Transit

by Anna Seghers

  My heart was pounding. He still had a firm grip on my wrist, and as he calmly explained things to me, I began to understand that I’d played the game to the finish and won.

  He sat down and began his computations while I stood and watched. At last he said, “After subtracting the cost of the ticket and the money for the Prefecture, you still have quite a little pile of money there in Lisbon. I’m calculating the exchange rate at 60. Is that all right? The amount you owe me is insignificant because passage on that filthy boat is so cheap. All you have to do now is to sign this paper, asking that the bank in Lisbon transfer a small amount of money from your account to mine.”

  He handed me a big wad of paper bills. I put the money into my pocket; I had never before had that much money at one time.

  Then he said, “You have just enough time to go to the Prefecture. I’ll wait for you here. When you come back with your exit visa, we’ll have my ticket exchanged for one in your name.”

  During all this time, even as he was settling the account and signing the papers, he had not once let go of my left wrist. It had remained in his grip as if in a handcuff. Now he at last let go and leaned back. I looked at his bald, cone-shaped head. His cold gray eyes were fixed on mine. “What are you waiting for? I can get rid of my ticket a thousand times over right now. Just look!” He indicated the people on the Rue de la République, all headed for the Transports Maritimes office. Some had their luggage with them. They’d probably already reserved their tickets, had exit visas in their pockets, and thoughts of departure in their pale, excited faces. But many of those pushing their way to the shipping company counter had nothing at all. You could tell which ones they were by their voices, their nervously twitching hands and lips. One could well imagine that they sensed destiny at their heels and death waiting for them on the corner of Quai des Belges and Rue de la République. That he had let them slip through to the Transports Maritimes, but with the threat: If you don’t come out with a ticket, then...! And they came up to the counter wringing their hands, without hope, money, or documents, as if this ship were the last one in their lives, the last that would ever cross the oceans.

  I mumbled, “Aren’t you leaving?”

  He said, “I’m going home. I can go back. To a ghetto, it’s true, but I can go back. But for you there is no going back. They’d stand you up against a wall and shoot you.”

  He was right. And I knew that all he had to do was wave his ticket in the air, and a mass of desperate men and women would come crawling to him on their knees.

  “I’ll go to the Prefecture,” I said. I’d decided to do it, then and there. He again took hold of my wrist and led me away. He whistled for a taxi, settled me in it, and paid the driver.

  You know the Marseille Prefecture, don’t you?—All those men and women waiting from early morning till late in the evening in the dark corridors of the Office for Aliens. A police officer comes to chase them away, but they keep pushing their way back again toward the exit visa department, on the chance that it just might miraculously open a couple of hours earlier than usual. Each of these ready-to-leave souls has experienced as much as a whole generation of humankind normally might. One will start telling another next to him how he escaped sure death three times already, but the man next to him has also avoided death at least three times himself. He listens only superficially, then he elbows his way into a gap in the line, where another man will tell him how he has escaped death. And while they’re waiting there, the first bomb drops on the city they had wanted to go to in search of peace, visas expire, a cable arrives on the other side of the door saying that the borders of the country that seemed like the last hope of refuge are being closed. And if you can’t wrangle yourself forward with trickery and pure meanness to be among the first ten who can then race over to the Transports Maritimes with their exit visas, you’ll find the passenger list will already be closed. Nothing can help you then.

  I was one of the first ten. I looked for Nadine’s girlfriend Rosalie. And then I saw her, sitting at a desk, her head supported on her fists, poring through files. I made my way to the far end of the railing so that I could talk to her without being interrupted.

  “I’ve prepared everything for you.” She said. “Did you bring the money?” She counted the bills with her plump fingers. Without looking at me she said, “Since you want to leave without being recognized, I advise you to be very careful. I can’t emphasize this strongly enough. Police officers will be sailing on that ship, a civil police commissioner will be on board and will be examining all the passengers’ documents in his cabin. That’s the nature of this boat. Two months ago there was a case where a Spaniard was sailing in disguise, with forged documents. His sister was on the same boat. She had spread a rumor that her brother was dead, that he had escaped from Spain and then from a detention camp but had been killed in the Blitz. She wore mourning. But somehow she couldn’t hide her joy when she saw that her brother had managed to get on board the ship. There are always spies among the passengers, don’t ever forget that! And there was a commissioner sailing on that ship, too. Someone told him about the man, and that was the end of that. When the boat got to Casablanca for a stopover, they took him off the ship and handed him over to Franco. Be very careful!”

  My bald friend was waiting for me outside the door of the Transports Maritimes when my taxi drove up. He again grabbed my wrist and pulled me over to the counter. The young shipping company clerk’s face showed shock and amazement when he looked at the ticket I handed him. My friend asked him, “Is anything wrong? After all it can’t matter much to you who uses the ticket.”

  “Doesn’t matter at all. The only thing is, this is the third time this ticket has changed hands. Ordinarily people will crawl on their hands and knees to get tickets, and yet this ticket keeps getting passed on.”

  Afterward we stopped off at the first greasy café we came to on the Rue de la République.

  My friend said, “I went to see the German Commission in Aix. Three officers interrogated me. When I put in my request to go back to Germany one of them laughed and mumbled curses. The other one asked me what I was going to do back home—he hoped I wasn’t expecting them to welcome me with open arms.

  “I said, ‘It has nothing to do with being welcomed back. It’s a matter of Blood and Soil. You do understand that, don’t you?’ He was a little taken aback. Then he asked about my assets. I said, ‘I have a daughter in Buenos Aires; I had a brief love affair with her mother. I signed my assets over to the girl. Please don’t worry about whether I have any money; I’m not worried about it.’

  “The third officer listened to everything and said nothing. So I put my hopes in him. The only people you can talk to nowadays are those who remain silent. And so my request was approved and signed.” He sipped some wine and said, “For thirty years I’ve been wandering through the world, at a time when other people planted trees in their homeland. Now all these people are leaving, and I’m going back home.”

  III

  I went over to La Joliette, to the harbor commissioner’s office. The reception room was relatively uncrowded, considering the thousands of people who were headed here. It was the last of all the waiting rooms. If a person, having waited wearily for his turn there, was not sent back without hope, then there were no additional waiting rooms for him, only the open sea.

  A Spanish family came in. I was amazed to see that the old Spaniard was with them. The man whose sons had died in the Civil War and whose wife died as they were crossing the Pyrenees. He looked more alive than the last time I’d seen him; it was as if he were hoping to meet his loved ones again in another world on the far side of the ocean.

  The old couple from my hotel arrived with their baggage and packages. They didn’t think it was anything special to be among the very few permitted to enter this place. Innocently holding hands, even though burdened with all their many packages, they had traveled this exhausting path from consulate to consulate on which most others had gotten bogged down
. I turned away to avoid having to answer any of their questions.

  The harbor commissioner opened his office door and slipped behind his massive desk. He was a small man, a little like a squirrel, who looked as though he hated the sea. He sniffed at my papers, asked, “Where’s your refugee certificate?” I pulled out the certificate Yvonne had given me. He put it with my file and stamped it. I was ready to leave.

  IV

  From the harbor commission office I walked to the edge of the quay. The large buildings on the piers blocked the view. Although the water between the piles was shallow, it was the beginning of the endless sea. One could see a handsbreadth of the horizon between the pier and the mole covered with cranes. An old, bedraggled boatman stood motionless a couple of yards from me, staring out across the harbor. I wondered whether his eyes were sharper than mine and he could see something I could not. Soon I realized he couldn’t see any more either than the line between the mole and the pier where the sky and the sea touched, the thin line that is more exciting to people like us than the wildest, most jagged peaks of the craggiest mountain chains.

  I walked along the quay and suddenly felt a feverish desire to leave at once. I could leave now, this very moment. Once on board the ship I’d steal Marie away from the doctor. I’d obliterate the coincidence that had brought them together on the Boulevard de Sébastopol in a time of desperation when they were fleeing mindlessly without a destination. I’d finally leave everything behind and make a new start. I’d laugh at the grim rule that says life can be lived only once and on a single track. If I were to stay behind here, I’d always remain the same fellow I was today. Aging gradually, I’d still remain a somewhat courageous, somewhat weak, somewhat unreliable fellow, who might with a lot of effort become more courageous, less weak, and a little bit more reliable without others even noticing. This was the moment to leave—later it would be impossible.

  A small, clean ship, eight thousand tons or thereabouts, was tied up next to the pier. I couldn’t read the name, but thought it might be the Montreal. I called over to the boatman, and he slowly came toward me. I asked him if it was the Montreal. He said the ship was the Marcel Millier, that the Montreal was anchored about an hour away from here, at Pier 40. His reply sobered me. I had already imagined this would be the ship I’d take, that it was my destiny. But my ship was anchored far away.

  V

  I took a cab to the Rue du Relais. For the third and last time, I climbed the stairs that spiraled up to the room where the doctor had hidden Marie. I thought it would be best not to give her any hint now of my plan, not even the slightest indication, and just turn up on the ship as if by magic. But I wasn’t quite sure if I’d be strong enough to go through the motions of saying good-bye now.

  I knocked; the door opened and I saw her hand covered by the hem of a blue sleeve. Marie took a step backward. I couldn’t figure out the expression on her face. It was serious and a bit stiff. She asked brusquely, “Why did you come here?”

  The stove was out; the weather had warmed up a couple of days earlier, and winter was on the way out. Suitcases stood around the room as they had the morning the doctor was going to leave. Everything in the room had been packed.

  “I’m here to bring you a going-away present,” I replied casually although my heart was pounding. “It’s a hat.”

  She laughed and kissed me for the first time, a quick, light kiss. Then, standing in front of the mirror over the washstand, she tried on the hat. She said, “It even fits. You have such crazy ideas. Why did we meet only this winter just before I have to leave? We should have met long ago.”

  I said, “You’re absolutely right, Marie. We should have met back then—where was it?—in Cologne, I should have been the one to sit down on the bench next to you instead of that other man.”

  She turned away and pretended to busy herself with packing. She asked me to lock a suitcase. We sat down next to each other on top of the locked suitcase. She put her hand into mine. She said, “If only I weren’t so uneasy, so worried! Why am I so anxious? I know I have to leave, I want to leave, and I will leave. But sometimes I feel so uneasy, as though I’d forgotten something, something important, irreplaceable. I almost feel like unpacking all the suitcases, taking everything out again. And while everything’s pulling me away from here, I wonder what it is that’s still holding me back.”

  I sensed this was my moment. I said, “Maybe it’s me.”

  She said, “I can’t believe I’ll never see you again. I’m not ashamed to admit that it feels as if you were the first man I’d met, not the last one. As if you were there when I was a child back home in our country, and yours was one of those wild, brown boyish faces that don’t yet make girls think of love, but make them wonder what love might be like. One of the boys with whom I played marbles in our shady courtyard. And yet I’ve known you for a shorter time than any of the others, and only superficially. I don’t know where you come from and why you’re here. A visa stamp or the decision of a consul shouldn’t separate people forever. Only death should be final, not a mere good-bye, not a departure.”

  My heart was pounding with joy. I said, “But mostly it depends on us. What would the other one say if I were to appear suddenly on the ship?”

  She said, “That’s just it—the other one.”

  I went on, more emphatically, “He’s got a goal, his profession. He told us himself that it was much more important to him than happiness.”

  She put her head against my shoulder and said, “Oh him! Let’s not pretend to each other. You know who is separating us. We don’t want to lie to each other, now at the last moment, you and I.”

  I put my face into her hair, I could feel how much more alive I, the living man, was than the dead Weidel. She leaned her head on my shoulder. For several minutes we sat there with eyes closed. I felt the suitcase rocking under us, as if we were sailing gently on. Those were the last minutes of complete peace for me. Suddenly I was ready to tell her the truth. I cried, “Marie!”

  She abruptly drew her head away and gave me a sharp look. She had turned pale, even her lips were pale. Maybe it was the tone of my voice, or maybe the expression on my face that warned her that something incredible was about to happen, an outrageous attack on her life. She even raised both hands as if to ward off a blow.

  I said, “Before you leave I owe it to you to tell you the truth. Your husband is dead, Marie. He took his own life on the Rue de Vaugirard when the Germans marched into Paris.”

  She dropped her hands to her lap. She smiled. She said, “That shows you how little your advice is worth. That shows you how little your information is worth. Only yesterday, I found out for certain that he’s still alive. So much for your truth telling.”

  I stared at her and said, “You don’t know anything. What do you know?”

  “I know now that he’s still alive. I went to the Office for Aliens at the Prefecture to pick up my exit visa, and there was a woman, an official, who was working on my documents, she helped me. She was odd-looking, small and fat, but her eyes were kind, the sort of kindness I’ve never encountered before in this country. And she helped everybody. She gave them advice and helped them solve their problems. No file was too complicated for her. You sensed immediately that this woman was ready to help anyone and everyone, that she wanted to make sure we could all get out in time so that no one would fall into the hands of the Germans or end up in some concentration camp and die there for no reason at all. You could tell that she wasn’t one of those lazy people who think that there’s nothing to be done and all efforts are futile. Rather she was concerned that everything she had any control over would be done right, that nothing harmful would happen to anyone. You see, she was one of those people because of whom an entire people will be saved.”

  In my despair I said, “You’ve described her perfectly—I can picture her.”

  “Then I took heart,” Marie continued. “I’d never dared ask anything before. I was always afraid I’d do more harm than good
by asking questions. But now that I had all my documents, it couldn’t hurt anyone. So I asked her about my husband. She looked at me as if she’d been expecting the question; she said she wasn’t allowed to answer me. I pressed her, I begged her, please, if she knew, at least to tell me whether my husband was still alive. She placed her hand on my head and said, ‘Rest assured, my child. You may yet be reunited with him on the voyage.’”

  Marie looked at me sideways, smiling her sly little smile. She stood up to face me and asked, “Do you still have any doubts? Do you still believe the rumors? How can you possibly know? What do you know? After all, did you see him dead with your own eyes?”

  I had to admit that I didn’t. “No,” I said. Only afterward did I realize how light her breathing was, and the slight, imperceptible note of extreme fear in her sarcastic questions. After my answer she said, sounding relieved and cheerful, “Nothing is holding me here anymore. How easy it is for me to leave now.”

  At that point I gave up. I couldn’t catch up with the dead man. He’d hold on to what was his forever, even in death and into eternity. He was stronger than I was. All I could do was to go away. How could I have possibly countered her argument? How could I have convinced her? Why even try? For then, though now looking back it seems ridiculous, I was infected for a moment by her foolishness. After all, what did I know about the dead man? Nothing but the gossip of a malicious hotel proprietress. What if he really was still alive? What if Achselroth really had seen him? Not separated from us by eternity but only by a newspaper into which he had poked two holes so that he could watch us unobserved and secretly begin to invent plot complications in comparison to which ours were insignificant?

  I met the doctor on the stairs. He asked me to join him and Marie for an aperitif, the last one, all three of us, at the Café Mont Vertoux. I think I mumbled something about no alcohol being served that day.