by Anna Seghers
Paul said, “You remember Achselroth, don’t you?”
I looked at him more closely. And yes, it was Achselroth. But hadn’t Paul told me that he’d already left on a ship for Cuba? I shook his hand. His elegant civilian clothes seemed as much a disguise on him as had his prestataire rags in the camp. I remembered what Paul had told me before about Achselroth’s betrayal, how he had left them in the lurch at the crossroads, back then when they were escaping. Apparently Paul had forgotten it all. And hadn’t I, too, put it all behind me with a handshake?
Achselroth said, “I hear you met Weidel. So he did eventually get here. Lucky thing I didn’t throw my lot in with you. Because wherever I go I bump into people who’re sore at me because I behaved in an un-Christian way toward them. And Weidel always knew better than anyone else how to hold a grudge. I met him recently at the Mont Vertoux...”
“You saw Weidel?” I cried.
He turned to the others, “Look, he’s already afraid that his master has forgiven and forgotten.” Then, turning to me, “Oh no, on the contrary, he was still sore. He was crouched behind his newspaper to make sure I wouldn’t see him. You know, of course, that Weidel always hides behind a newspaper so that nobody will talk to him. He makes little pinholes in the paper so he can watch the goings-on from behind his paper. He likes watching what people are doing. The material things that go on, plot twists in the old style, the big, ugly tale.”
The stout man with the double chin mumbled, “A great magician—using the same old trick.”
I’d been staring too steadily at Achselroth. When he frowned, I quickly turned my eyes to the gentle, angelic, lovely face of the golden-haired girl. Paul whispered to me, “She was Achselroth’s girlfriend until a little while ago. He told her he was fed up with playing his half of the most beautiful couple on the Côte d’Azur.”
Achselroth went on, “Anyway, in this case the ugly tale goes like this: You remember when we were escaping from the camp, don’t you, Paul? The crossroads where I went on without you? J’éspère que cela ne te fair plus du mauvais sang—I hope there’s no bad blood between us on account of that?”
“Well, anyway now we’re together here in the same place,” Paul said. Apparently he thought that was all that mattered.
“I had a big head start on the Germans,” Achselroth continued. “I arrived in Paris before Hitler. I unlocked my apartment in Passy, I took my money, valuables, and manuscripts, some pieces of art, and got in touch with this dear couple,” he pointed at the feathered lady and the man with the double chin, who both nodded seriously, “and this lady,” he said pointing at the golden-haired girl who remained immobile and unconcerned as if the slightest movement might smudge her ethereal beauty. “Then this fellow Weidel turns up. He’d probably been running all around Paris looking for friends. He was pale and trembling. He was completely unnerved by the approach of the Nazis. And since there was still some room in our car, I promised he could come with us, that I’d pick him up an hour later. But, as it turned out, this lady’s baggage took up considerable room, for she needed her costumes and clothes professionally. She simply couldn’t live without her suitcases, and back then I couldn’t live without her, so we had to leave without Weidel.”
“Weidel always had a lot of controversial material stuffed in his pockets,” Paul said. “Our committee has been busy for weeks with him. You could form a separate committee just to consider his case. We could only halfheartedly vouch for him at the United States Consulate. He’d gotten involved back then in some affair.”
“What affair?” the man with the double chin asked.
“Oh, four years ago,” Paul said. “The Spanish Civil War. Some brigade major came to see him and told him these horror stories. And Weidel, poor fellow, was impressed by what the man told him. And since he goes in for absurd atrocity stories of blood and horror, the outcome was a novella à la Weidel about a mass shooting in an arena before an inquisition court. The Spanish press office distributed the novella. I warned him back then not to get involved with those people. But he said that the story fascinated him.”
“Oh, so that’s why he got the Mexican visa,” Achselroth said. “In any case, I’m glad that I won’t have to be seeing his offended face in the next few years.”
“Don’t count your blessings prematurely,” Paul said. “He’ll probably get an American transit visa through our sponsorship. Maybe you’ll be sailing on the same ship.”
I asked Achselroth, “Why haven’t you left yet? Didn’t you get here weeks before us?”
He turned abruptly toward me and looked at me as if he suspected I might be making fun of him. The others stared at me, and then they all burst out laughing.
Paul said, “You’re probably the only man in Marseille who doesn’t know that story. I can introduce you to a whole bunch of people who’ve already been to Cuba.” The man with the double chin nodded sadly, causing a third chin to form.
The woman with the feather moved closer to me. “In Paris, Mr. Achselroth put us all into his car along with this lady and her suitcases, so that there was no room for Mr. Weidel. But Mr. Achselroth needed us, and so there was room for us. We’re writing the music for his play. He drove like the devil himself to stay ahead of the Germans. And so he saved us along with the music for his play. Nobody got here faster than we did. And he bought the visas for us that first week already. We were the first to go, but, sad to say, he was cheated. The visas were forgeries, and when we got to Cuba they didn’t let us land. We had to turn around and go back on the same ship.”
I thought how remarkably unbecoming what we call bad luck was to Achselroth. He seemed to be created for good luck, to be gilded with luck. He grimaced and said, “We’ve learned how to live dangerously. The music for the play is going to be written in the Western Hemisphere. All in good time. Now we have reservations to sail from Lisbon, all right and proper. We have friends among the consuls. The transit visas for Spain and Portugal are in our pockets. We can leave this place any time.” He pointed to the lovely young woman, who started slightly, but then at once went back to her dazzling immobility. “On the other hand, I profited from the enforced return—my imagination was liberated from certain notions. There’s an old superstition about sharing a common fate and that it results in what they call loyalty. If the Cuban authorities had been more humane I would have gone on believing that this young lady was still mine simply because she and I had shared an exciting time in my life. But then I had the rare opportunity of being forced to return to my starting point. I revised my documents and my feelings as well. And the ghost of loyalty vanished.”
I looked again at the young woman and wouldn’t have been surprised if she really were a pure figment of Achselroth’s imagination that had become superfluous and flown off over the Belsunce.
I felt slightly uncomfortable as if I, a very ordinary fellow, had suddenly got involved with a company of magicians. As I was about to leave, the man with the double chin stopped me. He took me aside. “I’m glad I met you. I think highly of Mr. Weidel. He is very talented. I’ve been worried about him for quite a while, and I’m glad to know he’s not in danger anymore. Back then when we drove off without him, I reproached myself for not having volunteered to stay and let him go in my place. He deserved it. Naturally I was too weak. And then when we were so unlucky with our trip to Cuba and had to come back here, it seemed to me that it was punishment for my weakness, for my excessive haste.”
“Please don’t worry. Biblical punishments like that are no longer being doled out nowadays. If they were, most of us would have to be sent back.” I looked at him and realized that the fat that buried his eyes and formed the folds under his chin concealed his true features.
He put some paper money into my hand and said, “Weidel was always poor. He can use this. Please try to help him. He never knew how to make money.”
VI
The next morning I got up early. I’d promised Claudine to get in line for sardines outside a little sho
p on the Rue de Tournon before it opened. Yet even at that early hour there were already quite a few women outside the closed shop. They were wrapped in shawls and capes because it was windy and cold. Although you could already see a bit of sunlight on the highest roofs, the street between the tall houses lay in heavy, ages-old shadow.
The women were too tired and stiff to complain. They were bent on getting their sardines. Just as animals lurk at a hole in the ground expecting something edible to pop out, they were watching the shop door, all their attention focused on capturing a few cans of sardines. They were much too tired to wonder why they had to stand in line so early in the morning for something that had once been so plentiful in their country, or what had happened to all their country’s abundant surpluses. Finally the door was unlocked. The line moved slowly forward into the shop, as behind us the line grew longer. It now stretched almost to the Belsunce. I thought of my mother back in Germany who, in the early dawn, had probably also joined some line outside some store in her city for a couple of bones or a few grams of lard. Lines like this were now waiting outside countless shop doors in all the cities of the continent. If you put them end to end they’d probably stretch from Paris to Moscow, from Marseille to Oslo.
Suddenly, on the other side of the street, I saw Marie in her hooded cape coming from the Boulevard d’Athènes. She was pale from the cold. I called to her. There was a glint of happiness on her face as she came toward me. I thought if she were to stay with me now things would turn out well. And she did come over, and she stood next to me, so that the women wouldn’t be afraid she had cut into line ahead of them.
She asked me, “What are they selling here?”
“Canned sardines. I need them for the sick boy for whom I came to get your friend back then.”
She stepped from one foot to the other. The women behind me started to grumble. I quickly turned around and assured them that only I was on line. But they jealously watched to make sure Marie would not get into the line ahead of them instead of going to the end.
I asked Marie why she was walking about here so early in the morning.
“Going to the travel bureau and the shipping companies.”
I figured she was setting out early on her daily search, though she’d actually stopped right at the beginning of it, stopped next to me, postponing her rounds for my sake. I would gradually have to get her used to looking for me. The people behind us were getting restless, craning their necks to see.
Marie said, “I’m afraid I have to keep going.”
“There are only six people ahead of us, Marie. It’ll be my turn soon. Then I can go with you.”
The women again became restless, while letting a pregnant woman go ahead of them. In back of me they were talking about a woman who had once gotten ahead in the line by stuffing a pillow under her jacket. But the woman today was without any doubt carrying a new life under her woolen dress. Her face was stiff from the cold, but even so her expression changed from one of fear at coming too late to one of hope, a hope for more than just a can of fish. A look of patience now replaced the despair in her dull face.
“Look, people are getting in line ahead of us,” Marie said. “I have to leave now.”
Why don’t I go with her, I thought. Why don’t I just tell Claudine that the store was closed? Why do I keep waiting here in the cold?
VII
I had invited Marie to join me in a small café on the Boulevard d’Athènes. She didn’t keep me waiting long, but even those few moments were filled with mindless despair. So it was like a miracle to see her come in and head straight for me. She threw off her wet cape and sat down next to me. “How’s everything? Did you get anything done?”
I said, “I got quite a few things accomplished. But you mustn’t interfere, it will only confuse matters. They’ll call you at the right time. At that point they’ll want nothing more from you than your signature.”
She moved back a bit, cupping her chin in her hand so as to get a better look at me. She said, “All along, I thought a stranger was helping me whenever I didn’t know where to turn. Some man I didn’t know. And suddenly the stranger turns up, and it’s you.”
She lightly touched my hand in thanks. But today she seemed, aside from our mutual undertaking, much more distant, less frank, less affectionate.
She went on, “How long do you think it will take? Days? Weeks? Will it all be arranged in time? My friend wants to leave, you know. To leave soon.”
I said, “He’ll have to wait a little longer. I’m afraid that the passage on the ship I told him about won’t work out. He’ll have to be patient a bit longer. The three of us will have to make do here a little longer.”
A shadow touched her face. “The three of us? Who’s the third person?”
I said, “Me, of course.”
She looked out the window at the people who were coming from the upper train station down to the Boulevard d’Athènes, weighed down with luggage. Soon some of them with children, suitcases, and bags came into our café. Marie said, “A train just arrived. So many people are still coming here from all parts of the country. From camps, hospitals, from the war. Look at that girl there with the bandaged head.”
We moved closer together to make room for the new arrivals, a gloomy-faced woman, her two half-grown sons, and a girl with her head bandaged, younger, but too big for the wicker baby carriage she was in.
Marie wrung her hands in what seemed to me despair. But her voice was calm, she said, “What if I’m summoned to the consulate and I find my husband’s there! What if they summoned him, too, and he’s standing there. What then?”
I said, “Don’t worry. He won’t be there. They don’t need him. We don’t need him.”
She said, “They don’t need him. We may not need him. But he could be there just by coincidence. After all, it was coincidence that brought us together, you and me. And I met him for the first time, too, by chance, and the other one, the doctor, also. That was pure coincidence.”
I didn’t know why this business with coincidence and chance was so important to her. I didn’t like it. It also occurred to me that I’d once had similar thoughts, similar to what she was talking about, but that I’d stopped thinking them because I didn’t like them. I said, “He won’t be there, not by coincidence and not because the consul summoned him. You needn’t be afraid of that.” I took hold of her hands; they were still intertwined and only relaxed once I held them in mine. The only thing that bothered me now was the way the newly arrived woman was staring at us. Like all people whose lives have been turned upside down and disrupted, she looked at any sign of love with suspicion.
VIII
I was now meeting Marie every day. Sometimes we agreed when and where to meet and sometimes we met accidentally. Now and then she would admit that she’d been looking for me in the cafés. She no longer searched for the dead man. I would put my hand on the table because I knew that her hand would take mine. She would sit close to me. I felt as if my luck had changed for the better.
With her head against my shoulder she would watch the people being disgorged by the revolving door as if it were a mill that was grinding them, body and soul, dozens of times daily. I knew many of them; she knew others, and sometimes we told each other what we knew about their lives as transit-visa seekers. Marie said, “We’re part of them too.” I wanted to say that I wasn’t, but at that time I sometimes still thought I might leave with her. To stay here with her? Or to leave with her? The thoughts alternated in my mind.
Marie said, “A day seems so long. And all these slow days suddenly add up to a lot of time. I don’t think my husband is in Marseille anymore. There’s no use my searching for him. We may be passing by each other without even being aware of it. Maybe he’s staying somewhere outside the city, by the sea, in a village. Maybe he only comes to town now and then. I’ll wait for him to find me.”
I said, “You’ll get your visa without him, too. I’m quite sure of that.”
“And when I
do? What then?”
“Then once you have your visa you’ll get a transit visa, and once you have that you’ll get an exit visa. That’s the way it works.”
She said nothing. Her hand in mine, her head against my shoulder. A moment before, her expression had been happy, now it was gloomy as she watched the faces of the people going past.
Suddenly I became suspicious—was she putting her hand in mine now and looking for me just so that I would get her the damned visa, so that she could leave with the other man, the doctor? Hadn’t she tried to persuade Weidel to join her just so that she could leave with the doctor? I looked at her suspiciously out of the corner of my eyes. I saw the shadow her thick eyelashes cast on her pale cheeks. I realized I didn’t care about any of that. I was alive, and she was sitting next to me. I asked her, “Where are you from?”
I was happy to see the sadness leave her face, as if she was remembering something pleasant. She smiled and said, “I’m from Limburg on the Lahn.”
“Who were your parents?”
“Why do you say ‘were’? I hope they’re both still alive. I’m sure they’re still living in the same house on the same street. It’s the young people like us who are dying now. I think my parents haven’t been apart for a single day since they were married. But as a child I felt uneasy and anxious in the midst of my family in those low-ceilinged rooms. And their chatter went on and on, gentle and thin like the little fountain outside the window. I wanted to be elsewhere, far away from there...Can you understand that? In the fall the grapevines on the walls of our yard were red; in the spring the lilacs and hawthorn bloomed.”