Baumgartner's Bombay (19 page)

When they broke out again the next year, there was no one to see them and they were not caught. That was more chilling. The rumours were wild, fearful. They had been eaten by tigers in the forest, trampled by elephants. They had drowned crossing a river, fallen off cliffs and been killed. What was frightening was that they had disappeared without a trace. It was like death. How many men in the camp would have chosen that? Baumgartner wondered, knowing he was certainly not one. He huddled on his bunk, finding its familiarity a comfort. He knew it was craven not to desire freedom, but it was true that captivity had provided him with an escape from the fate of those in Germany, and safety from the anarchy of the world outside.

As long as the news came in of German and Japanese victories, Baumgartner and the others in the Jewish quarter had good reason to feel thankful for the protection of the British-run camp, however sick with sorrow over the fate of
their
relations or of Germany, however restless and frustrated and bored by the lifeless monotony of the camp. At least it was a refuge, even if temporary.

Sitting beside Emil Schwarz on the veranda in the dark, waiting for a cool breath of air to make it possible to lie down and sleep, Baumgartner murmured something inaudible and incomprehensible about their contradictory situation. Schwarz, restlessly wringing his hands because there was no light and he could not read, seemed surprisingly to understand. ‘Baumgartner, you should read – it is not such a bad thing to read, you know. Then you would see how Mann has described it all, all, just as you say, in
The Magic Mountain
.’ But Baumgartner was not attracted by the title, it seemed to have no relevance to this flat, dust-smothered camp, and he thought it was just like Schwarz to refer everything in life to books as though that were the natural solution and end of it all. While Schwarz droned on about a sanatorium in the mountains, about the sick and the healthy, about sanity and lunacy, Baumgartner sighed, shuffled, smoked, slapped at mosquitoes and wondered when it would be cool enough to go inside and sleep.

The restlessness everyone felt built up into a tension as the news of the war veered and changed. The Russians held at Stalingrad; America entered the war; there were the British victories that made the Nazis at the other end of the camp sullen, so ferocious that it was not safe to go near them. The possibility of a German defeat began to be whispered about in the Jewish quarter, secretly – and gradually less secretly, more surely. Baumgartner found himself shivering on a hot summer night, as abjectly as a dog who senses he is about to be turned out into the street. He wondered if the long internment had not incapacitated him, made him unfit for the outer world. And what would they find outside? Germany destroyed – no possibility of returning, so that he would have to accept India as his permanent residence. He wondered at his ability to survive in it, reduced as he was to such an abject state
of
helplessness, and the knowledge besides of being alone. He began to fear the time when he would no longer be in the company of Julius, of Schwarz, of the others in the camp who had become so familiar. It was not that any of them regarded him as a friend; it was that with them he could pretend he was not solitary. Outside, he would be that – a man without a family or a country. He could not stifle his unease and wondered if there was not that under the others’ seething impatience.

It was yet another still, stifling day, grey and khaki, in an endless succession that threatened never to stop, but to go on till every man in the camp had grown old, died, and turned to dust in his grave, when a man suddenly ran screaming through the camp. ‘Hitler
ist tot
! He is dead! He is dead!’ Shocked by the suddenness, the loudness of the announcement, the men sat up in their bunks to stare at him. He had come to a standstill, stood trembling. ‘It’s true,’ he muttered, ‘the war is over. You can hear it on the radio.’

There was an odd silence. Baumgartner, and the other Jews, were tense, watching the effect of the announcement upon those who ruled the camp. They watched the way the whole machinery of the camp seemed to jar and stall. All the ordinary sounds – the hum that rose every now and then to an uproar and then wound down to a hum again – had stopped. The men could hear themselves breathing, sweating even. The siren had to be blown, and whistles and bells, to get them moving again, and humming. They began to go through the ordinary motions of the ordinary day again – lining up with their mess plates, eating, washing, sweeping, fetching water, but everyone’s movements had become desultory, half-hearted, their voices dropped to an unnatural murmur. ‘When will they open the gates and let us out?’ one murmured to another, to be instantly answered, ‘Don’t be such a fool, Peter. After the last war, it took two years before they closed the POW camps. They have to decide what to do with us.’ The young man Peter became agitated, even aggressive. He could be seen
thrashing
his arms as he shouted, ‘Why? Why? Why?’ They had to hold him and calm him. When he was silenced, his friends led him off. Baumgartner watched. The bugles blew. They were marched on to the parade-ground. Although the British flag flew, the commandant seemed no more in command than he had been before. He spent a long time gazing vaguely into the distance as if waiting for the mountains to materialise out of the dust haze. Finally, he ordered them into the barracks. The men nudged each other as they shuffled away: ‘He doesn’t know what to do himself.’

They sat about in the barracks. No one seemed to want to play cards. Towards evening, some roused themselves and said, ‘The
Kulturabteilung
has arranged a concert tonight. Shall we go?’ The others seemed irritated by the reminder. Some opined it could not possibly be held, immediately others replied that it had to be held. Bach must be played, Beethoven must be played – for Germany’s sake, for Germany’s honour. The members of the orchestra seemed undecided whether to play or not to play, and listened with helpless expressions while the men argued. Eventually they took up their instruments and shuffled towards the hall, somewhat guiltily. Then the men followed, still arguing, but somehow needing each other’s company, wanting some kind of gathering. They sprawled on the chairs that were lined up before the stage, but the curtain would not rise. Eventually some began to drum their heels. Others shouted.

What happened next seemed to Baumgartner, who stood at the back, by the door, like a scene in a play – as if actors had rehearsed their parts and were now playing them on the stage. The orchestra appeared, sidling out from behind the curtain, clutching their instruments. But they did not play, nor did they make a speech. Instead, standing there before the grey rag of the curtain, in their crumpled, faded, many years old clothes, they held their instruments and studied their shoes. Then one of them drew his feet together, straightened his back, raised his face, closed his eyes and began to sing, in a
voice
strained by emotion, the song of graves and funerals, of death on battlefields, of endings and defeats:

‘
Ich hat’ ein Kamerad
,

Einen besseren find’st du nicht
. . .’

The men in the audience gave a collective shiver. Baumgartner saw some rise to their feet as if an anthem were being played. One by one they opened their mouths to join in:

‘
Die Trommel schlug zum Seite
,

Er ging an meiner Seite

In gleichem Schritt und Tritt
,

In gleichem Schritt und Tritt
.’

Baumgartner stood, under the weight of their defeat, burdened by their defeat, finding it gross, grotesque, suffocating. He wanted to shout ‘Stop!’ He wanted to tell them it was their defeat, not his, that their country might be destroyed but this meant a victory, terribly late, far too late, but at last the victory. Of course he said nothing, he stood helplessly, only aware how crushed and wrecked and wretched a representative he was of victory. Couldn’t even victory appear in colours other than that of defeat? No. Defeat was heaped on him, whether he deserved it or not.

CHAPTER FIVE

BAUMGARTNER WOKE IN
a panic, feeling an iron weight press upon his solar plexus, press and press till it threatened to crack under pressure, and his heart hammered to get out. He struggled and heaved, fought to get out from under it, hitting out with his arms.

Lotte muttered in angry protest. It had been her weight against him, leaning heavily, moist with perspiration.

Remorsefully, Baumgartner rubbed her rubbery red arms, then struggled out of bed, groaning, ‘And no
Mittagessen
, no lunch, even have we had. Lotte, won’t you make some
Mittagessen
now?’

She muttered something inaudible, and threw her head about on the pillow. Baumgartner sighed, straightened his clothes and stumbled towards the table. Still half-blind with sleep, he hunted in bread-bins and biscuit tins. ‘No chocolate?’ he whined. ‘No chocolate even, Lotte?’

She suddenly jerked herself upright. Her eyes were red and her hair stood on end. She glowered in his direction, but without recognition. ‘Chocolate – chocolate –’ she chewed the words with her gums, having lost her dentures in the pillow. ‘You pig you, go out and eat chocolate. Don’t come to me saying chocolate – chocolate – this time of day – this time of night – oh – aah!’ she cried out as though an unseen weight had descended on her too, all at once, and collapsed on to the bed and slept on, suddenly immobile, noisily drawing air up her nose like a chimney.

Baumgartner removed his fingers from her tins and bottles, guiltily. ‘Then I must go home and eat – so hungry, Lotte,’ he complained, and fastened his buttons, buckles, smoothed his hair. Oh, he felt awful, awful. To sleep like this, soaked with gin, on a hot afternoon in Bombay – oh, it was stupid, stupid. He stumbled towards the door, and fumbled amongst the bolts and chains, rattled them helplessly, frightenedly, in a panic, wanting to get out.

The staircase was pleasantly shaded, silent, even if thick with cooking smells, but when he reached the door at the bottom on the stairs, the fresh air and the heat struck at him like twin knives. It was cruel, but he had to go, he had to walk back to his flat, get some food, he had to eat. And feed his cats. Thinking of them prowling around and crying with hunger, he struck the side of his head and spat, ‘Ech!’

Ramu, seated on a chair at his door, asleep, opened one eye to see the old man stumble away, talking to himself. Before going back to sleep, he gave a wink, and a sarcastic, ‘Hah – that
memsahib
– and the
sahib
– so old – still – hmp!’

Half an hour later Baumgartner staggered into the Café de Paris, a great sigh surging out of his lungs as he dropped into the nearest chair. Unlike the street outside, strident with afternoon light, the café was thick with shadows, green quiet shadows that seemed to be generated by the blaze and glare outside. The clockwise fans revolved at top speed, keeping flies at a distance. Thankfully, Baumgartner eased his feet out of his shoes. The summer heat always caused his feet to swell and of course to sweat – the odour would have made him flinch if it were not so familiar. He stretched his arms out and laid his palms flat on the cool marble top of the table, sighing with gratitude. As he did so, his eye fell upon a similar figure at the shadowy far end of the café.

It was the fair-haired hippy: he had not left. Moved, yes – he was no longer slumped across the table but sat with his back rigid against the wall, nursing one arm in the other, his chin lowered on to his chest. It was too dark to make out the
expression
on his face which was in any case obscured by the fall of his bleached hair.

Baumgartner quailed, and looked away. He did not want to have anything to do with this man, too blonde and too young to be of any interest to him. He twisted his head round to the counter, saw one of the waiters standing there, cursorily wiping a trayful of cutlery, and beckoned him. ‘What is today’s special?’ he asked and when he was told, ordered, ‘One plate, pliss, very quick. And water, pliss.’ He felt dehydrated as well as starved. Such an afternoon. That Lotte. How did she live so? He shook his head and made grumbling, reproving sounds to himself. Feeling censorious, he drummed his fingertips on the table-top, waiting for the food to come. When it did, the waiter apologised that it was the last plateful, lunchtime was actually over and they had not started with dinner yet. Baumgartner, with his mouth full, made a reassuring gesture with his hand, wanting to be left alone to eat whatever there was.

While he ate, finding a great solace and comfort in the mouthfuls of rice and lentils and potatoes, Farrokh came out of his room at the back, still adjusting his pyjama strings and still unshaven. He did not really shave or dress till the evening. He stood at the counter, surveying his café with the look of a ruler, a despot, a very displeased one.

Coming over to Baumgartner’s table with a surprisingly purposeful stride, he interrupted Baumgartner’s reverie by asking, ‘Mr Bommgarter, I can have word with you?’

Baumgartner’s face fell – was he going to say the café would no longer supply scraps for Baumgartner’s cats? Would Baumgartner have to look elsewhere for largesse, and establish working relations with a new set of benefactors so as to keep his growing family fed and contented? This was a constantly renewed fear. Putting down his spoon, he sat up meekly to hear.

But Farrokh, sitting down with his legs wide apart, and placing his elbows heavily on the table, lowered his face and brought it forward till it almost touched Baumgartner’s nose.
At
that range, every hair protruding from his nostrils, and every bristle on his jowls, was not only visible but magnified. ‘Mr Baumgartner, what can I do? Please tell me – there is man from your country –’

Baumgartner drew back as if struck, wiping a bit of spittle from his cheek.

‘That is only reason why I fed him,’ Farrokh insisted. ‘I know you, I know your country must be good country, so I gave food to the boy. Then he no pay. No pay, no money, he say, just like that –’ Farrokh pulled at his pyjamas to demonstrate the boy’s insulting action. ‘And he eat so much – he finish my
kofta
curry. Again and again he tell waiter, “Bring me
kofta
– more
kofta
–” Finished
kofta
. That is why none left for you, and you must eat potato.’ He touched Baumgartner’s arm in the soft, intimate way he had with his great hairy hands. ‘And then – no money; so when I see policeman going down the street, I bring him in. I tell him everything, but policeman just look at the boy and laugh and go away, say I don’t want to touch these druggies, these junkies, they are dirty men. What I to do? So I go back, catch hold of this boy and push him out. But what happen? He fall down. Just like that – in front of my café. Fall down, like dead dog.’ His voice rose in indignation, like a woman’s. ‘People stop, stare. No one stop and stare if one of your own beggars drop dead in street. No, just step over him like he is a stone, or a dog turd and go away quickly. But when they see a white man with golden hair lying in the street, everyone stop, everyone cry, “Hai, hai, – poor boy, call doctor, call ambulance. What has happen, Farrokh-
bhai
?” And they all look at me as if I knock him down, as if I hurt him.
I
hurt him? I not even hurt my own boys when they fail exam, come asking for money. All kind bad things they do in school, out of school, but I don’t beat them. I don’t beat these worthless waiters who take my money and eat my food, then do no work. Why I beat this foreign boy then? I want to go to gaol? People must know this. You know this, Mr Bommgarter?’