Amerika Page 26

  ‘If you like, I’ll mention it to Delamarche and Brunelda myself.’

  ‘When has Brunelda ever shown any compassion?’ cried Robinson, and with his fist – for which Karl was quite unprepared – he banged open the door they were just passing.

  They found themselves in a kitchen, from whose stove, which seemed in need of repair, little black clouds were rising. Kneeling by the oven door was one of the women Karl had seen in the corridor yesterday, putting large lumps of coal into the fire with her bare hands, while inspecting it from all angles. All the while she was groaning with the discomfort of having to kneel at her age.

  ‘It had to be, didn’t it, this pestilence,’ she said, on seeing Robinson, got to her feet with some difficulty, resting her hand on the coal box, and shut the oven door, around whose handle she wrapped her apron. ‘It’s four in the afternoon’ – Karl looked in astonishment at the kitchen clock – ‘and you want your breakfast? What a bunch!’

  ‘Sit down,’ she said, ‘and wait till I can see to you.’

  Robinson made Karl sit down next to him on a little bench by the door, and whispered to him: ‘We have to do whatever she says. We depend on her, you see. We rent our room from her, so she can evict us any time she likes. Whereas we can’t possibly change apartments, we could never manage to move all our things out, and above all Brunelda isn’t transportable.’

  ‘And isn’t there any other room to be had on the passage?’ Karl asked.

  ‘No one would have us,’ replied Robinson, ‘no one will have us in the whole building.’

  So they sat quietly and waited on their little bench. The woman kept running between a pair of tables, a washtub and the stove. From her exclamations it could be gleaned that her daughter was poorly, and that as a result she had to do all the work by herself, which meant the serving and catering for thirty tenants. As if that weren’t enough on its own, the oven had something wrong with it, the food refused to cook, a thick soup was being prepared in two enormous saucepans, and however many times the woman inspected it with her ladles and poured it out from a height, the soup wasn’t ready, it was certainly the fault of the poor fire, and so she almost squatted down on the floor by the door of the oven, and with a poker prodded around in the glowing coals. The smoke that filled the kitchen made her cough so much that sometimes she had to reach for a chair and for minutes on end, do nothing but cough. She quite regularly remarked that she would not supply any more breakfasts today, because she had neither the time nor the inclination. As Karl and Robinson had been detailed on the one hand to get the breakfast, and on the other had no possibility of compelling her, they simply ignored such remarks of hers, and just sat quietly as before.

  All around on chairs and footstools and on and underneath the tables, yes, even stacked in a corner of the floor, were the dirty breakfast dishes of the tenants. There were jugs which probably still contained a little coffee or milk, some of the little plates had scraps of butter on them, there was a large tin can that had fallen over, and some biscuits had rolled a long way across the floor. It was quite feasible to make all that into a breakfast that even Brunelda, as long as she was kept ignorant of its origins, wouldn’t have been able to turn her nose up at. When that occurred to Karl, and a glance at the clock told him that they had been waiting for half an hour already, and Brunelda might be raging and turning Delamarche against the servants, the woman was just calling out, in the midst of a fit of coughing – in the course of which she stared at Karl – ‘You can sit here as long as you like, you’re not getting any breakfast. But if you want, you can have supper in a couple of hours.’

  ‘Come on, Robinson,’ said Karl, ‘we’ll put our own breakfast together.’ ‘What?’ cried the woman tilting her head. ‘Be reasonable,’ said Karl, ‘why won’t you give us our breakfast? We’ve been waiting for half an hour, that’s long enough. It’s all included in what we pay, and I’m sure we pay more than some of your other tenants. The fact that we breakfast so late may be burdensome for you, but we are your tenants, we’re in the habit of breakfasting late, so you should cater for us a little bit as well. Of course it’s particularly difficult for you today, what with your daughter’s sickness, but then again we’re prepared to make our own breakfast from the leftovers, if that’s all there is and you won’t make us any fresh.’

  But the woman wouldn’t let herself in for a friendly discussion with anyone, for these particular tenants even the general leftovers were too good; but on the other hand she was quite fed up with the intrusiveness of these two servants, so she grabbed a cup, thrust it at Robinson’s midriff, who, after sitting for some time with an injured expression, realized that he was supposed to hold on to it, to collect whatever food the woman could get together. She then loaded the cup in a great hurry with an assortment of things, but the overall appearance was that of a lot of dirty crockery, not like a presentable breakfast. Even as the woman pushed them outside, and they hurried towards the door, shoulders hunched as though expecting blows or abuse, Karl took the cup out of Robinson’s hands, because it didn’t seem to him that Robinson would look after it well enough.

  Once they were in the corridor, sufficiently far away from the landlady’s door, Karl sat down on the floor with the cup, first of all to give it a good clean, then to gather together what belonged together, to pour all the milk into one container, to scrape the various pats of butter on to one plate, and then to remove every appearance of use, thus cleaning the knives and spoons, trimming the half-eaten bread rolls, and so put a better complexion on the whole thing. To Robinson this work seemed superfluous, and he insisted that breakfast had often looked much worse, but Karl wouldn’t be talked out of it, and was even glad that Robinson with his dirty fingers wasn’t interested in helping. To keep him quiet, Karl had right away, but, as he told him, in final settlement, given him a few biscuits and the thick sediment of a jug once containing cocoa.

  When they reached their apartment, and Robinson casually grasped the door handle, Karl held him back, since he wasn’t yet sure whether it was all right to go in. ‘Oh yes,’ said Robinson, ‘he’s just doing her hair.’ And indeed, in the still unaired and darkened room there sat Brunelda in the armchair with her legs apart, while Delamarche stood behind her, bending low over her, combing her short and probably very tangled hair. Brunelda was wearing another of her very loose dresses, this time a pale pink one, if anything it was a little shorter than yesterday’s, at any rate you could see the coarse woven white stockings up to the knee. Impatient with the time it was taking to comb her hair, Brunelda pushed her thick red tongue between her lips this way and that, sometimes, with the exclamation ‘Oh Delamarche!’, she even completely broke away from Delamarche, who waited with raised comb for her to lay her head back again.

  ‘That took a long time,’ said Brunelda in a general way, and to Karl in particular she said: ‘You’ll have to speed up a bit if you want to give satisfaction. That lazy guzzling Robinson is not a good example for you. I expect you’ve already breakfasted on the way somewhere, well, I tell you, I won’t stand for that on another occasion.’

  This was most unfair, and Robinson too shook his head and his lips moved although they didn’t make any sound, but Karl for his part could see that the only way of impressing his masters was by showing clear evidence of work. He therefore pulled a low Japanese table out of a corner, laid a cloth over it, and put out the things he had brought. Anyone who had seen the origins of this breakfast could not fail to be impressed with it, but for those others who hadn’t, as Karl had to admit, there were some grounds for criticism.

  Luckily, Brunelda was hungry. She nodded graciously at Karl, as he set everything out, and often got in his way by filching little morsels for herself before he was ready, with her soft, fat, potentially all-flattening hand. ‘He’s done well,’ she said, smacking her lips, and pulled Delamarche, who left the comb in her hair for a later resumption, down next to her on a chair. Delamarche too was mollified by the sight of the meal, both of
them were very hungry, their hands hurried this way and that across the little table. Karl saw that to give satisfaction he should be sure to bring as much as possible, and, remembering he had left various eatables on the floor of the kitchen, he said: ‘For this first time, I wasn’t sure how to go about it, next time I’ll do better.’ But even as he spoke, he remembered whom he was addressing, he had concentrated too much on the thing itself. Brunelda nodded contentedly at Delamarche, and fed Karl a handful of crumbs by way of reward.

  FRAGMENTS

  (1) BRUNELDA’S DEPARTURE

  One morning Karl pushed the Bath chair in which Brunelda sat out of the gate. It was rather later than he had planned. They had agreed to arrange the exodus for night-time, to attract none of the attention in the street which would have been inevitable by day, however demurely Brunelda offered to cover herself with a large grey cloth. But getting her down the steps had taken too long, in spite of the eager cooperation of the student, who, as it now transpired, was nothing like as strong as Karl. Brunelda comported herself very bravely, hardly groaning at all, and trying in every way to make it easier for her two bearers. But there was no other way of doing it than setting her down on every fifth step, to give themselves, and her too, time for a minimal rest. It was a chilly morning, a cold subterranean sort of breeze was blowing in the corridors, but Karl and the student were covered in sweat, and each time they stopped kept having to wipe their faces with a corner of Brunelda’s cloth, which she kindly let them have. And so it was fully two hours till they reached the bottom, where the little handcart had been waiting since the previous evening. The lifting of Brunelda into it was again a laborious process, but then one could see the whole enterprise as crowned with success, because the pushing of the wagon couldn’t be that difficult, with its high wheels, although there was always the chance that the wagon might fall apart under Brunelda’s weight. That was a risk that had to be taken, though, one could hardly travel with a spare conveyance, although the student had half jokingly volunteered to get hold of one and push it. Next they had to take leave of the student, which was actually very cordial. All the past disagreements between Brunelda and the student appeared forgotten, he even apologized for the old insult to Brunelda he had perpetrated during her illness, but Brunelda said that had been long forgotten and more than made up for. She ended up asking the student to be so good as to accept a dollar from her as a keepsake, which she had some trouble finding among her skirts. In the light of Brunelda’s famous avarice, this gift was really very significant, and the student was quite delighted with it, and in his delight tossed the coin high up in the air. Then, though, he had to look for it on the ground, and Karl had to help him, and it was Karl in the end who found it under Brunelda’s cart. The farewell between the student and Karl was of course much more straightforward, they simply shook hands, and said they were sure they would meet again, by which time at least one of them – the student insisted it would be Karl, Karl that it would be the student – would have achieved fame, as unfortunately hadn’t happened yet. Then Karl, in good heart, picked up the wagon handle, and pushed it out of the gate. The student watched them as long as they were in sight, and waved his handkerchief. Karl frequently turned round and nodded goodbye, even Brunelda would have liked to turn round, but such a movement was too strenuous for her. At the end of the street, in order to make a last farewell possible for her, Karl described a circle with the wagon, so that Brunelda could see the student too, who used the opportunity to wave especially vigorously with his handkerchief.

  But then Karl said they mustn’t have any more stops, they had a long way ahead of them, and had set out much later than they’d meant to. And indeed, one could already see the occasional vehicle, and even the odd pedestrian too, on his way to work. Karl had meant nothing more by his remark than what he had said, but Brunelda with her sensitivity had a different interpretation and completely covered herself with her grey cloth. Karl made no objection; a handcart with a grey cloth draped over it was still a very arresting sight but incomparably less than a clearly visible Brunelda would have been. He navigated very carefully; before turning a corner, he would look down the street; if it seemed necessary, he even left the wagon and went on alone a few paces, if he could see some potentially disagreeable encounter looming, then he waited until it might be avoided, or even followed a different route down a new street. But even then, as he’d previously studied all possible routes in detail, he never risked making a long detour. Even so, there were obstacles that might have been anticipated, but couldn’t be foreseen individually. Suddenly, for instance, in a street that climbed gently, enjoyed good visibility, and was happily completely deserted, something that Karl sought to make the most of by especial haste, a policeman emerged from the dark corner of an entry way, and asked Karl what he was pushing in his carefully covered cart. Though he had looked quite stern to begin with, he had to smile when he lifted the cloth and saw the hot and apprehensive form of Brunelda. ‘Hello!’ he said. ‘There I was thinking you had about ten sacks of potatoes, and it’s just one female? Where are you headed for? Who are you?’ Brunelda didn’t even dare look at the policeman, but kept her eyes on Karl, evidently doubting that even he would be able to save her. But Karl had had enough dealings with policemen, the whole affair didn’t seem so terribly threatening to him. ‘Miss, why don’t you show him’, he said, ‘the piece of paper you were given?’ ‘Oh yes,’ said Brunelda, and started looking, but in such a hopeless fashion that she really would arouse suspicion. ‘Miss’, said the policeman with manifest irony, ‘seems unable to find her paper.’ ‘Not at all,’ said Karl calmly, ‘she’s got it all right, she’s just mislaid it.’ He began looking for it himself, and soon pulled it out from behind Brunelda’s back. The policeman gave it a perfunctory glance. ‘So that’s you, is it,’ said the policeman with a smile, ‘Miss? And what about you, little fellow, in charge of transport and arrangements? Can’t you find any better occupation?’ Karl merely shrugged his shoulders, that was just typical police nosiness. ‘Well, have a good trip then,’ said the policeman, when he didn’t get an answer. There was probably contempt in the policeman’s tone, and so Karl went away without saying goodbye, the contempt of the police was still preferable to their interest.

  Shortly afterwards he had a possibly even more disagreeable encounter. A man approached him, pushing a handcart full of milk churns, and obviously burning to know what was under the grey cloth on Karl’s cart. It was hardly possible that he had exactly the same route as Karl, but he stuck to his side, whatever surprising turns Karl made. At first he contented himself with exclamations, such as: ‘That looks like a heavy load’ or ‘Your load looks badly balanced, something’s about to fall off the top.’ Then, later, he put direct questions: ‘What have you got under that cloth?’ Karl replied: ‘What’s it to you?’ But as that only made the man still more curious, Karl finally said: ‘Apples.’ ‘What a lot of apples,’ said the man in amazement, and he repeated it a few times yet. ‘That’s a whole apple harvest,’ he said. ‘That’s right,’ said Karl. But, either because he didn’t believe Karl, or because he wanted to annoy him, he went further, he started – all the while they were moving – reaching out playfully for the cloth, and finally went so far as to tug at it. How Brunelda must be suffering! Out of consideration for her, Karl wanted to avoid an argument with the man, and he turned abruptly into the next open gate, as though that were his destination. ‘Here we are,’ he said, ‘thanks for your company.’ The man stopped in amazement in front of the gate, and watched Karl calmly going in, prepared if need be, to cross the whole of the first courtyard. Surely the man could be in no more doubt, but to satisfy his wickedness one more time, he left his wagon standing, tiptoed after Karl and tugged so hard on the cloth that he almost bared Brunelda’s face. ‘Your apples need to breathe,’ he said, and off he ran. Even that Karl put up with, since it finally rid him of the man. He pulled the cart into a corner of the courtyard, where there were some large empty crates,
in the lee of which he wanted to say some comforting words to Brunelda under her cloth. But he had to talk to her a long time, because she was in tears, and quite seriously beseeched him to let her stay behind the crates all day, and only go on at night. He might not have been able to convince her how mistaken that would have been on his own, but when someone at the other end of the pile of crates hurled an empty crate on to the ground, so that it made a dreadful noise that echoed round the empty courtyard, she was so terrified that, without another word, she pulled the cloth back over her again, and was probably delighted when Karl quickly got moving again.

  The streets were now getting more and more populous, but the wagon aroused rather less attention than Karl had feared. Perhaps it might even have been wiser to choose a different time for the move. If another journey like this should become necessary, Karl decided to try it at noon. Without any further serious incident, he finally turned into the dark narrow alleyway where Enterprise No. 25 was. In front of the door stood the squinting administrator with his watch in his hand. ‘Are you always this late?’ he asked. ‘We had various obstacles,’ explained Karl. ‘You always get those,’ said the administrator. ‘In this firm, they’re not an excuse. Kindly remember that!’ Karl barely listened to talk like that any more, everyone used their own power and belaboured the next man. Once you’d gotten used to it, it wasn’t really much more than the regular striking of a clock. But what did alarm him as he pulled the wagon into the corridor was the dirt there, although he’d been expecting it too. It wasn’t, when he looked at it more closely, any tangible sort of dirt. The stone flags in the passage had been swept almost clean, the whitewash on the walls wasn’t old, the artificial palms only slightly dusty, and yet everything was greasy and repulsive, it was as though everything had been somehow misused, and no cleaning on earth could ever make it better. Whenever Karl came to a new place, he liked to think what improvements could be made to it, and how pleasant it must be to roll up his sleeves and get down to it, regardless of the almost infinite labour it would take. But here he didn’t know where to start. Slowly he took the cloth off Brunelda. ‘Welcome, Miss,’ said the administrator affectedly, there was no question that Brunelda had made a good impression on him. No sooner had Brunelda sensed that than, as Karl observed with satisfaction, she began to exploit it. The fear of the last few hours vanished. She [text ends here]