Suddenly the loud-speakers fell silent. "I'm sorry," he said. "I couldn't interrupt the speech Did you see those people outside? Some of them would be quite capable of killing the President He has a lot of enemies. They say he. got America into the war and hold him responsible for the American losses."
Kahn looked at me more closely. "Haven't we met somewhere? Maybe in France?"
I told him about my problem. "When do you have to leave?" he asked.
"In two weeks."
"Where will you go?"
"No idea."
"Mexico," he said. "Or Canada. Mexico is simpler; the government is friendlier. They took the Spanish refugees in. We could inquire at the Mexican Embassy. What kind of papers have you got?"
I explained. "The same old story," he muttered with a smile. "And you want to stick to your passport?"
"It's all I've got. If I admit it's not mine, they'll throw me into jail."
"Not necessarily. But it won't do you any good. Are you free tonight?"
"Of course."
"Pick me up at nine. We need help, and I know where we can get it Someone's having a birthday party."
"Betty!" I cried.
Under the tousled hair her round red-cheeked face glowed like a friendly moon. "Robert!" said Betty Stein. "Good Lord, where have you been? When did you get here? Why didn't you get in touch with me? But of course you have better things to do than . . ."
Betty Stein was a mother to all refugees, just as she had been a mother to every unsuccessful writer, painter, and actor in Berlin. Her affection for her protégés was unquestioning, wholehearted, and mildly tyrannical.
"Old friends, I see," said Kahn. "The reproaches begin on the doorstep. Splendid." And, turning to Betty, "You see, our friend Ross needs help and advice."
"Ross?"
"Yes, Betty, Ross."
"Is he dead?"
"Yes, Betty. And I'm his heir."
"I understand."
I explained my situation. Without a moment's hesitation she started discussing the possibilities with Kahn, who was still held in high esteem as a hero. I looked around me. The room was not large," but it had already taken on Betty's character. A number of photographs, all with affectionate dedications, were thumbtacked to the walls. I read the . names. Seven of them were bordered with crepe: six who had not succeeded in escaping from Germany, and one who had gone back. "Why have you got crepe on ForsterV picture?" I asked. "He's not dead."
"Because he's gone back," said Betty. "And do you know why?"
"Because he was homesick and wasn't Jewish," said Kahn. "And because he couldn't learn English."
"Because he couldn't get his favorite field salad in America," said Betty. "That made him sad."
A few days later I saw Kahn again. I found him in a mellow mood, and for the first time he told me something about bis exploits. On one occasion he had persuaded the commandant of a French internment camp to release five refugees. There were also some Nazis in the camp. First Kahn had persuaded the commandant to release the Nazis, because the Germans would be arriving.in a few days, and the Gestapo would be sure to arrest him if they found Nazis in his camp. Once the Nazis were released, he blackmailed the commandant, threatening to report him to the French authorities unless he freed the refugees.
"How did you get out of France?" I asked him.
"Well, the Gestapo finally got suspicious. One day I was arrested. I shouted and threatened, as usual, but it didn't work. They told me to undress—to see if I was circumcised. I told them that thousands of Gentiles were circumcised. The more I stalled, the more they laughed. The funniest thing in the world, to those people, is the sight of a man struggling for his life. Finally I gritted my teeth in desperation and clammed up. At that point their leader—he wore glasses and must have been a school principal—said amiably: 'All right, you stinking Jewish pig, off with your pants; show us your circumcised pecker. We'll cut it off and give it to you for supper." His subordinates, all very handsome and blond, went into gales of laughter. I took my pants off, and they practically fainted: I wasn't circumcised. My father was a so-called enlightened Jew; he believed that circumcision was unnecessary in a temperate climate.''
Kahn smiled. "You see the tactic. If I'd taken them off right away, it wouldn't have made any impression. As it was, they were flabbergasted and embarrassed. 'Why didn't you say so right away?' asked the commandant.
" 'Say what?'
" 'That you're not one.'
"Luckily, two of the Nazis whose discharge from the French camp I had obtained were there at Gestapo headquarters, waiting to be sent back to Germany. And now they stood up for me. I was their friend. I'd done something for them. That revived my courage. I thought up some new threats and dropped a few names. In the end I had them so worried they were almost grateful when I promised to forget the whole incident. They told me to run along, and I didn't stop running till I got to Lisbon."
We were sitting in the dark in. Kahn's radio shop.
"Does this place belong to you?" I asked him.
"No, I'm employed. I'm a very good salesman."
"I'm ready to believe that"
We could see shadowy figures passing on the sidewalk and, beyond them, a steady stream of car lights, but the invisible plate-glass window cut out the npise and more than the noise. It was like sitting in a cave looking out at the world.
"Have you noticed," Kahn said, "that you can't taste a cigarette in the dark? Wouldn't it be wonderful if the darkness made us insensible to suffering?"
"We suffer more in the dark because we're afraid. But what are we afraid of?"
"Of ourselves. Imagination. We ought to be afraid of other people."
"That's imagination, too."
"No," said Kahn calmly. "That's what people used to think. Since 1933 we've known it's not true. Civilization is a thin veneer; the rain can wash it off. the nation of poets and thinkers has taught us'that. Supposedly the most civilized people on earth. And now they've ouI'done Attila and Genghis Khan."
"The darkness doesn't seem to agree with us," I said. "May I turn on the light?"
"Of course."
For a moment we sat blinking in the merciless glare. Kahn took a comb from his pocket and straightened the part in his hair.
"What funny places we land in," he said. "But the main thing is to land somewhere and start doing something. It's no good waiting around. What are you doing? Have you got a profession?"
"I'm a temporary sorter in an antique shop."
"There's no future in that. Start something of your own. Selling hairpins. Anything. I'm doing something else on the side."
"Do you want to become an American?"
"I wanted to become an Austrian; then a Czechoslovakia^ Both times the Germans marched in. I tried again in France, and the same thing happened. Now I'm wondering if the Germans will occupy America."
"And I'm wondering what border they'll shove me across in ten days."
Kahn shook his head. "That's not so sure. Betty is collecting affidavits for you. She's already got Thomas Mann and Heinrich Mann lined up. Men like that have influence. But of course we need some Americans to vouch for you, too. There's a publisher who wants me to write a book about my experiences. I'll never write it, but I don't have to tell him that right now. He takes an interest in refugees. Good business, he thinks, but he's a bit of an idealist, too—which is an excellent combination. I'll call him up tomorrow. Ill tell him you're one of the people I rescued from Gurs."
"I actually was in Gurs," I said.
"No kidding? You escaped?"
I nodded. "Bribed one of the guards."
"Perfect," said Kahn with enthusiasm. "Don't worry. By hook or by crook we'll get your visa extended. A few weeks or months, time to turn around in. The first thing we need is a lawyer. Have you got any money?"
"Enough for ten days."
"You need that for yourself. We'll have to raise the lawyer's fee. It shouldn't be too much." Kahn smiled. "One good thing is that
we refugees stick together. For the present at least. Misery is better glue than good fortune."
I looked at Kahn's pale, emaciated face. A subhuman, I thought, according to the code of the master race—my people—a subhuman who had to be exterminated. "You've got one advantage over me," I said. "You're a Jew. The Nazis honor you by rejecting you and your whole people. That's an honor I can't claim. I'm a member of the master race."
Kahn looked at me in silence. I felt stupid and ill at ease. "I'm talking nonsense," I said finally, to be saying something.
"Maybe you'll feel better," Kahn said, "if we do something un-Jewish. Let's get drunk."
I had no desire to drink but I couldn't refuse. Kahn seemed perfectly calm and collected; but Joseph Bär had seemed just as calm that night in Paris when I was too tired to sit up and drink with him, and in the morning I had found him hanging in his wretched hotel room. Uprooted people are very unstable; a trifle can throw them off balance. If Stefan Zweig and his wife had had. someone to talk to, someone to call on the phone that night in Brazil when they killed themselves, it might not have happened. And aside from being alone in a strange country, he had made a big mistake: writing a journal, dwelling on his memories instead of avoiding them like the plague. They crushed him. That was why I kept away from mine as long as I could. In the back of my mind I knew there was something I had to do and wanted to do—but I forced myself not to think of such things, because I also knew that nothing could be done until the war was over and I could return to Europe.
The hotel, when I finally got back, seemed more dismal than ever. I sat down in the plush lobby to wait for Melikov. I thought I was alone, but then I heard a sound. A muffled sob. A woman was sitting in the far corner, half hidden by a tropical plant. It was a moment before I recognized Natasha Petrovna in the dingy light.
She was probably waiting for Melikov, too. Her weeping grated on my nerves. I dreaded the thought of a conversation. But then my gentlemanly instincts got the better of me, and I went over to her. "Is there anything I can do?"
No answer. "Has anything happened?" I asked.
She shook her head. "What makes you think that?"
"Because you're crying."
"Nothing has happened," she said.
I stared at her. "But you must have some reason."
"That's what you think," she said, suddenly hostile.
I'd have left her to her misery if I hadn't been befuddled with drink. "Usually there's a reason," I said.
"Why can't I cry without a reason? Does there have to be a reason for everything?"
I fully expected her to say that only stupid Germans demanded reasons. Instead, she asked: "Haven't you ever felt that way?"
"I can imagine feeling that way."
"But you never have?"
I could have explained that if I had been the weeping sort, Fd have been at no loss for reasons. The idea of crying without a reason, out of Weltschmerz or vague melancholy, was a relic of a gentler century. "No," I said.
"Of course not. You're not the type."
There we go, I thought. Slav against German. I stood up. No use trying to comfort her if she only wanted to insult me. 'I'll be running along now," I said.
"I know," she said bitterly. "There's a war on and it's ridiculous to cry over nothing. But I happen to feel like crying. And all the battles in the world won't make me stop."
"I understand," I said. "What's the war got to do with it? Suppose I stub my toe. It won't hurt any less because hundreds of thousands of people are getting killed somewhere."
I made no move to leave. Why was I talking such nonsense, I wondered. Why not let this hysterical woman have her cry? Why don't I go? And then I knew why. I didn't want to be alone.
"It's no use," she said. "Nothing we do is any use. We're all going to die. There's no escape."
Good God! I thought. That's all I needed. "Yes," I said, "but we can put it off for a while. That makes a difference."
No answer. Suddenly I had an inspiration. "Would you care for a drink?"
"I hate Coca-Cola," she said. "How can people drink such stuff?"
"How about vodka?"
She looked up. "Vodka? Where are you going to find vodka when Meukov's not here? Where is he anyway? Why isn't he here?"
"I don't know. But I've got some vodka in my room. I'll go get it."
"That makes sense," said Natasha Petrovna. What she said next reminded me of all the Russians I had ever known. "Why didn't you think of that long ago?"
I took the half-empty bottle and went down reluctantly. Maybe Melikov will come in soon, I thought, maybe he'll play chess with me until I calm down. I took a dim view of the impending session with Natasha Petrovna.
She was a different woman when I got back. The tears were gone, her face was freshly powdered, she even smiled. "Where did you learn to drink vodka?" she asked. "They don't drink vodka in your country, do they?"
"I know," I said. "In Germany people drink beer and schnapps. But I've forgotten my country and I don't drink either beer or schnapps. I'm not much of a vodka drinker either."
"What do you drink?"
What a fool conversation, I thought "Anything that's handy. In France I drank wine when I could get it."
"France!" said Natasha Petrovna. "What the Germans have done to it!"
"Don't blame me," I said. "I was in a French internment camp at the time."
"Naturally! As an enemy."
"Before mat I'd been in a German concentration camp. Also as an enemy."
"I don't understand."
"Neither do I," I said angrily. What a day, I thought All day I've been harping on the same thing. When all I wanted was to get away from it.
"Would you like some more vodka?" I asked. We really had nothing to say to each other.
"No, thanks. I'd better not. I was drinking before I came."
I fell silent I felt utterly wretched. Betwixt and between and belonging nowhere.
"Do you live here?" she asked.
"Yes, temporarily."
"Everybody lives here temporarily. But some stay forever."
"So they say. Have you lived here?"
"Yes. I wish I'd never left. And I wish I'd never come to New York."
I was too tired to ask any more questions. I bad heard too many life stories to be curious. And I really couldn't take interest in this woman's lamentations at having come to New York. Such people belonged to a faraway shadowy world.
Natasha Petrovna stood up. "I've got to go now."
For a moment I was panic-stricken. "Won't you wait for Melikov? He'll be here soon."
"I doubt it. Felix has just arrived. He takes Melikov's place when he's not able to be here."
I looked around. Sure enough, there was Felix's bald head. He was standing in the doorway smoking. "Thanks for the vodka," said Natasha, looking at me out of her gray, transparent eyes. "Isn't it funny how little it takes sometimes to cheer us up?" she said.
She nodded and left. She was slender, and taller than I had thought. Her receding form seemed frail and vulnerable. But her heels clattered forcefully on the wooden floor, as though she wanted to trample something.
I corked the bottle and went out to the doorway. "How's it going, Felix?" I asked.
"Pretty fair," he said, gazing absently out into the street "Nothing to complain about."
His serenity filled me with bitter envy. In that moment his glowing cigarette became a symbol of all the peace in the world. "Good night Felix," I said.
"Good night Mr. Ross. Do you need anything? Beer, cigarettes?"
"No, thank you, Felix."
I opened the door to my room. The past came surging out at me as though it had been lying in wait. I threw myself on the bed and stared at the gray rectangle of the window. I felt helpless, I wanted to choke somebody. I saw faces, I looked for other faces and couldn't find them, I screamed soundlessly for revenge, but even as I did so I knew it was useless. I wanted to choke somebody and I didn't know whom. All I could do
was wait. And then I felt that my hands were wet and I knew I was crying.
V
The lawyer made me wait an hour. I assumed that this was the old strategy, his way of softening up a new client. There was nothing left of me to soften. I passed the time watching two clients who were also waiting. One was chewing gum, the other was trying to date the secretary, who just laughed at him. Across from the secretary, between two color prints of New York street scenes, hung a framed sign with one word on it: think! I had often come across this succinct command. You couldn't even go to the toilet at the Hotel Reuben without being admonished to think. Nothing I had seen in America reminded me so much of Prussia.