Transit

by Anna Seghers

  I had the feeling that this man was almost smarter than the consul. I answered meekly, “Please forgive me, I have come on behalf of the woman. I am her only support.”

  He sighed and asked me for all the documents. He examined them as carefully as he had the letter. You could tell that he could look through thousands of such documents without exhausting his powers of concentration. I was amazed that the truth should be revealed to him in a bundle of papers. But after all, they weren’t any less dry than the thornbush in which God had once appeared. I also put the transit visa with the little red ribbon and Marie’s appointment slip on the desk. He said, “You would like to leave on the same ship as the woman?”

  “Yes, I would like to.”

  He frowned and said, “This woman doesn’t have the same name as yours. Why?”

  His look was so severe, his interest so genuine, that I could only answer with the truth. “It isn’t my fault. Circumstances dictated against it.”

  He asked, “ And what do you intend to do in the future? What are your plans? Your next professional undertaking?”

  His look was piercing. I said, “I will try to learn a trade.”

  He said, a little surprised and with just a trace of sympathy, “How come? Aren’t you going to write another book?”

  Then under that severe gaze of his that demanded the full truth, it just burst out of me. “I? No. Let me tell you why. As a little boy I often went on school trips. The trips were a lot of fun, but then the next day our teacher assigned us a composition on the subject, ‘Our school trip.’ And when we came back from summer vacations we always had to write a composition: ‘How I spent my vacation.’ And even after Christmas, there was a composition: ‘Christmas.’ And in the end it seemed to me that I experienced the school trips, Christmas, the vacations, only so that I could write a composition about them. And all those writers who were in the concentration camp with me, who escaped with me, it seems to me that we lived through these most terrible stretches in our lives just so we could write about them: the camps, the war, escape, and flight.”

  He made a note and said with a glimmer of kindness, “This is a grave confession for a man like yourself. What kind of trade would you like to take up?”

  “I have a talent for precision mechanics.”

  Then he said, “You’re still young. You can still make changes in your life. I wish you good luck.”

  I said, “Without this woman I doubt very much that I would have any luck. Oh, if only you could help us. Your word carries great weight.”

  He smiled and said, “In a few cases, with God’s help. Please take back all the papers except for the lady’s appointment notice. I’ll see the consul this evening at the meeting of our committee. In the meantime, please don’t worry.”

  III

  I climbed up to Fort St. Jean to be by myself and to look at the sea. Where the road took a turn and where the wind was the strongest I saw Marie coming toward me. The wind was blowing her toward me. I took her arm and in my foolishness wasn’t even surprised at how readily she came with me, as if that gust of wind at the turn in the road had united us. I invited her to the pizzeria, and we went back down to the Old Port.

  “I just wanted to be by myself,” she said, “and to look at the sea.”

  We sat close to the pizza oven fire. In the brightly flickering flames her face seemed restless and hot; I had an inkling how it might look if moved by sudden joy or desire. Whenever I found myself alone with her, I felt the moment was at hand when I had to tell her everything. The waiter brought us some rosé, and we drank. I immediately felt lighter, it was like a threat lifting. Marie tugged gently at my sleeve. She said, “The consul has changed the date for my appointment. If you have friends like that, friends who can help me with my papers, why don’t you have them help you? I can’t believe that we’ll be separating. Yes, that’s right, look at me. I think you’re going to turn up on the ship or on some pier or gangplank. Just as you did today, at a turn in the road in this strange city.”

  I said, “What’s the use?” I looked at her closely, but the flickering fire made it impossible to read her true expression.

  She said, “I could sit by this fire for hours, just listening to them knead and beat the dough. I could gaze at the fire and grow old doing it.”

  “In that case, why not go on sitting here?” I said. “Then I wouldn’t have to follow you, wouldn’t have to turn up on some ship or in a foreign city. We could sit here together, as often and for as long as we liked.”

  She looked at me sadly. “You know that I have to leave. Sometimes it seems that you’re not really listening to me or that you think what I say doesn’t matter.”

  She was right, I thought. She did have to leave. Telling her the truth now would just get things even more tangled. First let the ship set sail, leaving behind this cursed country, the good and the bad memories, the patched-together lives, the graves and all the absurdity about guilt and remorse.

  “Well, tomorrow I have my date with the American consul. I’m worried. I pray to God he’ll give me the transit.”

  “A strange prayer, Marie. People used to pray to their gods to send them a favorable wind. Do you think you can sit with me here for just a moment without constantly thinking about your departure?”

  “You should be thinking about it too,” Marie said, “you, of all people.”

  Her words made me think of the old man who had said something similar to me on my first evening in Marseille. For a moment I saw his eyeless, his bottomless face in the pizza fire, accompanied by the clatter of the rolling pin. Marie begged the waiter for a little slice of pizza, even without a bread ration. But he remained firm. He would only give us wine.

  IV

  That evening the hallway outside my room was clogged by a pile of luggage. It was guarded by the two dogs, now wearing new collars. In a little while my neighbor came to my door carrying some leftover wine, a bag of ersatz coffee, a bar of chocolate, and two eggs—all of which she wanted me to inherit. I could already imagine the look in Claudine’s eyes when I brought her all this stuff. My neighbor was ready to leave for Lisbon the following day. There were even places booked for the two dogs in a special dog compartment on the Nyassa.

  The beasts yelped happily as they left.

  The next morning the hallway was again blocked with luggage. Two old people who had arrived on the early train were moving in. Both were short and round, with gray tousled hair. Despite their advanced age, they behaved like children. They had been tossed about with all their bags and packages in an uncomprehending world, but it had not managed to separate their wrinkled hands. The old woman borrowed a corkscrew from me to open a bottle of denatured alcohol. She noticed I was alone and invited me to share the weak early morning coffee she was making on her alcohol burner. And when my other neighbor, the legionnaire, appeared in their doorway, not having found me in my room, he was invited too. The coffee was ersatz coffee made from dried peas; the sugar was saccharin. The alcohol was some smelly ersatz alcohol, but the little flame filled our empty hearts with a substitute for home and hearth. When we asked where they were going, the old people said they were going to Colombia. The old man had escaped from Germany some time ago after they had set fire to his union hall. Their oldest son was in the German army and had been declared missing. The youngest son had done something bad back in Germany for which he’d been banned from their house. So he emigrated. Now it was this prodigal son who was inviting them to his home in Colombia. The legionnaire and I helped the old people put away their luggage. The Colombian Consulate didn’t open till noon. The two old people sat down side by side near the window. The old man looked out at the Rue de la Providence. His wife began darning his socks.

  V

  The legionnaire and I, both of us with lots of free time, decided to walk along the Canebière from one café to the next, eventually ending up at Café St. Ferréol. Just to please him, I sent a note to Nadine at the Dames de Paris, asking her to come
down to join us. He was startled and turned pale when she came and actually sat down at our table. She stared at his medals and asked him to tell her about them. But he was so flustered, he couldn’t say a word, couldn’t pull himself together. Here was his big chance and he was losing it—here suddenly was the young woman who had seemed so unattainable, and she was sitting at his table, laughing.

  From there we went to the Brazilian Consulate. The inner room was as empty as the last time I’d been there. The people waiting at the barrier sighed and complained into the emptiness. The young man came out again, but this time only as far as the middle of the room—he’d gotten wiser. He was going to avoid the possibility that any of the visa applications being waved at him in desperation might stick to him as they fluttered across the barrier. He was about to withdraw again when my friend became quite frantic; he pushed the door in the barrier open, and with one leap he was in the inner room. He grabbed the young man’s arm. I had followed him, and suddenly all those waiting pushed into the interior room behind us, shouting at the young man, “We’ve got to leave on this ship! We can’t wait any longer! We have to get on that ship!”

  Unexpectedly, the young man started cursing vehemently in Portuguese, but my friend didn’t let go of his arm. Soon officials we hadn’t seen before rushed out of the innermost room of the consulate and pushed the waiting horde back, all except my friend who refused to let go. Suddenly typewriters began to clatter; visa applications were collected. My friend was handed a piece of paper, and told that he must go at once to the consulate doctor, who could only see him right that minute. The doctor would give him a statement saying that his eyes were all right, because one could enter the country only if one’s eyes were sound. Then they pushed him back again to the other side of the barrier, and out of the consulate. I rushed back in to retrieve my hat. By now the tumult my friend had started had subsided; the desks were empty again; the officials had withdrawn to the back rooms; and those still waiting sighed and complained because all the applications that had been gathered were still lying in one pile on top of the barrier.

  How badly things were going for my friend. He certainly deserved better! The day after this happened he was demobilized. He put his medals into a cardboard box, and put the box into his suitcase. Then he asked Nadine to have lunch with him. He came back a little while later, looking pretty sad. She had smiled coolly, had been politely amusing; but had carefully sidestepped agreeing to see him again. He said, “Right at the outset I wondered if Nadine could fall for me of all people. And anyway, maybe she thought it foolish to tie herself down since I’d be leaving soon. But I’d gladly take her with me.”

  The Brazilian ship was scheduled to leave at the end of the week. He had all his papers, an appointment for the last visa, and his ticket was paid for. I went back with him to the consulate a couple of hours before opening time. The stairway was already packed with people overflowing into the street. From time to time a Brazilian appeared at an upper window, looked down, opened his mouth and closed it again, as if he was too weak to make a sound.

  “Aren’t they going to open the doors?” one man said.

  “They’ve got to,” said another, “because the ship is leaving today.”

  “Nobody can force them to open up,”

  “We’ll force them to,” yelled a third.

  “But that won’t get us a visa.”

  My friend, silent and frowning, was already standing in line. The window opened again. This time a pretty young woman in a green dress looked down in puzzlement and laughed. The transit applicants answered her laugh with an angry shout. As I was walking home, I visualized them all, waiting endlessly. I thought they might still be waiting even as the ship weighed anchor—an empty ship sailing to an empty country.

  That evening at the hotel the legionnaire knocked on my door. He said, “They won’t let me go to Brazil.”

  “Didn’t your eyes pass the test?”

  “I had everything; I even had the eye doctor’s certificate. And eventually the consulate did open. I even reached the room of the consul, but they said they had just received a telegram, and now they were asking for proof of Aryan ancestry. And so, in accordance with the laws of this country, I have to go back to my département of origin. I’m leaving today; I intend to return to the village I left when my father was imprisoned. It was in exchange for his release that I joined the army in the first place, although since then he has died. I’ll wait there for a new visa. Besides I’m fed up with this city, and I want some peace and quiet.”

  He was taking the overnight train. I went with him to the train station, which was located high up on a hill. From there I could look down on the nighttime city, only dimly illuminated because of the air raid precautions. For a thousand years it had been a last home for people like us, a last refuge on this continent. I looked down from the station to where the land slipped silently into the sea, the first gleam of the African world on its white southern walls. But the city’s heart, no doubt about it, continued to beat to a European rhythm, and if it were to stop beating, then refugees scattered all over the world would also have to die, like a particular variety of trees, which—no matter where one planted them—would all die at the same time because they had all been sown at the same time.

  I got back to the Hotel de la Providence just before dawn. The room to the left of mine was already occupied again. I slept very little because these new arrivals were making a lot of noise with their luggage. They knocked at my door a little later to ask for some alcohol for their stove. They turned out to be a young couple. The woman had probably been very slender and delicate once. But now, except for her calm face, she was broad and ungainly because she was expecting a child. Her husband was a strong and forthright fellow, who had escaped from a camp through a clever ruse. But now, since he had been an officer in the Spanish Army and they figured he would be handed over to the Germans, they decided to separate. He would leave immediately. He asked me to help his wife. Her no-longer beautiful face was calm; there was no sign of despair, or fear of being left behind alone. Nor was there any outward sign of her steadfast courage, now that she had only me as her support, someone she’d found at the last minute and by chance when they came to ask for some alcohol.

  VI

  I was waiting for Marie at the Café Saint Ferréol. It was ten in the morning, but the café was already full of people waiting to go to the Prefecture across the square or to the American Consulate. I knew many of these people, but there were also some new faces among them. For they kept streaming into the country’s only port over which the French flag still waved. The masses wanting to leave the continent each week could have manned a giant flotilla. Yet not even one sad little ship was sailing on a weekly basis anymore.

  Then I saw the girl from the camp at Bompard whom I’d met once at the Corsican’s being led past by a police officer. She no longer wore stockings, the little fur piece she’d put around her shoulders in honor of the day looked mangy and moth-eaten. The police officer had to support her because her walk was unsteady. Most likely her last hope had just been shattered. Tomorrow they would probably send her from Bompard to a concentration camp where she’d collapse completely. In ancient times, these things were better handled. You could have bought a girl like that—her new master might have been cruel, or he might have been kind. He would have used her to work in his house, to take care of the children, to feed the chickens. No matter how ugly or worn down she was, she could still have retained some hope.

  I saw three prestataires pass by, without weapons, without epaulets. Then Marie was standing in the doorway. She had her transit visa—I recognized it by the little red ribbon.

  She came toward me and said, “Look, he gave it to me!” She wanted to order aperitifs for us to celebrate, but unfortunately it was a no-alcohol day; they didn’t even have lemonade or real tea. Of her own accord, she took my hand, as in the old days. She gently stroked her face with it. I asked if she was pleased. She kept one han
d on mine and one on her transit visa.

  “You performed your magic again,” she said. “You can do magic the way my other friend can heal. Whatever one of you can’t do, the other one can.”

  “Marie, I’m afraid my magic is finished now. My skills will be useless from now on. No one needs them anymore. Just a walk to the exit visa department of the Prefecture and everything will be done.”

  “Not everything’s done yet. I’ve been to the Prefecture three times already, all in vain. They told me I’d have to come back tomorrow. That they have to check my records first. Because everything depends on whether my husband has already been issued an exit visa. If he has, they’ll give me one too. I think they gave it to him after he got his transit visa. So, I’ll find out tomorrow.”

  Her hand which had been warm on mine, turned cool. I was desperate. I had to go see Nadine immediately. That last time I saw Nadine she’d talked about a girlfriend who worked at the Prefecture. She had to talk to her girlfriend today, as soon as possible. This business with the Office for Aliens had to be arranged by tomorrow.

  Then Marie said, “I keep wondering what it might be like over there. Will it be the way it is here? Will it be different?”

  “Where over there, Marie? What do you mean?

  She raised her hand from the transit visa and pointed into the air, away from herself. “Over there, over there.”

  “Where over there, Marie?”

  “Over there. When it’s all over, will there finally be peace as the doctor believes? Will we see each other again over there? And if and when we do meet again there—will we be so changed that it won’t be like a reunion, but more like what you always wish for in vain on this earth, a new beginning? A new, for-the-first-time meeting with your lover? What do you think?”