The Metamorphosis and Other Stories Page 10

  They kept going, however, and reached a door that had a small pediment above it carried by small, gilded caryatides. This looked rather extravagant for the fittings of a ship. Karl noticed that he had never been in this area, which had probably been reserved for the first- and second-class passengers during the journey, but now the separating doors had been removed for the big ship cleaning. They had, in fact, already met several men carrying brooms on their shoulders who had greeted the stoker. Karl was amazed at all the bustle; on his steerage deck, he had hardly caught wind of any of it. Electrical wiring also ran along the corridor and one could constantly hear a small bell.

  The stoker knocked respectfully on the door, and as someone called “Come in” he prompted Karl with a movement of his hand to enter without fear. He did enter but stopped and stood by the door. Before the room’s three windows he saw the waves of the ocean, and as he observed their cheerful movement, his heart beat as though he had not been looking at the ocean incessantly for five long days. Large ships crossed one another’s paths and gave way to the waves’ pounding only so far as their weight permitted. With squinted eyes, these ships appeared to be staggering under their enormous weight. On their masts, they carried flags that were narrow but long and, despite being tautened by the speed of the ship, they fluttered to and fro. Cannon salutes sounded, most likely from war ships; the barrels of such a ship passing not very far away were radiant with the reflection of its steel coat, appearing to be nestled in the safe, smooth, though not horizontal movement. The small ships and boats could only be seen in the distance, at least from the door, as they sailed in numerously between the large ships. But behind all of this, New York stood and looked at Karl through the hundred thousand windows of its skyscrapers. Yes, in this room one knew where one was.

  At a round table three men were seated; one, a ship’s officer in the blue ship’s uniform, the other two officials of the harbor authority in black American uniforms. On the table lay a high stack of various documents, which the officer first skimmed over with a pen in his hand, before handing them to the other two, who quickly read, quickly excerpted, quickly placed them in their portfolios, except when one, who was almost constantly making a little noise with his teeth, dictated something to his colleagues for the protocol.

  At the window, with his back to the door, a short gentleman was sitting at a desk, busy with large ledgers that he had arranged on a strong bookshelf at the height of his head. Next to him was an open and, at first glance, empty cash box.

  The second window was unoccupied and had the best view. Near the third, however, stood two gentlemen conversing in low voices. One leaned next to the window, also wore the ship’s uniform, and played with the hilt of his sword. He with whom he was speaking faced the window, revealing now and again through a movement part of the row of medals on the other man’s chest. He wore civilian clothes and had a thin bamboo cane, which, as both hands were holding on to his hips, protruded like a sword.

  Karl didn’t have much time to survey everything, for an attendant approached them and asked the stoker what he wanted with a look that indicated that he did not belong here. The stoker answered, as quietly as he had been asked, that he wanted to speak to the chief purser. The attendant, for his part, declined this request with a movement of his hand, but nevertheless walked on the tips of his toes, avoiding the round table by a wide margin, to the gentleman with the ledgers. This gentleman—as could clearly be seen—all but stiffened at the attendant’s words, but eventually turned around toward the man who wished to speak to him and waved his arms about, stringently repelling the stoker and, for good measure, the attendant as well. The attendant then returned to the stoker and said, in a confiding tone of voice: “Get out of this room at once!”

  At this reply, the stoker looked down at Karl, as though he was his heart, to which he silently lamented his sorrows. Without further deliberation, Karl took off, walked straight through the room, even managing to slightly brush the officer’s armchair; the attendant ran after him, stooped forward with arms ready to enfold him as though he were hunting some large insect, but Karl was the first to reach the chief purser’s desk, which he held onto tightly, in case the attendant attempted to drag him away.

  Of course the whole room became lively. The ship’s officer at the table sprang to his feet; the gentlemen from the harbor authority watched calmly but attentively; the two men at the window stepped next to one another; the attendant, who believed he no longer had any business being at a place of interest for the superior gentlemen, took a step back. The stoker by the door waited tensely for the moment at which his help would be needed. The chief purser finally made a big rightabout turn with his armchair.

  Karl rummaged in his secret pocket, which he had no reservations about showing these people, and pulled out his passport, which he laid on the table in lieu of further introduction. The chief purser appeared to consider this passport irrelevant, for he flicked it aside with two fingers, whereupon Karl pocketed his passport again, as though this formality had been satisfactorily taken care of.

  “I take the liberty of saying,” he then began, “that in my opinion the stoker has been treated unjustly. There is a certain Schubal here who has it in for him. The stoker himself has served on many ships before, all of which he can name for you, to the utmost satisfaction. He is diligent, takes his work seriously, and it is really incomprehensible why he should not be suitable for work on this of all ships, where his duties are not overly difficult, such as on merchant ships. It can therefore only be slander that is hindering him in his advancement and cheating him of the recognition that he would otherwise certainly not be lacking. I have only spoken of this matter in general terms, he will submit his specific complaints to you himself.” Karl had addressed his speech to all the gentlemen, because all of them had actually been listening, and because it seemed much more likely to find the righteous man among them all than that the chief purser should turn out to be the righteous one. Out of cleverness, Karl had also withheld the fact that he had only known the stoker for such a short time. Apart from that, he would have spoken even better had he not been unsettled by the red face of the gentleman with the bamboo cane, which he now saw from his current location for the first time.

  “It’s all correct, word for word,” said the stoker, before anyone had asked, before anyone had even looked at him. This hastiness on the part of the stoker would have been a great mistake if the gentleman with the medals, who, as it now dawned on Karl, was surely the Captain, had not obviously made up his mind to hear the stoker out. He stretched out his hand and called to the stoker: “Come here!” with a voice solid enough to be hit with a hammer. Now everything depended upon the stoker’s behavior, for as far as the righteousness of his cause was concerned, Karl had no doubts.

  Fortunately, this occasion showed that the stoker had gotten about in the world. With exemplary composure, he removed from his little suitcase a small bundle of papers with his first grasp, as well as a notebook, and took them, as though it were self-evident, completely neglecting the chief purser, to the Captain and spread his pieces of evidence out on the windowsill. The chief purser had no choice but to go over there himself. “The man is a well-known troublemaker,” he said in explanation. “He spends more time at the cash box than in the engine room. He has brought Schubal, that calm person, to the point of despair. Now listen!” he turned to face the stoker, “you’ve really taken your meddling too far. How often have you already been thrown out of the pay rooms, just as you and your completely, utterly, and invariably unjustified demands deserved! How often have you run straight from there to the purser’s office! How often have you been politely told that Schubal is your immediate superior, and that you alone must come to terms with him as his subordinate! And now you even come here when the Captain is present, aren’t ashamed to harass even him, and have the audacity to bring this boy along, whom I am now seeing on this ship for the first time, as a trained mouthpiece for your tasteless accusations.�
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  Karl physically held himself back from jumping forward. But the Captain was also there already and said: “Why don’t we listen to the man? That Schubal has become far too independent for my taste anyway, not that I wish to imply anything in your favor.” The last words were directed at the stoker; it was only natural that he could not stand up for him right away, but everything appeared to be going in the right direction. The stoker began his explanations and managed right from the start to get himself to address Schubal with the title of “Herr.” How pleased Karl was next to the chief purser’s abandoned desk, where he kept pressing down a letter scale for the sheer enjoyment of it.—Herr Schubal is unjust! Herr Schubal favors the foreigners! Herr Schubal expelled the stoker from the engine room and had him clean lavatories, which was certainly not the business of a stoker!—Once, the competence of Herr Schubal was even challenged as being more apparent than actual. At this point, Karl stared with all his might at the Captain, confidingly, as though he were his colleague, just to prevent him from being influenced to the stoker’s disadvantage by his awkward way of expressing himself. After all, one could not really learn anything substantial from all his talking, and even if the Captain was still looking ahead of himself, with determination in his eyes to hear the stoker out this time, the other gentlemen had grown impatient, and soon the stoker’s voice no longer dominated the room unchallenged, which was cause for concern. First, the gentlemen in civilian clothing set his bamboo cane in motion and tapped, albeit softly, on the parquet floor. Of course, the other gentlemen looked over now and then; the gentlemen from the harbor authority, who were evidently pressed for time, picked up their files again and began, if somewhat distractedly, to look through them; the ship’s officer moved a bit closer to his table again; and the chief purser, who believed he had won the game, breathed a deep ironic sigh. The only one who seemed untouched by the general dissolution of interest was the attendant, who sympathized in part with the suffering of this poor man set among great men and nodded earnestly to Karl as though he wanted to explain something.

  Meanwhile, harbor life went on outside the windows; a flat barge with a mountain of barrels, which must have been wonderfully stowed to keep them from rolling, passed by and almost generated darkness in the room; small motor boots, which Karl could now have gotten a close look at had he had the time, rushed by in straight lines in accordance with the jerks of the hands of a man standing upright at the wheel; peculiar floating objects emerged here and there on their own from the restless water, were promptly drowned again, and sank before one’s astonished eyes; boats from the ocean liners were being rowed feverishly forward by sailors and were full of passengers who were sitting still and expectantly just as they had been squeezed in, even if some could not help from turning their heads toward the changing scenery. A movement without end, a restlessness, conveyed from the restless element to the helpless people and their creations!

  But everything urged for haste, for clarity, for precise depiction, and what was the stoker doing? He, however, was talking himself into a sweat; his shaking hands were long past being able to hold the papers on the windowsill. Complaints about Schubal streamed to him from all directions, and in his opinion, each would have sufficed to bury that Schubal for good, but all that he was able to present to the Captain was a sad, confused flurry of everything whirled together. The gentleman with the bamboo cane had long since been whistling quietly up to the ceiling; the gentlemen from the harbor authority were detaining the officer at their table and showed no intention of ever letting him go; the chief purser was clearly being prevented from intervening only by the Captain’s calmness; the attendant was standing at attention expecting at any moment his Captain’s orders concerning the stoker.

  Karl could no longer remain idle. So he walked slowly over to the group, and as he walked, he thought all the faster about the most clever way of tackling the issue. It really was high time; only a little while longer and they could both very likely be thrown out of the office. The Captain might indeed be a good man, and furthermore, it seemed to Karl, he may currently have a particular reason for showing himself to be a just superior, but he was no instrument, after all, to be played into the ground—and that was just how the stoker was treating him right now, albeit from within his infinitely indignant core.

  So Karl said to the stoker: “You have to explain it more simply, more clearly; the Captain can’t appreciate it the way you are telling it. Does he even know all the engineers and cabin boys by name, let along their first names, so that he is able to know immediately whom you are referring to when you speak only such a name? Why don’t you order your complaints, beginning with the most important one and then the others in descending order? Perhaps it will then not even be necessary to mention most of them anymore. You always presented it so clearly to me!” If you can steal trunks in America, you can also tell a lie here and there, he thought as an excuse.

  If only it had helped! Might it already have been too late? The stoker had interrupted himself immediately when he heard the familiar voice, but with his eyes, which were entirely concealed by the tears of his offended male honor, the terrible memories, the extreme distress of the moment, he could not even recognize Karl very well anymore. How could he—Karl realized silently as he stood before the now silent stoker—how could he suddenly change his manner of speaking now, when he felt that he had already said everything there was to say without the slightest acknowledgment, and on the other hand, that he had said nothing at all, and could hardly expect these gentlemen to listen to everything over again. And at such a moment, Karl, his sole supporter, comes along and tries to give him good advice, but shows him instead that everything, everything is lost.

  “If only I had come sooner instead of looking out the window,” said Karl to himself, lowering his eyes before the stoker and dropping his hands to his trouser seams, as a sign that all hope had expired.

  But the stoker misunderstood this, probably sensing in Karl some sort of secret accusations, and with the good intention of convincing him otherwise, he now crowned all of his achievements by beginning to argue with Karl.

  Now, when the gentlemen at the round table had long since become appalled by the useless noise that was disrupting their important work, when the chief purser had gradually found the Captain’s patience incomprehensible and was leaning toward an immediate outburst, when the attendant, now fully present again within the sphere of his superiors, measured the stoker with wild glances, and when finally the man with the bamboo cane, at whom even the Captain glanced amicably now and then, who had already become entirely callous toward the stoker, yes even disgusted by him, pulled out a small notebook and, apparently busy with other matters altogether, let his eyes wander between the notebook and Karl.

  “Yes, I know, I know,” said Karl, who had difficulty repelling the stoker’s barrage that was now directed at him, but still had a friendly smile for him through all the quarreling, “You’re right, quite right, I never doubted it.” He would have liked to have held his flailing hands for fear of being hit; or better still, to have forced him into a corner and whispered a few soft, calming words that no one else need hear. But the stoker was beside himself. Karl already even began to take a kind of comfort in the thought that the stoker could overpower all seven men in the room, if necessary, with the strength of his desperation. On the desk, however, as informed by a glance in that direction, was a panel with far too many buttons on it for the electric line, and a hand, pressed simply upon it, could make the entire ship rebellious, with all its corridors filled with hostile men.

  The rather uninterested gentleman with the bamboo cane stepped over to Karl and asked, not too loudly, but clearly above all the stoker’s shouting: “So what is your name?” At this moment, as though someone outside had been awaiting this gentleman’s remark, there was a knock at the door. The attendant looked over to the Captain, who nodded. The attendant then went to the door and opened it. Outside stood a man in an old military coat of
medium build, who, judging by his appearance, was not really suited to working with the engines but was nevertheless—Schubal. If Karl had not recognized this from the look in everyone’s eyes, which expressed a certain gratification from which not even the Captain was free, then he would have to have observed it with horror by watching the stoker, who clenched his fists on his tightened arms as though this clenching was the most important part of him, for which he was prepared to sacrifice everything he had in life. All his strength was in his fists, even that which was managing to hold him upright.

  So here was the enemy, free and fresh in his festive suit, a ledger under his arm—most likely the stoker’s pay sheets and work passes—and looked, with the bold acknowledgment of wanting to ascertain each individual’s mood, into everyone’s eyes, one at a time. All seven men were already friends of his, for although the Captain had previously had, or feigned to have, certain objections to him, he appeared to probably not find the slightest fault with Schubal anymore after the grief that the stoker had caused him. One could not be strict enough with a man like the stoker, and if Schubal were to be accused of anything at all, it would be the fact that he had failed to crush the stoker’s rebelliousness in time to prevent him from daring to appear before the Captain today.

  Now one could still assume that the confrontation between the stoker and Schubal would not fail to have the same impact on these men as it would on a higher court, for even though Schubal was a good dissimulator, he wasn’t necessarily capable of keeping it up to the end. A brief flash of his wickedness should suffice to make it visible to these gentlemen; Karl wanted to make sure of that. He already had a rough idea about each gentleman’s astuteness, weaknesses, whims, after all, and from that standpoint, the time spent here had not been lost. If only the stoker had been better on the playing field, but he appeared entirely unable to fight. If someone had held Schubal before him, he would have probably been able to pound on his hated skull with his fists. But even taking the few steps over to him was more than the stoker could manage. Why had Karl not foreseen that which was so easily foreseeable? Schubal was bound to come in the end, if not of his own accord then summoned by the Captain. Why had he not discussed a precise war plan with the stoker on the way here instead of doing what they had actually done, simply walking in, hopelessly unprepared, when they had found the door? Was the stoker even capable of speaking anymore, of saying yes and no, which would be necessary for the cross examination, which would only take place in the most favorable case? He stood there, his legs spread apart, his knees bent a little, his head slightly lifted, and air traveled through his open mouth as though he had no lungs within him to process it.