The Hotel Savoy seemed empty to me. Santschin was no longer there. I had only been twice to his room but it felt as if I had lost a dear good friend. What did I know of Santschin? He was a clown on stage and unhappy at home, a warm, uncouth man who had suffocated in the steam from laundries. For years he had breathed steam from dirty washing – if not in this very Hotel Savoy, then in others. In all the cities of the world there exist smaller or larger Savoys and everywhere on the top floors there are Santschins suffocating in the steam of strangers’ laundry.
The Hotel Savoy was now fully booked. Out of 864 rooms only one was empty, only one person missing, just Wladimir Santschin.
I sat below in the afternoon lounge. The doctor smiled at me, as if to say: do you see how right I was when I prophesied Santschin’s death? He smiled as if he incarnated medical science and was now celebrating his triumph. I drank a vodka and took a look at Ignatz. Was he Death or just an old lift-boy? What was he staring at with his beer-coloured yellow eyes?
Now I could feel mounting in me my hatred of the Hotel Savoy where one would live and another die, where Ignatz took trunks in pawn and girls had to strip naked before factory owners and house agents. Ignatz was like a living precept of this place, Death and a lift-boy.
I shall not, think I to myself, allow myself to be tempted by Stasia to stay on here.
I have cash enough for three days because, thanks to Glanz, I’ve earned some money. After that, I shall be buried like poor Santschin, away out on the far side of the cemetery, in clay soil full of earthworms. Worms are sliding now over Santschin’s coffin and in three days’ time, or eight, or ten, the wood will rot and so will the old black suit of which someone made him a present and which was already shining with wear.
Here stands Ignatz with his beer-coloured yellow eyes, who goes up and down with the lift and who also brought Santschin down for the last time.
That night it cost me considerable effort to go into my room. I hated the cupboard with the chamberpot, I hated the lampshade and the bell push and kicked over a chair so that it made a loud noise. I would happily have torn down Kaleguropulos’ notice which hung scornfully on the door, went to bed afraid and left the lights on all night long.
Santschin came to me in my dreams. As I watch, he stands up in his muddy grave and shaves himself. I hand him a bucket of water, he dips mud into it and smears his face with it as if it were shaving soap. ‘I can manage,’ says he, ‘don’t look at me,’ and I stare shamefacedly at his coffin standing in the corner.
Thereupon Santschin claps his hands and loud applause breaks out, the whole Hotel Savoy is clapping, Kanner and Neuner and Siegmund Fink and Frau Jetti Kupfer.
Before me stands my uncle Phöbus Bohlaug and whispers to me, ‘A lot of good you’ve done! You’re worth no more than your father! You good for nothing!’
XI
I was just on my way out of the hotel when I ran into Alexander Bohlaug. He was wearing a light coloured felt hat. Never in my life have I seen such a lovely felt hat, a poem of a hat in a delicate, pale, indescribable shade, carefully dented in the middle. If I were wearing this hat I should not think of raising it, so I forgive Alexander for not doing so. He just raises his forefinger to the brim, like an officer returning the salute of an army cook.
I admire Alexander’s canary yellow gloves as much as I do his hat: to look at this man is to be convinced that he has come post haste from the most Parisian quarter of Paris.
‘Good morning,’ says Alexander, smiling sleepily, ‘what is Stasia up to, Fraulein Stasia?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You don’t know? You are amusing! Yesterday you were walking behind the coffin with the lady, as if you were her cousin.’
‘The business with the donkey is enchanting,’ says Alexander, taking off a glove and fanning the air with it.
I say nothing.
‘Listen, cousin,’ says Alexander, ‘I would like to rent a pied-à-terre in the Hotel Savoy. I don’t feel free at home. Often …’
Oh yes, I understand. Alexander laid his hand on my shoulder and propelled me into the hotel. I disliked this, being superstitious and not liking to go back into an hotel which I have scarcely left.
I have no reason not to go with Alexander and am curious to know what number he will acquire. I reflect that the rooms to the right and left of Stasia are occupied.
Only one room is free, the one Santschin lived in – his wife is already packing, on her way to relations in the country.
For a moment I am delighted that ‘little Alexander’ from Paris will be living in the steam from Santschin’s laundry, even if only for a couple of hours or a couple of nights a week.
‘I will make you a proposal,’ says Alexander, ‘I’ll pay the rent for a private room for you, or pay you the rent for two months or, if you wish to leave our town, I’ll pay your fare to Vienna, Berlin or even Paris, and you turn your room over to me. Is that a fair bargain?’
This way out appealed to me very much but nonetheless my cousin’s offer surprised me. Now I had everything I needed, the journey onward and subsistence money. I no longer had to depend on Phöbus Bohlaug’s goodwill and I was a free man.
All my complications were rapidly resolved. My designs were marvellously fulfilled. Yesterday I would have sold half my soul for a fare and today Alexander was offering me freedom and money. And yet it seemed to me that Alexander Bohlaug had come too late. I should have rejoiced, and said so, but I did nothing of the kind and assumed a thoughtful expression. Alexander ordered one schnaps after another, but the more I drank the more melancholy I became, and the thought of travelling further and the thought of freedom vanished into thin air.
‘You don’t want to, dear cousin?’ asked Alexander and, to indicate that he was indifferent, began to tell me about the revolution in Berlin at which he had by chance been present.
‘You know, these bandits are wandering around for two days, and one isn’t sure if one will get away with one’s life. I spend the whole day sitting about in the hotel. Below they are preparing the armoured cellars against all possibilites. A couple of diplomats live there, too. I’m thinking, so long, my lovely life – I escaped the war and now the revolution is going to catch me. It was a stroke of luck that I had Vally along. A couple of us were friends and called her Vally, the comforter, because she was our comfort in time of need, as it says in the Bible.’
‘That’s not in the Bible.’
‘No matter – you should have seen her ankles, my dear cousin, and when she let her hair down it reached to her bum. Those were wild times, and all about what? Tell me why all these dramas were necessary?’
Alexander sat with legs apart. So as to preserve the creases he stretched them out in front of him and tapped on the floor with his heels.
‘So I shall have to look for another room,’ says Alexander, ‘if you don’t want to,’ and, ‘I won’t insist. But perhaps you’ll think it over till tomorrow, my dear Gabriel; perhaps?’
Certainly I will think it over. At present I have drunk schnaps and the sudden offer has stunned me even more. I will think it over.
XII
We separated at eleven in the morning, and I had time enough – a whole summer afternoon, an evening, a night.
All the same, I would gladly have had longer, a week, two weeks, a month. Yes, I would like to have chosen a town like this for a longer holiday. It was a really amusing town full of all kinds of wonderful people; there was no one like them in all the world.
There stood this Hotel Savoy, a magnificent hotel, with a porter in uniform, and a gilded coat of arms, promising a lift and scrubbed chambermaids in starched nuns’ coifs. There stood Ignatz, the old lift-boy with his scornful eyes, yellow as beer, but what did he matter to me since I paid and had no luggage to pawn? There was Kaleguropulos, certainly the worst of the lot – I did not know him, no one knew him.
It would have been rewarding to stay on if only for the sake of this Kaleguropulos – mysteries have
always fascinated me – and if one stayed longer one would surely have a chance to cross the path of this unseen man.
Certainly it was better to stay on.
Abel Glanz, that remarkable prompter, lived there, there was money to be earned from Herr Kanner, and in the Jewish quarter there was money in the mud on the streets. It would not be bad to enter Western Europe as a rich man. One might arrive at the Hotel Savoy with a single shirt and leave it as the owner of twenty trunks.
And still be the same Gabriel Dan.
Yet do I not wish to go westwards? Have I not spent years in imprisonment? I can still see the yellow hutments, covering the white plain like a dirty scab, I can still taste the last sweet drag on a cigarette butt picked up somewhere. Then the years of wandering, the bitterness of the highway – those grim, frozen ploughed fields which hurt the soles of my feet.
What does Stasia mean to me? The world is full of girls, girls with brown hair, with big, grey, clever eyes and dark lashes, with little feet in grey stockings. One can unite two solitudes and weather pain together. Let Stasia stay with the Variétés and fall prey to Alexander from Paris.
On your way, Gabriel!
It turns out that I am strolling once more, in farewell, through the town, looking at the grotesque architecture of its warped gables and fragmentary chimneys, at the broken window panes patched with newspaper, at poor hovels and the slaughterhouse at the city limits with factory chimneys on the horizon and workers’ tenements, brown with white roofs and pots of geraniums in the windows.
The land round about has the sad beauty of a woman past her flowering, autumn is on the air everywhere although the chestnut leaves are still deep green. One should be somewhere else in autumn, in Vienna, looking along the Ringstrasse, the golden leaves all above, the houses like palaces, the streets straight and cleaned as though distinguished guests were expected.
The wind is blowing from the factory area, smelling of soft coal; grey soot clings to the houses, the whole atmosphere is like a railway station. Time to travel on. The whistle of a train comes over shrilly, people are travelling in the world.
Bloomfield comes into my mind – where can he be, in fact? For a long time he has been supposed to be coming, the industrialists are excited, in the Savoy everything is prepared; where is Bloomfield?
Hirsch Fisch is waiting longingly for him. Perhaps Fisch now has a chance to escape his unending poverty, after all he has known Bloomfield’s father to talk to. His name was Blumenfeld, Jechiel Blumenfeld.
I remember the lottery ticket I had from Hirsch Fisch, the numbers 5, 8 and 3 are sure to win a triple chance. What if I had a winning ticket? Then I could stay on for a while in this interesting town and take it easy for a little longer. I am in no hurry. I have neither mother, wife nor child. No one expects me. No one longs for me.
I, on the other hand, do have longings. For Stasia for instance. I would gladly live with her for a year, or two, or five. I should love to travel to Paris with her if I won the triple chance in the nick of time, before the government abolishes the lottery. I would not need to sell my room to Alexander nor to beg from my uncle Phöbus. The draw is next Friday and I shall have to hold out for a week. I cannot keep Alexander waiting as long as that. By morning I have to decide.
I must take leave of Stasia.
She was dressed as I came in, and on her way to the show.
She had a yellow rose in her hand and let me smell it.
‘I’ve had a lot of roses – from Alexander Bohlaug.’
Perhaps she expects me to say, ‘Send the roses back.’
Perhaps, too, I might have said it, if I had not come to take leave of her for ever.
So I just said, ‘Alexander Bohlaug is taking over my room and I am leaving.’
Stasia stopped on the second step down. We had just started down the stairs. Perhaps she would have asked me to stay, but I did not look at her, nor did I linger but went obstinately down the stairs as if I were in a hurry.
‘You really are going?’ asked Stasia. ‘Where?’
‘I’m not certain.’
‘It’s a pity you don’t want to stay.’
‘Can’t stay …’
Then she said nothing more and we walked in silence to the Variétés.
‘Will you be coming to a farewell tea, after the show?’ she asked.
If Stasia had not asked me but simply invited me I would anyway have said ‘No!’
‘Then have a good journey.’
It was a cool parting, but there had been nothing between us! I had not even sent flowers.
The flower seller in the hotel had chrysanthemums. I bought some and sent them by Ignatz to Stasia’s room.
‘Is the gentleman leaving?’ asked Ignatz.
‘Yes.’
‘Because in fact another free room could be found for Herr Alexander Bohlaug if the gentleman is leaving on his account.’
‘No, I’m leaving anyway! Bring me the bill tomorrow.’
‘The flowers are for Stasia?’ asked Ignatz, before I stepped out of the lift.
‘For Fräulein Stasia.’
I slept the whole night through without a dream. Tomorrow or the day after I would be on my way. The long drawn out whistle of a train came to me. People were travelling in the world. Adieu, Hotel Savoy.
XIII
Alexander was a man of the world. He knew how to wrap up a deal. He was a bonehead but nevertheless the son of Phöbus Bohlaug.
He arrived punctually in another elegant suit. He talked for an hour about everything except our business. He let me wait. Alexander had time.
‘In Paris I lodge with Madame Birnbaum, a German. The Germans are the best housekeepers in Paris. Madame Birnbaum has two daughters, the elder is over fourteen, but even if she were thirteen – one does not think so precisely in these matters. Well, one day a cousin of Madame Birnbaum’s turns up – and I had made an excursion with Jeanne – only she kept me waiting. In short I come back after two days – I have the keys on me — and I come at night, tread softly so as not to wake anyone, on the tips of my toes as they say, don’t turn on any lights, just take off my shoes and jacket, go over to my bed, reach out and touch – would you believe it? – the breasts of little Helene.
‘She was sleeping in my room, because of the cousin, or else Madame Birnbaum had deliberately planned it – in short, you can imagine what happened next.’
I can imagine.
Alexander starts on a new story.
This man has lived out countless stories in his lousy twenty-two years. One tale gives birth to another and I am no longer listening.
Suddenly Stasia comes into the tea lounge – she was looking for someone and we were the only people in the room. Alexander sprang up, ran over to her, kissed her hands and drew her over to our table.
‘We’re neighbours now!’ began Alexander.
‘Oh, I didn’t know that,’ says Stasia.
‘Yes, my dear cousin has been so good as to turn his room over to me.’
‘That’s not settled yet!’ I said all at once. Why, I didn’t myself know. ‘We haven’t said a word about it.’
‘Is it a question of money?’
‘No,’ I said firmly, ‘I’m not leaving at all. But you can still have a room, Alexander. Ignatz said so.’
‘Well, then everything’s all right, and we three are all of us close neighbours,’ said Alexander.
We went on talking of this and that. Ignatz came in. There were three rooms free. Two would be occupied tomorrow, but one would certainly stay free, room 606, admittedly on the fourth floor, but spacious. Nobody wanted it because of its suggestive number, out of the question for ladies, but as a pied-à-terre, why not?
I left Stasia and ‘little Alexander’ sitting there and went.
That evening Ignatz told me in the lift that Alexander had taken 606.
I returned to my room as to a long lost home.
BOOK TWO
XIV
I am now in my third day
at the station, waiting for work. I could go to a factory if only the workers were not at this moment on strike. Philipp Neuner would be surprised to find a regular from the bar among his workers. That sort of thing does not embarrass me. Many years of hard work lie behind me.
Nobody wants workers unless they are technicians, and I am no technician. I can decline Kaleguropulos and many another word in Greek. I can also shoot. I am a good shot. For work in the fields one is housed and fed but paid no money – and I must have money.
One can earn money at the railway station. Quite often a foreigner arrives looking for reliable people with ‘linguistic qualifications’, so as not to be given a thick ear financially by the sharp inhabitants. Porters are also much sought after. There are not many hereabouts. I do not really know what else I could do. From the station the world is not so distant. Here one can see the track going into the distance. People come and people go. Perhaps a friend might come, or an old comrade from the war?
One really did come, namely Zwonimir Pansin, a Croat from my company. He, too, comes from Russia, not on foot by any means but by train, so I know that things are good with Zwonimir and that he will help me.
We greet each other warmly, Zwonimir and I, two old comrades from the war.
Zwonimir was a revolutionary from birth. He has a PU on his military papers, meaning politically unreliable – for that reason he never made corporal although he wore a big medal for bravery. He was one of the first in our company to win a decoration. Zwonimir wanted to refuse it. He told the captain to his face that he did not want to be singled out and that he was sorry it had come to this. Now the captain was very proud of his company – he was a good captain, not very bright – and he did not want to allow the colonel of the regiment to hear about any trouble. So everything was settled and Zwonimir took the medal.
I remember the day – the regiment was out of the line -Zwonimir and I were lying on the grass one afternoon, looking across to the canteen where soldiers were coming and going and standing about in groups.