Part 10 (1/2)

”Is that all?”

”Yes,” said Schrella, ”that's all.”

The young clerk set his adding machine in motion, and peevishly cranked the handle-even the small number of cranks he had to make expressed contempt-jotted a few figures on a form and pushed a five-mark note, four groschen and three pfennigs across the counter.

”Next, please.”

”Blessenfeld,” asked Schrella quietly, ”can you tell me if No. 11 still goes there?”

”Does No. 11 still go to Blessenfeld? This isn't the streetcar information office,” said the young clerk, ”and in any case I really don't know.”

”Thank you,” said Schrella, sliding the money into his pocket. He made way at the window for a man who pushed a bundle of Swiss francs across the counter. And heard the handle of the adding machine respectfully begin to make a large number of respectful turns.

'Politeness is really the most effective form of contempt,' he thought.

The railroad station. Summer. Sun. Gaiety. Weekend. Hotel bellboys lugging suitcases toward the platforms. A young woman was holding up a sign: ”Travelers to Lourdes a.s.semble here.” Newspaper vendors, flower stalls, youngsters with brightly colored beach towels under their arms.

Schrella walked across the square, stood on the traffic island and studied the streetcar schedule. No. 11 still did go to Blessenfeld. There it was, waiting at the red traffic light between the Prince Heinrich Hotel and the chancel of St. Severin's. Then it moved along, stopped, emptied and Schrella joined the line of people waiting to pay at the conductor's box. He sat down, took off his hat, wiped the sweat from his eyebrows, dried the lenses of his spectacles and waited in vain, as the car began to move, for feelings to come to him. Nothing. As a schoolboy, he'd gone back and forth on No. 11 four thousand times, his fingers stained with ink, listening to the other children's silly chatter which had always been a source of appalling embarra.s.sment to him; conic sections, the pluperfect, Barbarossa's beard which went on growing and growing through the table, Love and Intrigue, Livy, Ovid bound in gray-green cardboard, and the farther from the city the streetcar went, on its way to Blessenfeld, the quieter grew the chatter. At the edge of the old town, those with the most educated voices had got off, splitting up amid the wide, gloomy streets of substantial houses. Those with the next-best-educated voices got off at the edge of the new town, splitting up amid narrower streets of less substantial houses. Only two or three remained who went all the way to Blessenfeld, which had the least substantial buildings of all. And as the streetcar rocked on past allotment gardens and gravel pits to Blessenfeld, conversation returned to normal. 'Is your father on strike too? They're giving four and a half per cent discount at Gressigmann's. Margarine is five pfennigs cheaper.' There was the park, with the green of summer long since trampled flat, and the sandy strip around the wading pool stirred up by thousands of children's feet and covered with litter, paper and bottle tops. And there Gruffel Street, where the junk dealers' lots were continually filled to overflowing with sc.r.a.p metal, rags, paper and bottles; where a lemonade stall had been opened up in the midst of wretched poverty, an attempt by a skinny unemployed laborer to set up as a trader. And, before long, he'd got fat and his stall was decked out with chrome and plate gla.s.s, and glittering automats had been installed. Getting hog-fat on pfennigs, getting bossy though only a few months before he'd been forced to obsequiously lower the price of a lemonade by two pfennigs, meanwhile whispering anxiously, 'But don't tell anyone else.'

No feelings would come to him as he went rocking on in No. 11 through the old town, the new town, past allotment gardens and gravel pits to Blessenfeld. He had heard the names of the stops four thousand times: Boisseree Street, North Park, Blessischer Station, Inner Ring. They sounded strange, the names, as if out of dreams which others had dreamed and vainly tried to let him share; they sounded like calls for help in a heavy fog, while the almost empty streetcar went on toward the end of the line in the afternoon summer sun.

There on the corner of Park Line and the Inner Ring had stood the stall in which his mother had attempted to set up a fish-fry business, but had been undone by her compa.s.sionate heart. 'How can I refuse those hungry kids a bit of fried fish when they see me frying it? How can I?' And Father said, 'Of course you can't, but we must close down the stall, there's no more credit, the dealers won't deliver any more.' Mother had dipped the fillets of fish in egg and breadcrumbs, then let them fry in hot oil while she heaped one, two or three spoonfuls of potato salad on the paper plates. Mother's heart had not remained firm against compa.s.sion. Tears had welled out of her blue eyes and the neighbors whispered, 'She's crying her heart out.' She ate no more, drank no more, and her plump, full-blooded body changed into a thin, anemic one and nothing remained of the pretty barmaid everyone had loved at the station bar. Now she did nothing but whisper Lord, Lord, paging through dog-eared sectarian prayer books that foretold the end of the world, while out on the streets the red flags fluttered in the dusty wind and other people bore Hindenburg's head on placards through the streets. Screaming and violence and shooting, and piping and drumming. When she died, Mother had looked like a girl, anemic and thin. Asters on the grave and a thin wooden cross: Edith Schrella, 1896a1932. Her soul had been sobbed out, and her body mingled with the earth in the Northern Cemetery.

”End of the line, sir,” announced the conductor. He climbed out of his box, lit a cigarette b.u.t.t and walked up front. ”Sorry, we don't go any further.”

”Thank you.” He'd climbed in and climbed out at the No. 11 terminus four thousand times. The rusty rails went on and lost themselves among barracks and old excavations. Thirty years before, there had once been a projected extension of the tram service there. Now, lemonade stalls: chromium, plate gla.s.s, glittering automats and orderly rows of chocolate bars.

”A lemonade, please.”

The green concoction in a spotless gla.s.s tasted of sweet woodruff.

”If you don't mind, sir, put the paper in the basket, please. Taste all right?”

”Yes, thank you.” The two chicken legs were still warm, and the tender breast was crispy, baked in the very best quality fat, all preserved in the cellophane pack clipped tight with Special Picnic Insulating Clips.

”That smells pretty good. Want another lemonade with it?”

”No, thank you. But I'll have six cigarettes, please.”

He could still recognize, in the plump proprietress, the gentle, pretty girl she once had been. Those blue, childlike eyes, during their First Communion lessons, had moved the romantic chaplain to adjectives such as ”angelic” and ”innocent,” and now they had grown hard and businesslike.

”That'll be ninety pfennigs, please.”

”Thank you.”

The No. 11 in which he had arrived was ringing its bell for departure. But he hesitated too long, and found himself imprisoned in Blessenfeld for another twelve minutes. He smoked and slowly drank the rest of his lemonade, trying to recall, through that pink and stony face, the name of the young girl she once had been-a blonde, flying through the park with windblown hair, shouting and singing, and enticing boys into dark doorways, after the resemblance to an angel had become a thing of the past; teasing hoa.r.s.e declarations of love from them, while her brother, no less blond, no less angelic, made vain attempts to summon the street boys to n.o.ble deeds; a carpenter's apprentice and a hundred-meter runner, beheaded at dawn for a piece of folly.

”Please,” said Schrella, ”I'll have another lemonade after all.” He stared at the immaculate parting in the plump woman's hair as she bent to hold the gla.s.s below the tap of the balloon. Her brother had been the angelic Ferdi. Her own name later on had been hoa.r.s.ely whispered from youth to youth, from mouth to mouth like a certain pa.s.sword to Paradise. Erika Progulske would help you get rid of your need and she won't take a thing for it, because she likes it.

”Do we know each other?” She smiled and set the gla.s.s of lemonade on the counter.

”No,” he said, smiling back, ”I don't think so.”

Don't encourage the frozen memory to thaw; such frost-flowers would only turn into dull dirty water and run down the pane. Evoke nothing, never expect to bring back childhood's austerity of feeling in adult souls grown soft; you'll just find out that now she takes something for it. Careful, just don't start talking.

”Yes. Thirty pfennigs. Thank you.” Ferdi Progulske's sister looked at him with professional friendliness. You gave me relief, too, and took nothing for it, not even the bar of chocolate gone soft in my pocket, although it wasn't meant as payment, only as a present, but you wouldn't take it. And you set me free with the compa.s.sion of your mouth and hands. I hope you didn't tell Ferdi; part of compa.s.sion is discretion, and secrets once turned into words may become deadly. I hope he didn't know, when he saw the sky for the last time, that morning in July. I was the only one he found in Gruffel Street, prepared for n.o.ble deeds; Edith didn't yet count, she'd only turned twelve and the wisdom in her heart wasn't apparent as yet.

”Don't we really know each other?”

”No, I'm sure we don't.”

You'd accept my present today; your heart has stayed firm, but not in compa.s.sion. Already, a few weeks later, you had lost the innocence of childish sin; you'd already made up your mind it was better to get rid of pity, decided you weren't going to be a weeping blonde s.l.u.t and sob your soul away. No, we don't know each other, we really don't. We won't be thawing out any icicles. Thank you, Goodbye.

There at the corner was still the Blesseneck where Father had been a waiter. Beer, schnapps, meat b.a.l.l.s, beer, schnapps, meat b.a.l.l.s, all served with an expression in which mildness and doggedness mingled in a kind of unity, the face of a dreamer to whom it was a matter of indifference whether he served beer, schnapps and meat b.a.l.l.s in the Blesseneck or lobsters and champagne in the Prince Heinrich or the kind of breakfasts of beer and chops or chocolate and cherry brandy which the wh.o.r.es ate after a night at the Upper Harbor. Father had brought home traces of those sticky breakfasts on his cuffs, brought good tips home, but had not brought home what other fathers brought, after-work good spirits, which could be translated into shouting and teasing, into protestations of love or tears of reconciliation. Always that dogged mildness in his face, a lost angel who hid Ferdi under the taproom table, where the police found him, between the beer pipes. And who, when he knew he was going to die, kept his smile; the sticky stuff was washed out of his cuffs and the waiter's white s.h.i.+rt starched so it was stiff and s.h.i.+ning; they came for him only the next morning, as he was going off to work with his sandwiches and his patent leather shoes under his arm. He got into their car and was not seen again. No white cross, no flowers for the waiter Alfred Schrella. Not even shot while attempting to escape-was simply not seen again.

Edith had ironed and starched, polished the extra pair of black shoes, cleaned the white ties, while I studied, playfully studied-Ovid and conic sections, the thoughts and deeds of Henry the First and Henry the Second and Tacitus, and William the First's and William the Second's thoughts and deeds. Kleist, and spherical trigonometry. Talented, talented, quite unusually talented, a worker's child who had to learn exactly what the others had to learn, in face of four thousand times more obstacles, and dedicated furthermore to n.o.ble deeds. I even allowed myself one additional, personal pleasure: Holderlin.

Seven more minutes till the next No. 11 leaves. Here's No. 17 Gruffel Street, redecorated; a car parked in front, green, and a bicycle, red, and two scooters, dirty. He had pressed that bell eighteen thousand times, on the pale, yellowish bra.s.s b.u.t.ton which his thumb could still feel. Where Schrella once had been, there now was Tressel. Where Schmitz had been, was Humann now. New names. One alone had remained-Fruhl, lending cups of sugar, cups of flour, cups of vinegar and eggcupsful of salad oil, how many cups, how many egg cups, and at what high interest. Mrs. Fruhl would always fill the cups and egg cups half full only, making a mark at the door frame, where she had written in S, F, V, O, only rubbing out that mark with her thumb when she had received full cups and full egg cups in return. Then she'd whispered, 'My G.o.d, what fatheads!'-whispered it through the doorways, in shops and to her friends when they gathered to air their old-wives' gynecology, over eggnogs and potato salad. She'd taken the Host of the Beast very early and had forced her husband and her daughter to swallow it as well, and in the hall she sang, How weary, weary these old bones. Nothing, not a bit of feeling, only the skin of his thumb touching that pale yellow bra.s.s b.u.t.ton felt something resembling emotion.

”Are you looking for someone?”

”Yes,” he said, ”the Schrellas; don't they live here any more?”

”No,” the girl said, ”I'd know if they lived here.”

She was rosy-cheeked and delightful, balancing on her little swaying scooter and propping herself up against the wall of the building.

”No, they never lived here.” Off she went, scampering wildly across the sidewalk, and across the gutter, shouting, ”Anyone here know the Schrellas?” He trembled for fear someone would call out yes, and he should have to go over and greet them, and exchange memories: Yes, Ferdi, they got him ... your father, they got him ... and Edith, what a fine marriage ... but the little red-cheeked girl was racing round without success, swerving boldly on her dirty scooter and shouting, from group to group, into open windows, ”Anyone here know the Schrellas?” She came back, her face flushed, turned smartly and stopped in front of him. ”No sir, no one here knows them.”

”Thank you,” he said, smiling. ”Would you like a groschen?”

”Yes”; she rushed gaily away to the lemonade stall.

”I've sinned, I've sinned greatly,” he softly muttered to himself as he walked back to the terminus; ”I've had wood-rufflemonade from Gruffel Street with chicken from the Prince Heinrich. I've left undisturbed the memories and not thawed out the frost-flowers. I didn't want to see recognition light up in Erika Progulske's eyes, or hear Ferdi's name from her lips. The only memory celebrated was in the skin at the end of my thumb, when it recognized the pale, yellow, bra.s.s bell-push.”

It was like running the gauntlet, the eyes so clearly watching him, from the edge of the street, from windows and doorways, while they took the summer sun after the day's work. Would anybody recognize his spectacles or his walk, or the close set of his eyes; would anyone recognize the much-mocked student of Holderlin, beneath his foreign overcoat, he at whom they had shouted their song of derision, 'Schrella, Schrella, Schrella, he's a poem-reading fella.'

He anxiously wiped the sweat away, took his hat off and stopped, looking back from the corner down Gruffel Street. No one had followed him. A couple of young fellows were sitting on their motorcycles, bending slightly forward and whispering love-talk to the girls standing beside them. Here and there on a window ledge beer bottles caught the afternoon sun. There, across the street, was the house where the angel had been born and raised. The bra.s.s doorbell might still be there, where Ferdi's thumb had pressed it fifteen thousand times. The front of the building was green, and there was a gleaming array in the chemist's shop window, with toothpaste advertis.e.m.e.nts, exactly underneath the window from which Ferdi had so often leaned down.

There was the path through the park, the path from which Robert had drawn Edith into the bushes one evening in July, twenty-three years before. Now there were retired men sitting bent over on the benches, swapping jokes and sniffing different brands of tobacco, peevishly observing that the children playing round them were being badly brought up. And shorttempered mothers were calling a bitter fate down upon their disobedient brood, invoking a terrible future: The atom'll come and get you. And young people were coming back from confession, as yet undecided whether to abandon their state of grace on the spot or wait until the next morning.

One more minute still remained before the next No. 11 left. The rusty tracks had been running for thirty years now toward an empty future. Now Ferdi's sister was pouring green lemonade into a clean gla.s.s. The motorman was ringing for his pa.s.sengers. The weary conductor stubbed out his cigarette, straightened his leather satchel, got in behind his cabin and rang the bell, and far back where the rusty rails ended an old woman began breaking into a run.

”To Central Station,” said Schrella, ”with a Harbor transfer.”

”Forty-five pfennigs.”