Cold Sea Stories

by Pawel Huelle

  As he waited a dreadfully long time for the sluggish waiter at the hotel restaurant, he tried to imagine his father’s tall, slightly stooping figure entering Franz Carl Weber’s toy store, only about forty metres away from here. First he must have taken in the sight of dozens of trains speeding around several enormous model landscapes that filled the greater part of the ground floor. Then, after lengthy observations and calculations, with the catalogue in hand, he must have eventually chosen suitable models and asked for them to be shown to him properly, until finally there came the packing stage and a visit to the cash register – which in those days was still mechanical, with a crank handle, making that part of the store look like a shop out of Dickens.

  His father is very pleased, even though sleet has been falling on Bahnhofstrasse for several minutes and a bitterly cold wind is blowing. He presses his hat more firmly onto his head, turns up the collar of his old raincoat, carefully knots his scarf and sets off in the direction of the station with two enormous packages under his left and right arms. But moments later, literally after only fifteen metres, he turns around and goes back past the liveried doorman and into the toy shop again. ‘What’s the matter?’ asks the senior sales assistant. ‘Is there something wrong?’

  ‘Not at all, everything’s fine,’ replies his father, putting his parcels down on a counter top. ‘I just wanted to ask for your mail-order catalogue, because you see, it occurred to me that I might order something else, from home, from Poland.’

  ‘Of course,’ says the senior sales assistant, handing him a fat book in soft, shiny covers, similar in shape to a school exercise book. ‘It costs fifty francs,’ he says, and watches the customer open his coin purse and count out the requested sum in twenty and ten centime coins; he is exactly five centimes short, so the senior sales assistant waits calmly. Meanwhile a train ticket falls out of the purse, the receipt for the toys bought a little earlier, a dry cleaning ticket for a jacket, but not the missing five centimes – because his father simply hasn’t got it. The banknote lying at the bottom of his wallet is absolutely not to be touched: it must last him for the final two days.

  ‘What kind of a salesman am I?’ says the senior sales assistant, picking up the company receipt from the floor and handing it to his father. ‘Anyone who makes a purchase worth more than fifty francs receives the catalogue for free. Here you are, sir,’ he says, handing him the book, ‘you spent several times that sum,’ and helps him to pick up his parcels from the counter. ‘Happy Christmas!’

  ‘Happy Christmas,’ replies his father, and heads towards the station at a faster pace than before, because the train to Winterthur is leaving from platform two in just under fifteen minutes – Happy Christmas – he repeats to himself now, under his breath, in Polish, as he buys a lottery ticket at the station tobacco shop, splitting that final banknote in the process, which he should only have split the next day – Happy Christmas.

  As the Alps pass by outside the carriage windows, invisible in the darkness, he feels quiet satisfaction. By denying himself every third lunch and every fourth supper, as well as small treats like hot chocolate or a trip to the cinema, from his modest allowance he set aside enough for two magnificent trains and ten complete tracks. Exactly enough for the boys to be able to encompass their entire bedroom with them, including a route under the old wardrobe and behind the chest-of-drawers. The next day, when he picks up a newspaper at the hotel reception and reads the number of the lucky winning ticket, he cannot believe his own eyes. He has just enough cash to buy a one-way ticket to Zurich and reach the legal firm, which – as he has read in the very same newspaper – provides services for ‘foreign clients and complicated financial matters’. Henri Rosset confers with him at length in his office, until finally, after signing several agreements and letters of authorisation, he pays him 100 francs – on account, a sum guaranteed by the lottery win.

  ‘Perhaps you need more?’ he asks at the end.

  ‘Absolutely not,’ replies his father. ‘In my country that means serious trouble.’

  The solitary dinner dragged on for an unbearably long time. Over coffee he looked at his watch: it was already almost half past three, and mass at the Liebfrauenkirche was due to begin at six. In his room he pored over a map of the city. The church was situated at number 9 Zehnderweg, and thus not so far from the hotel and even nearer to the station – on the other side of the river. Only now, as the emotions fell away from him, did he feel how very tired he was; for that precise reason he did not take a short nap, but after a quick shower and a change of shirt, set off past the luxury shop-window displays of Bahnhofstrasse. But the jeweller’s baubles, the most expensive watches in the world and the fur coats imported from Siberia did not interest him at all. He went into an antiquarian bookshop and briefly looked through some old, seventeenth-century maps. On one of them, by Jean Bleu, he saw his home city, the bay, and the long, sandy peninsula which the sailors had called ‘Hell’ since mediaeval times.

  ‘I don’t have to go home tomorrow,’ he thought. ‘I don’t really have to do anything.’

  He didn’t buy the map, though at the start, when he first examined it, that had been his intention. On the bridge he remembered the visit he and his mother had paid to the parish office before his father’s funeral.

  ‘Please, please, Father, I beg you,’ his mother had almost burst into tears, ‘if only for the children’s sakes!’

  The curate was young and clearly sympathised with them, but he had his orders.

  ‘There’s nothing I can do for you. Canonical law is quite clear about these situations. We do not refuse to say mass for the unfortunate soul, but a funeral service conducted by a priest is out of the question. Please understand us. After all, it was suicide,’ he lowered his voice, ‘plainly, without any doubt.’

  Only many years later had he found out from his mother that the older, retired priest, whom no one knew in their parish, and who had appeared at the cemetery at the very last moment, driving up to the gate on an extremely dilapidated moped, had been his father’s commander in the underground youth resistance movement during the war. He himself had never mentioned his wartime activities. As he was nearing the church, on Zehnderweg already, he saw himself in that cramped, cluttered flat, examining and sorting his parents’ papers. His brother hadn’t come back from America for their mother’s funeral. He had had to take care of everything on his own, but the worst thing was all that tidying, which took him several weeks to deal with. What tired him the most were the photographs of people he could never know anything about anymore. In one of the boxes he found a large, grey envelope. It was lying at the very bottom, stuck down and unidentified. It contained documents issued by the legal firm in Zurich. There was nothing in them to say how much money his father had deposited, and he could only confirm that Henri & François Rosset will make every effort to increase the values entrusted to them, and that these may only be acquired upon the application of the interested party in person, those authorised by him or his legally defined heirs. For several years he had corresponded with his brother on this topic – gently and cautiously. His brother had promised to take care of it, and even to fly to Zurich, but in fact he had never intended to lift a finger to deal with the matter, which he regarded as some obsolete whim not worth the expense. When they finally opened the borders, his brother was no longer alive. For the next few years, as he set up his own company and threw himself into a whirl of rather bad business ventures, the envelope lay in his desk among his school certificates and his diploma from the polytechnic. He found the legal firm’s email address on the internet, and after one short message, to his astonishment, he got the answer that on the matter in question he must appear in person, equipped with the relevant documents. There followed a list.

  He was expecting trouble, legal loopholes, expressions of doubt, and for the whole process to be strung out into infinity, but now here he was, entering the Liebfrauenkirche edifice as someone who had inherited an extraordinarily large
fortune. It was a strange feeling: in the city from which Lenin had left for Saint Petersburg in a sealed carriage, the city where the Dadaists had proclaimed their manifesto, and much earlier Zwingli had issued his, here in this city he had received a win on the lottery, which his father had once happened to play.

  The mass was preceded by an announcement read out by the priest from a sheet of paper: the bishop they had been expecting, Luigi Conti, had not come, laid low by sudden and severe flu. He sent the congregation his blessing, which – along with a specially composed pastoral prayer – would be read out after the Eucharist. He walked along a side nave to the altar, and then went back towards the choir, casting discreet glances in search of Teresa. But he could not see her anywhere, nor anyone whom she could be cunningly impersonating.

  ‘What could be sadder than a cancelled performance in a foreign city?’ he thought as he left the church.

  If his neighbour had gone back to the hotel, he might call her from the reception and invite her to supper. But at once he imagined Herr Hugin or Herr Munin disguised as the receptionist. Ultimately, considering the unusual friendship they had formed, he could also press ahead and knock at her door as he came down the corridor, and then suggest an outing to the city. Unless she had decided to leave at once, as the performance had not come off. Convinced that was probably what she had done, he stopped a taxi and told the driver to take him to Spiegelgasse, to the restaurant which was once home to the famous Cabaret Voltaire. Once there, he ordered a salad and some wine, but he did not enjoy the meal: surrounded by a raucous crowd of people, he spent the entire time gazing at the couple opposite – the young man was wearing a pointed Bolshevik cap with a red star and a collarless brown Russian shirt draped over his trousers, and his girlfriend was dressed in the leather jacket of a People’s Commissar. For a while he even wondered whether to address them in Russian, but he dropped the idea and left the noisy place with relief.

  He went back to the hotel on foot, only once checking the route on his city map. At the reception, as he paid his bill, he noticed that the key to room 304 was not in its pigeonhole. Back in his room, he put his ear to the door inside the wardrobe and heard her footsteps. She was pacing to and fro, clearly upset. Should he knock on her door to tell her he had been at the church? He didn’t really have anything else to communicate: he was leaving the next day at about noon.

  He stepped back out of the wardrobe and switched on the television. As he watched the CNN news from Iraq, he remembered the name of the king who was exiled from Jerusalem: it was Zedekiah. The victors had first made him witness the execution of his own sons, then they had blinded him, put him in chains and driven him into captivity. This had no direct connection with the news, so he was all the more curious to know why on earth he had been thinking yesterday about the religious education lesson at which, many years ago, he had been read the story of the last king of Judah. Maybe he associated the blinding of the ruler with the sight of the prisoners whose eyes had been blindfolded?

  He was already on his way to the bathroom when he heard a noise coming from the corridor. Someone knocked at his neighbour’s door. Once and again.

  ‘Please open up!’ he heard a man’s voice. ‘We’ve got a warrant!’

  Without hesitation he went into the wardrobe, opened the back door and beckoned to her to come into his room. She managed to grab her handbag and her coat. As he closed the wooden door panel, the key in her lock turned with a dull rattle and several men entered the next-door room – probably policemen – with the help of the hotel staff. While they were searching her luggage, she sat beside him on the sofa. He gently took hold of her hand, which she did not withdraw.

  ‘So what now?’ he whispered.

  ‘They’ll arrest me, as usual.’

  ‘But nothing happened. You haven’t done anything.’

  ‘That’s just how it looks. You know what it’s called? An attempt. In Italy I would lie my way out of it and only get a few days. In Switzerland I might get more. They’ll find a picture of Luigi in my case. The old woman’s costume and the saint’s robes. Newspaper cuttings. That’s enough. Three years ago I was arrested in Einsiedeln, so I’ve already had a sentence here. Suspended.’

  ‘We can run away if you like,’ he said.

  ‘Of course I do, but how? They’re sure to post someone at reception for the whole night. But I’ve no reason to go back in there now,’ she said, pointing at the wall with the wardrobe.

  ‘First let’s wait a bit,’ he said, turning up the television, ‘then I’ll go and reconnoitre.’

  After an hour, during which they sat huddled together shyly like a pair of school children, he went down to the hotel bar, slowly passing the reception. There were two men sitting in armchairs in the lobby, clearly on duty. He drank a small whisky and went back to the lift. There was no one in the corridor on the third floor, and there were no sounds coming from behind the door of her room.

  ‘Put on my coat, trousers, shoes, scarf and also... my glasses. It’s a pity I haven’t got a hat. But you can smoke my pipe. Yes, like that. Keep your hands in the pockets. Here’s a rain hat, I brought it just in case. Wait, a man’s shirt under the coat, with the collar done up, and a tie – you must have a tie, so it shows under the scarf. Just walk through at a calm pace and get in a taxi, as if you were off for a late supper. But wash off your make-up. We’ll pin your hair up under the cap – like that, look. You can hang my bag over your shoulder. I’ll put your handbag in my suitcase.’

  ‘All right, but then what?’

  ‘You’ll take a taxi to the station. The night train from Geneva to Rome departs from platform three at half-past midnight. Let’s meet at the platform entrance. Stand facing the timetable board and don’t look round. I’ll be there ten minutes after you.’

  ‘We haven’t got much time.’

  ‘If you’re not on the platform, I’ll go back to the hotel.’

  ‘If they detain me, they’ll ask who helped me.’

  ‘So tell them.’

  ‘I won’t.’

  ‘You will, but only after noon. I’ll be far away.’

  ‘And will we ever meet again?’

  ‘You’ll send me a letter from prison.’

  ‘To what address? I don’t even know your surname!’

  ‘Here’s my card.’

  ‘No, because if they catch me...’

  ‘They won’t catch you. Take it. But let’s hurry.’

  When she went out into the corridor with the bag slung over her shoulder, in his raincoat with the collar slightly turned up and with his cap on her head, adjusting the glasses and puffing on the pipe, he thought the shoes might give her away more than anything: they were too big, and despite her efforts, every second or third step she distinctly shuffled them in a funny way. But there was no time for practice. He packed at lightning speed, highly amused by the situation. In just his suit, and with his small case, he appeared at the reception desk to hand in his key.

  ‘Are you leaving?’ asked the young man.

  ‘My bill is paid,’ he said in a confident tone. The two gentlemen in the armchairs cast him furtive glances, but neither of them so much as raised a finger.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ confirmed the receptionist. ‘Bon voyage.’

  He gave him a nod, and just outside the hotel he got in a taxi. He glanced at his watch: the night express was leaving in fifteen minutes. He still had enough time to stop at the ticket office and buy two first-class tickets for the sleeping car. Teresa was standing in front of the platform timetable; one of her rolled-up trouser legs had come undone, hiding her shoe. The train was just pulling in. They were walking alongside each other, when suddenly one of the wheels on his case began to squeak.

  ‘I don’t have a large flat in Rome,’ she said, once they were in the compartment. ‘I don’t know if you’ll like it.’

  ‘But I don’t want to go to Rome at all, and I’m not planning to stay at your flat.’

  ‘So what are your plans
?’

  ‘To stop in Venice.’

  ‘For how long?’

  ‘A week or two.’

  She went behind the screen to wet her face and neck in the sink.

  ‘But can you stay a day with me?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘You’ll meet my daughter. She isn’t mad like me. Luckily I did manage to pay for the hotel,’ – she changed the subject – ‘but for this luxury here I will be in your debt. Until next month, if that’s all right. Why don’t you say something? Perhaps you just want to sleep with me? Are you expecting something?’

  ‘I’d like to have a cup of tea.’

  ‘Hand me my blouse. Tea at this time of day? That’s a Russian habit. I’m sorry, perhaps I’ve offended you. So did you take care of your business in Zurich?’

  ‘Yes. I won’t be going back there again.’

  They sat facing each other and drank the tea served by the steward. Outside the lights of passing stations flashed by. Finally they lay down, each in their own bed.

  ‘Do you know of a boarding house in Venice?’ she asked in the darkness.

  ‘No. I’m staying at the Hotel Danieli.’

  ‘Do you know how much that costs? A fortune!’

  ‘Tough. Unless you come with me and help me find something cheaper.’

  ‘I’d have to bring my daughter.’

  ‘So bring her.’

  ‘Are you serious? Or are you just...’

  ‘I’m serious.’

  Once again they were silent, until finally he said: ‘I’d like to kiss you. When I first saw you in the train to Zurich I dreamed of kissing you.’

  ‘And I asked if we were already in Zurich, as if I didn’t know where we were. I wanted you to embrace me. I want you to now, too.’