The Passenger

by Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz

  Is it possible I left it in Dresden? he tried to remember. No, when he bought the novel in the train station he had stowed it in his briefcase. So someone must have stolen it while I was on the train! he concluded, as he ran toward the station exit.

  The elderly lady?

  But in that case she hardly would have wakened him, and anyway all she was carrying were her purse and a small suitcase.

  The two gentlemen!

  But what did they look like? He thought he remembered one having a mustache, a blond mustache. People with blond mustaches are somewhat rare.

  He stopped a crewman. “I’ve been robbed,” he called out. “I’ve been robbed by a blond man! My briefcase, my money!”

  “You have to report it to the Bahnpolizei,” the man said, then went on his way.

  If only I’d memorized their exact features! Silbermann thought, in desperation. I don’t even know what they looked like, all these damned ordinary-looking faces.

  He hurried through the gate and stopped just past it.

  Maybe they have yet to pass through, he hoped. I’ll wait here. Then he realized they were bound to be faster than he. So he hurried down to the station hall and decided to wait outside the exit. But the station had several exits, and he couldn’t make up his mind which one to watch. And by that point there were only stragglers, since most of the passengers had already left. Despondent, he collapsed onto a bench.

  It’s pointless, he decided. After all, a thief doesn’t wait for the person he’s robbed to wake up and chase after him. He’s sure to be gone by now.

  A policeman strolled slowly past him. Silbermann jumped up and ran over to the man.

  “I’ve been robbed,” he explained, his voice faltering. “In the train from Dresden. They took approximately thirty-one thousand marks. A briefcase, a leather briefcase.”

  The policeman stopped, stared at him for a moment in disbelief, but then seemed convinced.

  “Have you inquired if the briefcase—your money was in the briefcase, correct?—wasn’t handed in to the conductor by chance? In any case it’s outside my jurisdiction. You have to go to the railway police. See the sign there? Go right away and report your loss. You also need to check with lost and found.”

  “The railway police?” Silbermann asked quietly.

  “Of course! That’s what they’re for. Just don’t wait too long, hurry.”

  They had been walking together and were now standing across from the police station. “Don’t waste any time explaining things. Go make your report.”

  “I don’t know,” Silbermann said, his voice sounding anguished and undecided.

  “What don’t you know?” asked the constable, growing suspicious. “Did you have a briefcase or not?”

  “Of course I had one. With over thirty thousand marks! But maybe I’d better go back to the platform and check if someone hasn’t turned it in there.”

  “You can check to your heart’s content, but anyone who goes to the trouble of stealing thirty thousand marks isn’t going to be so quick to return it.”

  “But maybe someone found it.”

  The constable scowled at him. “You just said it was stolen from you! How can anyone be expected to find it?”

  Silbermann’s situation was getting somewhat critical. At the moment he was just as scared of the railway police as he was of losing his briefcase.

  If I file a report, he thought, then not only will I have lost my money, I’ll lose my freedom in the bargain. On the other hand, if I don’t file a report I have no prospect of seeing my briefcase or my money ever again. Either way I’m done for. That briefcase was my last remaining asset. But then he again felt a glimmer of hope, thinking that someone might have found the briefcase and handed it in—as unlikely as that might seem.

  “I’ll ask one more time,” he said, and went back to the platform. Bewildered, the constable shook his head and watched him leave.

  He was already at the gate when he realized he hadn’t bought a platform ticket, but to his great relief he saw that the train was still in the station. He hurried to a vending machine, paid for the ticket, then ran to the platform and asked for the conductor.

  “Did anyone find a briefcase?” he said, nearly out of breath from running. “I lost my briefcase. With over thirty thousand marks!”

  The conductor puffed out his cheeks in surprise. “Thirty thousand marks,” he said, impressed. “Good lord!”

  “Has someone turned it in?”

  “Not to me. But you need to file a report with the lost-and-found bureau. Incidentally if you want to know my opinion there’s not much point. Thirty thousand marks are enough to turn an honest man into a scoundrel. Where were you sitting?”

  “In second class,” said Silbermann, now hoping he had somehow overlooked the briefcase when he had searched his compartment. They boarded the train, but Silbermann could no longer tell which compartment he had been sitting in. So they made their way through all the second-class smoking compartments, with no result.

  The conductor asked about the other passengers, and Silbermann described them as best he could. “The man with the blond mustache,” Silbermann answered. “He did strike me as a little suspect, but perhaps I’m only imagining that after the fact. There were two men, one with a blond mustache, like I told you.”

  “And the lady? You didn’t ask the lady?”

  “Ach!” said Silbermann, unhappy. “I didn’t even think of that. And she might have been able to give me an exact description.”

  “I’m sure she would have,” the conductor agreed. “You should have asked her.”

  “But I can describe her. She was wearing a gray skirt suit…”

  The conductor looked at the clock.

  “Go to the railway police and the lost-and-found bureau,” he suggested. “As you see, I’ve done what I could. There’s nothing more I can do. If you’d like, I can have someone show you the way to the police.”

  He leaned out the window and looked around.

  “No, thank you,” Silbermann was quick to respond. “There’s no need. It’s very kind of you, but I know the way. Good-bye.”

  He left the compartment and clambered out of the train car, gripping the handrail with weak hands, then headed slowly back to the gate.

  The truth is that all I’ve lost is time, he tried to persuade himself, a little time off my life. Nothing else. Not even the money could be of any real help. I’ve already seen that.

  But this reasoning brought no consolation, because Silbermann realized beyond all doubt that he’d been dealt a decisive blow, that along with his money he’d been robbed of his ability to resist, his one point of support. Compared with this disaster, which he believed would determine the rest of his life, all the other dangers he was facing seemed completely insignificant.

  For the first time something has happened that can’t be rectified, he thought, and even when he tried to escape into a listless indifference as a kind of self-defense, he was unable to do so completely. He walked down the stone steps. Along with the money I’ve lost all hope of buying time, he thought: there’s no more time in my account.

  He stood outside the door with the sign: BAHNPOLIZEI.

  Silbermann turned the door handle, opened the door, and looked into the room.

  A surly voice greeted him with “Heil Hitler!”

  “I’ll be right back,” he said, then turned around and went to the bench where he’d been sitting earlier.

  Should I file the report? he wondered. Report the thief? To whom? He let out a helpless, angry laugh. They’ll just arrest the person who was robbed and put him on trial instead of the thief!

  He sank back into the bench so it made a slight cracking noise. He rested his hands flat on the seat, splaying his fingers. I’m done for now, he thought. Completely finished! Then he jumped up and took a few steps in the direction of the station. “I’m going to report the thief,” he muttered. “I’m going to report the thief to the robber!”

  The
door to the station opened and an official stepped out. He looked at Silbermann questioningly: “Is there something you want?”

  Silbermann turned around without saying a word.

  I have to think it through, he thought. No hasty decisions. He went back to his bench and sat down. The official observed him for another moment, then went on his way. Silbermann watched him leave.

  “My briefcase,” he whispered to himself. “I want my briefcase back! This can’t be! I had it just an hour ago!”

  His head sank onto his chest.

  This can’t be, he thought again. I’m only imagining it. A week ago I was still the owner of Becker Scrap and Salvage Co.… and a few hours ago I was still a man with over thirty thousand marks … a man who still had many prospects, in spite of everything. A man with thirty thousand marks is still fully capable of living. I had endless possibilities … I just ought to have taken advantage of them! All the travel, the struggle, the worries, the self-torment, the brooding … it was all in vain. My entire life has been meaningless, everything I’ve ever achieved … There I was running around Berlin as the merchant Otto Silbermann … I had a family … I had friends … I had a wonderful life … I was rooted … No, I wasn’t rooted, I only imagined I was … this is the only life that’s real, that’s genuine … this bench here … the empty pockets … the police station where I don’t dare enter … that is the authentic Silbermann existence … I’m perched on a bench in the void, and when they close the station they’ll kick me out and I won’t even have that anymore.

  His hand stroked the wooden seat.

  This is what I have accomplished, he thought. For this I sneaked across the border and begged two gendarmes for a little air. Ach, if I’d only given it one more try! He sighed, lost.

  Then he suddenly leapt up.

  “I want my money back,” he growled. “My thirty thousand marks!”

  Once more he went over to the station. I’ll show you who I am, he thought, in desperate fury, only to stop again outside the door.

  He looked at his wallet to see how much money he had left. “Two hundred twenty, two hundred thirty, two hundred forty,” he counted quickly, in a low voice. He still had bills worth two hundred eighty marks.

  Tomorrow, he decided, and turned away from the station and headed toward the exit. Tomorrow …

  A low-level employee, he then reasoned, can live off two hundred eighty marks for several months. What will the thief do with my money? He has no idea it belonged to a Jew, so it’s possible he’s afraid they’re trying to track him down, and maybe my briefcase is roaming with him all across the country.

  He headed out of the station but stopped at the exit.

  In 1919, when we opened the firm Seelig and Silbermann, my investment amounted to thirty thousand marks, he recalled nostalgically. Twenty thousand from Father, and ten thousand that I borrowed from Bruno. Those thirty thousand marks were my beginning! And now they are my end. Up to this point I’d only lost what I’d earned, but now I’ve lost the source of those earnings, and what might have let me earn more in the future.

  I shouldn’t take it so tragically, he then thought, because really all I’ve lost is the last piece of my past, which no longer properly belongs to me anyway. After all, did the money guarantee my safety? He tried to console himself for his loss. No! It only provided the illusion of security.

  Ach, nonsense, it was more, much more! It was my entire future. I’ve lost twenty years of my existence, twenty years! How ungrateful I’ve been. My wealth has shielded me from poverty for an entire lifetime. And for a few days it’s no longer been able to help—at least not to the extent it had. But now I’ve lost my very existence! Now I’ve let my entire life get stolen! I am a dead man—utterly and absolutely dead.

  He left the station, went to a waiting taxi, and gave the driver the address to his apartment, since he had decided to sleep in his bed one last time before going through with his suicide, which is what he considered filing the report on the theft to be.

  When the car passed a telephone booth, Silbermann had a new idea and tapped his finger on the pane separating him from the driver. “Stop,” he said. The driver stopped the car some hundred meters past the telephone, and Silbermann climbed out. He paid and walked back to the booth. He stepped inside, opened the phone book, and searched through names beginning with A. When he came to Angelhof, attorney, he underlined the number with blue pencil, as was his habit, and dialed.

  He had to wait some time before a sleepy voice finally answered: “Hello, who’s calling?”

  “Herr Angelhof?” Silbermann asked as calmly as he could.

  “Yes, that’s me, but…”

  “May I speak with your wife?”

  “My wife? At this hour? Who are you? What do you mean calling like this?”

  “It’s imperative that I speak with your wife,” Silbermann explained emphatically. “It’s very, very important!”

  “Fine, but will you first tell me who this is and why you’re bothering me in the middle of the night—that’s never happened to me before in all my life.”

  “Your wife left her purse in the train,” Silbermann lied, passing over the first question, since he would have been hard-pressed to invent a name. Where did I come up with a lost purse? he asked himself. Ah, my briefcase, of course. “I found her purse,” he continued slowly. “And I would like to return it to her.”

  “Then come and give it to me tomorrow,” the attorney suggested, his tone slightly more gentle.

  “Unfortunately I’m just passing through, it’s a very short layover.”

  “But tonight? It’s already very late. Couldn’t you have called earlier?”

  “Unfortunately not, besides I have my own business to attend to,” Silbermann said brazenly.

  “Of course … I understand … It’s very kind that you … but perhaps you could come by early in the morning?”

  “Early in the morning? Yes, that would work. I have a train to Hamburg at nine twenty.” By now I have all the departure times in my head, Silbermann was surprised to note. Which can be very useful in certain cases, such as this one.

  “So if you’ll be so kind as to come by at eight,” the lawyer suggested very politely.

  “Where do you live?”

  “Kurfürstendamm 65.”

  “Right, I have that address from the telephone book. But the purse has a letter to your wife at a different address. I think…”

  He stopped, hoping the lawyer would mention the address, but he didn’t.

  The man just growled reluctantly. “So?”

  “Well,” said Silbermann. “Now I’m in an awkward situation. I have no idea what to do. I believe your wife implied in conversation that you’re living in separation.”

  “So why are you calling me?”

  “Well I don’t know exactly, either. I’m not so precisely informed about your family affairs, which are none of my business. I only wondered where I ought to take the purse, since I really should return it to your wife.”

  “Bring it to my office tomorrow morning.”

  “I don’t know if I have the right, if you are…”

  “So then leave me in peace! Do what you want. Take it straight to her for all I care. Perhaps that’s best.”

  “I’ll simply deposit it in the lost-and-found bureau.” Silbermann made one final try. “I don’t know if the address is still valid. Then the bureau can look up your wife.”

  “It’s all the same to me, but maybe you should take it to Pension Weler, that’s where she’s staying, if you don’t want to entrust it to me. What address is on the letter?”

  Silbermann quickly opened the phone book.

  “Let me see,” he said. “Maybe I can manage that, if I have enough time.”

  “What address is on the letter?” The lawyer repeated his question.

  “I’ll have to check,” Silbermann said. “Please excuse my having bothered you. Good-bye.”

  He hung up. Full of hope, he leafed
through the phone book. Perhaps I should have asked for the street, he thought. If that pension isn’t listed—I can’t call him again. But he found the address and wrote it down. Then he went back onto the street. An escapade, he thought, almost angrily. A romantic escapade!

  He took a taxi. When he reached the boardinghouse he had to ring several times before someone finally opened the door.

  “I’d like to speak with a Frau Angelhof,” he said.

  The maidservant looked at him, astonished. “At this hour?” she asked, incredulously.

  “Yes,” he said decisively. “I’m only passing through and have something to give her,” he added by way of explanation.

  “Can’t you give it to me?”

  “No,” said Silbermann, then reached into his pocket and handed her a three-mark coin. “Will you be so kind as to tell her she has a visitor?”

  The girl let him in and showed him to the reading room. By the time Ursula Angelhof entered some ten minutes later, Silbermann had nearly fallen asleep in the comfortable armchair. She examined him calmly. It seemed she was neither pleased nor particularly surprised, just perhaps a little taken aback. Silbermann jumped up.

  “Good evening,” he greeted, no longer knowing exactly why he had come.

  She seemed not to know, either.

  “I wanted to see you again,” he explained, using the familiar Du. “I didn’t meet you in the café because I came too late.”

  “But how did you find out my address?” she asked, using the formal Sie.

  “From your husband.” Silbermann stuck to the familiar form.

  “Ah,” she said, and it seemed to Silbermann as if she smiled for a moment approvingly. But then she became serious. “You shouldn’t have done that”—here she switched to Du—“you know how things are between us.”

  “But I wanted to see you again,” he said quietly.

  “Why?” she asked. “It doesn’t make any sense. Which is why I didn’t keep our appointment.”