Amerika (22 page)

Just then the porter bent down to the head waiter and whispered a few words in his ear. At first the head waiter looked at him in astonishment, and then he spoke so rapidly into the telephone that Karl could not quite understand him at first and advanced two paces on tiptoes.

“Dear Madame Head Cook,” he said, “to be honest, I would never have thought that you could be such a bad judge of character. I just discovered something about your angelic youth that will thoroughly change your opinion of him and almost regret that it is I who must tell you. Well, this ever-so-fine youth, whom you call a model of decency, does not let a single night he has off-duty go by without running into the city, from which he doesn't return until the following morning. Yes, yes, Madame Head Cook, this has been proven by completely unimpeachable witnesses. And maybe you could tell me how he comes up with the money for such diversions? How can he remain sufficiently alert to carry out his duties? And do you really want a detailed description of what he actually gets up to in the city? I want to get rid of that boy as quickly as possible. Please take this as a warning about how careful one must be with youths who just show up at the door.”

“But Mr. Head Waiter,” cried Karl, who was truly relieved by the great mistake that seemed to have occurred, which could conceivably lead to an unexpected turn for the better on all sides. “There has certainly been some confusion here. I believe the head porter has told you that I go off every night. That's absolutely untrue, I'm actually in the dormitory all night, and all of the boys can vouch for this. When I'm not sleeping, I'm learning how to write business letters and don't ever set foot outside the dormitory at night. That can be easily proven. The head porter is obviously confusing me with somebody else, and I can understand now why he thinks I don't greet him.”

“Will you be quiet at once,” shouted the head porter, shaking his fist where others would merely have wagged a finger, “you say I'm confusing you with somebody else. Well, then I can no longer be a head porter if I keep confusing people like that. Listen, Mr. Isbary, if I get people confused, I can no longer be head porter. But in my thirty years of service I've never confused a single person, and the hundreds of head waiters we have had in the meantime would certainly confirm this, yet the first person whom I supposedly got confused was you, you wretched boy. You of all people, with your strikingly smooth mug. But how could there have been any such confusion, for even if you had run off every night into the city behind my back, one need take only one look at your face to see that you are an utter scoundrel.”

“Stop, Feodor!” said the head waiter, whose telephone conversation with the head cook seemed to have been suddenly interrupted. “This is a very simple matter. How he entertained himself at night is absolutely irrelevant. Of course, before he leaves, he may indeed want us to carry out a large-scale investigation of his nighttime activities. I can easily imagine that would please him. Then we'd have to summon all forty lift boys and interview them as witnesses, and of course all of them would confuse him with someone else, so we would gradually have to call the entire staff as witnesses, and then of course the hotel would have to be shut down for a while, and so by the time he was finally thrown out, he would at least have had some fun. But let's not do him any such favor. He's already fooled the head cook, who is such a decent woman, and that is enough already. I don't want to hear one more word from you; you're dismissed from the service this instant for neglect of duty. I'm writing out a note for the bursar's office requesting payment for the wages you are owed, up to today. Besides, between the two of us, given how you have conducted yourself, I am simply giving this to you as a present, solely out of consideration for the head cook.”

A telephone call prevented the head waiter from signing the instructions right away. “But those lift boys, they're giving me such trouble today!” he cried, on hearing the first few words from the other end of the line. “That's really outrageous!” he cried, after a brief pause. And turning away from the telephone to look at the head porter, he said: “Feodor, please hold that fellow for now. There are still a few matters we need to discuss with him.” And he gave an order into the receiver: “Come up at once!”

Now the head porter could at least let off steam, which he had not managed to do as he spoke. He seized Karl by his upper arm, not with a steady grip, which would have been bearable, but rather by loosening his grip and then gradually tightening it, which on account of his great physical strength felt as if it would never cease and caused a darkening of Karl's vision. Yet he not only held Karl but pulled him up in the air and shook him, as though he had also been given orders to stretch out his body, while telling the head waiter repeatedly, almost as a question: “So I'm confusing him now, so I'm confusing him now.”

Karl was saved by the entrance of the top lift boy, a forever-panting fat youth named Bess, who drew some of the head waiter's attention. Karl was so exhausted that he scarcely greeted him, and to his astonishment, he saw Therese slip in behind the boy, pale as a corpse, dressed untidily, her hair bound loosely. A moment later she stood beside him and whispered: “Does the head cook already know?” “The head waiter telephoned her,” Karl responded. “Well then, everything will be fine, just fine,” she said quickly, her eyes animated. “No, it won't,” said Karl. “After all, you don't know what they have against me. I'll have to go away; even the head cook has already been persuaded of this. Please don't stay here, go upstairs, and I shall come to say goodbye.” “What's got into you, Rossmann? You can stay here as long as you want. You see, the head waiter does everything the head cook wants; he does love her; I just found this out recently by accident. So calm down.” “Please, Therese, go away now. I cannot defend myself so well in your presence. And I have to defend myself accurately since they're bringing up lies against me. The more I pay attention and the better I defend myself, the greater my hopes of staying. So, Therese”—unfortunately, due to a sudden attack of pain he could not refrain from adding quietly—“if the head porter would only let me go! I really had no idea he was an enemy of mine. But the way he keeps on grabbing and pulling me.” “Only why am I saying this!” he thought at the same time. “No woman can listen to this calmly.” And indeed, before Karl could use his free hand to restrain her, Therese turned to the head porter and said: “Mr. Head Porter, please let go of Rossmann at once. You're hurting him. The head cook will soon be here in person, and then it'll become quite clear how unjustly he's being treated in every respect. Let him go, what pleasure can you get from tormenting him?” And she even reached for the head porter's hand. “It was an order, young miss, an order,” said the head porter, drawing Therese amiably toward himself with his free hand while squeezing Karl even more strenuously with the other, as though he not only wanted to cause him pain but also had special designs on the arm currently in his possession that were by no means realized yet.

It took some time for Therese to extricate herself from the head porter's embrace, and then, just as she was about to intercede for Karl with the head waiter, who was still listening to the rather long-winded Bess, the head cook strode into the room. “Thank God,” cried Therese, and for a moment all one could hear in the room were those two loud words. The head waiter immediately jumped up, pushing aside Bess: “So you've come in person, Madame Head Cook. On account of such a trifling matter? After our conversation on the telephone it dawned on me that this might be so, but I couldn't quite believe it. And this matter with your protégé is becoming ever more serious. I fear I won't be able to dismiss him and shall have to have him locked up instead. Come here and listen for yourself!” And he beckoned Bess to approach him. “First, I should like to say a few words to Rossmann,” said the head cook, and she sat down on a chair since the head waiter forced her to do so. “Karl, please come closer,” she said. Karl complied, or rather was dragged over by the head porter. “Do let him go,” said the head cook angrily, “after all, he's not a thief and murderer.” The head porter let him go but only after giving Karl such a tight last squeeze that the strain brought tears to his eyes.

“Karl,” said the head cook, and then she calmly put her hands in her lap and looked at Karl with her head bent down toward him—this really didn't seem like an interrogation—“what I especially want to tell you is that I still have complete confidence in you. The head waiter too is a just man, I can vouch for that. All in all, both of us want to keep you on.” She gave the head waiter a fleeting glance, as though requesting that she not be interrupted. The head waiter remained silent. “So forget what these people here may have told you. You don't have to take all that so seriously, especially what the porter may have said. Though he is quite wound up, which isn't surprising given his duties, he does have a wife and children and realizes that there's no need to subject a boy who is entirely thrown back on his own resources to unnecessary torment, since the world at large will certainly see to that.”

The room fell silent. The head porter looked at the head waiter, demanding an explanation; the latter looked at the head cook and shook his head. Behind the head porter's back, Bess, the lift boy, grinned absurdly. Therese sobbed in joy and sorrow and had to make a great effort to prevent others from overhearing her sobs.

Even though Karl realized that such conduct would necessarily be taken as a bad sign, rather than looking at the head cook, who was certainly trying to catch his eye, he chose to gaze at the floor. The pain in his arm was throbbing all over, his shirt had stuck to the weal, and he really ought to have removed his jacket and taken a look at it. What the head cook said was, of course, very kindly meant, but it seemed to him that this behavior on the part of the head cook would unfortunately make it quite clear that he deserved no such kindness and that he had quite undeservedly enjoyed the head cook's favor for two months and indeed that all he simply deserved was to fall into the head waiter's hands.

“I'm telling this to you,” the head cook continued, “so that you can answer forthrightly, as you would have done anyhow, from what I know of you.”

“Please, may I go and get the doctor, the man could be bleeding to death,” said the lift boy, interrupting the conversation in a polite but most disruptive manner.

“Yes, go,” said the head waiter to Bess, who ran off at once. Then he said to the head cook: “This is how things stand: the head porter has not detained that boy merely for the fun of it. Downstairs in the lift boys' dormitory a complete stranger was found lying in one of the beds, heavily intoxicated, with the covers pulled up carefully over him. They woke him, of course, and wanted to get rid of him. But the man made quite a racket and kept shouting out that the dormitory belonged to Karl Rossmann, that he was a guest of Karl Rossmann, who had brought him there and would punish anyone who dared to lay hands on him. Besides, he would have to wait for that fellow Karl Rossmann, he said, for he had promised him money and had just gone to get it. Please take careful note of this, Madame Head Cook: he promised him money and went to get it. Rossmann, you too should take note of this,” the head waiter said to Karl, who had just turned toward Therese; she in turn stared at the head porter, as if spellbound, and pulled her hair back from her forehead, perhaps simply as an automatic gesture. “But perhaps I ought to remind you of certain appointments you've made. You see, the man downstairs went on to say that when you return, you two will pay a nighttime visit to a certain female singer, whose name no one could understand since the man could pronounce it only when he was singing.”

Just then the head waiter interrupted what he was saying, since the head cook, who had grown visibly pale, rose from his chair, which she pushed back a little. “I shall spare you the rest,” said the head waiter. “No, please, no,” said the head cook, seizing his hand. “Go on, I want to hear everything, that's why I've come.” The head porter stepped forward and, so as to signal that he had seen through everything from the outset, beat himself loudly on the breast, whereupon the head waiter addressed him with the words: “Yes, you were quite right, Feodor!” calming him down while upbraiding him also.

“There's not much left to say,” said the head waiter. “Boys are boys; first they laughed at the man, then got into a fight with him, and since there were always a few good boxers standing around, he was simply boxed to the floor, and I dared not even ask where, and in how many spots, he was bleeding, for these boys are formidable boxers, and of course they have an easy time with a drunk.”

“Well,” said the head cook, holding her chair by the armrest and staring at the place she had just vacated. “So please do speak, Rossmann!” she said. Therese had already run across to the head cook from her position, and taken the head cook's arm, which Karl had never seen her do before. The head waiter stood right behind the head cook, slowly smoothing out the head cook's small plain lace collar, which was turned up a little. The head porter, who still stood next to Karl, said: “So out with it now,” merely so as to conceal a punch in the back that he was giving Karl.

“It's true,” said Karl, sounding less confident than he would have wished on account of the punch, “I did take the man into the dormitory.”

“That's all we wish to know,” said the porter, speaking on behalf of everybody else. The head cook turned silently to the head porter and then to Therese.

“I had no other choice,” Karl continued. “That man is my former comrade, and after not seeing each other for two months, he came to visit me, but was so drunk he could not leave on his own.”

The head waiter, who now stood next to the head cook, mumbled to himself in a low voice: “So he came to visit and was so drunk afterward that he couldn't leave on his own.” The head cook whispered a few words over her shoulder to the head waiter, who appeared to raise objections, smiling in a manner evidently unrelated to this affair. Out of helplessness Therese—Karl had eyes only for her—pressed her face up to the head cook, seeking to block out everything else. The only person whom Karl had completely satisfied with his explanation was the head porter, who said repeatedly: “That's absolutely right, a man has got to help his drinking buddy,” and sought to impress this explanation on all present by means of gazes and gestures.