Amerika (30 page)

“Just look at the little fellow,” said Brunelda, “he's staring so hard, he's forgotten where he is.” And taking Karl by surprise, she used both hands to turn his face toward her so that she could look into his eyes. This lasted only a moment, though, since Karl shook off her hands right away; annoyed at not being left in peace for a few moments, and at the same time very eager to go down to the street and see everything from close up, he sought with all his strength to free himself from Brunelda's grip and said:

“Please let me go.”

“You're staying with us,” said Delamarche, and without even taking his eyes off the street, he reached out his hand to prevent Karl from leaving.

“Stop that,” said Brunelda, warding off Delamarche's hand. “He'll stay, all right.” And she pressed Karl even more firmly against the balustrade; he would have had to put up a fight to extricate himself. And even if he succeeded, what would he accomplish. Delamarche still stood on the left; Robinson had just lined up on the right; he was truly imprisoned.

“You can be happy you're not being thrown out,” said Robinson, clapping Karl on the back with the hand that he had pulled out from under Brunelda's arm.

“Thrown out?” said Delamarche. “You don't throw out a thief who's run away—you hand him over to the police. And that's precisely what may happen to him tomorrow morning if he is not absolutely quiet.”

From that moment on Karl took no pleasure in the spectacle unfolding below. Unable to stand up on account of Brunelda, he was compelled to lean over the balustrade for a while. Filled with his own worries, he gazed distractedly at the people below: approaching the tavern door, twenty men or so at a time, they seized the glasses, turned around, waved their glasses at the candidate who was now lost in his thoughts, shouted out a party slogan, emptied their glasses, and, finally, set them down on the board with a thud, which at this height was of course inaudible, in order to make way for a new group that was impatiently stirring up a din. On instructions from the leaders the band that had been playing in the tavern stepped out onto the street; their great wind instruments glistened in the dark among the crowd, but the sounds that they made were almost lost in the general din. At least on the tavern side the street was now thronged with people coming from every direction. From above, the way Karl had come that morning by automobile, they poured down and also ran up from the bridge below, and even the people in the houses had been unable to resist the temptation to get directly involved; only women and children mostly were left behind on the balconies and at the windows, the men surged out from the gates of the houses. The music and the food had now accomplished their purpose; the crowd was now large enough; flanked by two car lamps, one of the leaders signaled that the music should cease and gave a shrill whistle; and one could now see the carrier and the candidate, who had wandered slightly off course, approach rapidly along a path that his supporters had cleared for him.

No sooner had the candidate reached the door of the tavern than he began to give another speech amid the tight circle of the car lamps held up all around him. But now everything was much more difficult than it had been before; the carrier could no longer move about freely, the crush was simply too great. The candidate's closest supporters, who had tried in every way possible to reinforce the effect of his speeches, now had difficulty staying close to him; straining to the hilt, some twenty supporters now clung to the carrier. Yet even that strong man could not advance a single step of his own volition; there was no longer any hope of affecting the crowd by moving in a certain way and advancing or retreating as seemed appropriate. The crowd flowed aimlessly, everybody was packed cheek to jowl, no one could stand upright; the candidate's opponents seemed to have multiplied with the new arrivals; for a long time the carrier had remained close to the glass door of the tavern, but now, apparently without any resistance, he let himself be driven up and down the road; the candidate was still speaking, but one could no longer tell whether he was laying out his program or calling for help, for if one was not completely mistaken, an opposition candidate had appeared, or perhaps several of them; for when one of the lights suddenly began to flicker here and there, it was possible to catch a glimpse of a man with a pale face and clenched fists who had been lifted up by the crowd and now gave a speech that was hailed with numerous shouts.

“So what's happening?” Karl asked, turning in breathless confusion to his keepers.

“It's getting the little fellow so excited,” said Brunelda to Delamarche, and she caught Karl by the chin in order to draw his head toward her. But Karl had no such desire, and since the events on the street had made him positively reckless, he shook himself so vigorously that Brunelda not only let go but drew back and released him altogether. “But now you've seen enough,” she said, obviously irritated by Karl's conduct, “go into the room, make the bed, and get everything ready for the night.” She held out her hand, pointing to the room. This was actually the direction in which Karl had wanted to go for several hours now; he was not about to object. Just then one could hear the crash of splintering glass from the street. Unable to restrain himself, Karl jumped over to the balustrade to take another quick look. A possibly decisive attack by the opponents had succeeded; all the supporters' car lamps, which at least enabled the entire public to follow the main events and also ensured that everything stayed within certain limits, had been smashed to bits; the candidate and his carrier were now swathed only in the fickle general lighting, which had spread out so suddenly that the effect resembled that of complete darkness. One could not have hazarded even a rough guess as to the location of the candidate, and the illusory quality of the darkness was further enhanced by the broad, uniform sounds of singing approaching from the bridge below.

“Haven't I told you what you must do now,” said Brunelda, “hurry up. I'm tired,” she added, stretching her arms up in such a way that her breasts bulged out even more than usual. Delamarche, who was still clasping her, pulled her off into a corner of the room. Robinson followed them in order to push aside the leftovers from his meal, which were still strewn on the floor.

Karl had to seize this favorable opportunity—this wasn't the time to take another look down; once below he would get to see enough of what was happening on the street and indeed more so than from above. In two bounds he rushed through the room with its reddish glow, but the door was locked, the key having been removed. He needed to find it, but who could find a key in this mess, especially given the precious little time left. By now he should really have been out on the stairs, running as fast as he could. But here he was, still looking for the key! And after looking in all of the drawers he could reach, he rummaged about on the table, where he found an assortment of dishes and napkins and a piece of embroidery that someone had only just begun; lured by an armchair laden with a completely entangled pile of old clothes, he realized that though the key could be there, it would be impossible to find, and in the end threw himself down onto the foul-smelling settee so that he could grope for the key in all its corners and folds. He then gave up searching and halted in the middle of the room. Brunelda must have fastened the key to her belt, he said to himself, for there certainly were quite a few things suspended from it; there was no point in searching any further.

And Karl seized two knives blindly and drove them in between the two wings of the door, one above, the other below, so as to create two pressure points at some distance from each other. But no sooner had he pulled on the knives than the blades broke in two, as was only to be expected. Still, he could not have hoped for a better outcome since the two stumps, which he could now push more forcefully, would hold. And now he pulled on them with all his strength, spreading his arms, pressing his legs apart, groaning, and keeping an eye on the door. It could not long withstand this pressure, as he noticed with delight from the clearly audible loosening of the bolts, but the slower it went, the better; the lock should by no means burst open, for the people up on the balcony would notice that, instead it should come apart very slowly, and so that was what Karl sought to accomplish with great care, moving his eyes ever closer to the lock.

“Look,” he heard Delamarche's voice saying. All three now stood in the room, having drawn the curtain behind them; Karl must not have heard them enter; at the sight his hands fell from the knives. But he had no time to say a word in explanation or apology, for in an outburst of rage far exceeding the present occasion, Delamarche—whose loose dressing-gown cord described a great figure in the air—jumped on Karl. At the last moment Karl evaded the attack; he could have pulled the knives from the door and used them to defend himself but did not do so; however, bending down a little and jumping up in the air, he reached out for the wide collar of Delamarche's dressing gown, pulled it up, then dragged it even higher—Delamarche's dressing gown was really much too big for him—and then fortunately Delamarche, taken by surprise, caught his head in his dressing gown, merely waved his hands blindly at first, and then, little by little, began to strike Karl on the back with his fist, and though this had little effect, it did force Karl to throw himself against Delamarche's chest in order to protect his own face. However much he writhed with pain and however hard Delamarche's fists bore down on him, Karl endured the blows, and how could he possibly have acted any differently, for he could already see victory ahead. Keeping his hands on Delamarche's head and his thumbs probably just above his eyes, he pressed him up against the worst pile of furniture and at the same time tried to wind the cord of the dressing gown around Delamarche's feet and thus trip him up.

Being so completely preoccupied with Delamarche, particularly since he could feel his resistance grow and the hostile body press every more wirily against him, he truly forgot that he and Delamarche were not alone. However, he was soon reminded of this fact, for all of a sudden his feet gave way, pressed apart by Robinson, who had thrown himself on the ground behind him and was now shouting too. Panting, Karl released Delamarche, who withdrew another step. Brunelda stood in the middle of the room, legs wide apart, knees bent, in her full expanse; she followed the incident with shining eyes. As if she were an actual participant in the fight, she inhaled deeply, took aim with her eyes, and slowly raised her fists. Delamarche turned down his collar, he could now see clearly again, so this could no longer be considered a fight, it was simply punishment. He grasped Karl by the front of his shirt, almost lifting him off the ground, and refusing to look at him out of contempt, he threw him with such force against a cabinet a few paces away that Karl initially thought that the stabbing pain in his back and head, caused by his striking the closet, had been dealt directly by Delamarche's hand. “You scoundrel,” he could hear Delamarche exclaim in the darkness that rose before his trembling eyes. And in the first few moments of complete exhaustion after he had collapsed beside the chest, the sound of the words “Just wait” still reverberated weakly in his ears.

When he regained consciousness, it was completely dark all around him; it must have been late at night; from the balcony a sliver of moonshine penetrated under the curtain into the room. One could hear the calm breathing of the three sleepers; Brunelda's was by far the loudest, for she panted as she slept, just as she occasionally did as she spoke; still, it was not so easy to determine exactly where each of the sleepers lay, since the entire room was filled with the noise of her breathing. Only after taking a little look about could Karl think about himself, and he became very frightened, for even though he was completely crooked and stiff from the pain, he had never even considered the possibility that he might have suffered a severe, bloody injury. But now he had a load weighing down on his head; his entire face, his neck, and—underneath the shirt—his chest felt damp, as if there was some blood. He would have to move into the light so that he could determine his precise condition. Perhaps they had even crippled him, in which case Delamarche would surely be glad to let him go, but what should he do then, for he would be without prospects. He recalled the fellow with the wasted nose whom he had seen in the gateway, and for a moment buried his face in his hands.

Quite involuntarily he turned to the door and groped toward it on all fours. Probing with his fingers, he soon felt a boot and then a leg. It was Robinson, who else slept in his boots? He had been given an order to lie down across the doorway so as to prevent Karl from fleeing. But didn't they know about Karl's condition? He did not want to flee just now, he simply wished to get into the light. And so if he could not go through the door, he would have to go to the balcony.

The dining room table was evidently in a different position than the night before, and the settee, which Karl naturally approached with great caution, was surprisingly empty; but in the middle of the room he came across piled-up but tightly compressed clothes, blankets, curtains, cushions, and carpets. At first he thought that it was only a little heap, like the one he had come across at night on the settee, which must have toppled onto the floor, but as he crawled along he noticed to his astonishment that there was an entire cartload of such objects, which were probably removed at night from the chests in which they were stored by day. He crawled around the heap and soon saw that the whole thing was actually a kind of bed, at the summit of which, as he assured himself through careful groping, Delamarche and Brunelda were resting.

So now he knew where everybody slept, and he hurried out onto the balcony. Beyond the curtain was an entirely different world; quickly he rose to his full height. In the fresh night air and the light from the full moon, he walked up and down the balcony several times. He glanced at the street, which was rather quiet; from the tavern music still rang out, but only in a muted fashion; by the front door a man was sweeping the pavement, and on this very street where only that evening it had been impossible amid the chaotic general din to distinguish the shouting of an election candidate from thousands of other voices, one could clearly hear a broom scratching the pavement.