Amerika Page 11

  The fog had quite disappeared now and a high mountain range glittered in the distance, its wave-like crest lying under a still more distant heat haze. Lining the road were poorly cultivated fields around large factories, smoke-blackened, and all alone in open country. In tenement houses dotted about, the many windows trembled with all sorts of movement and light, and on all the small frail balconies women and children busied themselves, while around them, covering and uncovering them, pieces of washing, hanging and lying, fluttered in the morning wind and ballooned hugely. Leaving the houses, one could see larks high in the sky and swallows diving not far above the heads of the travellers.

  Many things reminded Karl of his home, and he wasn’t sure whether it was a good idea for him to leave New York and make for the interior. New York had the sea and the possibility of going home at any time. And so he stopped and told his companions he wanted to stay in New York after all. When Delamarche tried to push him forward he refused to be pushed, and said he must have the right to determine what he did for himself. The Irishman had to intervene between them, and explain that Butterford was far more beautiful than New York, and they both had to plead with him before he agreed to go on. And even then he wouldn’t have gone if he hadn’t told himself that it was probably better for him to go to a place from which it would be less easy to return home. It would be better for his work and his general progress, if he had no useless thoughts to distract him.

  And now it was his turn to pull the others along, and they were so pleased with his eagerness that, quite unasked, they took it in turns to carry his suitcase, and Karl didn’t understand what he had done to make them so happy. The road started to climb and when they stopped from time to time they could see, looking back, the panorama of New York and its harbour continually unfolding. The bridge that connected New York with Boston lay slender across the Hudson, and trembled if you narrowed your eyes. It seemed to be carrying no traffic at all, and below it was the smooth unanimated ribbon of water. Everything in both metropolises seemed empty, useless construction. There was almost no distinction to be drawn between the big buildings and the little ones. In the invisible canyons of the streets, life probably continued on its way, but above them there was nothing to be seen except a thin haze which didn’t move, but seemed easy enough to dispel. Even in the harbour, the world’s largest, peace had returned, and only sporadically did one have the impression, probably influenced by earlier, closer views, that one could see a ship sliding forward a little. But it was impossible to trace, because it eluded one’s eyes and couldn’t be found again.

  But Robinson and Delamarche evidently saw much more, they pointed this way and that, and with their hands they arced towards squares and gardens, which they referred to by name. It was incomprehensible to them that Karl had been in New York for over two months, and had seen nothing of the city but one single street. And they promised him that once they had made enough money in Butterford, they would take him to New York and show him the sights, and in particular certain places of paradisal entertainment. Thereupon Robinson started singing at the top of his voice, Delamarche gave a clapping accompaniment, and Karl recognized it as an operetta tune from his home, but he liked the English version better than he ever had the original. So they gave a little open air performance in which they all participated, only the city below them, for whose benefit it was supposed to be, seemed unaware of it.

  Once Karl asked where Jakob’s shipping company was, and straightaway the index fingers of Delamarche and Robinson shot out, pointing perhaps at the same place, perhaps at places that were miles apart. When they resumed their march, Karl asked when would be the earliest they might expect to return to New York with sufficient funds. Delamarche said it might easily be no more than a month, because there was a shortage of labour in Butterford and wages were high. Of course they would pool their money, so that chance differences in earnings between the three of them would be ironed out. Karl didn’t like the idea of pooling their money, in spite of the fact that as a trainee he would of course be earning less than they would as qualified workers. Robinson then observed that if there was no work to be had in Butterford, they would of course have to go on looking further afield, either to find work as agricultural labourers, or maybe on to the goldfields of California, which, going by Robinson’s detailed explanations, seemed to be his favourite plan. ‘Why did you become a fitter, if you want to go to the goldfields?’ asked Karl, who didn’t like to hear of the need for such long and hazardous journeys. ‘Why I became a fitter?’ said Robinson. ‘Certainly not so that my mother’s son would starve. There’s a fortune to be made in the goldfields.’ ‘There was,’ said Delamarche. ‘Still is,’ said Robinson, and talked of many acquaintances who had made their fortunes, were still there, and of course didn’t need to lift a finger, but for old friendship’s sake would help him, and his friends as well, to a fortune. ‘We’ll wangle our way into jobs in Butterford,’ said Delamarche, and that was what Karl wanted to hear, although the way he expressed it didn’t inspire much confidence.

  In the course of the day they stopped at an inn just once, with an outdoor table that seemed to Karl to be made of iron, and ate practically raw meat that one couldn’t cut but only tear with knife and fork. The bread was in the shape of a cylinder and every loaf had a sharp knife stuck in it. The meal was washed down with a black liquid that burned in one’s throat. Delamarche and Robinson liked it, though, and drank to the fulfilment of various wishes, clinking glasses and keeping them touching in the air awhile. On neighbouring tables sat workers, in chalk-spattered shirts, all drinking the same black liquid. The many automobiles driving past spread clouds of dust over the tables. Large newspapers were passed around, and there was excited talk about the construction workers’ strike, the name Mack was used several times, Karl asked about him and learned that he was the father of the Mack he had known, and was the greatest property developer in New York. The strike was costing him millions, and even threatened him with bankruptcy. This was the talk of ill-informed and malevolent people, and Karl didn’t believe a word of it.

  The meal was further spoiled for Karl by the fact that it was rather open to question how it would be paid for. The fair and natural thing would be for each of them to pay his share, but Delamarche, and Robinson too, had occasionally let drop that the last of their money had gone on the previous night’s lodgings. No watch or ring or anything else that might be turned into money was to be seen on either of them. And Karl couldn’t complain that they had kept some money from the sale of his suit. That would have been an insult to them and would have meant goodbye for good. The astounding thing was that neither Delamarche nor Robinson showed any sign of anxiety about the bill, rather they were sufficiently high-spirited to make frequent advances to the waitress, who with a proud and heavy gait kept walking between the tables. Her hair would fall forward over her brow and cheeks, and she kept pushing it up and back again. Finally, just when one might have expected a friendly word from her, she walked up to the table, rested both hands on it, and said: ‘All right, who’s paying?’ Never did hands move faster than those of Delamarche and Robinson as they pointed to Karl. Karl wasn’t alarmed, he had seen it coming, and seen nothing wrong with it; his comrades, from whom he was expecting certain advantages, had every right to expect a few trifles to be paid for by him, even though it would have been better to discuss it fully, in advance. The awkward thing was that the money had to be got out of his secret pocket. His original intention had been to keep it for an emergency, and for the time being place himself on the same footing as his comrades. The advantage that the money, and especially his having kept quiet about it, had given him over his comrades they more than made up for by the fact that they’d been in America since childhood, had sufficient expertise and knowledge to enable them to earn money themselves, and finally that they were not used to any better living standard than they were presently enjoying. Karl’s prior plan with regard to the money shouldn’t automatically be affected by
this bill, because he could spare a quarter pound, and could lay a quarter pound on the table and declare it was all he had, and that he was prepared to make a sacrifice for their joint journey to Butterford. For a trek on foot, such a sum was perfectly adequate. But now he wasn’t sure if he had enough change, and besides, his coins were with his folded banknotes somewhere in the depths of his secret pocket, and the easiest way of finding anything in it was to empty the entire contents of it out on to the table. It was quite unnecessary for his comrades to learn of the existence of this secret pocket. Happily, it appeared that his comrades were still more interested in the waitress than in how Karl would find the money with which to pay for their meal. By calling for the bill, Delamarche had brought her to stand between himself and Robinson, and she could only repel their intrus-iveness by putting her spread hand on the face of one or other of them, and pushing him away. In the meantime, hot with the effort, Karl was collecting in one hand the money he was fishing for and pulling out of the secret pocket with the other. Finally he thought he had enough, though he wasn’t that familiar with American currency, and laid it on the table. The sound of money straightaway put an end to the horseplay. To Karl’s annoyance and the general surprise there was almost a whole pound on the table. No one actually asked why Karl hadn’t mentioned the money, which was enough to pay for the three of them to travel to Butterford in comfort on the railway, but it was still very embarrassing for Karl. He paid for the meal and slowly pocketed his money, although Delamarche managed to take a coin out of his hand, which he needed as a tip for the waitress, whom he embraced and squeezed and gave the money to from the other side.

  Karl was grateful to them for not saying anything about the money when they walked on, and for a time he even toyed with the idea of confessing to them his entire fortune, but, finding no opportunity to do so, he didn’t. By evening they were in more rural, fertile countryside. All around were unbroken fields, covering gentle slopes with their first green, rich country seats abutted the road, and for hours they walked between the gilded fences of the gardens; they crossed the same sluggish river several times, and often heard the trains thundering overhead on high arched viaducts.

  The sun was just setting over the level top of distant forests when they flung themselves down on a patch of grass surrounded by a copse of trees on a plateau, to rest from their labours. Delamarche and Robinson lay there and stretched for all they were worth while Karl sat up and watched the highway a few feet below, on which, as they had all day long, cars kept rushing past one another, as though a certain number had been despatched from some faraway place, and the selfsame number were expected someplace equally faraway. During the whole day, from early in the morning, Karl hadn’t seen a single car stopping or a single passenger getting out.

  Robinson suggested spending the night there, as they were all tired enough, and they would be able to set off bright and early the next morning, and finally as they wouldn’t be able to find any cheaper or better-located campsite before nightfall. Delamarche agreed with him, and only Karl felt obliged to reveal that he had enough money to pay for them all to stay in a hotel. Delamarche said they would be needing the money later, and he should hold on to it for the time being. Delamarche quite openly gave it to be understood that they were counting on Karl’s money. As his initial suggestion had been accepted, Robinson went on to declare that, to gain strength for the morrow, they should have themselves a good bite to eat, and one of them should procure something for their supper from the hotel that was very close by them on the highway, with the luminous sign ‘Hotel Occidental’. As the youngest, and in the absence of any other volunteers, Karl didn’t hesitate to offer himself for this errand, and went across to the hotel, having been told to get bread, beer and bacon.

  There must be a large town nearby, because the very first lounge that Karl set foot in at the hotel was full of a crowd of noisy people, and at the buffet, which ran down the length of the room as well as its two shorter sides, numerous waiters in white aprons were running about ceaselessly, and still they couldn’t satisfy the impatient guests, as one could hear from the swearing on all sides and the noise of fists being banged on tables. No one paid the slightest attention to Karl; nor was there any service in the room itself, rather the guests, who were seated at tiny tables, swamped by other tables on all sides, foraged for themselves at the buffet. All the tables had a large bottle of oil, vinegar or somesuch on them, and all the dishes that were obtained from the buffet were doused with the liquid before being eaten. In order for Karl to reach the buffet, where the difficulties which faced him, with such a large order, would really only begin, he first had to squeeze his way through many tables, which, for all his caution, couldn’t be done without grossly disturbing the guests, who took it all as if they were completely insentient, even on the occasion when Karl, albeit pushed from behind, stumbled against one of the little tables and almost upset it. He apologized of course, but no one seemed to understand, nor did he understand anything that they called out to him either.

  With much difficulty, he managed to find a little space at the buffet, although his view was restricted for a long time by the propped elbows of the people either side of him. It seemed to be the custom here to rest one’s elbows on the table, and to press one’s fists against one’s temples; Karl remembered how much Dr Krumpal, his Latin teacher, had hated that posture, and how he would quietly and surreptitiously sneak up, and with a suddenly brandished ruler brush an offending elbow abruptly and painfully from the table.

  Karl stood pressed against the buffet, because no sooner had he reached it, than another table was set up immediately behind him, and one of the customers sitting down at it brushed Karl’s back with the broad brim of his hat each time he threw his head back while speaking. But there was so little hope of getting anything from the waiters, even once his two rude neighbours had gone away satisfied. A few times Karl had reached across the table and grabbed at a waiter’s apron, but it was simply torn free with an angry frown. You couldn’t get a grip on any of them, all they did was keep running and running. If there had been anything suitable to eat and drink anywhere near Karl he would simply have taken it, asked how much it cost, paid and gone away happily. But the dishes in front of him were full of some herring-like fish, with black scales that had a golden gleam at the edges. They might be very expensive and probably wouldn’t satisfy anyone’s hunger. And to drink there were only little barrels of rum, and he wasn’t taking any rum back to his companions, they seemed avid enough as it was for the most highly concentrated alcoholic drinks, and he wasn’t about to help them in their quest.

  So Karl had no option but to look for another place, and begin afresh. But a lot of time had passed. The clock at the other end of the room, whose hands could just be made out through the smoke if you looked hard, showed that it was already past nine o’clock. Elsewhere at the buffet the crush was even greater than at his previous, somewhat marginal position. Besides, the room seemed to be filling up more and more as it got later. New guests kept coming through the main doors with a great commotion. At some points, the guests simply cleared the buffet, sat down on the tables, and toasted one another; they were the best places, from there they could see across the whole room.

  Karl was still pressing forward, but he no longer hoped to achieve anything by doing so. He cursed himself for volunteering for this assignment in spite of his ignorance of local conditions. His companions would quite rightly tell him off, and maybe even think that he hadn’t bought them anything in order to save money. And now he was standing in a region where warm meat dishes with fine yellow potatoes were being eaten, and he had no notion of how people had come by them.

  Then he saw, a couple of steps ahead of him, an elderly woman, obviously part of the hotel staff, talking and laughing with one of the guests. All the time she kept working away at her coiffure with a hairpin. Karl immediately resolved to present his order to this woman, partly because as the only woman, she seemed to him to be
an exception to the general noise and bustle, and partly for the simpler reason that she was the only hotel employee within reach, always assuming that she didn’t suddenly run off somewhere the second he addressed her. In fact, just the opposite happened. Karl hadn’t even addressed her, only listened in a little bit, when she, just in the way one sometimes looks to one side while talking, looked at Karl, and breaking off her conversation, asked him in friendly tones and in English of textbook purity whether he wanted something. ‘I do indeed,’ said Karl, ‘I can’t seem to get anything here.’ ‘Then come with me,’ she said, took her leave of her acquaintance, who doffed his hat to her – it seemed an act of incredible gallantry in the prevailing circumstances – took Karl by the hand, went to the buffet, pushed a customer aside, opened a hatch in the buffet, crossed the passage behind the tables with Karl, where you had to look out for the indefatigably rushing waiters, opened a double curtain, and there they were, in a large, cool storeroom. ‘It’s just a matter of knowing how it’s done,’ said Karl to himself.