Do you have any idea what I’ve been through?”

  “Listen, Otto, there’s no point in being so dramatic! Be glad that Elfriede’s taken care of. Where is she supposed to go? Do you want to drag her along all up and down across Germany? Be reasonable, will you? I find it very egotistical of you that you’re willing to put your wife in danger just because you’re in danger yourself. That you won’t allow her to stay with us simply because you can’t. No, Otto, I would have expected you to be more—manly.”

  “Are you trying to teach me about character? Elfriede has been married to me for over twenty years. Why don’t you ask her if I’ve ever knowingly exposed her to any danger?”

  “I realize that, Otto. Don’t get angry. Understand that it just won’t work! You’re putting us in jeopardy! Elfriede can stay. She’s my sister after all, but you … That’s something entirely different.”

  “Good-bye,” said Silbermann and hung up.

  “I’m putting them in jeopardy,” he mumbled, helpless. “Jeopardy.” He repeated the word so often that it began to lose sense. Then he rushed out of the booth and walked up to the stationmaster.

  “When’s the next train to Berlin?” He was shouting.

  “In ten minutes,” said the official, who stopped and looked at him as though he expected some explanation for Silbermann’s unusual behavior.

  Silbermann didn’t pay him any attention. He dashed through the gate and hurried to the ticket counter.

  “One ticket to Berlin,” he shouted. “One to Hamburg, one to Cologne. One to … what else is there? Well come on, make a suggestion!”

  The clerk stared at him, frightened.

  Silbermann tossed down a thousand-mark bill and shouted, “Tickets, tickets! Did you not understand? I want tickets!”

  “Second class to Berlin?” the clerk asked, trying to facilitate the matter.

  “I couldn’t care less, just give me some tickets.”

  The clerk looked around for help.

  He thinks I’m crazy, thought Silbermann. Maybe he’s right, maybe I’ve already gone mad. He regained his composure and tried to laugh.

  “Just give me the ticket to Berlin,” he managed to blurt out, since the clerk was staring at him as though he might call for help at any minute. The man shook his head and attended to the ticket Silbermann had requested.

  “Why are you screaming like that?” the clerk then asked in a surly voice, after he’d concluded that the customer might well be mad but wasn’t actually dangerous.

  “I drank a bit too much,” Silbermann explained h
altingly, now that he realized what a dangerous situation he’d put himself in.

  “That’s no reason to scream at someone. Don’t you have anything smaller?”

  Yes he did.

  As he walked away from the counter and headed to the platform, Silbermann took pains to sway a little as long as he was in sight of the clerk. This is all so stupid, he thought, so incredibly stupid. Disappointment and rage began to well up inside him once again.

  They’re all backstabbers and sellouts, he thought, every single one of them. No one resists. They all cringe and say: we have no choice, but the truth is they’re happy to go along because there’s something in it for them. The “opportunities” everyone keeps talking about—what would they be without people willing to take advantage of them? Why is Elfriede staying at her brother’s? Doesn’t she realize I’m putting him in jeopardy? Did she not think to bring up the idea that he should also take me in for the time being? Or does she agree with his position? No, that’s impossible!—What’s impossible?

  I’m on the run, and there’s her brother, with all his reasonable arguments. Perhaps she regrets having married a Jew. The times have definitely changed! We’ve become a business opportunity for our enemies, and a danger for our friends. And in the end we’re blamed for our own bad luck. What else do I have to offer except my misfortune?

  A ticket for the express train, that’s all.

  There may have been times when I didn’t behave as people might have wished. Incidents I thought were completely forgotten are now coming back. Did I not hesitate before agreeing to be his guarantor? But in the end I agreed. Now he’s forgotten about that, but not about the fact that I hesitated and he had to wait! And I can be reproached for a lot of other things as well, mostly trifles, but taken together they inevitably add up to a Jewish character trait. Because the truth is I don’t have the right to be an ordinary human being. More is demanded of me.

  He angrily tossed away the cigarette he’d just lit. Whatever I’ve done in the past, he thought, looks different today than it did back then, because now my humanity is called into question, because I am a Jew.

  He climbed aboard the train that had just pulled in.

  Is it going to go on like this forever? The traveling, the waiting, the running away? Why does nothing happen? Why don’t they detain me, arrest me, beat me? They drive a person to the brink of despair and leave him standing there.

  Through the window he saw a clean, charming little farm village go flying by.

  That’s all just a backdrop, he thought. The only thing that’s real is the hunting and the fleeing.

  He leaned back in his seat.

  Why did I get there too late? he asked himself, turning sad. I could have been a human being again. He pictured her face, her eyes. I have to see her again, he thought, and resolved to locate her address as soon as he was in Berlin and then look her up.

  Back in Berlin, as he was leaving the station, he heard someone calling his name. “Silbermann,” said a familiar voice. “You’re still alive?”

  He turned around. “Ah, it’s you, Lustiger,” he said, not exactly pleased.

  They shook hands.

  Herr Lustiger was around sixty years old. He was hard of hearing and always held his head cocked a little to the side, which gave a compassionate if also overeager impression. He had very Jewish features and had already been attacked on the street: a member of the Hitler youth had punched him for not raising his arm when some marchers carrying the party banner had paraded by. Lustiger had fought back and wound up losing both of his two remaining front teeth. Since that time he was easily spooked, and his crooked face now bore a very obliging expression. He clutched Silbermann’s arm.

  “If I live to be a hundred, God forbid,” he said, “this is a joy I won’t forget.”

  “What joy?” asked Silbermann.

  “Running into you. You look like a goy, you know. Being with you is safe. Come, Silbermann, let’s have a cup of coffee together. Incidentally, they arrested Heinz.”

  “Which Heinz?”

  “My son!”

  “Oh! Well, they’ll have to let him go soon.”

  “That’s what you think! I’m not so sure.”

  They left the station hall and Silbermann spotted an SA man staring at Lustiger. “Keep your voice down,” he requested.

  But Herr Lustiger was hard of hearing. “What did you say?” he asked, in the same loud tone. “So, how are you getting along? You seem to have been lucky! Most of the others have … well, I’m sure you know! Tell me, where do you plan on going?”

  They entered a café, where many eyes turned to Lustiger. After they sat down he scooted his chair very close to Silbermann’s and said, as quietly as he was able: “That bit of fun cost me two thousand marks.”

  “What bit of fun?”

  “When they stopped me on the street, of course. What I haven’t been through! Yesterday I was in Duisburg, then in Essen, the day before I was in Munich. They also arrested my brother-in-law. My heavens. And for that I get to live to sixty! For that.”

  “How’s your business doing?”

  “Business? Business? There’s no such thing anymore. I don’t dare set foot in the bank to get money. What will happen if the people call the police?” He turned to the waiter: “Coffee with milk for me. Do you have any newspapers here? Perhaps the Frankfurter Zeitung?”

  “No,” said the waiter. Silbermann had the impression the man was eyeing Lustiger in amazement.

  “What may I bring you?” the waiter asked Silbermann, his tone noticeably friendlier.

  “I’ll have a cold platter.”

  “I’ll have one, too,” Lustiger interjected. “So tell me, Silbermann, what are you doing now?” he asked. “Are they leaving you alone?”

  “I took off and haven’t stopped traveling since…”

  “You know something? Let’s stick with each other. We can travel together. I feel safe with you. Besides, I’m not as limber as I used to be. This was the last thing I needed. Imagine turning sixty just to have some rascal knock your teeth out? My heavens. I should have had myself buried a long time ago. I missed the right moment. Rosa, now there was a smart woman, she died in good time. You were there at the funeral, autumn of thirty-four. Do you remember? Since then I’ve had nothing but troubles. In any case, she hasn’t missed anything. Still, I always say”—Lustiger was again speaking too loudly—“that I’m happy I’m already an old man. The young people these days, I feel sorry for them, whereas at least I’ve had…”

  “I know what you mean,” Silbermann cut him off, somewhat testily. “Excuse me a moment, I have to make a quick call.”

  He stood up.

  “The fact that I ran into you!” Lustiger said again. “Finally I have a chance to speak my mind. But go on.”

  Silbermann hurried to get to the phone booth. He found the encounter with Lustiger increasingly irksome. He’s attracting everybody’s attention and that means they’re also looking at me, he thought, and on top of that there’s all this tired, bland prattle. My mood’s already gloomy enough without having to listen to that.

  He opened the phone book and looked under the letter A. “Dr. Hermann Angelhof, Attorney and Notary,” he read. That’s her husband, he thought. I can hardly call him to ask for her address. Silbermann asked for a postal directory at the buffet counter, but they didn’t have one. He was annoyed that old Lustiger was keeping him from getting on with his research.

  When Lustiger saw him coming back, he called out across several tables: “Silbermann, see if you can’t dig up a newspaper somewhere.”

  Silbermann didn’t react to that. With a pinched expression he returned to the table and took his seat.

  Lustiger put down the bread he was holding. “What’s the matter?” he asked, his head more crooked than usual. “Is there a problem?”

  Then he slapped his forehead. “I shouldn’t have called out your name,” he said out loud. “I keep thinking things are like they were, meanin
g that I’m always forgetting how things are now. I’m an old man. The goose leg is excellent, by the way. They really know how to do that here. I’ll give them that much.”

  Silbermann ate with subdued appetite.

  I wanted to be with her, he thought, and here I am with him! He looked on as Lustiger chewed with his sunken cheeks, making light smacking sounds that Silbermann found almost repulsive.

  “I’m telling you,” Lustiger said, misty-eyed, “this goose leg helps you forget a lot!”

  A few minutes later he clapped Silbermann on the shoulder. “We’ll stick together,” he said cheerfully.

  “You’re putting me in jeopardy,” Silbermann exclaimed, both agitated and annoyed.

  Lustiger stared at him. His face lost the look of contentment it had taken on while they were eating, his eyes widened, and his mouth opened as if he wanted to say something, but he was silent. He lowered his head until it was practically lying on his right shoulder. Then he stood up without saying a word, took his hat and coat off the chair next to him, and started putting them on.

  “Lustiger,” said Silbermann. “I didn’t mean it that way. It just came out like that. I’d be very happy to stay with you. Of course I would. I wasn’t serious. I didn’t want to upset you, I really didn’t. But Lustiger, don’t be silly, stay. I really do believe you’ll be a little safer with me. Don’t take it so…”

  Lustiger grimaced. “You’re right,” he said. “Of course I’m putting you in jeopardy. But one always only thinks of oneself. Good-bye.”

  He reached out his hand. Silbermann held it tightly.

  “Stay,” he requested. “I’m all wrought up. Just so you know, someone said the same thing to me today. Only a few hours ago. Now I see there’s no difference between me and the others. Sit down, please. Stay.”

  Lustiger shook his head. “No, no,” he said, very calmly. Then he tapped his hat once more and said, “Another time, then…”

  Silbermann watched him leave.

  I can no longer complain, he thought. Becker, Findler, Hollberg didn’t behave any worse than I just did. I can’t even claim any moral outrage: I’ve forfeited the right. I really ought to run after the old man, hold on to him, stay with him. Perhaps my wicked words will do him in. For being a sensitive man, I’m plenty brutal. I stay in my chair, I watch him go, and despite everything I’m glad to be rid of him.