The Post Office Girl

  “Are you … are you really sorry?” The question was defiant and he looked at her with the need, the desperation of someone who was being abandoned; already he seemed to be standing alone in the waiting room and gazing despondently after the train that was carrying her away, alone in the city, the world, and she felt the entire weight of his feeling resting on her. She was shaken to feel wanted again—this time more deeply than ever in her life. It was a glorious confirmation of her own existence and sense of purpose. It was wonderful to be loved at last—she had to repay him for it.

  She made the decision in a flash, without thinking. It was an impulse, a break. She turned, went up to him, and said thoughtfully (though there was no doubt in her mind), “Actually … I could stay with you and catch the early train tomorrow at 5:30. I’d still be on time for my stupid work.”

  He stared at her; the sudden light in his eyes took her breath away. His features had come to life, like a dark room lit by the flare of a match. He’d understood, understood it all intuitively. Now he had the courage to take her arm. “Yes,” he said, beaming, “yes, stay, stay …”

  She did not stop him as he led her away. His arm was warm and strong, shaking with joy, so much that she began to shake too. She didn’t ask where they were going. Why bother, it didn’t matter, she’d made her decision. She’d surrendered her will, voluntarily, and she was rejoicing. Everything in her—her will, her mind—was limp, as if she’d been switched off. Did she love this man she hardly knew? Did she want him? She didn’t think; she was lost in her abandonment of will, in the irresponsibility of pure feeling, in the pleasure of detachment.

  Now she didn’t care what happened. He felt his arm guiding her and she let herself go, like a twig drifting toward the falls. Several times she closed her eyes, the better to feel him wanting her, guiding her.

  Then a tense moment. He fell silent; he seemed deflated. “I would have … would have liked so much to ask you to come home with me … but … it won’t work … I don’t live by myself … I have to go through another room … We could go somewhere else … to some hotel … Not the one you stayed at yesterday … We could … ”

  “Yes,” she said, “yes,” not knowing why she was saying it. The word “hotel” only added to her happiness. The glittering room, the polished furniture, the thunderous silence of the night, the powerful pulse of the Engadine seemed to float up obscurely before her.

  “Yes,” she said, lost in a reverie of a blissful, yielding love, “yes.”

  The streets grew narrower as they walked. Ferdinand seemed unsure of himself, glancing anxiously at the buildings. At last, in a small hidden private way, under an electric sign, he saw it. He steered her gently; she did not resist. The door was like a dark tunnel.

  Probably intentionally, the hallway was lit by only a single bulb. A grubby shirtsleeved desk clerk came out from behind the glass partition. The two men whispered furtively. Something, money or keys, exchanged hands. Meanwhile Christine stood alone in the dim hallway, looking at the shabby wall and feeling unspeakably let down by this wretched hole. She couldn’t help it—the word “hotel” brought back memories of that other lobby: the glittering glass, the streams of chilly light, the opulence and ease.

  “Number nine,” the desk clerk bawled and added in the same loud voice, “First floor,” as though trying to make himself heard all the way upstairs. Ferdinand came to her and took her arm. She looked at him imploringly: “Can’t we … ” She didn’t know what she wanted to say, but he read the dismay in her eyes and knew she wanted to go somewhere else. “No, they’re all like this … I don’t know any others … I’ve never been here either.” He took her arm and helped her upstairs. She felt hamstrung, every muscle seemed paralyzed.

  A bleary-eyed maid, as grubby as the clerk downstairs, came through an open door: “I’ll be right back with clean towels.” They went in and quickly closed the door. It was a dreadfully cramped box with one window. Other than a single chair, a coat hook, and a washstand, the only object in the room was a large bed with the covers turned back, a bed that stuck out brutally as the only piece of furniture of interest here. It shamelessly filled the narrow room. There was no way to avoid it, or go around it, or overlook it. The air was musty and acrid with stale cigarette smoke, cheap soap, and something else with a sour, off smell. Involuntarily Christine closed her mouth to keep from inhaling it. She thought she might faint from revulsion and loathing. She rushed to raise the window, breathing in the cool fresh air as though she’d been rescued from a mine filled with gas.

  A light knock at the door made her jump, but it was only the chambermaid; she brought in the clean towels and put them on the washstand. When she saw that in this brightly lit room Christine had opened the window, she said, “Please close the curtains first”—there was a note of anxiety in her voice—before slipping out discreetly.

  At the window, Christine froze. That “first.” That was the reason people came to back-alley places like this, to these stinking holes, the only reason. Perhaps—the idea appalled her—perhaps he thought she too had come for that and nothing else.

  Although he couldn’t see her face, which remained resolutely fixed on the street, her stooped, tense figure was silhouetted in the window and he could see her shoulders quivering. He went to her but was afraid of wounding her with a word. He touched her shoulders, and her fingers when he found them were cold and trembling. He wanted to soothe her, she knew. “Forgive me,” she said without turning, “but I felt dizzy. I’ll feel better in a minute. Just a little fresh air … It’s just because … ”

  She wanted to say: Because it’s the first time I’ve ever been in a place like this, a room like this. But she closed her lips tightly; he didn’t have to know that. She turned abruptly, closed the window, and ordered, “Turn out the lights.”

  He turned the switch and the room was plunged into darkness. The worst was blotted out; the bed, now just a vague white patch in the dimness of the room, no longer waited so brazenly. But the dread was still there. In the silence she heard little noises, cracking, sighing, laughing, creaking, the suggestion of bare feet on the floor, water trickling somewhere. The building was full of the doings of licentious strangers, she felt, it was there for the sole purpose of copulation. Slowly the horror invaded her, as a chill starts subtly on the skin but soon spreads to the stiffening joints; it was in her brain, her heart, because she seemed to be beyond thought or feeling, nothing mattered, it was all senseless and alien, including the breath of this stranger beside her. It was good that he was gentle. He didn’t pressure her, but simply took her hand to draw her down next to him on the edge of the bed, where, fully dressed, they sat without speaking. He stroked her sleeve and her hand, waiting patiently to see if the horror would diminish, if the icy dismay would thaw. His humility, his submissiveness, touched her, and when he finally took her in his arms, she did not resist.

  But even his passionate embrace couldn’t dispel her dread entirely. The chill was too deep; he couldn’t reach it. Something in her wouldn’t relax, something resisted euphoria. He took off her clothes and she felt his body, naked, strong, warm, radiant, but still the strange clammy sheet was like a sponge. His desire was overpowering, but it didn’t stop her from feeling sullied by the poverty and squalor all around. Her nerves were frayed as he pulled her toward him: she wanted to escape, not from him, not from his passion, but from this place where people paid money to couple like brutes—quick, make it fast, who’s next?— where embraces were sold like stamps or like newspapers that you toss aside when you’re done. The air was choking her, thick, greasy, damp, stuffy air, a vapor rising from the flesh, the warmth, the desire of other people. She was ashamed, not that she was giving herself but that this important event was taking place here, where everything was foul and degrading. Her nerves were stretched ever tighter in resistance, and abruptly she groaned, a cramped wail of misery, of fury, that shook her body. Ferdinand next to her took her sobbing as a reproach. He caressed her shou
lders, afraid to speak. Noticing his gloom, she said, “Don’t worry about me. I’m just having a silly attack. Don’t worry, it’ll pass, it’s just because …” She paused again. “Forget it, there’s nothing you can do about it.”

  He was silent. He knew what she was feeling, he understood her disappointment, her frantic physical distress, yet was ashamed to say truthfully that he hadn’t looked for a better hotel or gotten a better room because all he had was eight schillings and that he’d even considered using his ring to pay for the room if it had turned out to cost more than that. But he didn’t want to talk about money—he couldn’t—so he sat in cheerless silence, patiently waiting for the agitation to subside.

  With her senses strained to the utmost, Christine was aware of a constant stream of noises from next door, from above, from below, and from the hallways, footsteps and laughter, coughing and groaning. Next door someone was with a man who seemed to be tipsy and kept bellowing; then she’d hear the sound of a slap on bare skin and a woman’s vulgar titillated laughter. It was unbearable, and the longer her only ally sat beside her without saying anything, the more of it she had to hear. She was suddenly afraid and she cried: “Say something! Talk to me, so I don’t have to hear what’s coming from next door, oh, it’s so awful. It’s horrible here, I don’t know what it is—I’m terrified. Please, say something, talk to me, just so I don’t … so I don’t hear that … Oh, it’s so awful here!”

  “Yes,” he said, taking a deep breath, “it’s awful, and I’m ashamed of myself. I shouldn’t have brought you here … I didn’t know either.”

  His caresses were kind, but they failed to quiet the fear that was still making her shiver. Why was she resisting? She tried to control herself, control her trembling limbs, suppress her shudders of revulsion at the clammy sheets and the coarse chatter from next door, at the whole terrible place, but she couldn’t. Shudders wracked her.

  He leaned over to her. “Believe me, I understand how awful this must be for you. I went through it once too…and it was the first time I was with a woman…It’s not something you forget. When I got to the regiment back then and was immediately taken prisoner, I didn’t know anything yet, and the rest of them, your brother-in-law included, always made fun of me…The old maid, they used to call me. I don’t know whether they were being mean or were just desperate, but they talked about it all the time…They talked about nothing else day and night, they were constantly talking about women, about this one and that one and what it was like, and each of them told his stories a hundred times so we knew them by heart. And they had pictures, or drew them, awful pictures like something on a jailhouse wall. It disgusted me, hearing that all the time, but of course still, still…I was nineteen, twenty, it gets you excited. You feel sick with desire. Then the revolution came and they moved us on to Siberia, your brother-in-law was gone then—and they herded us here and there like sheep until one evening, when a soldier was sitting around with us…He was supposed to be guarding us, but where could we run?… This guy looked out for us and he liked us…I can still see his open face with the potato nose and the wide, good-natured, smiling mouth…But what was I going to say… Right, so one evening he sat down with me like a brother and asked me how long it had been since I’d had a woman…Naturally I was ashamed to say I never had…Any man would have been” (and any woman, she thought) “so I said two years. ‘Bozhe moy…’—his mouth fell open in horror. I can see it now, the good fellow was thunderstruck…He moved closer and stroked me like a lamb: ‘Oh, you poor fellow, you poor fellow…You’ll get ill…’ He went on stroking me and I noticed that he was thinking hard. Thinking, putting one idea after another, was a real effort for that thick-headed, lumbering Sergei, harder than lifting up a tree trunk. His whole face darkened and he got a faraway look, until finally he said, ‘Wait, little brother, I’ll do it. I’ll find you one. There are a lot of them in the village, soldiers’ wives and widows. I’ll take you to one at night. I know you won’t run away.’ I didn’t say yes, didn’t say no. I felt no desire, no interest…What could it be…A simple brute of a peasant woman. Though to feel warm and connected to someone… not so horribly alone…I don’t know if you can understand that…”

  “Yes,” she whispered, “I understand.”

  “And in fact one evening he came to the barracks. He whistled softly as we’d arranged. Outside in the dark next to him was a woman, short and stout, her hair as slick as oil under a bright scarf. ‘That’s him,’ Sergei said. ‘Do you want him?’ The little slit-eyed woman looked at me closely in the dark. ‘Yes,’ she said. The three of us walked along for a ways—Sergei came too. ‘So far from home, poor fellow,’ she remarked sympathetically to Sergei. ‘And never a woman, always with men, poor fellow … Oh, oh, oh.’ It sounded good, heartfelt, it had a nice warm sound. I knew she was taking me in out of sympathy, not love. ‘They shot my husband,’ she said then. ‘He was as big as an ash tree, strong as a young bear. He never got drunk and never beat me, he was the best in the village. Now I live with the children and my mother-in-law. God is being hard with us.’ I went with her to her house … It was white, covered with straw, a hut with tiny windows, all closed, and when she led me in, the smoke stung my face. The air was thick and hot, like the air in a polluted mine. She pulled me in. The bed was over the furnace, I had to climb up. Suddenly something moved and I was startled. ‘It’s the children,’ she said reassuringly. I realized now that the room was full of people breathing. There was a cough, and again she reassured me: ‘Grandma is sick, her chest is killing her.’ All the breathing, the stench in the room, I don’t know if there were five or six or more there with me, and it paralyzed me. And it seemed terrible to me to have anything to do with a woman, terrible, unspeakably terrible, with the children lying nearby in the room, and someone’s mother, I don’t know if it was hers or his. She didn’t understand my hesitation and pressed up against me. She took off my clothes, untied my shoes—she seemed almost sad—gently and tenderly she removed my jacket, she caressed me like a child. It was touching how nice she was to me … And then, slowly and insistently, she drew me to her. She had breasts as soft and warm and big as loaves of fresh bread, a tender mouth, and it moved me how humble and submissive she was … She was touching, really, I liked her, I was grateful to her, but still the horror of it was choking me. I couldn’t bear it when one of the sleeping kids stirred or the sick grandmother groaned, and before dawn I ran out … I was terrified of being seen by the kids or the sick old lady … I’m sure they would have found it all perfectly natural for a man to be there, but I … I couldn’t do it and I ran away. She accompanied me beyond the gate, coming along like a dog or a cat. She let me know that from then on she belonged to me—really touching. She took me into the stable and got me some warm milk fresh from the cow, gave me some bread for the road and a pipe that must have been her husband’s, and then she asked me, no, she pleaded … meekly, deferentially: ‘You’ll come again tonight?’ … But I didn’t go again, the memory of that hut with the smoke and the kids and the grandmother and the bugs that ran over the floor was horrible to me … And yet I was grateful, and today I think of her with, yes, with a sort of love … The way she gave me the milk from the udder, the bread, her own body … And I know I hurt her feelings when I didn’t go again … And the others … they didn’t understand … They all envied me, they were all so wretched, so alone, that they envied me. Every day I resolved to go to her, and every time—”

  “God,” she cried, “what’s going on?” Christine had sat up suddenly and was listening.

  “Nothing,” he wanted to say. But he was frightened too. Something was happening in the hallway outside, loud voices, clamoring, shouting, utter confusion, someone screaming, laughing, giving orders. Something had happened. “Wait,” he said and jumped out of bed. He threw on his clothes and stood listening at the door: “I’ll go see.”

  Something had happened. Like a sleeper groaning and crying out as he awakens from a nightmare, the hushed fle
abag hotel was suddenly alive with unexplained noises. Ringing and knocking, the sound of people running up and down the stairs, a telephone, footsteps, windows rattling. Shouting, talking, confused questions flying back and forth on every side, and voices, strange voices, knuckles rapping, fists hammering on doors, loud footsteps instead of the slap of bare feet. Something had happened. A woman screamed, men argued loudly and heatedly, something fell over, a chair, a car made a racket outside. The whole building seemed to be in an uproar. Christine heard quick footsteps overhead, the loud, apprehensive voice of the drunk next door, the sounds of chairs scraping and keys rattling from the rooms on either side; the whole building from basement to roof, every cell in the beehive was abuzz.

  When Ferdinand returned he was pale and nervous, two sharp lines etched on either side of his mouth. He was shaking.

  “What is it?” asked Christine, still huddled in bed. Ferdinand turned on the light. Half-naked, Christine lifted the sheet automatically.

  “Nothing,” he said through his teeth. “A sweep, they’re checking the hotel.”

  “Who?”

  “The police!”

  “Are they going to come here too?”

  “Maybe. Probably. But don’t worry.”

  “Can they do anything to us? … Because I’m with you?”

  “No, don’t worry, I have my identification, and I registered properly downstairs, don’t worry, I’ll take care of everything. I know this kind of thing from the men’s hostel in Favoriten where I used to live, it’s just a formality … But …” Once again his face became dark and hard. “But we’re always the ones who have to go through these formalities. And sometimes they break some poor devil’s neck. It’s only us they roust out of bed in the middle of the night, they don’t chase anybody else around like dogs … But don’t worry, I’ll settle everything, but just … get dressed now …”