He found his own bedroll, wrapped himself up, and fell asleep at once.
When he awoke to the sound of the Ingelheim church bells, he saw the unimaginably wide Rhine stream noiselessly past him under the lacy morning mist.
The first castles, high on the far-off hilltops, were not as impressive as he had expected, but his attention was focused on maneuvering his sweep, the steering oar that could be positioned at right angles to the current to control the direction of the raft. By now he knew that “Hessenland!” meant starboard and “France!” meant larboard. The pilot, standing on a wooden tower at the back of the raft, called out orders through a megaphone.
That he hardly noticed the knightly fortresses of his childhood dreams, and that most of them were no more than stumpy ruins, did not bother him. He was like a bridegroom who took his wedding night as it came, even if the bride did not live up to his expectations. This was the Rhine.
Julius walked back and forth in his white linen suit, a cigarillo clamped between his lips.
“How many men on board, Julius?” Konrad called out.
“A hundred ninety-eight, according to my register!” Julius replied, contented.
It was a nearly windless autumn day, and the huge raft passed the notorious Binger Loch with ease.
The rafters familiar with the river let out the occasional yell at places where they knew the hillsides would throw back an echo. A raft like this, which dominated the Rhine as far as the eye could see, and for which all other vessels yielded as it crept through the bends of the river, was one of the largest manmade movable objects on earth. No ocean liner could match it. They were one country en route to another.
The men howled and screamed loudest when they passed the Lorelei. This was an age-old custom in which they all participated. The aim was to rouse the comely nymph from her thousand-year slumber. It was more like a taunt: What threat could she possibly pose to a raft as powerful as theirs?
It must have been a combination of the amount of beer the men had drunk at midday and an error on the part of the pilot, for all the underwater rocks in this section of the Rhine had been charted centuries ago. Or maybe the obstacle was a recently-sunk barge.
The rear section of the raft took a curve too wide, swerved close to shore, and heaved upward as though lifted by a whale; the cords and yokes holding it together snapped, and the logs began to separate. Men fell into the gap; some managed to grab hold, like finches on a branch, and climb back onto the raft. The men in the middle section ran toward the rear, despite the shouts of the pilot for everyone to remain at his post in order to stay the course. The Lorelei was a gray, indifferent rockface. In their confusion they rescued those who did not need their help, while one man who had become wedged between the rolling logs, and had let go, was swept behind.
Julius darted across the raft like an athlete on his way to the Amsterdam Summer Olympics. To Konrad’s amazement, he dove into the water with elegant form, hands in front and white shoes pressed together. For a moment he was visible under the surface—a fish swooshing away from the forward-charging raft—until the glare blocked their view.
Just as Konrad went to remove his shoes, Julius resurfaced with the half-drowned man in his arms. He grabbed one of the ropes dragging behind the loosened logs and was pulled in, hand over hand, with his catch.
It was the fellow who had harassed Konrad the previous night.
His face was still swollen and scratched, although this was the least of his problems: he was unconscious, and his legs, in his wide, drenched trousers, were bent at an unnatural angle. Konrad pumped the man’s chest in an attempt to restore his breathing, but to no avail.
“Let me,” said Julius, who had meanwhile retrieved his Panama hat. He knelt beside the victim and pressed his lips to the man’s mouth, supporting himself on his elbow while also holding his hat up in the air, as though determined to keep it dry. It looked like a Charlie Chaplin film, Konrad thought: Charlie alternating between kissing his bride and gasping for air. None of the other men had ever seen mouth-to-mouth resuscitation before, and they watched skeptically, until the man took a first sputtering breath, and then resumed breathing entirely on his own.
Julius stood up and looked around haughtily. It was as though he’d been awarded the Nobel Prize, but turned it down. He put on his hat and jerked the brim straight. He glanced at Konrad with an expression that said, “You’re not the only hero around here.” And then off he walked, his hands on his drenched back. The men made way for him. The Lorelei had vanished from sight.
At Koblenz they were made to moor. Military men in blue uniforms, the French occupation forces, climbed on board to inspect the raft.
Julius had to present all the papers; freight and personal belongings were searched. That nearly all of the soldiers were Africans who did not speak a word of German evoked some resentment. Most of the rafters had never seen a black man before, and it irked them that these men were grabbling through their chests and duffel bags.
An enormous Senegalese held up the book Konrad had with him.
“Ah, Jules Verne,” he said, smiling. “Bon!”
“Bon!” Konrad replied.
Now he had not only seen his first black man, but had spoken a foreign language for the first time besides.
Julius was impeccably polite and even drank a glass of schnapps with the officers. Konrad heard him converse with them in fluent French. For Konrad, it was like hearing a rooster suddenly coo like a dove. Some of the rafters were standoffish or hostile, while others attempted to fraternize with the exotic intruders fanning out over their raft. These were mostly the hirelings from Frankfurt and Höchst, not the Franconian rafters. But the Tirailleurs sénégalais would have none of it: they came as occupiers and would have no truck with the enemy they had defeated at the front.
Konrad put away The Danube Pilot, and, to distract himself, began carving a wooden figurine.
He heard Julius ask: “Douaumont? Reims?”
To which the other replied: “Non—Chemin des Dames . . .”
“Chemin des Dames, mon capitaine?” Julius exclaimed. “Moi aussi. I was with the Bavarian Division under General Boehn, at Hurtebise.”
“Hurtebise? But . . . I say—Senghor, over here!”
The sergeant who had searched Konrad’s gear went over and saluted. He was a sturdy giant, the blue tunic taut around his belly and broad, hollow back.
Konrad needed no knowledge of French to understand the exchange that followed.
“See here: my Croix de Guerre, monsieur.”
“See here: my Croix de Fer.”
That evening, Julius came to get him.
“Come with me, Konrad. I’ve a surprise for you. It’s really special. Today’s my birthday.”
“How old are you?” Konrad asked.
“Forty—the same as you.”
They walked the entire length of the raft, which was fixed to the quay only at its rearmost section, the rest stretched out downstream like a pier. It resembled a deserted nomad camp, now that most of the men were in Koblenz in search of diversion. The statue of Kaiser Wilhelm on horseback darkly guarded the confluence of the Moselle and the Rhine from its pedestal, but Konrad soon lost sight of it as he followed Julius up the steep alleyways leading to the nightlife district.
Julius had been drinking, this much was obvious, but he was not drunk. He was apparently eager to share something with Konrad and hurried as though whatever it was would not last for long. Konrad picked up his pace to keep up. The alleys became smaller and stank of piss and peril.
“Julius! How much further?” Konrad asked, out of breath. “What’re we doing here?”
“Just a bit more,” Julius replied. “We’re almost there.”
He stopped and pulled on a bell.
It was a nondescript house, but inside was another matter entirely.
A rotund woman received them in a small salon whose walls were decorated with deer antlers. She wore a low-cut satin-and-taffeta evening dre
ss, and alongside her on the sofa, a young redheaded girl in her underwear sat, peeling an orange.
“Ah, you’re back,” the woman said. “They’re still upstairs.”
Julius beckoned him, and they climbed the stairs, as steep as the stairs in Holland were said to be, although this was only Koblenz. It smelled musty. Piano music wafted past.
Konrad hesitated. Stopped. “Julius.”
“What?” Julius asked over his shoulder.
“I’m not sure I want to be here.”
Julius laughed. “Come on, it’s a friendly place. Didn’t I say I had a surprise for you?”
“What kind of surprise?” Konrad asked, still stopped on the landing.
“Ach, buddy!” Julius stood there quite convincingly, a foot already on the topmost tread, and pointed his thumb upstairs. “Come along and I’ll show you something of Wallreuth you’ve never seen before.”
“Wallreuth’s got no secrets from me,” Konrad replied. “What could you have in there that I haven’t seen?”
“Come with me, and you’ll find out.”
Konrad followed him upstairs. Maybe he shouldn’t have, but he did. There were four or five doors in a row, shabbily painted, and while there wasn’t much to see in the passageway, which was lit by just a small gas lamp, there was all the more to hear: the hiss of the lamp, groaning, stumbling, the creak of a bed.
“I don’t want this,” he said.
“Oh yes, you do,” Julius whispered. “You will. Just you wait.”
He opened one of the doors and pulled Konrad in behind him.
The first thing Konrad saw was the enormous Senegalese officer, his sky-blue uniform trousers dropped around his boots. And next he saw a naked woman perched on the edge of a rumpled bed.
“Here you are,” Julius said in a coarse whisper as he shoved Konrad forward. “A souvenir of Wallreuth.”
The woman, very pale and blond, had the black man’s member in her mouth.
The man swayed rhythmically with his bottom half; he held his cap, his hand resting on his hip, as though this was no more than a brief interruption in his daily routine.
The woman, too, did what she did with a certain indifference, every so often brushing back her flaxen blond hair and gagging, as though executing an unsavory but familiar task.
“So what do you say now?” Julius gloated. “If you want a turn . . . I’ve paid for the whole evening!” He took off his coat and snapped the suspenders off his shoulders. “She’s totally blind now, d’you see? Doesn’t have a clue anymore what’s getting put in her gob.”
“Merci, Germans,” said the Senegalese, grinning, as he pulled up his trousers.
“Come on, man, it’s paid for,” Julius said as the officer shut the door behind him. “Me first, then you . . .” He took her by her braid and pulled her head into position. “So did I promise you a good time, or didn’t I?”
On the nightstand was the little wooden goose Konrad had given her.
“Konradin,” Evchen whispered as she took Julius’s member in her hand.
From downstairs he heard a chanson, accompanied by a piano—a gramophone, he guessed.
Without looking back, Konrad slammed the door behind him.
So it passed that Konrad walked along the bank of the Rhine, from Koblenz to Bonn and from Bonn to Cologne, in search of work, while the economic crisis spread across Germany and followed him wherever he went, like a stigma. The money he earned in one town was worthless by the time he reached the next one. A thousand-Reichsmark note barely bought him a loaf of bread. Fewer and fewer rafts were floated down the Rhine, so when he looked for work on the quays, he was rejected as soon as he showed his papers. Only the livestock was oblivious to the Depression. People, on the other hand, were distrustful and hostile and treated him as a vagrant. He carried his tall hip boots with him from village to village and from city to city; his pike was long gone, but the wrought-iron hook was still in his knapsack.
He stayed close to the Rhine, even though the river no longer supplied him with work. He sold his earring, and now he only took the red kerchief out of his pocket to blow his nose.
Konrad had to face the fact that he was no longer a young man. The truth hit him at the market in Dusseldorf. He was loading turnips onto a cart when a stunning young woman walked past with a bread basket on her arm.
“Whaddya gawkin’ at, man!” the farmer he worked for yelled. “We gonna work today or not? Get a move on!”
“Do you know what’s so bad about getting old?” Konrad asked.
“Yeah,” said the farmer, “that I have to hire you to carry crates for me.”
“It’s not so much having to give up the things you used to have. It’s the realization that there are things you’ll never get.”
“And so you’re just going to sit there? You got back problems or something? When I hired you, you said you was fit.”
“I just saw a pretty woman.”
“These things happen,” said the farmer.
“And I didn’t think to myself: I’d like to have her. I thought, Wouldn’t it be fine to have a daughter like that.”
In the summer of 1931 he arrived in Duisburg, where there was a large timber entrepôt. If he didn’t find work here, then he would have to resort to the Salvation Army soup kitchen.
Konrad worked alternately at the circular saw, the bark stripper, and the rail-mounted crane. In all those years, though, he’d hardly touched a tree trunk with his hands, and it seemed increasingly unlikely that he’d ever sail on a raft again. In the summer of 1933, his hand got caught in the circular saw, and he lost three fingers.
“You’re no good with machines,” his boss said. “From now on, you’ll scrub logs. You can still hold a scrub brush, can’t you?”
He earned less than ever, standing in a cement basin in his hip boots, scrubbing tree trunks by holding the brush between his thumb and index finger.
For a while he chastised himself for not being able to come up with an alternative to rafting. He recalled his mother once saying: “If you can do one thing, you can do another.” Wise words indeed, but he had no other ideas and couldn’t do anything else. It was as if long ago, perhaps that day when, as a boy, he was allowed to go to the woods to help drive timber, he made a lifelong decision. Neither he nor the Reichsmark could do anything about having become worthless.
One day a raft moored on their quay. It was pulled by a black towboat with an enormous swastika flag on the stern, and it was en route to Nijmegen with a cargo of German lumber.
The raft carried passengers too. Konrad had seen this before: emigrants for whom traveling by raft was the only affordable way to leave the new Germany. They paid the captain or ship owner under the table. After the lumber had been loaded, Konrad went onto the raft to feel the floating timbers under his feet once again. It was not a raft as he knew them. The logs were held together by iron crossbars, and the towboat pulled them on chains. It was a rigid contraption that couldn’t move with the water, but this was probably a moot point as the raft was not at all large, six by sixty meters at most. It couldn’t compare to the majestic one on which he and Julius had once sailed the Rhine.
He inspected the crossbars and the heavy metal rods that had been hammered through them. He stood with his back to the towboat, because the wind blew a heavy, stinking cloud of smoke over the raft.
The emigrants had brought suitcases, bags, and bundles. They sat, their eyes downcast, hunched over on their luggage. Their postures exuded resignation; if they harbored any hope of a better life, then they hid it well. None of them looked at the river that would transport them to a new fatherland. None showed any interest in the cranes and chimneys of Duisburg—like mourners ignorant of the gravestones surrounding them.
He recognized Julius at once. It wasn’t someone who looked like him, it was Julius. He was bent over the waterlogged cardboard suitcase of a fellow passenger, trying to fasten it with his belt.
Julius suddenly looked up, as though he f
elt Konrad’s presence behind him. He was nearly bald and wore gold-rimmed glasses. They greeted each other guardedly but soon realized the aloofness was only the fear that the other, after all these years, might still bear a grudge. They were glad to see each other.
The ropes were already being let loose as the towboat prepared to continue its journey. Konrad’s boss appeared at the quay in his brown Sturmabteilung uniform and called out to him to return to shore. Despite the tall boots and the Sam Browne belt, he looked anything but formidable, with his bowlegs and paunch. There wasn’t much time; they had to fill each other in on their fortunes in a few short sentences. Julius, being half-Jewish, had no place in the Third Reich and was planning to go to Holland. Konrad told of his life since Koblenz.
The last rope was untied.
Without looking up, Julius put a hand on his arm.
“Come with me to Holland,” he said. “I’ve got some money. Enough to pay your passage, at least. You’ve got papers?”
Konrad placed his mutilated hand on his breast pocket and nodded.
“You remember that line from the Grimm fairy tale? ‘Something better than death, we can find anywhere . . .’ Come with me, Konrad.”
Konrad turned and called to his boss, “I’m not coming ashore! I’m sailing down the Rhine!”
“You’re penniless, you fool!” the boss yelled back. “Come back and get to work!”
“No!” Konrad shouted.
“Nobody else’ll hire you!” The boss hobbled along the quay after the towboat. “You’re uneducated and half-crippled, man! And you don’t have a party membership book!”
Konrad did not answer. The man stood there at the end of the quay, and the chimneys, cranes, and silos of Duisburg soon disappeared behind the smoke of the towboat.
“I always knew we’d sail all the way down the Rhine together one day,” Julius said when Konrad sat down beside him.
In Ewijk, just past Nijmegen, they moored the raft in a small inlet on the south side of the river, which was now called the Waal; there wasn’t much more than a few sheds and woodpiles. This was Konrad’s first time outside of Germany. Everything looked different here, even the poplars along the dike. The towboat turned, as though spurning Holland, and headed back. The west wind pushed the black exhaust fumes and the large swastika flag in its direction of travel.
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