Amerika (8 page)

“Well, this Brummer woman,” his uncle continued, “had a child by my nephew, a healthy boy, who was given the name Jakob at baptism, no doubt in honor of my humble self, and even though any references to me could only have been very casual they must nonetheless have left a big impression on the girl. And I'd say that was quite fortunate. For to avoid paying child support or whatever part of the scandal touched them directly—and here I should emphasize that I have no knowledge of the laws there nor of his parents' circumstances in other respects, and that everything I know comes from two begging letters I received from his parents a number of years ago, which I kept but never answered, and this was the only, and naturally one-sided, correspondence I've had with them the entire time—well, to avoid those child support payments and the whole scandal, his parents shipped off their son, my dear nephew, to America and, as one can see, made such inadequate and indeed irresponsible provision for him that if the boy had been left to fend for himself in this manner—leaving aside the omens and wonders one can still encounter, especially here in America—he would no doubt have gone to seed quickly in some alleyway or other in New York Harbor if the servant girl hadn't given me a complete account along with a description of my nephew and also, very cleverly, the ship's name in a letter that after various lengthy detours reached me only the day before yesterday. If my main intention was to entertain you, gentlemen, there are several passages in this letter”—from his pocket he drew two enormous sheets of paper filled with cramped writing and waved them about—“that I could certainly read aloud. It would definitely leave an impression on you, for it is written with a rather artless, if always well-meant, cunning and with much love for the father of her child. But I don't wish to entertain you more than is necessary for the sake of clarification; nor do I wish to hurt any feelings my nephew may still have for the girl, especially just as he's being made welcome here; if he wishes, he may for his edification read this letter in the quiet of his room, which is now ready to receive him.”

Karl, however, had no feelings for that girl. Amid the crush of a past that he had pushed back ever further, she sat in the kitchen beside the cabinet, with her elbows resting on the counter top. She would look at him when he went to the kitchen to fetch a glass of water for his father or to run an errand for his mother. Sometimes she would be sitting beside the cabinet in that same awkward position, writing a letter and drawing inspiration from Karl's face. Sometimes she would hide her eyes with her hand, and then no greeting could reach her. Sometimes she would be kneeling in her narrow little room next to the kitchen, praying to a wooden cross, and at such moments when he walked past, Karl would merely watch her timidly through the slightly open door. Sometimes she would race around the kitchen, and whenever Karl happened to get in her way, she would shrink back, breaking out in witchlike laughter. Sometimes she would close the kitchen door after Karl had entered and keep her hand on the knob until he asked for permission to leave. Sometimes she would fetch things that he did not even want and press them into his hands without saying a word. On one occasion, however, she said “Karl!” and then, grimacing and moaning, led Karl, who was still astonished at being addressed by his first name, into her little room, which she locked behind her. She put her arms around his neck and seized it in a stranglehold, and though she had asked him to undress her, it was she who undressed him and put him in her bed, as if she would never surrender him to anyone else and wanted to go on stroking him and caring for him until the end of the world. “Karl, oh my Karl,” she cried, as if she could see him and was confirming that she now had possession of him, whereas he could see nothing and felt uncomfortable under the many warm bedclothes that she had evidently heaped up especially for him. Then she lay down beside him and wanted him to tell her secrets, but he had none to tell, and she became annoyed, whether jokingly or in earnest, shook him, listened to his heart, offered him her breast so that he too could listen but could not induce Karl to do so, pressed her naked belly against his body, searched between his legs with her hand—in such a revolting manner that Karl shook his head and throat out from under the quilts—then pushed her belly up against him several times; it felt as if she were part of him; hence perhaps the terrible helplessness that overcame him. In tears, after listening to repeated wishes that they should meet again, he reached his bed. There was no more to it than that, but his uncle still managed to make a big thing of it. So the cook had actually thought about him and had let his uncle know he was coming. That was good of her, and at some point he might well repay her.

“And now,” cried the senator, “I want you to tell me frankly whether I'm your uncle or not.”

“You are my uncle,” said Karl, kissing his uncle's hand and in turn receiving kisses on the forehead. “I'm very pleased to have met you, but you're mistaken if you think my parents said nothing but bad things about you. But even aside from that, your speech did have a couple of mistakes in it; for instance, I don't really think that's how everything happened. Also, you can't gauge things that well from over here; besides, it'll be no great harm if the gentlemen were slightly misinformed about an affair that surely means little to them.”

“Well put,” said the senator, and leading Karl toward the visibly sympathetic captain, he said: “Don't I have a splendid nephew?”

“Mr. Senator,” said the captain, bowing in a manner only people with military training can carry off, “I'm happy to have become acquainted with your nephew. It was a great honor for my ship to have been chosen as the setting for such an encounter. But your voyage in steerage must have been quite dreadful; well, one can never tell who's being transported in there. Even, for instance, the firstborn son of the top Hungarian magnate—I've already forgotten his name and the reason for his voyage—who made a crossing once in steerage. I only found out about it much later. We do everything we can to make the voyage easier for those in steerage, a lot more than, say, the American lines, but we still haven't succeeded in making such voyages pleasurable.”

“It did me no harm,” said Karl.

“It did him no harm!” the senator repeated, laughing very loudly.

“But as for my trunk, I'm afraid I've lost . . .” And just then it all came back to him, everything that had happened and everything that still needed to be done, and looking about him, he saw that every person in the room still stood in the same position, silent in astonishment and respect, with their eyes fixed on him. Only in the harbor officials could one see—insofar as their severe, complacent faces revealed anything whatsoever—that they regretted having come at such an inconvenient moment and indeed they showed greater interest in the watch lying in front of them than in anything going on in that room and in anything that might still go on there.

Oddly enough, the first person after the captain to express his good wishes was the stoker. “My heartfelt congratulations,” and he shook Karl's hand, thereby seeking to convey something akin to appreciation also. Yet when he subsequently attempted to address the same words to the senator, the latter withdrew as if the stoker had overstepped his bounds; the stoker immediately desisted.

The others, however, saw what was needed, and quickly gathered about Karl and the senator in a clamoring mass. In this way Karl even received Schubal's congratulations, which he accepted and for which he in turn thanked Schubal. Finally, the harbor officials joined them, and amid the renewed silence, said two words in English, which left a ridiculous impression.

Intent on savoring the occasion to the full, the senator reminded himself and the others of the more incidental details, which everybody not only tolerated but listened to raptly. He observed that he had jotted down in his notebook a list of Karl's most distinctive traits, as described in the cook's letter, so that he could, if necessary, refer to it quickly. Then, while the stoker kept up his intolerable chatter, he had pulled out his notebook, simply as a little diversion, and playfully tried to connect the cook's observations, the accuracy of which would scarcely satisfy a detective's standards, with Karl's actual appearance. “So this is how one finds one's nephew,” he concluded, sounding as if he wished to be congratulated all over again.

“What will happen to the stoker?” asked Karl, ignoring his uncle's last remark. In his new position he could, he believed, say anything that crossed his mind.

“The stoker will get what he deserves,” said the senator, “and what the captain considers appropriate. Besides, I think we've had enough of the stoker, more than enough, as I'm sure all the other gentlemen will agree.”

“But that's beside the point when it's a matter of justice,” said Karl. Karl stood between his uncle and the captain, and, perhaps swayed by his vantage point, he believed that the decision now lay in his hands.

The stoker, however, seemed to have abandoned all hope. His hands were half tucked into his trousers belt, which his agitated movements had exposed along with the stripes of a patterned shirt. This did not in the least bother him, for he had finished complaining about his sorrows, and they should get to see the pair of rags hanging from his body before they carried him off. He imagined that the two lowest-ranking people in the cabin, the servant and Schubal, would be the ones who were supposed to do this last good deed for him. Then Schubal would have some peace and wouldn't be driven to despair, as the chief treasurer had put it. The captain could sign up an all-Romanian crew, Romanian would be spoken throughout the ship and everything might actually run more smoothly. There would no longer be a stoker chattering away in the main bursar's office, though they would remember his last bit of chatter quite fondly, for, as the senator had specifically noted, it had indirectly led to the moment when he had recognized his nephew. Besides, the nephew had thanked him adequately long before that wonderful moment of recognition; the stoker wouldn't even think of asking Karl for anything else. In any case, even if he was the captain's nephew, he certainly wasn't the captain himself, and in the end the harsh words would come from the captain's lips.—In keeping with such views the stoker tried not to look at Karl, but unfortunately in this room full of enemies there was nowhere else to rest his eyes.

“Don't misunderstand the situation,” the senator said to Karl, “it is perhaps a matter of justice, but it is at the same time a matter of discipline. And on board ship it is the captain who determines both, and especially the latter.”

“That is so,” muttered the stoker. Whoever noticed his muttering and understood it smiled disconcertedly.

“But we've already so hindered the captain in his official duties—which must surely mount incredibly once the ship reaches New York—that it's high time for us to leave instead of intervening quite unnecessarily and thereby turning a trivial squabble between two machinists into a full-blown incident. My dear nephew, I can understand your behavior completely, and that's precisely what gives me the right to whisk you away.”

“I'll have a boat lowered at once,” said the captain, but much to Karl's astonishment, he did not seek to raise the slightest objection to his uncle's remarks, even though they could undoubtedly be considered self-demeaning. The chief bursar hurried over to the desk and telephoned the captain's order to the boatswain.

“Time is running out,” Karl said to himself, “but I cannot do anything without insulting almost everyone. After all, I can't leave my uncle, who has only just found me. The captain is polite, but that's about it. Once this becomes a disciplinary matter, he will cease being polite, and Uncle must have been expressing the captain's sentiments also. I don't want to talk to Schubal and even regret that I shook hands with him. And the rest of the people here are nothing but chaff.”

Absorbed in such thoughts he approached the stoker slowly, pulled the latter's right hand from his belt, took it in his own, and began to toy with it. “So why don't you speak out?” he asked. “Why do you put up with everything?”

The stoker merely furrowed his brow as if he were seeking the right words with which to convey his thoughts. He glanced down at Karl's hands and at his own.

“You've suffered greater injustice than anybody else on this ship, I'm quite sure of that.” And Karl drew his fingers back and forth between the stoker's fingers; with a sparkle in his eyes, the latter looked around on every side, as though overcome by a great joy, but one that nobody ought to hold against him.

“But you must defend yourself, say yes and no, otherwise people won't have any idea about the truth. You must promise me you'll do as I say, for I fear that for various reasons I'll no longer be able to help you.” And Karl wept as he kissed the stoker's hand and took that chapped, almost lifeless hand and pressed it to his cheeks, like a treasure one must relinquish. However, his uncle, the senator, was already by his side and pulled him away, if only with the slightest pressure. “The stoker seems to have bewitched you,” he said, casting a knowing look at the captain over Karl's head. “You felt abandoned, then found the stoker and now you're grateful to him, which certainly speaks in your favor. But don't carry this too far, if only for my sake, and do try to understand your position.”

A commotion began outside the door; one could hear shouts, and it even seemed as if someone was being thrust violently against the door. A sailor entered looking rather disheveled, with a maid's apron tied around his waist. “There are a few people outside,” he cried, thrusting out his elbows as though he were still surrounded by a crowd. Finally he regained his composure and was about to salute the captain when he noticed the servant's apron, tore it off, threw it on the ground, and shouted: “That's revolting, they've tied a maid's apron around me.” Then he clicked his heels, however, and saluted. Someone made an attempt to laugh, but the captain said severely: “Somebody appears to be in a good mood! So who's outside?” “They're my witnesses,” said Schubal, stepping forward. “I most humbly beseech you to excuse their unseemly conduct. Once the men have the voyage behind them they sometimes start acting like madmen.” “Call them in,” the captain commanded, and turning immediately to the senator, he said quickly but courteously: “Mr. Senator, could you be so kind as to follow this sailor, who'll escort you to the boat? And it goes without saying, Mr. Senator, that it was a great pleasure and an honor for me to make your acquaintance. I can only hope that I shall soon get another chance to resume our interrupted conversation about the state of the American fleet, and maybe we can ensure that next time too it'll be interrupted in an equally pleasant manner.” “Well, one nephew seems quite enough for now,” said Karl's uncle, laughing. “Please accept my most heart felt thanks for the kindness you've shown, and now I should like to bid you farewell. By the way, it's not inconceivable”—he pressed Karl to his chest affectionately—“that we could spend more time together on our next voyage to Europe.” “I should be only too delighted,” said the captain. The two gentlemen shook hands; Karl had to be satisfied with holding out his hand briefly for the captain without being able to say a word, since the latter was already preoccupied with the roughly fifteen people led by Schubal, who entered somewhat diffidently yet also very noisily. After asking the senator for permission to go ahead, the sailor divided the crowd for the senator and Karl, who made their way easily through the bowing crowd. These otherwise good-natured people seemed to regard Schubal's fight with the stoker as nothing more than a joke, which lost none of its hilarity even in the presence of the captain. Among them Karl noticed the kitchen maid Line, who winked at him cheerfully as she tied on the apron that had been cast aside by the sailor, for it was indeed hers.