by Anna Seghers
“What have I become?”
“His coolie. We know all about that aspect of Weidel. He always manages to find someone to act as his coolie—until the time comes when he breaks up with each in turn; it always ends in an unholy row. He knows how to cast a spell on people—but only for a limited time. Even his own wife.”
“What kind of woman is she actually, Paul?”
He thought a while. “I don’t care for her. She’s—”
For no reason whatsoever I felt a slight uneasiness. I quickly interrupted him, “All right then, so you’ll do whatever you can for poor Weidel. After all, you have some influence among a certain group of people. By the way, could you lend me a few francs?”
“My dear fellow, just stand in line for a couple of hours at some committee.”
“Which committee?”
“Good heavens! There are the Quakers, or the Jews of Marseille, HICEM, Hayas, the Catholics, the Salvation Army, or the Freemasons.” He walked off rapidly. In an instant he had vanished down the Canebière.
VII
When I arrived at my hotel, the proprietress stopped me. Up to now I had only seen the upper third of her, those parts of her that were visible behind the window at the top of the staircase, from which point she could follow the comings and goings of her lodgers with impartial attentiveness. She was prattling on, telling me how lucky I was because the police had come back and taken away the woman from the room next to mine.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because, since her husband was arrested, she was now living in the city without a man’s protection. And all women discovered living here in Marseille without their own husbands or without adequate identification papers are to be interned in the new women’s camp, the Bompard.”
Obviously her lodger’s fate didn’t matter at all to her. She was putting aside every franc she collected from her precariously situated guests so that she could start a grocery store as soon as possible. Maybe she was even in cahoots with one of the police officers, the one who led the raids, dividing the reward for each person arrested with him. After all she knew everything about us. So she was living quite the enterprising life in her quiet lair. And all the crying and despair of the lodgers arrested during the raids were transformed into peas, soap, and macaroni in her mind.
During the next few days I tried to follow Paul’s advice. But my attempts at the various committees failed miserably. At first I told everyone that I was expecting to get work on a farm, I needed only a little bit of money to tide me over till then. They all shrugged. They gave me nothing, and I didn’t even have enough change to buy cigarettes. After that I decided to disregard my parents’ deeply ingrained advice, namely, that a man must hold his ground and give up only when there is no other way out. So now I told them all that I intended to give up, to leave. This they all understood. I’m convinced that had I asked for money to buy a hoe so that I could try my luck in a beet field somewhere on this old planet, they wouldn’t have given me five francs to buy it. They rewarded only those who were ready to leave, those who were willing to give up everything. So from then on I presented myself as eager to leave, and I got enough money to last me while I was waiting for a ship. I paid for my room; I bought cigarettes for myself and books for Binnet’s boy.
My second month in Marseille wasn’t quite over but it was well under way. Marcel had written me in the meantime that he was on pretty good terms with his uncle and I could probably come to work on the farm in the spring. If I cited this at the Office for Aliens as a reason for my waiting around, I would certainly be imprisoned or sent back, the devil knows where to. Refugees, it seems, have to go on fleeing; they can’t suddenly raise peaches. What I needed to extend my residence permit for the second time was proof that I was waiting here for a visa. So for better or worse, I had to go back again to the Mexican Consulate. At the time I didn’t think there could be anything bad about getting this proof; I wasn’t taking anything away from anyone else. And it would give me a chance to catch my breath. Innumerable things could happen in the meantime that might change my life. Maybe I’d be able to go to work at Marcel’s uncle’s farm sooner. The important thing was to retain my freedom. That’s what I thought; that’s what we’d all been thinking for years. At worst it would be a stamp on a piece of paper. It couldn’t hurt the dead man. But once I had it, I could get a safe and useful extension of my residence permit. I was certain that I could really grow some roots once I had a genuine extension of my residence permit. I might even lose my desire to leave.
My heart was pounding as I walked up the Boulevard de la Madeleine. At first, I thought I’d made a mistake about the house number. The coat of arms was gone! The gate locked!
In the blustery wind, a crowd had gathered in the street; people looked perplexed, irresolute. As I approached I heard them bemoan the sad news: the consulate was closed because it was moving elsewhere. No visas were being issued. We can’t leave. The last ship might be sailing this week. The Germans might arrive tomorrow.
The bearded prestataire joined the group. He said, “Calm down, people. The Germans may come, but you can rest assured there’s no ship leaving now. With visas or without. Go home, all of you.”
But the people continued to wait there as if the locked gate would take pity on them. The wind, even as it buffeted and pummeled them, seemed also to hold them there together in a vortex of fear. They looked pale and frayed as if the expected ship were the last ferry across the Dark River Styx; and yet they were barred even from taking this ferry because there was still some life in them and they were destined for extraordinary suffering.
Eventually they dispersed. A tall, elderly man with gleaming white hair remained behind. “I’ve had enough,” he said gloomily. “Do you think I should go to the new consulate when it opens? My children all died in the civil war. My wife died while we were crossing the Pyrenees. I’ve survived it all. I don’t know why, but nothing seems to touch me. Do you think it makes much sense for me, with my white hair and broken heart, to keep on fighting with these stupid consuls here in Marseille?”
“The short consul isn’t stupid,” I answered him. “I’m sure he’ll treat you respectfully.”
“My problem is getting a transit visa,” the old man said. “Even if they give me a visa here, I have to stand in line elsewhere for the transit visa. And once I do get on a boat, I’d probably be hoping for it to sink during the crossing. I ask you, young man, do you really think it makes sense for me to go to the consulate once they reopen it at the new address?”
I said, “No, it doesn’t make any sense.”
He stared at me for a while; then he left.
VIII
I left, too. A few steps farther down the street, a streetcar passed me. It stopped fifteen feet ahead of me. There was a slight delay at the stop. They were helping someone get off.
“Heinz!” I yelled.
For it really was Heinz who was coming slowly up the Boulevard de la Madeleine after they had set him down on the sidewalk with his two crutches. He recognized me, but was too out of breath to call to me.
He’d shrunk even more since our time together in the camp. His head looked even heavier, his shoulders, even skinnier. Looking at him I wondered anew why life should be imprisoned in a body so fragile that can be maimed and tortured. Yes, I really mean imprisoned. His bright eyes seemed to mock his imprisonment; his wide mouth was distorted by the effort of walking.
In the camp I’d often tried to make him look at me with those eyes of his. Their keen, attentive gaze would fix on someone, look for something within, and find it, too; and each time they would get brighter, just like a flame when fresh fuel is added. Maybe because of this I would keep looking for new chances to draw his eyes to me. It was only when his alert gaze rested on me that I realized he detected something in me that I myself didn’t know was still there. And yet it would be obvious that Heinz wasn’t much concerned about me. He liked the sort of qualities in people that I lacked, that weren’t important to me.
Back then, at any rate, I was convinced that they weren’t important. I’m referring to unconditional loyalty which, in those days, I considered senseless and boring, dependability, which seemed to me impossible to maintain, and unswerving faith, which seemed to me as childish and useless as dragging old banners across endless battlefields. And every time Heinz turned away from me as if to say: You may be a fellow human being, but...Pride would keep me from approaching him again until that other feeling became stronger again than my pride. Then I would again try to draw his eyes to me, sometimes by offering to help him, sometimes with silly things.
I remembered all this now as Heinz came the few steps toward me. In the last few weeks I’d almost forgotten Heinz, forgotten what bound me to him. Actually, in Paris, and also when I was on the road I had thought a lot about him, had kept searching for him instinctively among the godforsaken hordes milling in the streets and at the railroad stations. Then in Marseille I stopped thinking about him. It’s odd, almost as if the most important things in life, while still very much a part of you, are forgotten. And instead we fixate on unimportant things that become temporary obsessions until they fade.
When Heinz briefly leaned his head against me—he couldn’t free his hands—and his eyes again focused on me, I suddenly understood what those clear eyes were looking for and almost instantly found again: it was me, myself, and nothing else, and I instantly knew, to my enormous relief, that I was still there, that I had not gotten lost, not in any war or in any concentration camp, not in fascism, not while moving about, not during any bombardment, not in any disorder, no matter how violent. I hadn’t gotten lost, hadn’t bled to death; I was here, and so was Heinz.
“Where are you coming from?” we asked each other. Heinz said, “I was coming to Marseille from north of here and got off the streetcar right in front of your eyes because I have to go to the Mexican Consulate.”
I told him that the consulate was closed for a few days. We sat down in a small, dirty café. Back then they still sold cake on four weekdays. I stood up to get us some. Heinz laughed when I came back carrying a large package, “I’m not a girl, you know.” I could tell that he hadn’t eaten anything like this in a long time. He said, “When we were escaping, my friends carried me out ahead of the Germans. They took turns. We crossed the Loire. I felt bad on the way, believe me. I was a burden to them. But then at the Loire there was a fisherman who said he’d take us across, but only on account of me. So it evened things out. Unfortunately, one of us—you probably remember Hartmann—he had to stay behind because the boat was full. Hartmann told me to get into the boat, and he stayed behind.”
“It’s really strange,” I said, “that you got out faster then I did. The Germans caught up with me and passed me.”
“You were probably alone. They hid me in a village in the Dordogne so that I wouldn’t end up in another camp. Now they got me a visa. Why does the consulate have to be closed right when I get here?”
He glanced at me, laughed, and said, “I thought of you sometimes on the way.”
“You thought of me?”
“Yes, I thought of everyone—you, too. The way you were always so restless, always jumping from one thing to another. One day this idea, the next another. I was convinced I’d see you again somewhere. What are you doing here? Do you want to leave too?”
“Not at all!” I said. “I want to see how this turns out. I have to find out how it all will end.”
“If only we can stay alive long enough to see the outcome of all this. As it happens, I’ve been severely disabled, I can’t tell you how bitter I am about having to leave. My name is on the German ‘Wanted’ list. Otherwise, I’d settle somewhere if I still had both my legs. But this way, wherever I go, it’s as if I were my own ‘Wanted’ poster.”
“I already know the city pretty well,” I said. “Is there anything I can help you with? But then you probably won’t let me help you.”
He smiled, looking directly at me, and his eyes again shone as brightly as when we first saw each other on the street, and I felt once more that I still had the stuff in me that made his eyes brighten. “I know you well enough, after all,” he said, “to know whatever else you do, whatever mischief you’re up to, whatever nonsense you think up, that despite that you would never under any circumstances leave me in the lurch.”
Why didn’t he tell me that before, I thought, before we were all ground down in this mill? I asked him whether he had any documents.
“I have a certificate of release from the camp.”
“How did you manage to get a certificate of release? Didn’t we all climb over the wall that night?”
“At the last second, when everything was already topsy-turvy, one of the people in our group was smart enough to pick up a packet of blank release forms. I filled one out for myself. With that form I got a residence permit for the village, and with the residence permit I got a safe conduct.”
He still had a few of those forms in his pocket. He gave me one, explaining that you had to be careful not to write over the stamp. That you had to fill out the form in such a way that the stamp seemed to be on top of the writing.
I asked Heinz if we could meet again. “You might need me. I know a lot of places to stay in the Old Port district; I know a few tricks. Besides, I’d like to talk to you. I have things on my mind that I can’t quite figure out.”
Heinz looked at me closely. Suddenly I realized that things weren’t going well with me. It didn’t matter much to me, but I could no longer deny that I was in a bad way. I had only one chance to be young, and things weren’t going well. My youth was vanishing in concentration camps and on highways, in bleak hotel rooms with the most unloved of girls, and maybe on a peach farm where I would at best be tolerated. Aloud, I added, “My life is a mess.”
Heinz said he’d meet me the following week, same day, same time, same place. I was looking forward to seeing him again with childish joy, counting the days. And yet, I didn’t go to meet him. Something happened that kept me from going.
4
I
ON THE same day I bumped into Heinz, George Binnet dropped by unexpectedly late in the evening. He was the only person in Marseille who knew where I lived. Yet he’d never before come to my room. Our friendship hadn’t quite reached that point. He said his son had suddenly become ill; the boy had asthma, but it had never been this serious. He was in urgent need of a doctor. Their old neighborhood physician was a drunken, dirty slob who’d been thrown out of the navy ten years before, and settled in the Corsican quarter. Claudine thought there would be good doctors among the German refugees. And so he’d come to ask if I could find one among the people I ran into every day.
I’d been fond of the boy from the first day I met him. It was for his sake that I spent hours at the most ridiculous committee offices asking for money. And instead of using it as intended, for my departure preparations, I bought him things he needed. Whenever I was talking with the Binnets in their apartment, I’d be looking out of the corner of my eyes toward the window where the boy sat studying. Instinctively, I’d choose words he could understand. Sometimes I took him on boat rides or into the mountains. At first he didn’t say much. The occasional sudden turn of his head, his eyes lighting up, struck me as the playfulness of a young colt. It was welcome even if no more than a game. In this gone-to-pot world, I found reassurance in a quiet, still-innocent look or the gentle yet proud gesture with which Claudine offered me some rice, or the boy’s surprised smile when I entered the apartment. I soon realized that nothing escaped him; that he knew more about us than we knew about him.
At the time I probably exaggerated the seriousness of his illness. It seemed to me like an attack on his life, like an attempt by some power—maybe it was simply crude, nasty reality—to get rid of him, to close those bright, uncomfortable eyes forever. I was even more anxious than George to find a doctor. I asked around at my hotel. They sent me to the Rue du Relais, a tiny alley off the Cours Belsunce. There, they said, at
the Hotel Aumage in room 83, lived a once well-known physician, the former director of the Dortmund Hospital. Hearing the term “former” I expected to find an old man. I had forgotten that time stood still for these people once they left their homeland. Knocking on the door of room 83, I heard the frightened voice of a young woman trying to calm her companion. At that unusual hour both were probably afraid of a police raid. The door opened. But no one appeared. I saw only a blue silk cuff on a slender wrist. I felt a twinge of envy, the kind that sometimes hits me for no reason at all, maybe because this doctor I didn’t know was so useful and competent that he was needed, or maybe because he wasn’t an old man and his wife, whom I couldn’t actually see, was gentle, perhaps, and beautiful.
I said, “We need a doctor,” and the woman’s voice repeated, with just a trace of joy, “They need a doctor.”
The man came to the door at once; he had a real physician’s face. Though his hair was already pretty gray, his face was young. There’s something special about this sort of youthfulness. A thousand or two thousand years ago, doctors looked like this, too; they nodded the same way, they gave you the same attentive and thorough yet impartial look, a look that has focused innumerable times on individuals, or rather their physical ailments that even a layman can recognize. That night we scarcely looked at each other. He asked me briefly about the sick boy. He complained that I was being too vague. I was flustered because of my affection for the boy.
Silently we walked along the Cours Belsunce—it was still a rough, half-finished street back then. Cars full of refugees were parked on the north side, laundry hung out to dry. There was a light in one of the car windows. We heard laughter coming from inside. My companion said, “These people have already forgotten that their cars have wheels. They consider this corner of the Cours Belsunce their home now.”
“Until a policeman chases them away.”
“...to the other side of the Belsunce. Where they’ll stay until another police officer chases them back to this side. At least they don’t have to cross an ocean like us.”