From the clock over the counter he saw it was twenty to eight. He didn’t feel like anything to eat or drink so he ordered some soda water when the proprietress came over, and when he saw she was disappointed, he ordered a carafe of wine. Near the door sat a Hungarian soldier with his girl, and in the middle a fat fellow with a sallow face and a pitch-black cigar in his mouth. He quickly finished the carafe of wine so as to reassure the proprietress, and ordered another. The woman gave him a friendly smile; she was middle-aged, thin and blonde.
There were moments when he even thought she would come. Then he imagined where he would go with her: they would take a room somewhere, and before they went through the bedroom door he would tell her she was his wife. The room was dark, the bed in it old and brown and wide; there was a religious picture hanging on the wall, and a chest of drawers with a blue china basin containing lukewarm water, and the window looked out onto an orchard. That room existed, he knew it did, he had only to go into town and look for it and he would find it, that room, wherever it was he would find it, that very room, in a cheap hotel, in an inn, in a pension; that room existed, the room which for one moment had been destined to receive them tonight—but they would never enter that room. With painful clarity he saw the soiled rug beside the bed and the little window opening onto the orchard, the brown paint had peeled off the window frame; it was a lovely room with its big, brown, wide bed they had almost lain in together. But now that room would stay empty.
All the same, there were moments when he believed it wasn’t decided yet. If she hadn’t been Jewish—it was very hard to love a Jewish girl while this war was on, but he did love her, he loved her very much, enough to want to sleep with her and talk to her, for hours and very often and over and over again—and he knew there weren’t many women you could sleep with and talk to for hours. With her it would have been possible—a lot of things would have been possible with her.
He ordered another carafe of wine. He had not yet opened the bottle of soda water. The fellow with the pitch-black cigar left, and now he was alone in the café with the middle-aged blonde proprietress, who had a skinny neck, and the Hungarian soldier with his girl. He drank some wine and tried to think of something else. He thought about his home, but he had hardly ever been there. Since leaving school he had hardly been home at all; besides, at home he was scared—the little town lay between railroad and river, in a great loop, as it were; the roads leading to it and through it were treeless, asphalted, and in summer there was only the musty, airless shade of the fruit trees. It didn’t cool off even in the evening. He had usually gone home in the fall and helped with the harvest because he enjoyed that: those great orchards full of fruit, great trucks full, so many trucks full of pears and apples and plums being driven along the Rhine to the cities. Home was beautiful in the fall, and he got along well with his mother and dad, and it made no difference to him when his sister got married to some fruit grower or other—but home was beautiful in the fall. In winter the little place lay once again flat and deserted between river and railroad in the cold, and the heavy, cloying smell from the jam factory would drift in thick clouds across the plain and take your breath away. No, he was always glad to get away again. His job was building houses and schools, factories and apartment houses for a large firm, and army barracks …
But there was no point in trying to think about these things. Now he had to think of having forgotten to ask Ilona for her address—just in case. But he could get it from the building superintendent at the school, or from her headmistress, and there was no reason, after all, why he couldn’t make inquiries, look for her, talk to her, perhaps go and see her. But all that belonged to those pointless things you had to do to give God a chance, you just had to do them, and sometimes it turned out that there was some point to them after all. The moment you admitted there might be some point to them, that they might come off—the moment you had to admit that, you were lost. And you had to keep on doing them. Search and wait—that was all there was to hope for, and that was terrible. He didn’t know what they did with the Hungarian Jews. He had heard there had been a dispute over this between the Hungarian and German governments, but you could never tell what the Germans would do. And he had forgotten to ask Ilona for her address. The most important thing to do in wartime, exchange addresses, was the one thing they had forgotten, and for her it was still more important to have an address. But this was all pointless: she would never come back.
He preferred thinking about the room they would have shared together …
He saw it was close on nine: the hour had long since passed. The clock hand moved very slowly while you were looking at it, but as soon as you took your eyes off it, even for a moment, it seemed to jump. It was nine o’clock, and he had been waiting here for almost an hour and a half; he had to go on waiting, or he could hurry over to the school and ask the building superintendent for her address, and go there. He ordered another carafe of wine and saw that the proprietress was satisfied.
At five after nine the military police checked the café, an officer with a corporal, and at first they merely glanced inside and turned to leave—he saw them very distinctly because he had begun to stare at the door. There was something wonderful about staring at the door: the door was hope, but all he saw was this officer in his steel helmet and the corporal behind him, just looking in and then turning to leave, until the officer caught sight of him and walked slowly over to him. He knew the game was up: these people had the only effective means, they had death at their beck and call, death obeyed them instantly. And to be dead meant not to be able to do anything in this world anymore, and he still had plans for doing something in this world: he wanted to wait for Ilona, to look for her and to love her—even though he knew it was pointless, he wanted to, because there was just a chance it might work out. These men in their steel helmets held death in the palm of their hand, death was in their little pistols, their unsmiling faces, and even if these two men didn’t want to call upon death, there were thousands standing behind them who were only too glad to give death a chance, with gallows and machine pistols—death was at their beck and call. The officer looked at him, said nothing, just held out his hand. The officer was tired, couldn’t have cared less, really; he did his job mechanically, probably it bored him, but he did it, and he did it consistently and seriously. Feinhals handed over his paybook and marching orders. The corporal made a sign to Feinhals to stand up. With a shrug Feinhals stood up. He noticed that the proprietress was trembling and the Hungarian soldier looked alarmed.
“Come along,” said the officer quietly.
“I haven’t paid yet,” said Feinhals.
“Pay at the counter.”
Feinhals buckled on his belt, picked up his bag, and walked between the two men to the counter. The proprietress took the money, and the corporal went ahead and opened the door. Feinhals went out. He knew they couldn’t do anything to him; still, he might have been scared, yet he wasn’t. Outside it was dark, lights were showing in stores and restaurants, and everything looked very nice and summery. On the street outside the café stood a large red furniture van: the door at the back had been opened, part of it had been let down and rested on the rough paving like a ramp. People were standing about on the street and watching uneasily: in front of the opening stood a guard holding a machine pistol.
“Get in,” said the officer. Feinhals climbed up the ramp into the van; in the darkness he saw a lot of heads, weapons—but no one inside said a word. When he was all the way in, he noticed the van was full.
VI
The red furniture van drove slowly through the town; it was securely locked, the padded doors bolted, and on its sides was painted in black lettering GÖROS BROS., BUDAPEST. FORWARDING AGENTS. The van did not stop again. Through the opening in the roof a man’s head looked out, carefully noting the surroundings, from time to time bending down apparently to call out something. The man saw lighted cafés, ice-cream parlors, people in summer clothes, but suddenly his eye was
caught by a green furniture van that was trying vainly to overtake them on the wide boulevard. The driver of the green van was a man in army uniform, beside him sat a second man in army uniform holding a machine pistol on his knees, but the opening in the roof of the green van had been secured with barbed wire. The driver of the green van honked impatiently behind the red van as the latter lumbered through the town. Not until they reached a major intersection and the street widened and opened out could the green van overtake; it nipped quickly past, and the man looking out of the opening noticed that the green van turned into a wide street evidently going north whereas the red van drove south, almost due south. The face of the man in the opening grew more and more serious. He was short and slight, and his face had a wizened look, and when the red van had driven on a bit farther, he bent his head and shouted down into the van, “I’m pretty sure we’re driving out of town, the houses aren’t so close together now.” From below came a muffled murmur in reply, and the red van was driving faster now, faster than one would have given it credit for. The road was empty and dark, and between the close branches of the trees the air hung moist and heavy and sweet, and the man in the roof opening bent down and shouted, “No more houses, highway now—going south.”
The howls from below grew louder, but the van drove even faster. The man in the opening was tired, he had a long train trip behind him, and he was standing on the shoulders of two men of different heights, which made him even more tired, and he was ready to quit, but he was the shortest and slightest of the men in the van, and they had picked him to see what was going on outside.
Now came a long stretch where he saw nothing. A very long stretch, it seemed to him—and when the men down below pulled at his leg and wanted to know what was going on, he said nothing was going on, all he could see was the trees bordering the highway and the dark fields. Then he saw two soldiers with a motorcycle standing by the roadside, the soldiers were shining their flashlight back and forth across a map. They glanced up as the big furniture van passed. Then the man in the opening saw nothing again for a while, until they passed a stationary tank column. One tank seemed to have broken down, someone was lying on his stomach underneath it and someone else was shining a carbide lamp over it. Farmhouses slid past them very quickly, dark farmhouses, and a truck column overtook them on the left, driving very fast; soldiers were sitting on the trucks. From behind the trucks came a small gray car flying a commandant’s pennant. The commandant’s car was driving even faster than the trucks. Some soldiers, infantrymen, were sitting hunched up beside a barn; some were lying on the ground smoking. Next they went through a village, and shortly after the village the man in the opening heard firing for the first time. It was a heavy battery located to the right of the road; great barrels pointed steep and black into the dark-blue sky. Bloody fire flashed from the gun muzzles, casting a soft ruddy sheen on the wall of a barn. The man recoiled, he had never heard firing before, and he was scared. He was a sick man, a very sick man, with some chronic stomach ailment, his name was Sergeant Finck, and he was the commissary at a big hospital near Linz, on the Danube, and he had had misgivings ever since the head of the hospital had sent him to Hungary to pick up some genuine Tokay wine, Tokay and liqueurs and as much champagne as he could lay hands on. Imagine going to Hungary for champagne. Still: he, Finck, was the only man at the hospital who could be trusted to tell a genuine Tokay from a phony one, and, after all, in Tokay there must be some genuine Tokay wine. The old man, Colonel Ginzler, was very partial to genuine Tokay, but it was probably mostly because of his drinking pal and skat companion, that Colonel Bressen whom you involuntarily called von Bressen because he looked so distinguished with his narrow unsmiling face and the unusual decoration around his neck. Finck owned an inn back home, and he knew people, and he knew the old man was just showing off, sending him off like that to pick up fifty bottles of genuine Tokay—some bet or other which that colonel had probably goaded him into.
Finck had been to Tokay, where he had picked up fifty bottles of Tokay wine, and genuine at that, much to his surprise—he was an innkeeper, an innkeeper in a wine town, he had his own vineyards too, and he knew his wines. And he didn’t trust the Tokay he had bought as genuine in Tokay, a suitcase and a wicker basket full. He had managed to bring along the suitcase, it was down there in the van, but he hadn’t been able to bring the wicker basket. There had been no time at Szentgyörgy, they had been herded straight from the train into the furniture van; it had been no good protesting, saying he was ill, the whole platform had been cordoned off, it was no good even trying, they were marched straight into the furniture van parked outside the station. Some of the men started to mutiny and shout, but the guards seemed to be deaf and dumb.
Finck was nervous about his Tokay—the old man was touchy about wine and even touchier about what he called his honor. He was pretty certain to have given that colonel his word or some such thing that he would drink Tokay with him on Sunday. Most likely he had even named the hour. But now it was Thursday, probably Friday morning—it must be getting on for midnight at least—and now they were driving south, quite fast, and there wasn’t the faintest chance of being able to deliver the wine on Sunday. Finck was scared, scared of the old man and scared of the colonel. He didn’t like that colonel. He knew something about him that he never had and never could tell anyone, because no one would believe it, something disgusting that Finck wouldn’t have thought possible. Finck had seen it for himself, quite distinctly—and he knew how important it was for him that the colonel shouldn’t know he had seen it. He had to go along to the colonel’s room several times a day, with something to eat or drink or some books. And the colonel was someone you handled with great care. One evening he had gone into the colonel’s room without knocking, and there in the semidarkness he had seen it, that ghastly expression on the elderly white face—it took Finck’s appetite away for the rest of that evening. When a young fellow was caught doing something like that back home they poured cold water over him right away, and it worked …
Down below, the men were pulling at his leg again, and he shouted down to them that he had seen cannon, cannon firing, and the yelling down below grew louder. The flashes from the gun muzzles they had driven past were fading away behind them, and the sound of the shells being fired, which at first had seemed horribly close, now seemed as far away as the sound of the shells landing, while the van was steadily approaching the area where the shells were landing. They drove past more tanks, stationary columns; then came more guns, these seemed to be smaller, they were standing next to a draw well, and the flames from their muzzles lit up the sinister gallows-outline of the well in sharp flashes. Again there was nothing for a while, until they passed some more columns, then nothing again—and then Finck heard the firing of machine guns. The van was heading straight for the area toward which the machine guns were firing.
And suddenly they stopped in a village. Finck clambered down inside and got out with the others. In the village all was confusion; there were trucks standing around all over the place, people yelling, soldiers running across the road, and the firing of the machine guns grew louder and louder. Feinhals walked behind the little sergeant who had been standing in the roof opening and was now carrying his heavy suitcase; he was so short and walked so doubled up that the butt of his rifle dragged along the ground. Feinhals fastened his bag to the carrying strap and took a stride forward to catch up with the little sergeant. “I’ll give you a hand,” he said. “What have you got in there anyway?”
“Wine,” said the little man, gasping. “Wine for our hospital administrator.”
“Leave it here, for God’s sake,” said Feinhals. “How can you lug a suitcase full of wine up to the front?”
The little man shook his head obstinately. He was so exhausted he could hardly walk, his knees were wobbling, and he shook his head sadly and nodded his thanks as Feinhals reached for the handle. The suitcase seemed fantastically heavy to Feinhals.
The machine gun on th
e right had stopped firing, the tanks were firing into the village now. From behind them came the crash of splitting timbers, and a gentle reflection from a fire threw a soft light over the muddy, rutted road.
“Throw the thing away, man,” said Feinhals. “You must be out of your mind.”
The sergeant did not answer; he seemed to grip the handle even tighter. Behind them another house started burning.
Suddenly the second lieutenant walking ahead of them halted and called out, “Get close to the house!” They ran right up to the wall of the house in front of which they had stopped. The little sergeant lurched against it and sat down on his suitcase. Now the machine gun on the left had also stopped firing. The officer went indoors and came out at once with a first lieutenant. Feinhals recognized him. They had to line up, and Feinhals knew the first lieutenant was trying to make out their decorations in the reddish twilight: on his own chest he now had one more, a proper one now, at least the ribbon for it, adorning his chest in black, white, and red. Thank God, thought Feinhals, he had that medal at least. The first lieutenant looked at them for a moment, smiling, then said, “Very nice,” smiled again, and repeated, “Very nice, eh?” to the second lieutenant standing behind him. But the second lieutenant said nothing. They could see him distinctly now. He was short and pale, no longer very young, it seemed, and his face was grimy and unsmiling. He didn’t have a single medal on his chest.
“Brecht,” the first lieutenant told him, “take two men as reinforcement. And some bazookas. We’ll send the others to Undolf—four, I guess. I’ll keep the rest here.”
“Two,” said Brecht. “Yessir, two men, and some bazookas.”
“Right,” said the first lieutenant. “You know where to find those things?”