Flotsam

by Erich Maria Remarque

  A short distance outside Vienna, Steiner got a lift and was taken as far as the border. He did not want to take the chance of showing his passport to the Austrian customs officials and so he got out before they reached the border and went the rest of the way on foot. About ten o’clock in the evening he presented himself at the customs office and reported that he had just been sent out of Switzerland.

  “All right,” said an old customs man with a Franz Josef beard. “We’re used to that. We’ll send you back early tomorrow morning. Find a seat for yourself somewhere.”

  Steiner sat down outside in front of the customs house and smoked. It was peaceful. The customs man on duty was dozing. Only occasionally a car came by. About an hour later the man with the beard stepped out. “Tell me,” he asked Steiner, “are you an Austrian?”

  Steiner was immediately alarmed. He had sewed his passport into his hat. “What makes you think that?” he inquired casually. “If I were an Austrian I wouldn’t be a refugee, would I?”

  The customs man struck his forehead with the flat of his hand so that his silvery beard shook. “Of course! Of course! The things a fellow forgets! I only asked you because I thought if you were an Austrian you might be able to play tarots.”

  “I can play tarots. I learned it as a youngster during the war. For a time I was in an Austrian division.”

  “Splendid! Splendid!” The Emperor Franz Josef slapped Steiner on the shoulder. “Why you’re almost a fellow countryman. How about it? Will you join us? We need just one extra.”

  “Of course.”

  They went inside. An hour later Steiner had won seven schillings. He didn’t play in the manner of Fred the cardsharp—he played honestly. But he played so much better than the customs men that he always won whenever his hand was any good at all.

  At eleven o’clock they ate together. The customs men said it was their breakfast; they were on duty until eight o’clock in the morning. The breakfast was abundant and good. Afterward they went on playing. Steiner got a good hand. The Austrian customs men played against him with the courage of desperation. By eight o’clock they were calling each other by their first names. By three o’clock they were saying “du.” By four o’clock they knew each other so well that phrases such as “son of a bitch,” “sprig of Satan,” “horse’s ass” no longer counted as insults but were spontaneous expressions of amazement, admiration and affection.

  At five o’clock the customs man on duty came in. “Children, it’s high time to get Josef across the border.”

  There was silence all around. All eyes were turned toward the money that lay in front of Steiner. The Emperor Franz Josef was the first to speak. “What’s won is won,” he said resignedly. “He’s rooked us for fair. Now he goes off like an autumn swallow, the bastard!”

  “I had good cards,” Steiner replied. “Damned good cards.”

  “That’s just it!” the Emperor Franz Josef said in a melancholy voice. “You had good cards. Tomorrow perhaps we will have good cards. But then you won’t be here any more. There’s injustice in it somewhere.”

  “That’s right. But where will you find justice, brother?”

  “Justice among card players lies in the fact that the winner must give a chance for revenge. Then if he wins again there’s nothing you can do about it. But this way—” The Emperor Franz Josef raised his hands despairingly. “There’s something unsatisfactory about this.”

  “But, children,” Steiner said, “if that’s all that’s bothering you! You put me across the border, tomorrow evening the Swiss will put me back again—and I’ll give you your chance.”

  The Emperor Franz Josef clapped his hands resoundingly.

  “That’s the very thing!” he shouted in relief. “We couldn’t propose it to you ourselves, you know. Because we’re officers of the State. It’s all right for us to play cards with you. That’s not forbidden. But we must not encourage you to recross the border. If you come of your own accord that’s something else again.”

  “I’ll come,” Steiner said. “You can count on it.”

  He reported at the Swiss border station and said he wanted to go back to Austria that night. They did not send him to the police station but kept him there. It was Sunday. Right next to the customs building was a small inn. There was a lot going on that afternoon; but in the evening after eight o’clock it quieted down.

  A few customs men who were having their vacation sat around in the main room. They had visited their friends and now they began to play jass. Before Steiner realized what was happening he was in the game.

  The Swiss were wonderful players. They had iron nerve and enormous luck. By ten o’clock they had taken eight francs away from Steiner; around midnight he had made up five. But at two o’clock when the restaurant was closed he had lost thirteen francs.

  The Swiss treated him to a couple of large glasses of brandy. He needed them, for the night was cold and he had to wade across the Rhine.

  On the far side he caught sight of a dark shape against the sky. It was the Emperor Franz Josef. The moon was behind his head like a saint’s halo.

  Steiner dried himself. His teeth were chattering. He drank the remainder of the brandy the Swiss had given him and got dressed. Then he approached the lonesome figure.

  “Where have you been?” Franz Josef greeted him. “I’ve been waiting for you since one o’clock. We thought you might lose your way and so I’ve been standing here.”

  Steiner laughed. “The Swiss held me up.”

  “Well, hurry up now! We’ve only got two-and-a-half hours left.”

  The battle began at once. At five o’clock it was still undecided; the Austrians happened to have held good cards. The Emperor Franz Josef threw his hand on the table. “What a break, now of all times!”

  He put on his coat and fastened the buckle of his sword. “Come along, pal! There’s nothing for it. Duty is duty. We’ll have to put you across the border.”

  He and Steiner walked toward the border. Franz Josef was smoking a fragrant Nigeria cigarette. “Do you know,” he said after a while, “I have a feeling the Swiss are especially on the lookout tonight. They’re waiting for you to come across, don’t you think?”

  “Quite possibly,” Steiner replied.

  “Maybe it would be wiser to send you back tomorrow night. Then they’d think you’d got by us and would not be so much on the alert.”

  “That’s reasonable.”

  Franz Josef stopped. “Look over there! Something gleamed. That was a flashlight. Now there on that side! Did you see it?”

  “Very clearly.” Steiner grinned. He hadn’t seen anything, but he knew what the old customs man wanted.

  Franz Josef scratched his silvery beard. Then he squinted slyly at Steiner. “You couldn’t possibly get through. That’s evident. Don’t you think so too? We’ve got to go back, pal. I’m sorry, but the border is closely watched. We can’t do a thing except wait till tomorrow. I’ll make a report about it.”

  “All right.”

  They played until eight in the morning. Steiner lost seventeen schillings, but he was still twenty-two ahead of the game. Franz Josef wrote his report and turned Steiner over to the customs men who relieved him.

  The daytime customs men were punctilious and formal. They locked Steiner up at the police station. He slept there the whole day. Promptly at eight o’clock the Emperor Franz Josef appeared to take him triumphantly to the customs house.

  There was a short but hearty meal; then the battle began. At two-hour intervals one of the customs men was changed for the one who was coming off duty. Steiner stayed at the table until five in the morning. At twelve-fifteen Emperor Franz Josef burned off the top layer of his beard in the excitement. He had thought there was a cigarette in his mouth and had tried to light it. It was an hallucination due to the fact that for an hour he had had only spades and clubs. He saw black dots where there was nothing at all.

  Steiner utterly routed the customs force. He wrought especial havoc between
three o’clock and five. In his desperation Franz Josef fetched reinforcements. He telephoned to the tarots champion of Buchs, who came tearing up on his motorcycle. It did no good. Steiner took him too. For the first time since he had known Him, God was on the side of the needy. Steiner held such cards that he regretted only one thing—that he was not playing with millionaires.

  At five o’clock the last hand was dealt. Then the cards were put aside. Steiner had won 106 schillings.

  The champion of Buchs roared off on his motorcycle with no farewells. Steiner and the Emperor Franz Josef went to the border. Franz Josef showed him a different way from two nights before. “Go in this direction,” he said. “Be sure to hide yourself tomorrow morning. In the afternoon you can go to the station. You’ve got money enough now. And don’t let me see you here again, you highway robber,” he added in a graveyard voice; “otherwise we’ll have to apply for a raise in salary.”

  “All right. Sometime I’ll give you a chance to get back.”

  “Not at tarots. I’ve had enough of that. At chess, if you like, or at Blind Cow.”

  Steiner crossed the border. He wondered whether he should go to the Swiss customs and demand a return engagement, but he knew he would lose. He decided to take a train to Murten and look for Kern. It was on the way to Paris and was no great detour.

  * * *

  Kern was walking slowly toward the general Post Office. He was tired. For the last three nights he had hardly been able to sleep. Ruth should have been there three days ago. During the whole time he had had no news of her. She had not written. He had resolutely told himself there was some trivial cause and had thought out a thousand explanations—but now he suddenly believed she would not come at all. He felt strangely numb. The noise of the streets penetrated as though from a great distance into his dull unformulated sorrow, and he walked like an automaton putting one foot in front of the other.

  It took a moment for him to recognize the blue coat. He stopped. It’s just any blue coat, he thought, one of the hundreds of blue coats that have been driving me crazy this week. He looked away, and then looked at it again. Messenger boys and a fat woman, laden with parcels, blocked his view. He held his breath and noticed he was trembling. The blue coat danced before his eyes between red faces, hats, bicycles, packages, and people who were constantly getting in the way. He walked on cautiously, as though on a tightrope and afraid he might fall off at any second. Even when Ruth turned around and he could see her face, he believed he was suffering from a diabolic trick of the imagination. It was not until her face lighted up that he rushed forward to greet her.

  “Ruth! You’re here! You’re here! You’ve been waiting and I wasn’t here!” He held her close in his arms and felt her clinging to him. They clung together as though they were standing on a narrow mountain ledge and a storm was tugging at them to pitch them into the abyss. They were standing in the middle of the doorway of the general Post Office in Geneva at the hour when the crowds were largest and people were pushing by, jostling them, turning around and laughing—they noticed none of it. They were alone. Only when a uniform appeared in Kern’s field of vision did he regain his senses. He let go of Ruth.

  “Come quick!” he whispered. “Come into the Post Office before something happens.”

  They hurriedly melted into the crowd. “Come this way!”

  They took their places at the end of a line of people waiting in front of the stamp window. “When did you get here?” Kern asked. The Post Office had never seemed to him so bright before.

  “This morning.”

  “Did they take you to Basle first or straight here?”

  “No. In Murten they gave me a residential permit for three days. So I came right on here by train.”

  “Marvelous! Even a permit to stay! Then you needn’t feel any fear at all. I had pictured you being alone on the border. You’re pale and thin, Ruth.”

  “But I’m entirely well again. Do I look ugly?”

  “No, much prettier. You’re prettier every time I see you. Are you hungry?”

  “Yes,” Ruth said. “Hungry for everything—to see you, to walk along the streets, to breathe the air and to talk.”

  “Then we’ll eat right away. I know a little restaurant where they have fresh fish from the Lake. Just like Lucerne.” Kern beamed. “There are so many lakes in Switzerland. Where is your baggage?”

  “At the station, of course! After all, I’m an old and experienced vagabond.”

  “Yes! I’m proud of you. Ruth, you’ve come to your first illegal border crossing. That’s almost like a graduation. Are you afraid?”

  “Not a bit.”

  “You needn’t be, either. I know this border as well as my own pocketbook. I know everything about it. I’ve even got tickets. Bought them in France day before yesterday. Everything is ready. I know the station thoroughly. We’ll stay in a little tavern where it’s safe up to the last minute and then go straight to the train.”

  “You’ve bought tickets? Where did you get the money for them? You sent me so much.”

  “In my desperation I plundered the Swiss clergy. I stormed through Basle and Geneva like a gangster. I won’t dare let myself be seen here for six months at least.”

  Ruth laughed. “I have some money with me too. Dr. Beer got it for me from the Refugees’ Aid.”

  They were standing close together, moving slowly forward with the line. Kern held Ruth’s hand firmly in his. They were speaking softly in lowered voices and trying to appear as indifferent and unconcerned as possible.

  “We seem to have uncanny luck,” Kern said. “You not only turn up again with a permit, you actually bring money with you! Why in the world didn’t you write to me? Wouldn’t they let you?”

  “I was afraid. I thought they might arrest you if you came to get a letter. Beer told me about the affair with Ammers. He thought too it was better not to write. I wrote a lot of letters to you, Ludwig; I wrote to you constantly—without paper or pencil. You know that, don’t you?” She looked at him.

  Kern squeezed her hand. “I’m sure of it. Have you rented a room yet?”

  “No. I came straight here from the station.”

  She didn’t tell him that she had been standing in front of the Post Office since nine o’clock that morning. “I thought I’d take a room in the same boardinghouse you’re staying in. Isn’t that the easiest way?”

  “Yes, only—” Kern hesitated for a moment. “Look here, these last few days I’ve become a sort of nighthawk. I didn’t want to take any chances. And so I’ve been making use of the state boardinghouses.” He noticed Ruth’s expression.

  “No, no,” he said. “Not prison. The customs houses. You can sleep there all night. They’re warm and that’s the important thing. All of the customs houses are beautifully heated when it’s cold. But that’s not the thing for you. You have a residential permit—We could make a fine gesture and take a room for you in the Grand Hotel Bellevue. That’s where the representatives of the League of Nations stay. Ministers and similar useless people.”

  “We’ll not do that. I’m going to stay with you. If you think it’s dangerous, let’s go away tonight.”

  “What?” the clerk behind the window asked impatiently. They had moved forward to the window without realizing it.

  “A ten-centime stamp,” Kern said, quickly recovering himself.

  The clerk handed over the stamp. Kern paid and they went toward the exit. “What in the world are you going to do with that stamp?” Ruth asked.

  “I don’t know. I just bought it. I react automatically when I see a uniform.” Kern looked at the stamp. The Devil’s Falls in the Gotthard. “I could write an anonymous letter of abuse to Ammers,” he remarked.

  “Ammers—” Ruth said. “Do you know he’s taking treatments from Beer?”

  “What? Is that true?” Kern stared at her. “Now tell me they’re treatments for liver trouble and I’ll stand on my head with joy.”

  Ruth laughed. She laughed so tha
t she swayed like a field in the wind. “Yes, that’s right! That’s why he went to Beer. Beer is the only specialist in Murten. Just think—that adds a problem of conscience to Ammers’ difficulties—because he has to go to a Jewish doctor.”

  “Great God! This is the proudest moment of my life. Steiner told me once that the rarest thing in life was to have love and revenge at the same time. Here I am standing on the steps of the general Post Office in Geneva and I have them both. Perhaps right now Binding is sitting in jail or has broken his leg.”

  “Or someone has stolen his money.”

  “That’s even better! You have fine ideas, Ruth!”

  They walked down the steps. “It’s safest where there are crowds,” Kern said. “There nothing is likely to happen to you.”

  “Are we going to cross the border tonight?” Ruth asked.

  “No. You must rest up first and get some sleep. It’s a long way.”

  “And you? Don’t you have to sleep too? After all, we could go to one of the boardinghouses on Binder’s list. Is it really so dangerous?”

  “I no longer know,” Kern said. “I don’t think so. As close to the border as this not much can happen. I’ve gone back and forth too often. The worst they can do is to take us to the customs authorities. And even if it were a little more dangerous, I still wouldn’t go away alone tonight I think. At twelve o’clock noon, in the middle of a crowd, you can be very firm about the right thing to do—but at night when it gets dark everything’s different. Besides, with every minute it’s growing more and more improbable. You’re here again—how could anyone go away of his own free will?”

  “I wouldn’t have stayed here alone either,” Ruth said.

  Chapter Sixteen

  KERN AND RUTH SUCCEEDED in crossing the border unobserved and took a train at Bellegarde. They arrived in Paris in the evening and stood in front of the station, not knowing where to go.

  “Cheer up, Ruth,” Kern said. “We’ll stay at some small hotel. It’s too late to try for anything else today. Tomorrow we’ll have a look around.”