Transit

by Anna Seghers

  Back downstairs, my Portuguese friend gave me a nudge. His expression said, You owe me a drink! Although it was an alcohol-free day, we found a bar where the proprietor quickly added a shot of schnapps to our coffee. Then the Portuguese and I realized we had nothing else to say to each other and would just be bored in each other’s company. We politely separated. The Mistral had stopped as suddenly as it had started. The sun had come out again.

  I went back to the inner city by myself, idling away one or two hours looking in shop windows. All day long I’d been brooding about my bad luck, or what I considered my bad luck: in Claudine’s kitchen, on my search for Heinz, in the Arabic café, at the Seamen’s Association, at the bar with the Portuguese—I thought of a lot of other things, too, but then I always returned to my bad luck. How had I been able to live by myself before this? I remembered Nadine. I went to the side entrance of Dames de Paris to wait for her. I didn’t care about her at all. And yet I was glad to see her face light up when she saw me waiting on the sidewalk. She looked very good in her beautiful coat and fur hood.

  The hard day’s work didn’t seem to have affected her. She hid any sign of weariness. Powder like yellow butterfly dust covered her neck, her face, and her pretty ears that were just visible inside her hood. She said, “You’ve come along at just the right time.”

  I was grateful and glad to hear her say this, even if thoughts of my bad luck kept simmering inside my head. She continued, “Just think, my major left. He suddenly received his orders. He’s off to Martinique—a military Commission.”

  “The pain of parting doesn’t seem to have affected you very much,” I said.

  “To be honest, I was fed up with him. He was jolly and funny and amused me at first, but he soon got on my nerves. Plus he was too short and his head was too small. Yesterday we went to buy a helmet for the tropics, and when he tried it on, it slid down to his nose. He was a decent man. He took good care of me as you’ll see in a minute. That’s why I worried about his getting on my nerves. Now we’re the best of friends, but at a distance. And on the way back he’ll stop in Casablanca to see his wife. I had enough of him, still, he was a good man. In times like these you sometimes have to grit your teeth and pretend as if—Come, let’s go up to my place so that I can show you how well he took care of me. And I’ll cook you a meal like you haven’t eaten in a long time.”

  She still lived in the same old hole not far from the Dames de Paris. It was easy to make her happy by showing my amazement at how the place had been completely refurbished. Absolutely everything was new, the quilt and pillows, the dishes and stove, and all the things on her dressing table under her mirror, and the mirror too and all those secret things made of glass and enamel. We opened a lot of cans and bottles. An entire city quarter would have had to stand in line for that. She started the lengthy process of cooking, interrupting herself only to show me a pair of shoes or some item of lingerie, or to hold me close. She inquired about my departure plans, whether there was anything I needed.

  I said, “No, my love, I’m happy.”

  “Maybe you do need something; how’s the situation with your visas?”

  I said at the moment I didn’t need anything, not even a visa. She replied that, if I ever needed one, she had a friend, a former classmate, who worked at police headquarters.

  I asked whether the friend was as pretty as she was.

  “No, she’s fat and serious,” she said.

  Then we set the table and ate the food, engaged in some prolonged and pleasurable activities that tired me a little, and even though they didn’t entirely alleviate my unhappiness, they lessened it a bit.

  Much later, I was still wide-awake. I thought she was asleep, so I got up and lit a cigarette. The moon was shining in through the window, which was rattling as if the Mistral hadn’t yet blown over. Quite unexpectedly, I heard her voice, calm and wide-awake, “Don’t be sad, my dear! It isn’t worthwhile! Believe me.” So she had noticed how things stood with me and done what she could to comfort me.

  V

  For quite a while after that I didn’t feel like seeing anyone else. I didn’t go back to see Nadine either. I’d sit in a café in an out-of-the-way corner where no one would talk to me. If someone came in whom I knew, I’d quickly hold a newspaper up in front of my face. Once I even poked two little holes into the page so that I could see everything without being seen. When things got too dull I visited the Binnets. How dreary it can get in the time between two firestorms on this trembling earth! The heart, hopelessly accustomed to the chase, keeps demanding more and more. But this time I regretted going to see the Binnets because the doctor was there. He was in a good mood again.

  “There you are finally,” he said as I came into the room. “Marie is worried, wondering where you disappeared to.”

  “Busy with a transit visa matter,” I said, immediately regretting my reply.

  “So you’ve suddenly decided to leave, too?”

  “I want to have all the necessary stuff, just in case.”

  Hearing this answer, the boy glanced at me briefly. It was the only sign he had given that he was aware of my being there. He was reading or pretending to read. Now and then the doctor spoke to him, but the boy acted as if the doctor were no longer there. He hadn’t shown any emotion when the doctor returned; he just didn’t care anymore. The doctor had left, had deserted him, had hurt him with his departure. He could come back a thousand times, but the parting had been final. And now suddenly I, too, had become a shadow for him; no use in clinging to me or talking to me.

  The doctor told us that the passengers who’d been turned away would have first call on berths on the next ship to leave. He was in a pretty good mood. He was no longer brooding about the unsuccessful passage, but was already thinking of the next one for which he had been signed up, and which he rested his hopes on. “Marie will get her visa too,” he assured us. “Please go and ask about it soon.”

  I said I was not in the mood to do that anymore. My mission at the consulate was finished; everything had been properly applied for. All that remained was to pick it up, and Marie could do that herself.

  He looked at me because I had spoken rather gruffly. He said politely, without any mockery, “We’ve inconvenienced you. This time Marie has really decided to leave. Didn’t I predict that she would?”

  I said nothing in reply. I got up to leave. How could he be so certain in this confusion of coincidences?

  I decided to stay in my room that evening. Climbing up the steep stairs to my room I always waved to the landlady behind her little window, and sometimes I even complimented her on her hairdo. I always managed to pay my rent with the money I received for “departure expenses,” and was surprised when she stopped me that day. “A gentlemen asked for you, a French gentleman with a little mustache. He left his card.”

  I couldn’t quite hide my shock. Once back in my room I studied the card: “Emile Descendre, Wholesale Silks.” I had never heard the name before. Must be a mistake, I thought.

  I hate mistakes and mix-ups, especially when they involve me. I tend to invest all human encounters with exaggerated importance, as if they were arranged by a higher authority, as if they were inevitable, unavoidable. And in the Inevitable there can be no mistakes, right? I was still smoking and brooding over this when there was a knock on the door. My guest, hat in hand, was well dressed; he glanced at the card lying on the table in front of me. Automatically I bowed as courteously as he had and, offering him the only chair, sat down on the bed. He’d already checked out my room within the boundaries of politeness.

  “Please excuse me for bothering you, Mr. Weidel,” he began. “But you can understand why I wanted to look you up.”

  “Excuse me,” I said, “but all the terrible events that have befallen your country and all of us seem to have affected my eyesight as well as...”

  “Please don’t be alarmed,” he said. “We know each other without ever having met. You’ve never seen me before, but if it weren’
t for me, you wouldn’t be here.”

  To stall for time I said that this might be an exaggeration. His healthy, ruddy, self-satisfied face turned glum, so I quickly added, “Although you may have played some role in it.”

  “I’m glad to hear you admit that much, at least. My card, my name will have told you that I am Emile Descendre.”

  I asked, “How did you get my address?” At first I’d felt a stirring of fear, but it was quickly muted by sadness, which can also act as a charm against many things. Whatever was going to happen to me, I didn’t care.

  My visitor replied, “It’s all quite simple. I’m a businessman. First I looked up Paul Strobel. His sister is a friend of my fiancée, as you no doubt know.”

  I still didn’t have a clear notion what this was all about, merely a kind of dim glimmer of a recollection: Paul, his sister, a fiancée, a silk merchant. I said, “Please, go on.”

  He continued cheerfully, “Paul promised to give me your address several times. He thought he’d written it down, but then he couldn’t find it—either among his own papers or on the lists of the Committee on which he serves. Paul is a very busy man. He suggested I go to the Mexican Consulate.”

  I listened eagerly. Bobbing his neatly combed head like a dapper bird on a stick, he complained, “I should also tell you that I turned first to Madame Weidel. I met with her several times. Of course I could understand her delicate situation; I took that into account. So it’s even more important for me to straighten things out with you—and also, because Mrs. Weidel said she didn’t know your address and I didn’t want to bother her, I decided to find you on my own. As I said, I went to the Mexican Consulate. There seem to have been really a lot of slip-ups in connection with your address. There must have been a mix-up there, because the house number they had listed doesn’t exist. The street on which you probably used to live didn’t even have houses built anywhere near as high as the number they had listed for you. On the advice of the gentleman at the consulate, I went to the Mexican travel bureau. The head of that bureau had only the address of the Mexican Consulate listed for you. So, in spite of the fact that I’m a businessman and have to think of expenses, I decided to track you down. The head of the travel bureau referred me to a Portuguese man whom you’d been seen with. I promised this gentleman a small favor. Although he didn’t know where you lived, he knew a certain young lady at the Dames de Paris.”

  I thought, Oh oh, the little Portuguese mouse has been scurrying after me out of sheer boredom.

  “Please don’t be angry. I don’t want there to be any bad blood between us. The young woman didn’t give me your address. I had to go for help to her colleagues. Those girls knew all about you. And so finally I found out the secret, and that only because one of the young women at the Dames de Paris lives nearby, in the Rue des Baigneurs. Forgive me, but I can’t allow my business to suffer just because your family situation has shifted. I have to see that my expenses are paid.”

  I said, “Of course, Mr. Descendre.”

  “I am glad that you see my point. Back when Mrs. Weidel referred me to you I hoped for a partial reimbursement, while we were still in occupied Paris, but unfortunately I was not able to meet with you then and so I entrusted this matter to Paul, whom I knew through his sister.”

  “What expenses do you mean, Mr. Descendre?” I asked.

  He replied angrily, “So Mrs. Weidel didn’t tell you anything! Probably because she has other interests now. Excuse me, Mr. Weidel, I wouldn’t mention these matters if I didn’t think that you’ve found consolation by now. I met the lady in the company of someone else, but for me expenses are expenses. And back then Mrs. Weidel promised faithfully to reimburse me for part of my expenses if I would take her letter. At that time I was very reluctant to make a trip into occupied territory. It was expensive and dangerous to be on the road such a short time after the invasion; I had to reckon with difficulties on the return trip even if I had a pass from the Germans. The demarcation line might have been unexpectedly closed or moved. My own fiancée implored me to give up my travel plans, but that spring I delivered raw silk bales to the firm Loroy, for use by the army to make balloons and parachutes. At the time I couldn’t find out whether the firm I’d made the delivery to had been evacuated along with my raw silk, or if the Germans had seized it. In the latter case I would get paid for damages only with a contract for additional deliveries. I had a lot at stake, but your wife tipped the scales with her request—she knows how to ask men for things. She said you would be eternally grateful to me, that it was a matter of life and death for her letter to get to you, and that the expense incurred was of no concern. Moreover, it was forbidden to take mail along. They frisked you! The lady really knew how to persuade a man. I believe in great passions. And so the impression I got of her on my return was that much more painful.

  “All during that difficult trip I saw before me her lovely young face. It’s true, even though it may sound strange, I thought, ‘The woman will be happy when I tell her I accomplished my task.’ After all, it wasn’t my fault that I couldn’t actually find you back then. An unlucky star hung over your apartment, sir. You’ve had bad luck with your addresses; I couldn’t reach you in Paris either. No one in the quarter where you used to live knew of your whereabouts—your registration had not been terminated or changed. But Paul, as I am pleased to see, did take care of the delivery of the letter. The lady probably doesn’t want to go to her new friend to ask for money. But I can’t help it if love withers, I have to pay attention even to trifling matters. If I didn’t operate on that principle I would never have come to be president of the Descendre Company.”

  “Very well, Mr. Descendre,” I said. “How much do the expenses for the delivery of the letter amount to?”

  He named a figure. I thought about it. I had only the money that the man going to Cuba had given me for Weidel two weeks before. I counted it out on the table. Now and then you achieve as much with honesty as with lies. I said, “Mr. Descendre, you’re absolutely right. You have properly fulfilled your task. You didn’t leave anybody in the lurch. Nor was it your fault that you couldn’t find me in Paris back then. Your letter got to me in spite of that; you have to take care of your expenses. But as you can see, I’m quite poor. I shall pay you as much as I can; though the circumstances of my life have changed, the letter still means much to me. I’ll try to pay the balance of your delivery expenses as soon as I can.”

  He listened politely to what I said, moving only his head back and forth. Then he signed a receipt. He indicated that he was at my disposal here, and that he might also be able to speak for me at the exit visa department of Police Headquarters. Then, weaving a few words about literature into his good-bye, he excused himself. We bowed to each other.

  VI

  I sat down in the glass-enclosed terrace of Café Rotonde across from the Belsunce. Without intending to I overheard the conversation at the next table. It seemed that during the night a man had shot himself in a hotel in Portbou on the other side of the Spanish border because the authorities were going to send him back to France in the morning. Two frail, elderly ladies—one of them with two little boys, maybe her grandsons, both of whom were listening attentively—were taking turns in animated voices filling in the details. They had a much clearer idea of what had happened than I, and they thought it all quite understandable and reasonable.

  How could a man have such enormous hopes for his journey’s destination that going back should have seemed so unbearable? This country in which we were still stuck and to which they wanted to force him to return must have seemed hellish and unlivable to him. You hear about people who prefer death to losing their freedom. And yet was that man really free now?—Ah, if only it were so! One shot, a single bullet to this small entryway above your eyebrows and you’d be home and welcome forever.

  I saw Marie, walking slowly along the side of the Cours Belsunce. She was carrying a wrinkled little hat in her hand. She went into the Café Cuba that’s adjacent t
o the Rotonde. Was her friend the doctor waiting for her there? Was she still going on with her search? Ever since the doctor had come back, I’d been desperate to avoid her. Yet now I couldn’t control myself, and I waited, my face glued to the window. She soon came out again with a vacant, disappointed expression. She nearly passed right by me. I ducked behind my Paris Soir. But she must have glimpsed something of me, my hair, my coat, or, if there is such a thing, my overpowering single-minded hope that she would turn around just once.

  She entered the Rotonde. I ran to the inner room, and with a sick and evil joy I watched as she performed her search. There was something in the way she was searching, in her features, that told me that the man she was looking for was not a shadow, but flesh and blood, and he could be found if he wasn’t hiding from her out of sheer perversity. When she entered the inner room I left through the back door that led out onto the Rue des Baigneurs. Again I ran through the streets as if the devil were after me. By my disappearance, my inexplicable invisibility, I would assure her continued interest in me. Let her look for me, as she’d proved herself capable of doing, night and day, without rest. Since my game had already begun, I could obtain the departure documents, one by one. I could even conceal myself on board her ship the day it sailed. And then on the high seas or on an island or in the strange, oppressive light of the new country I could appear before her as if by magic. Then there would be nothing that could come between her and me but my skinny rival in love with the long serious face. The dead we left behind would long ago have been buried by their dead.