by Anna Seghers
We went upstairs. The doctor unlocked the door at which I’d seen Marie’s hand that first evening. Her blue dress was hanging on the wall. There were several suitcases scattered around, some of them still open. I locked one, tied a rope around another. Then I rolled up the blankets and tied a rope around them. As usual when packing, there was always one more thing to do. The hours passed. I sensed that the doctor didn’t want to be alone with Marie. He opened a bottle of rum intended for the voyage. We all drank straight from the bottle. Then we sat around on the suitcases, smoking. Marie was quiet, almost cheerful. Suddenly the doctor said it didn’t make sense to go to sleep anymore, would I help him to carry some of the suitcases downstairs; he’d ordered a taxi for five.
I looked at Marie—the same way as in my childhood when I had been drawn irresistibly to a painting that I couldn’t bear to look at. Now too, my heart contracted, even though there was nothing unbearable in Marie’s aspect. She remained calm and cheerful. Except that to me her expression seemed a bit off-putting, with just a hint of mockery. I couldn’t fathom why.
The doctor and I went down and up the stairs a few times. With each trip we left Marie alone in the room. And each time, as we carried off another load, it was like another good-bye, until the final farewell installment was paid. Maybe she was mocking him because he had dragged her with him across the entire country, only to cross the ocean now without her. At one point they shook hands.
An oldish woman who was on night duty in the room at the bottom of the stairwell came yawning up the stairs to let us know that the taxi had arrived. I went down to help the driver load the luggage. It gave the doctor three minutes to be alone with Marie. Once in the taxi, he calmly told the driver, “La Joliette, pier number five.”
I lit a cigarette and took a couple of puffs standing in the doorway of the Aumage. The doors and windows of the house across the street were still shuttered for the night. Then I went back upstairs.
III
There she was, squatting in one corner of the room. I had won. It was as if she were my trophy—the spoils of war. I think at the time I even felt ashamed that I’d won her so easily—by a throw of the dice rather than a duel. Her head was down on her knees, her hands covered her face. But I could tell from the sideways glances she sent my way from between two fingers that she probably knew what lay ahead of her. Once again, what else but love?
Of course I’d let her do as she liked for the time being. Allow her to grieve for the doctor to her heart’s content. Eventually she would have to pack up her things and move in with me under my own roof. It was rather bold of me to think of the Hotel de la Providence as “my own roof.” I wouldn’t be able to plant a garden for her, but I’d take such good care of our documents that no policeman could harm us. Maybe we could even leave Marseille at some point and move to Marcel’s farm.
Those were my thoughts back then. But to be honest, I had no idea what Marie was thinking. I didn’t talk to her, didn’t ask her any questions, nor did I touch her hair which was the only thing I really wanted to do at the moment. I didn’t want to leave her alone, but I didn’t want to bother her with words of comfort either. I turned away from her and looked down at the street. At that hour there wasn’t much to see on the Rue du Relais. From the window you couldn’t even see the pavement. I could have been looking down into an abyss if I hadn’t known that the room was on the fourth floor. I felt uneasy, anxious. When I leaned out a bit farther to get some fresh air, I was able to make out, at the lower right side over the rooftops silhouetted against a light gray sky, the slender iron masts of the Old Harbor. We’ll be taking the ferry a lot, just so we can sit in the sun on the other side, maybe we’ll go to the Jardin des Plantes. Evenings we’ll visit the Binnets. I’ll wander through the Corsican quarter to see if I can get a chunk of her favorite sausage without a ration card. She’ll line up early in the morning for a can of sardines. We’ll pick the real coffee beans out of our coffee ration the way Claudine does, so that on Sundays we can have a cup of real coffee. Maybe George will find me a part-time job. She’ll be sitting by the window when I come home. Sometimes we’ll go for pizza and a glass of rosé. She’ll fall asleep and wake up in my arms. All those things will happen, I thought back then. All these ordinary little things together would make a powerful whole: Our life together. I’d never before wished for anything like that, having always been a wanderer and never settling down anywhere. But now, in the midst of this earthquake, the yowling of the air-raid sirens, amidst the wailing of the fleeing hordes, I longed for an ordinary life like a hungry man does for bread and water. In any case, Marie would find peace with me. I would make sure that she would never again fall prey to some guy like me.
Meanwhile, a new day had dawned. The garbage collectors at the end of the street were clattering with the cans. The fire hydrants had been opened, and powerful jets of water sluiced along the pavement washing yesterday’s dirt into the streets below. The sun was already shining on the roof across the way. A car drove up, bringing the first guest of the morning to the Hotel Aumage.
I immediately recognized two of the suitcases on the sidewalk, the one I myself had tied up and the one with the padlocks. Then the doctor got out, giving some instructions to the driver. He had arrived not just with the luggage that had been in his hotel room, but also a large trunk he had brought to the Transports Maritimes two days earlier. I said, “Your friend’s back again.”
She raised her head, and hearing his voice and the noise on the stairs, jumped up. I had never before seen her look so beautiful.
The doctor came into the room. He paid no attention to Marie, who was leaning against the wall, that silent expression of mockery on her face. He was livid with rage. “We were all inside on the pier,” he said. “Half the passengers had already gone through the police check. Suddenly they announced that a Military Commission had commandeered all the first-class cabins for some officers who were going to Martinique. They unloaded our baggage. So here I am.” He walked around moaning. “All the effort to get a cabin, all the expense! I thought that with a prepaid cabin I could be sure that no one could stand in my way. Now this French Military Commission requisitions all the first-class cabins and lets the people in steerage sail. Those people might even get to their destination. Maybe they’ve already arrived there, while I’m still sitting here in the Hotel Aumage. Those fools will get there but I’m left to die here.” Marie’s eyes were fixed on him even as he went on and on. I could still hear him cursing on the other side of the door as I went down the stairs. I was cursing too.
IV
It was still early in the morning when I left the Rue du Relais. The day seemed to stretch endlessly before me. How would I fill this day—as empty as my life—or the night that would follow it like the grave. First I decided to go up to see George. But he’d already left. Claudine was busy scaling a large fish the black man from Magash on the second floor had given her. The fish would come in handy because all her meat coupons were used up, she said calmly, completely unaware of my state of mind. I didn’t accept her invitation to stay for dinner. As if there were better tables set for me elsewhere and I had countless friends!
I called out to the boy, hoping to rouse his interest, “He’s come back.” He was lying on his bed, just as I’d left him after the doctor’s departure two days ago. What did I care if the excitement might be bad for him, after all, his doctor was back now. He could cure him. Then I turned back to Claudine who was wrapping the fish in a towel. I asked her whether she thought sometimes about what would happen to her since George probably wouldn’t stay with her forever. She looked me up and down, holding her chin in her long-fingered hand. “I’m happy just to have something to eat for dinner,” she said scornfully. I was already at the door when she called after me, “And I have my son!”
I went up into the hills toward Beaumont. It was a sunny morning. I had no trouble finding the little house where I’d met Heinz and his two companions. In the daytime it was a pleas
ant, low building with a henhouse ladder outside that led up to the second floor. The café was on the ground floor.
Heinz had forbidden me to try to find him up here. But when you really don’t know what to do, you’ll grope around looking for someone who has something you yourself don’t have like a sick animal sniffing for a plant that will make it feel better. The café was deserted. I climbed up the ladder without running into anyone, and when I called out Heinz’s name, the landlady appeared at one of the doors and said, “That tenant left a week ago.”
I asked her, “Has he left here for good?”
She said, “Yes, for good,” waiting with crossed arms for me to leave her house. I was stunned. In my present mood it came as a heavy blow that Heinz was gone forever. It hurt that he’d left without saying good-bye.
Maybe the landlady was lying. In any case, I had to clarify things for myself, and so I went back down to the café in the Old Port. I parted the scruffy bead curtain. It wasn’t too cold that day. Bright flecks of light dotted the dusty floor, where one of the girls sitting there had extended a skinny bare foot. The cat was playing with the girl’s slipper making the others laugh. Bombello, they told me, had left; the Portuguese hadn’t yet come.
I walked back along the Canebière to the travel bureau. One of the two big dogs my neighbor was supposed to take with her across the ocean was lying in the sun outside the door. The woman was signing for the final ticket. The second dog was sniffing for the Corsican without being able to see him behind the counter. Although going to the bureau was completely unnecessary, I fortuitously ran into the bald man who had prophesied at the American Consulate that we’d keep meeting until one of us jumped the course.
There was a young woman waiting, guarded by a policeman. She was probably one of those being detained at Camp Bompard until she either got a berth on a ship or was told finally that there was none for her, and then she’d be put permanently into a camp in the interior. Her stockings were torn; the black roots of her dyed hair were showing. The corners of her documents stuck out of a little, greasy leather bag she carried; they’d probably all expired by now or become invalid for some other reason. Who could love a woman like that enough to bring her to safety across the ocean? She was too young to have a son who might have been able to take care of her, too old to have a father still alive, too ugly to have a lover, and too sloppy to have a brother who would want her in his house. I should have been helping her, I thought, not Marie. The fat musician from Achselroth’s gang who had once gotten as far as Cuba came in. He barely greeted me, as if ashamed of what he’d told me the week before. The Corsican was poking around in his ear with a pencil since there was nothing for him to write down—all the available places had already been assigned. And so, continuing to fiddle around in his ear with the pencil and yawning, he listened to the whining and wheedling of these sad people who felt threatened with death, imprisonment, or who knows what. Some of them would gladly have given their right hand to the Corsican if he’d only promise them a place on a ship, or just promise to put them on a waiting list for a berth on a ship. But he promised nothing, just kept yawning.
I was prepared to wait my turn. After all, I had plenty of time, nothing but time; and I didn’t feel threatened by anything, not even by love. But he saw me and waved me over. I realized he didn’t consider me one of the multitude of transients, but one of his own kind. The others enviously made room for me; I asked him in a whisper about the Portuguese guy. Still poking around in his ear, he said, “He’s at the Arabic café on the Cours Belsunce.”
As I was walking out, the fat man who’d once gotten as far as Cuba grabbed my sleeve, but I shook him off. I was in a hurry. I had an appointment to keep now; I no longer had lots of time to waste. I went to look for the Portuguese. How bleak the Cours Belsunce was! How tough the waiting time between adventures! How boring a life without danger!
A dozen men, Arabs maybe, of whatever nation might have considered itself lucky to get rid of them, were lounging on shabby cushions wrapped in greasy burnooses. Their ongoing game of dominos sounded both brisk and sleepy. I didn’t turn around to look for the Portuguese, convinced that everyone was watching me. And indeed the man I was looking for rose from a dim corner, and came toward me. He asked whether I needed him again. Since our last encounter he’d acquired a meek yet insolent gesture of putting two fingers to his lips. We sat down and they brought us some rather nice tea that tasted of anise. I told him that I was just trying to get some information about my friend.
His little mousy eyes flashed when I mentioned Heinz’s name. Oh yes, he said, they’d put him on the boat to Oran. That was already a while back. From there he changed to a ship bound for Lisbon; the entire journey was in the hands of the Portuguese.
“A pretty expensive detour,” I said.
“Oh no,” he said. “They didn’t make any money on it; they did it for the man’s sake. You knew him, after all, he was your friend.” He gave me a brief look, from which I gathered how greatly he overestimated me just because he thought I was Heinz’s friend. I was dumbfounded by the look from his mousy eyes. If Heinz really had managed to induce this fellow to perform an unselfish deed, then Moses getting water from a rock was pure child’s play.
He’d probably forgotten Heinz in the meantime, but my asking about the one-legged German had rekindled his curiosity. It occurred to him that one of the men who had taken Heinz must be back already. And since he had just as little to do as I, he was willing to look for the fellow.
The sun had suddenly disappeared; a cold wind made us blink. The Old Harbor seemed strangely empty. The little gunship was gone. Where to, I wondered. The idlers hanging around outside the cafés in spite of the stormy Mistral were speculating about it. The wind took our breath away. Even with all his scams the Portuguese evidently couldn’t afford a coat to protect himself from the cold. In front of the expensive hotels, the mussel and oyster vendors were packing up their baskets, which meant it was almost three o’clock. So I’d already wasted quite a bit of time. We went up a steep street. Although I walked through this section of town a lot, I wasn’t used to seeing it from this vantage point. In the cold afternoon light the bare masts of the fishing boats were outlined against the chalk-white walls of the houses on the other side of the harbor, all reflected in water that was blue in spite of the Mistral. From up here the city seemed strange, like one of those unattainable, submerged cities they used to tell about in stories. By now I was familiar with the quarter’s various hidden lairs. I knew their secret—four walls, the same as back home, a man, a woman who went to work, and a sick boy lying in a bed.
Panting, the Portuguese and I climbed the stairs in search of someone who knew of a badly mutilated man who had been seen in one of the ports of the Mediterranean Sea. What a chain of hands had been required! So many miles long, to hand the living remains of his body from one car to another, from one stairway to the next, from one ship to another. What had the old man in the crypt of St. Victor’s said? I was beaten three times; three times I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent days and nights in the deep sea, my life was endangered by rivers, at risk in cities, in the desert, and on the high seas.
We stopped in front of a dilapidated house. The interior was paneled in costly wood that gave off a strange smell. As we walked up the stairs, this smell was replaced by that of a print shop. On the door of the topmost apartment was the name of a seamen’s association.
There were piles of freshly printed newspapers. The Portuguese spoke to a man whose smoothly combed hair, clean-shaven chin, and firm, clean hands, gave him the appearance of a regular French sailor. His gray, calm eyes had crow’s-feet at the corners that hinted at long sessions of intense lookout at sea. He was coolly watching everything and everyone, listening impassively to the whispered words of the Portuguese, even as he kept counting off newspapers from the stacks and handing them to a fresh-eyed boy who then placed them in a basket. Apparently he knew my Portuguese friend and had f
ormed his opinion of him long ago. (Later, after someone was arrested, this whole affair blew up. It turned out that these papers, which looked like nothing more than an official government appeal to join the army or the navy, had been so cleverly laid out that, by folding the paper in a certain way, they produced a Gaullist slogan.) My friend gestured to me, indicating that I might actually be able to get some information about Heinz from this fellow. So I whispered to him that Heinz was my friend, that we had been in a concentration camp together, that I had helped him with his trip, and now I was worried about what might have happened to him. The boy who was putting away the papers put his head close to the edge of his basket so he could overhear our whispered conversation.
“No reason to worry,” the man said. “Your friend has probably arrived already.” He wasn’t at all inclined to tell me more than that. There was a momentary flicker of amused mockery in his calm face, maybe at the recollection of some detail of their trip, some prank, hoodwinking the harbor authorities somewhere. Before we came to see him here, he’d probably forgotten all about Heinz. Now his gray eyes warmed at the memory; he probably saw him again on his crutches, his mouth distorted with the effort of walking, his bright eyes mocking his own frailty. This warm shadow in the gray eyes of a French sailor was the last visible sign that remained of Heinz in this part of the world.