The Trespassers

by Laura Z. Hobson

  Small Uruguay shut her doors tight after the Evian Conference.

  Paraguay now will admit only an occasional farmer.

  Oil-rich Venezuela states clearly her reluctance to accept any refugees. As for Östjuden, Jews from eastern Europe—they are prohibited completely.

  Colombia will now admit only some few “exceptional cases”—Colombia, whose delegate to Evian so feelingly warned that “the bad example of the old World can spread to other continents and make the planet uninhabitable.”

  Ecuador demands $400, plus $100 landing money, but she is small; no more than a handful may go there.

  Civilized Chile still gives some visas—on a “highly selective” basis. For a year Jews have not been selected.

  It is the same with Peru. Neither Poles nor Jews may be admitted.

  Bolivia is easier in some ways, though Poles, Russians, and Jews are barred. But men whisper there is a wide-flung visa-selling racket there that will soon be exposed. Then there may be expulsions to face, renewed flight to contemplate. But if you chose to run the risk…

  Perhaps there is more chance for you in Central America. Honduras, now—if you will give up your science or your painting or your teaching and turn to raising bananas, you may possibly arrange to go to that small land.

  Guatemala still allows a few immigrants; $5000 is the minimum you must bring in.

  Costa Rica is now closed. So is Nicaragua.

  Or perhaps you now long for at least the physical welcome of sunlight and an open sky, for the vivid blue seas of the Caribbean countries. Yes, but you are hopelessly tardy—too many others have made frantic attempts to find haven there.

  Barbados and Trinidad will accept a few families of considerable means; none others need apply.

  It is the same in Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Haiti.

  Jamaica will accept no one; the bars are up to all.

  Mexico is considering the problem of welcoming some few hundred refugees, especially from Loyalist Spain. However, her general immigration restrictions are tight and thoroughgoing. It is not simple to go to Mexico and settle.

  But look, there is a chance for you in Australia. Perhaps Evian touched Australia’s emotions, for she is working on a new plan that would grant five thousand visas each year for the next three years. That would be fine indeed, if it came to pass; in the year just gone only four hundred German families were admitted to Australia, and thirty-six families in the year before that. But do not be skeptical of this change in heart; you can ill afford to question good intentions.

  And China—perhaps you did not think of China. Yes, she has been at bloody war for over a year, and by now some twenty million of her own people are moving over her unending miles, carrying their earthly possessions in green cotton sacks on their backs, carrying their universities and their factories bit by bit away from the invader. But these are kindly people, they know what it is too long for the view from the kitchen window, the comfortable smile of a long-known neighbor. They are lucky, too, these travelers toward safety, for they are still on their own soil, they do not know the sting of feeling alien and despised.

  Go then to China, if you are as determined as all that to escape. For two thousand reichsmarks, five hundred dollars, a hundred pounds, a man may go now from Central Europe to China. It is so easy—virtually the only place on the globe today where a human being can land without a passport and visa is Shanghai. The International Settlement is not paradise, it is true, for some three million Chinese refugees surged into it and into the French Concession, when the triumphant Japanese took the city proper. There are some few camps for these Chinese wanderers, and the rest swarm the streets, sleep in the roads, half starved, half naked.

  But you would find your own countrymen there, too. About eight thousand of Germany’s terror-driven are already there, and about one in four is self-sufficient and needs no help from the refugee agencies. You might manage independence in Shanghai.

  Face it, face it, there is no place for you near at hand, where you would feel less strange, where you would rather be.

  Forget France, it can only wound you to remember the long years when the doors of France stood wide for every refugee from tyranny. That is done now, finished. Now, in the second half of 1938, new immigration and detention stations are set up everywhere on France’s borders. The police cars daily round up “illegal refugees” and carry them to the nearest frontier; others are jailed and others forced to live “underground.” Almost no foreigner may now enter France legally, unless he already has passage and papers for an overseas destination. For you, France is Halfway House or nothing.

  And England? Better no fantasies about settling in England. England never did flaunt a brave banner as a country of sanctuary, but now even that banner is hauled down. Some few poor thousands of you are on English soil now, and that is enough. The visa system has just been introduced here; visas are not for everybody. It is wiser to assume that you may not set foot across the Channel unless you show “guarantees of subsequent emigration.” You may go through England, but not to England.

  Belgium has just closed all her frontiers. Only the stealthy ones at night, so desperate that no law has meaning, only they still cross into Belgium. A lawful, permanent residence there now is out of the question.

  The same goes for Holland. None but transients will be tolerated. If something goes wrong, if you outstay your transit visa, you are subject to arrest.

  Switzerland will not accept you. Her borders are well closed now. You frantic ones crossing at night, stumbling over the line exhausted—you yourselves forced Switzerland’s hand. Now there are sentries at every point, and for the first time in her long centuries Switzerland too has instituted a strict visa system of her own.

  Finland has this summer placed “an embargo” on all refugees.

  The vast U.S.S.R. permits permanent entry to no one. The only exceptions possible are to some few intellectuals and party members from other lands.

  Denmark, Sweden, Eire—no, no, you can find no country large or small over all the face of Europe where you may now go to unpack your bags and breathe the long, tired breath of the voyager at last in port.

  It is not that we are inhumane. We understand, we sympathize—did we not send delegates to the conference at Evian? But we must be realistic men.

  So keep moving, keep searching. Trespassers are forbidden here. We cannot let you in; it is the law, the new immigration law. Once this was a generous country, open as a meadow to any good and honest man who came to our boundaries. But not now, not today.

  Today, the need is too great.

  Vee arrived at the restaurant early, and while she waited for Ann Willis, she opened the letter again. She had already read it twice, but the story it told was so long and tangled that it baffled her still.

  Dr. Vederle had typed it; it ran to several pages. The long cable he had sent in answer to hers had said that he had managed to get extensions of their Swiss permits, that they were moving south from Zurich, and that he would write her soon. But the letter had come only this morning, with the first week of November already gone. He could see no way she could do anything just then. Her eyes went again to the first lines of it.

  I must confess to be deeply moved when your unexpected cable came, and also my wife felt so, too. It was like a hand reaching out across the sea, to hold us up once more. On the very day of Munich, I went myself to the American Consulate to plead, to insist on a speedy rehearing. All summer I had no hope for America any more—that is why I did not put any new requests to you, to bother you needlessly. But now I know that it is after all the only hope left to us. But better, I go back to the refusal of the visas and sum up everything that happened since then…

  She read it to the end. This Vederle must have plenty of grit and guts to go back to the Consulate after such a story. She folded the pages together, and noted the new address. “Ascona, Tessin, Switzerland, October 29.”

  That, at least, was one piece of luck—
the Consulate had been precise for once and told him that personal visits were unnecessary until the final examination for visas was formally scheduled. “If that beautiful day should ever arrive,” he had written. So they had decided quickly on a change to a warmer climate, and had moved to the charming little town on the Swiss border of Italy. The happiest part of his letter were the paragraphs about their new life there. They had found an inexpensive but pretty little cottage, there was a small private school for the children, and a colony of refugee artists, writers, and musicians had received them with open arms. It would be pleasanter to wait there, among friends and in the warm sunshine…

  “Hello, Vee, I’m sorry I’m late.”

  “Ann.” She looked up eagerly at the husky, mannish voice. “It’s good to see you again, you.” It was always this way when they met after a separation. “Did you like the Coast?”

  They talked ravenously about everything that had happened in the two months Ann had been away. During Vee’s recital of the network’s opening and its sensational success, Ann made no comment. But at the end, she reported that everywhere she’d been, dinner-table gossip always worked around to “this Jasper Crown.” People would start with the European crisis and inevitably switch to the new and astounding reporting of it by the Crown Network. “How’s he bearing up under all this fame?” she asked, but Vee only smiled. From anyone else, she would have resented the implication, but there was too much that was close and good between her and Ann.

  “I had a note from Beth Crown. While I was at Pasadena. She wanted me to stop off at Reno on my way home.”

  Vee was startled. Ann so rarely mentioned Beth to her.

  “Oh. You hadn’t known she’d gone out there?”

  “Not till then. I wasn’t here when she left. I’d have liked to see her, but Fred had appointments in Texas and wanted me with him. I phoned her.”

  “Is she taking it hard? I have the damnedest feeling that—”

  “She’s all right. She couldn’t say much on the phone, of course. She’s thinking of staying West awhile after she gets the decree. That’ll be in a couple of weeks now.” Vee remained silent. “Skip it, Vee, you had nothing to do with it. She’s well out of that marriage, anyway.”

  Ann hesitated, and then took an obvious breath. “Look, I don’t butt in much. But just this once, to keep my conscience clear later, I’m going to warn you—”

  Vee looked at the plump face, the ample bosom. Ann looked like a stern mother who was about to lecture a beloved child.

  “Don’t say it, darling.” Her voice held no snub in it anywhere. “I know you don’t like Jas. I know it perfectly well. But honestly, there are some things about him I do know that you can’t—and they explain so much. If those things were to change, I’m so sure—”

  Ann leaned back in her chair. Her heavy shoulders rose and fell.

  “O.K. It’s none of my business. Maybe he’s going to be right for you. Different shake of the dice, and all that.” She busied herself with her coffee.

  “Does she—does Beth know about me?”

  “I don’t think so. I’ve never even said your name. And she’s dropped most of the people who know Jas.” She looked more closely at Vee. “Why, would you mind?”

  “No, I’d a little rather she did. I’m not sure why.”

  They fell into a brief silence. Then Vee pulled out Vederle’s letter and handed it over. She watched Ann’s face as she read page after page. She waited for the look that would come over it when she read that so far the result of reopening the case was the report from the Consulate, “Your personal resources as stated are insufficient to ensure your independence in the United States for more than a short period.”

  Ann’s changing expressions satisfied her all through the reading. When she finally looked up, her eyes snapped with irritation.

  “Forty thousand Swiss francs is about ten thousand dollars—what do they want, millions?”

  Vee shrugged helplessly.

  “Do you think he’s right, that there’s nothing I can do on it?”

  “As long as he’s already written back and listed those friends who had lots less money—” She thought it over. “They just do take their time, Vee, unless you’re very famous, or so broke and obscure that you can go to the refugee agencies.”

  Vee nodded. Once Ann had thought the Vederle case would be easy and Rosie Tupchik’s hard. But the visa for Bronya’s mother had been the simple one.

  “When these things start going sour, they stay sour,” Ann went on. “What about Bronya’s mother? Isn’t she about due here?”

  “Poor Bronya.” Vee pressed her lips against her teeth. “The London office got me a report. ‘Shot while trying to escape custody’—that’s all they could get from the police at Karlsbad. I—I had to tell Bronya.”

  They sat perfectly still. Ann lit a cigarette finally, inhaled deeply, and blasted the smoke out from her lungs.

  “Let’s get out of here. I’ll walk you back to the store.”

  When they parted at Ralsey’s, Vee felt tired. She guessed why. Scarcely anything about her work seemed important in comparison to the other things in her life. She had certainly changed in her secret attitudes toward her job. She didn’t think anybody there had guessed it as yet. They seemed as pleased as ever with her special “promotions” of this fashion or that, the steady rise in sales of the departments she managed, her general executive performance. But she knew that some emphasis had departed. It had been oozing out in an imperceptible trickle, while she gave her real self to her own problems.

  Without phrasing it in words, she knew that her whole being had become a waiting. The daily things she did were merely time-passing devices to make the waiting easier.

  For it was not easy. Each week that went by made it harder. July, August, September, October, November. She counted off the months on her fingers, and then because of what the counting usually meant, she winced away from it. Five months since she had been so relieved and sure at the sight of Jasper’s face outside Dr. Gontlen’s office. And still it all remained “just a theory, just a medical opinion.”

  She did her work mechanically throughout the afternoon. Just before she left, Jasper telephoned and before he spoke the words, she knew what his voice would say. It happened so often now. It had to be; the network came first.

  She went home and straight to the telephone. After two or three tries, she found one of her old friends with no engagement for the evening. They had dinner together and went to a neighborhood movie. Later she read in bed until two.

  The days slipped by, the weeks added their slower tread. To have an evening with Jasper now was an event. His very success was eating up his mind and his energy as failure could never have done. People kept telling him that he had “opened a new chapter” in the history of communication, that a world responsibility was now his, that he was brilliant, gifted, great. And that he had a golden genius for making money.

  Sometimes he told her, half apologizing as he did so, the handsome things people said about his network, about him. She listened eagerly, and felt pride in the praise, too. But she felt easier when the subject shifted again to other things.

  Against the widening tapestry of his success and fame, her personal needs seemed puny and almost in bad taste. He himself avoided talk of his private feelings. One evening he said, without preamble, “It’s all over; Beth got the decree yesterday.” But he warded off any comment about it, and told her instead about the tremendous hurdles in the way of his South American plans for his company. His voice ratcheted with exasperation—he was absorbed in the problem to the exclusion of everything else.

  Yet she knew that he too was waiting, that he too was aware of the passing weeks, aware, that summer had slipped into fall, into winter, without the one inner triumph he sought. He rarely talked about that either. But a sarcastic dig about medical research, a sardonic smile when he spoke of the new Giles Craven baby—every once in a while, Jas showed that the need still gnawed.
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  When, for the sixth time, she knew nothing had happened, she was actively glad that he was away on a week’s business trip.

  Back home again, he told her, half facetious, half defiant, that he had missed an appointment with Dr. Gontlen. It was the first time. Then he looked at her, silently asking a question, and she shook her head. His face remained expressionless, but he crushed out a cigarette with quick vigor.

  “Oh, well, there are lots of ways to live a life,” he said. “I told you that once.”

  “No, oh, don’t say that any more. You know you care, and I care, too.”

  “So I care. Of course I care. God damn it, I told you it would just tear that old scar wide open—”

  “Darling, darling, stop it. Gontlen warned you not to expect any thing overnight.”

  “December isn’t exactly overnight. Tomorrow’s the first of December.”

  He underlined “December” as if it were a challenge. He sprang to his feet and began to walk back and forth, back and forth. She watched him, apprehensive and miserable. He stopped and faced her.

  “Damn it, I’m too busy to get upset about all these personal things all the time. My feelings get all snarled, then I can’t work. I’ve got on right to get so I can’t work. That company of mine is bigger than—”

  He saw her face, and slashed his words off sharp. In the next moment, he tried to comfort her in his arms.

  But the magic didn’t work this time. She pulled away instantly, turned on him, the gray of her eyes darkened and burning.

  “Then work. Give this idea up. It bothers you, it interferes with you. Let’s quit it now. You don’t really want everything it stands for, you just want to know for sure you’re all right. Well, you are, a famous specialist says so. Let that be enough until you really want—”

  “Vee, stop, quit it. You know damn well I want it to happen.”

  “I know you wound everything in me a million times without knowing it. There’s something in you that runs away, back to the work, back to the work. All right, it is a big thing, it is a great weapon of communication and the world needs it. Better give it everything—that’s what you really want to do.”