“Sure,” said Lasnov.
As he strolled through the square, he kept looking over to the station to see if the boy was coming with the case. And he told everyone that a case had come for Kop from Odessa. The rumor spread quickly through the market, got ahead of Lasnov, and, as he slowly approached Kop’s stall, came back to him on the other side of the street.
When he reached the children’s carrousel, the owner was just harnessing the horse. The horse’s face was thin and dark, ennobled by hunger: it reminded Lasnov of the nun of Novgorod whom he had once seen as a child. Her face had also been thin and dark, ennobled by abstinence; you could look at her in a dark-green tent at fairs, and it had cost nothing to go in; people were merely asked, when they left the tent, to make a donation.
The carrousel owner came up to Lasnov, leaned over, and whispered, “Have you heard about the case that’s supposed to have come for Kop?”
“No,” said Lasnov.
“They say it’s got toys in it, cars you can wind up.”
“No,” said Lasnov, “I heard it was toothbrushes.”
“No, no,” said the carrousel owner, “toys.”
Lasnov stroked the horse’s nose affectionately, went wearily on, and thought bitterly of the deals he used to be able to make. He had bought and sold so much clothing that he could have outfitted a whole army, and now he had sunk so low that this kid had talked him into buying a toothbrush. He had sold butter and bacon and barrels of oil, and at Christmas time he had always had a stall with candy canes for the kids; the colors of the candy canes had been as piercing as the joys and sufferings of the poor—red like the love that was celebrated in doorways or beside the factory wall while the bittersweet smell of molasses came wafting over the wall; yellow like the flames in a drunk man’s brain, or pale green like the pain you felt when you woke up in the morning and looked at the face of your sleeping wife, a child’s face, whose sole protection from life was those frail pink lids, fragile little covers which she had to open as soon as the children began to cry. But this year there weren’t even any candy canes, and they would spend Christmas sitting at home, sipping thin soup, and taking turns looking through the handle of the toothbrush.
Next to the carrousel a woman had put two old chairs side by side and opened a shop on them: she had two mattresses to sell with the words “Magasin du Louvre” still visible on them, a well-thumbed book entitled Left and Right of the Railroad Tracks—From Gelsenkirchen to Essen, an English magazine dating from 1938, and a little tin that had once contained a typewriter ribbon.
“Some lovely things,” said the old woman when Lasnov stopped beside her.
“Very nice,” he said, and was about to move on when the woman pounced on him, drew him by the sleeve, and whispered, “A case has come for Kop from Odessa. With things for Christmas.”
“Has it?” he said. “What things?”
“Candy, all colored, and rubber animals that squeak. It’s going to be such fun.”
“Sure,” said Lasnov, “it’s going to be fun.”
When he finally reached Kop’s stall, Kop had just begun to unload his stuff and spread it out: pokers, saucepans, stoves, rusty nails which he always found himself and hammered straight. Nearly everyone had gathered around Kop’s stall; they stood there speechless with excitement, looking along the street. As Lasnov went up to him, Kop was just unpacking a firescreen with a design of gold flowers and a Chinese woman.
“I’ve got a message for you,” said Lasnov, “a case has arrived for you. The boy who’s always hanging around the station is going to bring it over.”
Kop looked at him with a sigh and said quietly, “Now I’m getting it from you too.”
“What d’you mean, me too?” said Lasnov. “I’ve come straight here from the station to give you the message.”
Kop ducked nervously. He was well dressed and wore an immaculate gray fur cap; he always carried a stick, with which he made dents in the ground as he walked along, and as a sole reminder of his better days he kept a cigarette dangling nonchalantly from his lips, a cigarette that was rarely alight because he rarely had money for tobacco. Twenty-seven years ago, when Lasnov came back to the village as a deserter with the news of the revolution, Kop had been an ensign in command of the railway station, and when Lasnov had entered the station at the head of the Soldiers’ Council to arrest him, Kop had been prepared to allow a movement of his lips, the angle of his cigarette, to cost him his life; in any case, they all looked at the corner of his mouth, and he realized they might shoot him, but he did not remove the cigarette from his lips when Lasnov approached him. However, Lasnov had merely slapped his face. The cigarette had fallen out of his mouth, and without it he looked like a boy who has forgotten his homework. They had left him in peace; first he had been a teacher, then a dealer, but still whenever he saw Lasnov he was afraid Lasnov would knock the cigarette out of his mouth. He raised his head apprehensively, straightened the firescreen, and said, “If you only knew how many people have told me that already.”
“A firescreen,” said a woman, “if only one had enough heat to shield oneself from it with a firescreen.” Kop looked at her contemptuously. “You have no sense of beauty.”
“No,” said the woman with a laugh, “I’m beautiful myself, and look at all the nice kids I’ve got.” She ran her hand lightly over the heads of the four children grouped around her. “You don’t …” She looked up quickly as her children suddenly ran off toward the station, following the other children, toward the boy who was bringing Kop’s case on the stationmaster’s handcart.
Everyone hurried away from their stalls, the children jumped down off the carrousel.
“My God,” whispered Kop to Lasnov, the only one who had stayed behind, “I could almost wish the case hadn’t come. They’ll tear me to pieces.”
“Don’t you know what’s in it?”
“No idea,” said Kop, “I only know it must be made of tin.”
“There’s a lot of things can be made of tin—cans, toys, spoons.”
“Music boxes—the kind you turn with a handle.”
“Yes—just imagine.”
Kop and Lasnov helped the boy lift the case down off the cart; the case was white, made of fresh, smooth boards, and it was nearly as high as the table on which Kop had spread out his rusty nails, pokers, and scissors.
Everyone fell silent as Kop thrust an old poker under the lid of the case and slowly raised it up; you could hear the faint creak of the nails. Lasnov wondered where all the people had suddenly sprung from: he was startled when the boy suddenly said, “I know what’s inside.”
No one asked, they all looked at him in suspense, and the boy looked silently at the tense faces. He broke out in a sweat and said in a low voice, “Nothing—there’s nothing inside.”
If he had said that one second earlier, they would have fallen on him and beaten him up in their disappointment, but now Kop had just taken the lid off and was groping around in the shavings; he removed a whole layer of shavings, then another, then screwed-up paper—then he held up both hands filled with the things he had found in the center of the case. “Tweezers,” a woman cried out, but they weren’t.
“No,” said the woman who had called herself beautiful, “no, they’re …”
“What are they?” said a little boy.
“Sugar tongs, that’s what they are,” said the carrousel owner in a dry voice; then he suddenly let out a wild laugh, threw up his arms, and ran back to his carrousel, still roaring with laughter.
“So they are,” said Kop, “they’re sugar tongs—dozens of them.” He threw the tongs he was holding back into the case and groped around in it, but although they could not see his face, they all knew he was not smiling. He ran his hands through the clinking metal tongs the way misers in paintings finger their treasures.
“Isn’t that just like them?” said one woman. “Sugar tongs … I really believe if there was such a thing as sugar I could manage to pick it up in my fingers,
eh?”
“I had a grandmother,” said Lasnov, “who always picked sugar up in her fingers—but then she was a dirty peasant woman.”
“I think I could bring myself to do that too.”
“You always were a pig anyhow, picking sugar up in your fingers. Ugh.”
“You could use them,” said Lasnov, “to fish tomatoes out of jars.”
“Provided you had any tomatoes,” said the woman who had called herself beautiful. Lasnov looked at her closely. She really was beautiful; she had plentiful fair hair, a straight nose, and fine dark eyes.
“You could also use them,” said Lasnov, “for pickles.”
“If you had any,” said the woman.
“You could use them to pinch yourself in the behind.”
“If you still had one,” said the woman coldly. Her expression was becoming more and more angry and beautiful.
“You could pick up coal with them too.”
“If you had any.”
“You could use them as a cigarette holder.”
“If you had anything to smoke.”
Whenever Lasnov spoke, they all turned toward him, and as soon as he had finished they all turned toward the woman, and the more ridiculous the sugar tongs became in this dialogue, the more empty and miserable became the faces of the children and their parents. I must make them laugh, thought Lasnov. I was afraid there would be toothbrushes in the case, but sugar tongs are really even worse. He blushed under the woman’s triumphant gaze and said loudly, “You could use them to serve boiled fish.”
“If you had any,” said the woman.
“The children could play with them,” said Lasnov in a low voice.
“If you …,” began the woman, then she suddenly laughed out loud, and everyone else laughed too, for children were something they all had plenty of.
“All right,” said Lasnov to Kop. “I’ll take three. How much are they?”
“Twelve,” said Kop.
“Twelve,” said Lasnov and threw the money down on Kop’s table. “It’s a real bargain.”
“It’s really not expensive,” said Kop shyly.
Ten minutes later all the children were running about the square with their sugar tongs glittering like silver; they sat on the carrousel, pinched their noses with them, brandished them in front of the grown-ups.
The boy who had brought the case over had been given one too. He sat on the steps in front of the station and hammered his sugar tongs flat. Now at last, he thought, I’ve got something I can use to get in between the cracks of the floorboards. Of course he had never thought of this. He had tried with pokers, scissors, and bits of wire, but he had never been able to manage it. He was sure he would be able to now he had this tool.
Kop counted his money, stacked it, and placed it carefully in his wallet. He looked at Lasnov, who was standing beside him, gloomily watching the activity in the square.
“You could do me a favor,” said Kop.
“What favor?” said Lasnov absent-mindedly, without looking at Kop.
“Slap my face,” said Kop, “hard enough for the cigarette to fall out.”
Lasnov, still without looking at Kop, shook his head thoughtfully.
“Do that,” said Kop, “please do. Don’t you remember?”
“I remember,” said Lasnov, “but I don’t feel like doing it again.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes,” said Lasnov, “I’m sure. I’ve never thought of doing it again.”
“Damn it,” said Kop, “and here I’ve been dreading it for twenty-seven years.”
“You didn’t have to,” said Lasnov. He walked back to the station shaking his head. There’s still a chance, he thought, that they’ll run a special, a leave train or one for the wounded; specials didn’t come very often, but just the same there might still be one today. He thoughtfully fingered the toothbrush and the three sugar tongs in his coat pocket. There have been times, he thought, when three special trains have arrived in one day.
He leaned against the lamppost in front of the station and scraped the last of his tobacco into a little heap …
THIS IS TIBTEN!
Soulless people cannot understand why I take such pains and humble pride in performing duties which they regard as beneath my dignity. My occupation may not correspond to my level of education, nor was it foretold by my fairy godmother at my christening, but I enjoy my work, and it provides me with a living: I tell people where they are. Passengers who in the evening at their own railway stations board trains that carry them to distant places, and who then during the night wake up at our station, peer out, confused, into the darkness, not knowing whether they have gone beyond their destination or have not yet reached it, or are possibly even at their destination (for our town contains a variety of tourist attractions and draws many visitors)—I tell all these people where they are. I switch on the loudspeaker as soon as a train arrives and the wheels of the locomotive have come to a standstill, and I say diffidently into the night, “This is Tibten! You are now in Tibten! Passengers wishing to visit the tomb of Tiburtius must alight here!,” and the echo comes back to me from the platforms, right into my cubbyhole: a dark voice out of the darkness which seems to be announcing something doubtful, although actually it is speaking the plain truth.
A number of passengers then hurriedly descend onto the dimly lit platform, carrying their suitcases, for Tibten is their destination, and I watch them go down the stairs, reappear on Platform I, and hand over their tickets to the sleepy ticket collector at the barrier. Very few people arrive on business at night—businessmen intending to fill their companies’ requirements at the Tibten lead mines. The visitors are mostly tourists attracted by the tomb of Tiburtius, a young Roman boy who committed suicide eighteen hundred years ago for the sake of a Tibten beauty. “He was but a lad,” is inscribed on his tombstone, which can be admired in our local museum, “yet Love was his undoing.” He came here from Rome to purchase lead for his father, who was an army contractor.
Certainly I would not have had to attend five universities and obtain two doctorates in order to be able to call out night after night into the darkness, “This is Tibten! You are now in Tibten!” And yet my work fills me with satisfaction. I speak my lines softly, so that those who are asleep do not wake up but those who are awake will not fail to hear it, and I make my voice sound just enticing enough for those who are dozing to rouse themselves and wonder whether they had not meant to go to Tibten.
In the latter part of the morning, therefore, when I wake up and look out of the window, I can see the passengers who succumbed to the spell of my voice making their way through our little town, armed with the brochures which our travel bureau so generously distributes all over the world. At breakfast they have already read that the wear and tear of centuries has reduced the Latin Tiburtinum to its present form of Tibten, and they proceed to the local museum, where they admire the tombstone erected eighteen hundred years ago to the Roman Werther. A boy’s profile has been chiseled out of reddish sandstone, his hands outstretched in vain toward a girl. “He was but a lad, yet Love was his undoing …” His youthfulness is also attested to by the objects which were found in his grave: little figures made of some ivory-colored substance, two elephants, a horse, and a mastiff, which—as Brusler claims in his Theory of the Tomb of Tiburtius—were said to have been used in a kind of chess game. I doubt this theory, however. I am sure that to Tiburtius these objects were simply toys. The little ivory objects look exactly like the ones we get as a premium when we buy half a pound of margarine, and they served the same purpose: they were for children to play with … Possibly it behooves me to refer here to the excellent novel written by our local author, Volker von Volkersen, entitled Tiburtius: A Roman Destiny That Found Fulfillment in Our Town. But I regard Volkersen’s book as misleading, because he also supports Brusler’s theory as to the purpose of the toys.
I myself—at this point I must at last make a confession—am in possession of the origi
nal figures contained in Tiburtius’ grave; I stole them from the museum and replaced them with the ones I obtain as a premium with half a pound of margarine: two elephants, a horse, and a mastiff. They are as white as Tiburtius’ animals, they are the same size, the same weight, and—what seems to me most important of all—they serve the same purpose.
So tourists come from all over the world to admire the tomb of Tiburtius and his toys. Posters saying “Come to Tibten” hang in the waiting rooms of the Anglo-Saxon world, and when at night I speak my lines—“This is Tibten! You are in Tibten! Passengers wishing to visit the tomb of Tiburtius must alight here!”—I lure out of the trains the people who at their own railway stations succumbed to the spell of our posters. To be sure, they look at the sandstone slab, the authenticity of which is unquestioned. They look at the touching profile of a Roman boy for whom Love was his undoing and who drowned himself in a flooded shaft of the lead mines. And then the visitors’ eyes move to the little animals: two elephants, a horse, and a mastiff—and this is just where they could study the wisdom of the world, but they do not. Ladies from our own and other countries, deeply moved, pile roses onto the tomb of this young lad. Poems are written; even my animals, the horse and the mastiff (I had to use up two pounds of margarine to acquire them!), have already become the subject of lyrical endeavors. “Thou didst play, even as we play, with mastiff and horse …” goes one line in the verses written by a not unknown poet. So there they lie, free gifts from the Klüsshenn Margarine Company, on red velvet under heavy glass in our local museum: witnesses to my consumption of margarine. Often, before I go on shift in the afternoon, I visit the museum for a minute and study them. They look genuine, slightly yellowed, and are completely indistinguishable from the ones lying in my drawer, for I threw in the originals among those I got with Klüsshenn’s margarine, and I try in vain to separate them again.
Deep in thought, I then go off to work, hang up my cap on the hook, take off my coat, place my sandwiches in the drawer, arrange my cigarette papers, tobacco, and newspaper, and, when a train arrives, speak the lines it is my job to speak: “This is Tibten! You are now in Tibten! Passengers wishing to visit the tomb of Tiburtius must alight here!” I speak them softly, so that those who are asleep do not wake up, and those who are awake will not fail to hear me, and I make my voice sound just enticing enough for those who are dozing to rouse themselves and wonder whether they had not meant to go to Tibten.