Amerika (24 page)

In the end Karl could find no reason why he should put up a fight against the porter. After all, what more could happen to him? Besides, the walls of the porter's lodge consisted entirely of gigantic glass panes through which one could clearly see masses of people streaming past one another in the lobby, as though one stood in their midst. There did not even seem to be a corner anywhere in the porter's lodge where one could hide from the eyes of those people. For all their rushing about—they sought to advance, arms extended, heads lowered, eyes peering, luggage raised in the air—hardly any of them failed to glance into the porter's lodge, where important announcements and news for the guests and staff hung behind the windowpanes. Besides, there was a direct connection between the porter's lodge and the lobby, for two underporters, seated at two sliding windows, were continually busy dispensing information about the most disparate concerns. Those people were truly overburdened, and from what he knew of the head porter Karl could have sworn that in the course of his career he had somehow managed to sidestep such posts. These two information-givers—and one couldn't picture this properly from outside in the lobby—always had at least ten inquiring faces standing at the window before them. There was often a confusion of tongues among the ten questioners, who changed continually, as if each had been dispatched from a different country. There were always several inquiring at the same time and others constantly talking among themselves. Most either wanted to fetch something from the porter's lodge or drop something off, so there were always hands to be seen, rising out of the throng and gesticulating impatiently. On one occasion one of them expressed a desire to see a certain newspaper, which suddenly unfolded from above and briefly blocked out all the faces. The two underporters had to bear the brunt of everything. Simply talking would not have sufficed for the task; they chattered, especially one, a gloomy man with a beard enveloping his entire face, who gave out information without ever pausing. He neither looked at the tabletop, where he had to fiddle about constantly with his hands, nor at the face of one or the other questioners, but always stared stiffly straight before him, evidently so as to preserve his energy and gather strength. Besides, his beard made his speech a little hard to understand, and in the few moments Karl stood next to him he could understand very little of what the man said, and though there were English overtones, he must have been speaking in the foreign languages he was obliged to employ. Besides, it was confusing how quickly the answers came and how easily they merged into one another, so that a questioner would often remain there, listening with a tense face, in the belief that the underporters were still talking about his affair, only to notice after some time that he was finished. One also had to get used to the fact that the underporter never asked for a question to be repeated, even if it was mostly comprehensible and had simply not been phrased clearly enough, and in such cases a barely perceptible head shake would indicate that he had no intention of answering the question and that the questioner ought to discover his own mistake and come up with a better phrasing. As a result, some people spent a great deal of time in front of the window. To support the work, each underporter was assigned an errand boy who had to run back and forth hastily between a bookshelf and various closets, gathering whatever the underporter happened to need. Those were the best, if also the most strenuous, hotel posts that were available for the very young at the hotel, and in a way those youths had an even harder time of it than the underporters, since the latter merely had to think and talk, whereas those young people had to think and run. Whenever they happened to bring him the wrong item, the underporter could of course not tarry to give them lengthy instructions and so instead he simply threw whatever they had put on the table down on the floor in one great sweep. It was worth watching the underporters change shift, which happened shortly after Karl entered. Of course, such shift changes must have occurred often, at least during the day, for there was surely no one who could have tolerated standing behind that window for more than an hour. To signal a change of shift, a bell would ring out, and the two underporters about to go on duty would emerge from a side door, each with his own errand boy. They would position themselves at the counter and for a moment merely observe the people waiting outside so as to determine what stage the information dispensing had reached. If they thought it was the right moment to intervene, they tapped on the shoulder of the underporter whom they were about to replace, and even though he had completely ignored everything that took place behind his back, he understood at once and vacated his position. All this happened so quickly that the guests standing outside were often startled and almost recoiled in fright at the new face suddenly rising before them. The two men who had been replaced first stretched out and then poured water onto their stifling heads as they leaned over two washbasins, which were always kept at hand for that purpose, yet the errand boys who had been replaced could not stretch out yet and spent some time picking up and putting away the objects that had been thrown onto the floor during their shift.

All this Karl had absorbed with strained attentiveness within a few moments, and then quietly, with a slight headache, he followed the head porter, who led him forward. The head porter had evidently noticed how greatly impressed Karl was with this way of dispensing information, for he suddenly seized his hand and said: “Look, this is how the work gets done here.” Well, Karl had certainly not lazed about at the hotel, but he had been completely unaware of any such work, and having forgotten for now that the head porter was his great enemy, he looked up at him and nodded in assent. But the head porter evidently took this not only as an indication that Karl overestimated the underporters but also perhaps as a personal slight, for, as if he assumed Karl were a fool, without showing the slightest concern that he might be overheard, he shouted out: “Of course, that's the most stupid work in the entire hotel; one need only listen for an hour to hear nearly every question that people ask, and the rest one can leave unanswered. If you hadn't been rude and ill mannered, if you hadn't lied, loafed about, got drunk, and stolen, then perhaps I could have given you a job at one of these windows, for it's a post I always reserve for blockheads.” Karl completely failed to hear the insults aimed at him, so angry was he on discovering that the head porter not only failed to appreciate all of the honest hard work put in by the underporters but even subjected it to mockery, the mockery of a man who, had he dared sit down even just once at such a counter, would surely have had to clear off after a few minutes amid the laughter of all those making inquiries. “Leave me alone,” said Karl, whose curiosity about the porter's lodge had been more than sated, “I don't want to have anything more to do with you.” “You're not getting away that lightly,” said the head porter, who squeezed Karl's arms so that he could not move them and even carried him to the far end of the porter's lodge. Did those people in the lobby not see the head porter's assault? Or if they saw it, what did they make of it, given that nobody stopped, no one even tapped on the pane to let the head porter know that he was being watched and could not treat Karl as he saw fit.

But Karl soon lost all hope of obtaining help from the lobby, for the head porter pulled a cord, and in half of the porter's lodge black curtains were drawn over the glass panes right up to the very top. Of course there were some people in this section of the porter's lodge too, but all were fully absorbed in their work, keeping their eyes and ears sealed against everything unrelated to the work at hand. Besides, they were completely dependent on the head porter and, instead of helping Karl, would have chosen to help cover up whatever the head porter might think of doing. There were, for instance, six under-porters positioned by six telephones. As one immediately noticed, things were set up in such a way that one of them focused exclusively on taking down the conversations, while his neighbor, drawing on the notes he had received from his colleague, passed on the messages by telephone. These were the latest telephones and did not require telephone booths, since the ringing sound they produced was scarcely louder than a chirp; one could speak into the telephone in a mere whisper and yet, owing to a special form of electrical amplification, the words could nevertheless reach their destination at a thunderous pitch. Consequently, one could barely hear the speakers on their telephones and might easily have imagined that they were muttering while observing some incident taking place in the telephone receiver as the three others let their heads sink onto the paper they were supposed to fill with writing, as if dazed by the noise that penetrated through to them but was inaudible to all those around. Here too there was a boy standing beside each of the three speakers in order to assist them: these three boys merely listened with their heads craned toward their particular gentlemen and then very hastily, as if they had been stung, leafed through enormous yellow books—the massive rustling was much louder than all the noise coming from the telephones—so as to find the telephone numbers.

Karl could not resist the temptation to follow all this closely, even though the head porter, who had sat down, held him in some kind of hold. “I am duty bound,” said the head porter, and he shook Karl as if he simply wanted to get him to turn his face toward him, “to make up at least partially on behalf of the hotel management for what the head waiter himself has somehow, for whatever reasons, repeatedly failed to do. Here everybody covers for everyone else. Otherwise an operation of this size would be inconceivable. You may object that I'm not your immediate supervisor, but that only makes it all the more remarkable that I should take on this derelict affair. Besides, as head porter I am, as it were, placed above everybody else since I'm responsible for all of the hotel gates, in other words, the main gate, the three middle ones, and the ten side ones, not to mention the countless little doors and the exits that have no doors. Naturally, all of the relevant service personnel have to obey me unconditionally. Having been entrusted with such honors, I too naturally have obligations toward the hotel management and must therefore refuse to let even slightly suspicious-looking people leave the premises. And as it so happens, I find you especially suspect.” And in sheer delight he raised his hands, then dropped them so fast that there was a great smack, which hurt. “It's possible,” he added, sounding royally pleased, “that you could have left through another gate without being seen, for I didn't want to bother issuing special instructions just for you. But now that you're here, I'm going to get some pleasure out of you. Besides, I never doubted that you'd turn up at the main gate for our little rendezvous, since a person who is cheeky and disobedient will usually give up his vices just when it's harmful for him to do so. You'll certainly be getting frequent opportunities to experience this in person.”

“Don't imagine,” said Karl, inhaling the musty odor wafting over from the head porter, which he had only just noticed, even though he had been standing so close to him, “don't imagine,” he said, “that I'm entirely at your mercy, for I can scream.” “And I can stuff your mouth,” said the head porter, just as calmly and as quickly as he might well intend to carry out that threat if necessary. “And do you really believe that if any of those people came in here on account of you, even one of them would side with you, as opposed to me, the head porter. So you can surely see that your hopes are futile. You know, when you were still wearing your uniform, you looked reasonably presentable, but the same cannot be said for you now in that suit, which would be presentable only in Europe.” And he tugged at various parts of the suit, which, though it had been almost new five months ago, was now worn, creased, and above all stained, mostly owing to the carelessness of the lift boys, who in their laziness had responded to the general order that the dormitory floor be kept smooth and free of dust, not by undertaking any real cleaning, but simply by sprinkling some kind of oil on the floor every day, managing to leave dreadful splashes on all of the clothes on the clothes stands. Well, wherever one put one's clothes, there was always someone around who did not have his own clothes at hand and easily found a few concealed clothes belonging to someone else and borrowed them. And one of the boys entrusted with the task of cleaning the dormitory might not simply sprinkle oil on his clothes but smear them from top to bottom. Renell alone had managed to find for his expensive clothes a secret hiding place, where they had been left virtually undisturbed; the lift boys simply took clothes wherever they found them, for no one borrowed anyone else's clothes out of, say, malice or greed but merely in haste and out of carelessness. But even on Renell's outfit there was a circular reddish oil stain, right in the middle of the back, and thanks to that stain any knowledgeable city dweller could still have recognized traces of the lift boy.

Recalling those incidents, Karl said to himself that he had already suffered quite enough as a lift boy and that all this suffering was futile, for contrary to the hopes he had entertained, the job as a lift boy was not a stepping-stone to a better position; rather he had been pushed down even further and was even close to prison. What's more, he now found himself held by the head porter, who was probably thinking of ways to inflict further shame on him. Completely forgetting that the head porter was certainly not the kind of man who could be persuaded to change his mind, Karl slapped his forehead repeatedly with his free hand and cried: “And if in fact I did not greet you, how can a grown man become so vindictive merely on account of a single failure to greet him?”

“I'm not vindictive,” said the head porter. “I simply want to search through your pockets. But I'm convinced that I shall not find anything, for you were no doubt sufficiently cautious as to ask your friend to cart things off bit by bit, a little every day. But you must be searched.” Whereupon he dug into one of Karl's coat pockets with such force that the seams on the side burst. “So there's nothing left,” he said, combing through the contents of Karl's pockets, which he had spread out in his palm: a hotel advertising calendar, a page with an exercise from a business correspondence manual, several coat and trouser buttons, the head cook's visiting card, a nail-polishing stick, which a guest had thrown to him while his trunks were being packed, an old pocket mirror Renell had given him as thanks for covering for him about ten times, and several other small items. “So it's all gone,” repeated the head porter, and he threw everything under the bench as though Karl's possessions, insofar as they had not been stolen, belonged under the bench. “That's enough,” Karl said to himself—his face must have been bright red—and when, rendered incautious through sheer greed, the head porter began to dig about in a second pocket of Karl's, Karl jumped out of his coat sleeves in one great bound, pushed an underporter up against his telephone, ran through the humid air to the door, although somewhat more slowly than he had intended, and yet was fortunately outside by the time the head porter in his heavy coat had even managed to get to his feet. The security service must not have been that exemplary; true, there were bells ringing in some parts of the hotel, but God only knew to what end, and indeed there were so many hotel employees walking back and forth at the main gateway that one could almost imagine they were making a discreet attempt to block the exit, for otherwise all that movement to and fro would have seemed quite senseless—in any case Karl soon found himself outdoors; but he was obliged to walk on the pavement in front of the hotel for it was impossible to reach the street because of the continuous line of cars passing the main gate in fits and starts. In their endeavor to get to their masters as fast as possible, these automobiles had almost collided, each propelled by the one behind. Here and there pedestrians in a particular hurry to reach the street climbed between the individual automobiles, as though there were a designated crossing, regardless of whether the occupants consisted solely of a chauffeur and servants or also included the most distinguished individuals. Yet such behavior struck Karl as excessive, for you probably had to know the situation very well before you took such a risk; he could so easily chance upon an automobile whose occupants would take offense and throw him off, causing a scandal, which he, a suspicious-looking hotel employee in shirtsleeves who had run away from his workplace, had most to fear. Finally, the line of automobiles could hardly go on forever like this, and besides, the closer he stayed to the hotel, the less suspect he would seem. At last Karl reached a spot where the line of automobiles, though not at an end, turned into the street and loosened up. He was just about to slip into the traffic in the street, where there must surely have been others far more suspicious-looking than he, when he heard somebody call out his name. He turned around and saw two very familiar lift boys dragging a stretcher laboriously out of a small low doorway, which looked like the entrance to a vault, and upon that stretcher, as Karl now saw, lay Robinson, whose head, face, and arms were covered with numerous bandages. It was revolting to watch him raise his arms to his eyes and use the bandage to wipe off his tears of pain or sorrow or even of joy upon seeing Karl again. “Rossmann,” he cried reproachfully, “why have you kept me waiting so long? I spent an hour struggling to avoid being carted off before you got here. Those fellows”—and he butted one of the lift boys, as though the bandages offered sufficient protection against any possible blows—“they're true devils. Oh yes, Rossmann, I've certainly paid a high price for having visited you.” “But what have they done to you?” said Karl, approaching the stretcher, which the lift boys set down, laughing, so as to take a rest. “You insist on asking,” sighed Robinson, “though you can see how I look. Just imagine! That beating has most likely crippled me for the rest of my life. I've terrible pains from here to here”—and he pointed first to his head, then to his toes. “I wish you could have seen the way my nose was bleeding. My waistcoat is completely ruined, I simply left it there, my trousers too were torn to shreds, I'm just in my underpants”—and raising the blanket a little, he bade Karl look underneath. “What'll become of me! I'll have to spend a few months lying in bed, and I want to tell you right away that you're the only one I can rely on to take care of me, Delamarche is really much too impatient for that. Oh Rossmann, my dear little Rossmann!” And Robinson stretched out his hand to Karl, who had stepped back a little, so as to win him over with caresses. “Oh, why did I have to visit you!” he repeated several times so as to ensure that Karl would not forget that he was partly to blame for the misfortune. Karl immediately realized that Robinson's complaints stemmed not from his wounds but rather from the massive hangover afflicting him, for no sooner had he fallen asleep in a severely intoxicated state than he had been awakened and, much to his surprise, boxed around and bloodied and could no longer find his way about in the wide-awake world. That his wounds were minor was clear from the misshapen bandages, consisting of old rags, in which the lift boys had, obviously in jest, completely enveloped him. And now and then the two lift boys holding the ends of the stretcher burst out laughing. Well, this was not the place to bring Robinson back to his senses, for pedestrians continued to storm past, paying no heed to the group by the stretcher; when, with truly athletic leaps, several jumped over Robinson, the latter together with the chauffeur, who had been paid with Karl's money, cried, “Come on now, come on,” and drawing on their last strength, the lift boys raised the stretcher. Robinson grabbed Karl's hand and said cajolingly, “Come along, do come along,” after all, in the suit he wore, wouldn't Karl be better off in the dark auto mobile? And so he sat down beside Robinson, who leaned his head on him: the lift boys stayed behind and, reaching through the coupe window, shook hands amicably with him, their former colleague, and then with a sharp turn, the auto mobile veered toward the street; it looked as if there would inevitably be an accident, but it was not long before the all-embracing traffic calmly accepted even the arrowlike momentum of this automobile into its midst.