The Russian Passenger

by Gunter Ohnemus

  That’s the way we romantics say “yes”, I said. The cabbies among us, at any rate.

  When we were sitting side by side again, she said: I really do trust you, my romantic cabby. Don’t get any wrong ideas, that’s all.

  Time will tell, I said.

  * * *

  Sonia had it all worked out. We would spend the night at a hotel, and next morning she would go to the bank, armed only with her little rucksack, and spend at least half an hour talking to her financial adviser. Half an hour before that I would enter her block of flats, make my way down to her neighbour’s storage space in the basement, transfer the money from the dusty cardboard boxes to the suitcases, and put them in the boot of my taxi. An old grey Samsonite and a fairly new green lightweight, Sonia told me, neither of them very big, and the keys were inside them. Then I would drive to our restaurant rendezvous and wait for her in the car park.

  As far as you’re concerned, she said, there’s absolutely no risk. This is just a safety measure, in case someone has, after all, discovered that I’m in Luxembourg, not London.

  What if someone sees me in the basement? I asked. I’m a total stranger, after all. I might be a burglar.

  We’ll have to risk that, she said. The building has a high turnover – bank employees, airport staff, nearly all singles. People who work long hours. It’s unlikely anyone will go down to the basement at half past nine in the morning.

  It occurred to me that I had some dungarees in the boot, a mechanic’s outfit for emergencies, in case something went wrong with the car. If I went down to the basement in dungarees, people would take me for a workman.

  Hey, said Sonia, good idea. You’re developing a genuinely criminal mentality. You’ll have to change in the car, though. You can’t go waltzing out of the hotel in a mechanic’s outfit.

  Sonia would turn up at the restaurant in a blue Peugeot 306, to which the suitcases would then be transferred. After that, she would drive on in the direction of France and I would return to Munich.

  The Peugeot presents another little problem, she told me.

  What, another? I said. It seemed that the Peugeot belonged to the neighbour who owned the storage space where the money was. Sonia wanted me to collect it from the underground garage that evening and leave it at a certain spot in town.

  Then you can take a look at the building in advance, she said. You might even pay a quick visit to the basement, so you don’t have to spend too long looking tomorrow morning. I’ve got the keys to the car and the storage space right here.

  She really had thought of everything, but she still became more and more nervous as we drove into Luxembourg.

  What would you have done, I asked, if you’d turned up here on your own?

  I shouldn’t have said that. She became even edgier.

  I’d have had to run far greater risks, she said.

  You mean I’ve got to run them for you?

  There’s no risk from your point of view, she said. Now let’s head for our hotel. The Christophe Colombe, if there’s a vacancy. We’ll take a double room, of course.

  No, I said.

  What do you mean, no? Are you scared of me?

  No, I told her, I’m not scared of you – I won’t share a double room with you, that’s all. I never share my bedroom with a woman.

  With a man, then? she said.

  Not that either, I told her. But it wouldn’t bother me, not for one night.

  Very interesting, she said. Very mysterious, too. But we’ll have to take a double room. Hotels keep records just like airlines, and you didn’t want me to appear on any passenger list, did you? If someone really is looking for me, he’ll look for a woman on her own, not a couple. Besides, when hotels ask for some ID, the man’s is usually enough for them. Women aren’t as important. Italy’s the only country where they insist on both. So the hotel register won’t list anyone by the name of Sonia Kovalevskaya – or Gesine Kerckhoff, Catherine Marchais, Patrizia Calabrese, or anything else.

  She really had thought of everything, but she’d probably been trained to. All right, I told her, we’ll take a double room with twin beds. One for you and one for me, with a pathetic little bedside table in between.

  Sonia took out her mobile and booked us a room at the Christophe Colombe in my name. It’s always better to book in advance, she said. That way, they never ask for your ID.

  We drove first past her block of flats and then to the hotel. At the reception desk I alone had to fill in a form with Sonia watching over my shoulder. When I came to the box headed Madame, I wrote “Jessie”. I did it just like that, without thinking. Who’s Jessie? Sonia whispered.

  It popped into my head, that’s all.

  Jessie for Jessica?

  No, I said. Jessie for Jessie.

  I’ve no idea why I put Jessie’s name. It was simply the first name that occurred to me, and I couldn’t afford to spend too long wondering what my wife’s name was, not at the reception desk. Now, as I write this, it could be said that I wrote Jessie’s name in order to give Sonia the protection I couldn’t give Jessie, but that would be utterly wrong. I didn’t want to protect Sonia, I merely wanted to do her a favour and drive home next day.

  Is that your only luggage? the receptionist asked, indicating Sonia’s rucksack.

  Yes, I said. We weren’t intending to remain in Luxembourg overnight. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision.

  I don’t know why I said that. It was quite superfluous, but I was already, even at that stage, starting to cover myself. To cover myself more than necessary – to supply explanations no one expected of me.

  The man behind the desk gave me an understanding smile, and I asked him for a toothbrush and some shaving things.

  We had two cappuccinos brought to our room. After that I went alone to Sonia’s block of flats and collected the blue Peugeot from the underground garage. First, however, I reconnoitred the basement and located the relevant storage space. I spotted the cardboard boxes and an old grey blanket that presumably concealed the two suitcases. Then I drove the Peugeot to the car park Sonia had specified. I removed the ignition key and sat there in the dark for a few minutes. The moon had risen. Jessie was always the first to see the moon, even in the afternoon, when it was just a pale wraith. She did that even when she was two years old. She would point at the sky and say: Moon. And then she always wanted one of us to kiss her. Ellen, I said softly, I wrote your daughter’s name on the registration form. Wouldn’t it be nice if it were for real? It’s a pretty place, Luxembourg, and we could go off and eat together. I often talk to Ellen, mostly at night but sometimes in the daytime too. I suspect I sometimes talk to her without realizing it, and the people who see me probably think I’m crazy. They’re probably right. I think I’ve been crazy for twenty-four years.

  I walked back to the hotel, then dined with Sonia at a small restaurant. She was very edgy. So edgy, she had to have a long, soothing shower when we got back to the hotel.

  I lay down on my bed and turned the radio on. They were playing some old French hits. I could hear Sonia nervously humming some tune in the bathroom, something Russian, probably, and I thought of Ellen and Jessie and the fact that I was now, for the first time in twenty-four years, sharing a bedroom with a woman, and of the night when it all ended, my life and Ellen’s life and Jessie’s life, just because I was so stupid and stubborn and jealous and intent on destroying everything, and simply wouldn’t stop. Jessie was sleeping over with a friend that night, and I wouldn’t stop destroying everything, and there was absolutely no reason to be jealous, it merely looked that way, and even if there had been a reason, that would have been no reason to destroy everything, and that night, at that one instant when Ellen became frightened of me, I was genuinely insane. No, I didn’t hit her – I didn’t even shove or shake her – but she suddenly became afraid that I might, and I saw the fear in her eyes, that boundless fear, not surprise, just fear and dismay at what might happen, and it lasted only a second or two, no longer, and th
en it was all over; then Ellen was dead, like someone dead but still moving, and we both knew that it was all over, destroyed, and when Ellen packed her little bag like a ghost we both realized that, from that moment on, our life together was over because it must never happen again, she must never be frightened of me again. We had always known that, although we’d never talked about it, because it was quite impossible – because no two people in the world, no two people in human history, perhaps, had ever been so perfectly suited, and now it was all over, over for good, and I knew I could never again share a bedroom with a woman because I must never again make a woman feel frightened of me. My dear boy, my mother told me once, you were made for women, made for love, and now Ellen was packing her little bag because of me, filled with fear and dismay, and once or twice she glanced at me for a second or two and her eyes said: Why did you do it, even though you did nothing, why have you destroyed our life for ever? You’re good at football, my mother had told me, but you’re made for women, and we both laughed, and Ellen laughed when I told her that once. You play football pretty badly nowadays, she said, looking at me with big, dead eyes. Her eyes said, Why did you do it, why did you destroy it all for good, and when she’d finished packing her bag, she said, I’m going to fetch Jessie, and her eyes said, I’ve just died, we’ve just died, and she said, I’m taking Jessie to a hotel. I’ll call you sometime. We’ll be needing some clothes. Jessie will need some clothes. And some toys. Toys, too. And her eyes said, Harry, I’m drowning. Harry, the world is ending and I’m drowning. The world died long ago, and I’ve only been dreaming I’m alive. The world is dead and no one can help me. No doctor, no mother, no father, no God. Nor you either.

  Sunday

  What is it? What’s the matter? Sonia was standing, wet-haired and bathrobed, beside my bed.

  I must have been having a nightmare, I said. We all get them sometimes, don’t we?

  Shall I ask them to send up a bottle of wine?

  Yes, I said. That’s an excellent idea.

  We drank the wine in our twin beds, and eventually Sonia turned out the light between us and said good-night. A moment or two later she murmured: Jessie, not like Jessica. Jessie like Jessie. Good idea for my next passport.

  Goodnight, I said. But don’t forget, the name is good for only one night. It’s been reserved for ages.

  It was a long night for us both. Neither of us could sleep, even though we’d shared a bottle of red wine.

  Jessie for Jessie … It was really a man’s name. When Ellen became pregnant we naturally didn’t know whether the baby would be a boy or a girl, or what it would be called. We took our time choosing a name. It wasn’t so important. What mattered more was whether the baby would be healthy, because my mother suffered from epilepsy. At some point during her pregnancy Ellen read an American novel about two early hippies living in California at a time when hippies didn’t exist yet. When she’d finished three or four chapters she started reading the whole book aloud to me because she thought it was so wonderfully funny, and all at once we had a name for our child. Yesterday in San Francisco, all these many years later, I went to City Lights to find a copy of the book, and read it aloud to Sonia last night. The book came out in 1964, when I was sixteen and living in San Francisco. Like I am now. Not that I knew anything about the book then. It was a long time since Sonia and I had laughed so much, and now, one night later, I’m going to copy out the passage from the book that gave Jessie her name.

  When I was at school I often copied out long passages in an exercise book because I couldn’t afford the books themselves. We were a well-off family – wealthy, in fact – but I was given no more pocket money than the other children. And now, probably for the last time in my life, I’m going to copy out a longish passage from a book. It’s important, after all. It marks the moment when it became clear that someone in our family would bear the name Jessie.

  The two hippies in the book are called Lee and Jesse, and they live in a rather decrepit shack in Big Sur, here in California. The pond near the shack is full of frogs that croak all night long. The hippies have just dined on jack mackerel. Jesse describes their effect: They rip your whole organism apart. They’ve barely reached your stomach when you start to rumble and squeal and flap. Noises made in a haunted house during an earthquake go tearing horizontally across your stomach. Mighty farts and belches burst forth. Your pores almost exude jack mackerel.

  It goes on:

  * * *

  A little while after dinner, to avoid the sound of the frogs that were really laying it in now from the early color of the evening, I decided to take my farts and belches to the privacy of my cabin and read Ecclesiastes.

  “I think I’m going to sit here and read frogs,” Lee Mellon farted.

  “What did you say, Lee? I can’t hear you. The frogs. Yell louder,” I farted.

  Lee Mellon got up and threw a great rock into the pond and screamed, “Campbell’s Soup!” The frogs were instantly quiet. That would work for a few moments and then they would start again. Lee Mellon had quite a pile of rocks in the room. The frogs would always begin with one croak, and then the second and then the 7,452nd frog would join in.

  Funny thing though, about Lee Mellon’s yelling “Campbell’s Soup!” at the frogs while he was launching various missiles into the pond. He had yelled every kind of obscenity possible at them, and then he decided to experiment with nonsense syllables to see if they would have any effect, along with a well-aimed rock.

  Lee Mellon had an inquiring mind, and by the hit-or-miss method he came upon “Campbell’s Soup!” as the phrase that struck the most fear into the frogs. So now, instead of yelling some boring obscenity, he yelled, “Campbell’s Soup!” at the top of his voice in the Big Sur night.

  “Now what did you say?” I farted.

  “I think I’m going to sit here and read frogs. What’s wrong, don’t you like frogs?” Lee Mellon farted. “That’s what I said. Where’s your spirit of patriotism? After all, there’s a frog on the American flag.”

  “I’m going to my cabin,” I farted. “Read some Ecclesiastes.”

  “You’ve been reading a lot of Ecclesiastes lately,” Lee Mellon farted. “And as I remember there’s not much to read. Better watch yourself, kid.”

  “Just putting in time,” I said.

  “I think dynamite’s too good for these frogs,” Lee Mellon said. “I’m working on something special. Dynamite’s too fast. I’m getting a great idea.”

  * * *

  Lee Mellon had tried various ways of silencing the frogs. He had thrown rocks at them. He had beaten the pond with a broom. He had thrown pans full of boiling water on them. He had thrown two gallons of sour red wine into the pond.

  For a time he was catching the frogs when they first appeared at twilight and throwing them down the canyon. He caught a dozen or so every evening and vanquished them down the canyon. This went on for a week.

  Lee Mellon suddenly got the idea they were crawling back up the canyon again. He said that it took them a couple of days. “God-damn them,” he said. “It’s a long pull up, but they’re making it.”

  He’d gotten so mad that the next frog he threw into the fireplace. The frog became black and stringy and then the frog became not at all. I looked at Lee Mellon. He looked at me. “You’re right. I’ll try something else.”

  He took a couple dozen rocks and spent an afternoon tying pieces of string to them, and then that evening when he caught the frogs, he tied them to the rocks and threw them down the canyon. “That ought to slow them down a little bit. Make it a little harder to get back up here,” he said, but it did not work out for there were just too many frogs to fight effectively, and after another week he grew tired of this and went back to throwing rocks at the pond and shouting “Campbell’s Soup!”

  At least we never saw any frogs in the pond with rocks tied to their backs. That would have been too much.

  There were a couple of little water snakes in the pond, but they could only eat a frog
or two every day or so. The snakes weren’t very much help. We needed anacondas. The snakes we had were more ornamental than functional.

  * * *

  “Well, I’ll leave you to your frogs,” I farted. The first one had just croaked and now they would all start up again and hell would come forth from that pond.

  “Mark my words, Jesse. I got a plan going.” Lee Mellon farted and then tapped his head in the fashion people do to see if a watermelon is ripe. It was. A shiver traveled down my spine.

  “Good-night,” I farted.

  “Yes, indeed,” Lee Mellon farted.

  * * *

  Sonia and I laughed the way Ellen and I had laughed. There were times when Ellen couldn’t read on for laughing, and I’d say: Stop laughing, it could be bad for the baby – too much jolting around. And Ellen, still laughing, retorted: It can’t be worse than spending nine months in the tummy of an epileptic.

  Neither of us could sleep that night, and Ellen suddenly said in the darkness: What did you say, Jesse? And a bit later she said: If we have a daughter we’ll call her Jesse, but with “ie” at the end. Then everyone will think it comes from Jessica, and they won’t question it. From that night on, whenever we couldn’t hear what one of the others had said, we’d say: What did you say, Jesse? We always called it out quite loud, as if to drown the croaking of frogs. We must have said it a few thousand times in our lives, and before long, when Jessie was older and could talk, she too was calling: What did you say, Jesse? So sometimes all three of us were Jesse! Or Jessie.

  * * *

  Cycling with Jessie on the child’s seat in front of me. It’s raining, and we’re going quite fast. She’s three or four years old. She hasn’t caught what I’ve just said to her, so she yells into the rain: What did you say, Jessie? Then she calls across to her mother on the other bike: What did you say, Jessie? And Ellen laughs and calls back: What did you say, Jessie?

  Tuesday

  Jessie, who was always the first to see the moon. She wasn’t sick. I mean, she never had even a trace of an epileptic fit, any more than I have. As far as one could tell, my mother was the only epileptic in our family’s recent history. She took a keen interest in Buddhism, and sometimes she used to laugh and say: I’m an epileptic Buddhist – if that’s not a contradiction in terms. It’s a great combination. Still, where Buddhism’s concerned, we Westerners are all more or less, well … epileptic.