Amerika (6 page)

They passed through a section of the kitchen where some girls in dirty aprons—which they wet deliberately—were washing dishes in great tubs. The stoker called over a certain Line, put his arm around her hips, and as she pressed coquettishly against his arm, swept her along for a moment. “It's payday, you want to come along?” he asked. “Why should I bother, you can bring me my money,” she replied, and, slipping out from under his arm, ran off. “So where did you pick up that pretty boy,” she cried out again, without expecting a reply. One could hear laughter from all of the girls, who had interrupted their work.

Nevertheless they continued on their way and soon reached a door capped with a little pediment supported by small gilded caryatids. As a fixture on a ship, it looked fairly extravagant. Karl realized that he had never entered this area, which was probably reserved during the voyage for first- and second-class passengers, but just before the great ship cleaning, the partition doors had been taken down. Indeed, they had already encountered several men carrying brooms on their shoulders, who had greeted the stoker. Karl marveled at the bustle; in steerage he had for sure witnessed little of this. Also, there were electrical cords strung along both sides of the corridor, and one could hear a little bell ringing continuously.

The stoker knocked on the door respectfully, and when a voice cried “Come in,” he motioned to Karl that he should enter without trepidation. He complied but did not advance far beyond the door. Through the room's three windows Karl could see the ocean waves, and as he watched their cheerful movements, his heart began to beat more rapidly as though he had not spent five long days gazing uninterruptedly at the sea. Large ships crossed one another's paths, yielding to the rolling waves only insofar as their weight permitted. If one narrowed one's eyes, the ships seemed to rock under the pressure of their weight. Upon their masts were narrow but elongated flags that, though tautened by the ships' motion, still flapped to and fro. The sound of gun salutes could be heard, probably from warships; as reflected on a glistening coat of steel the cannon barrels of one such passing ship seemed almost coddled by its smooth, steady, yet not-quite-straightforward progress through the waves. At least from one's position by the door one could catch but a distant glimpse of the huge number of small ships and boats constantly slipping through the gaps between the large ships. Behind all this, however, stood New York, gazing at Karl with the hundred thousand windows of its skyscrapers. In this room one knew where one was.

Sitting at a round table were three gentlemen, one an officer in the blue uniform of the ship, the other two harbor authority officials in black American uniforms. Piled high on the table were various documents, which the ship's officer first skimmed, pen in hand, before passing them to the other two, who now read them, now copied out passages, now put them in their briefcases, unless the official who made almost continuous little grinding noises with his teeth happened to be dictating a transcript to his colleague.

By a desk at the window, with his back to the door, sat a smallish gentleman who was occupied with great folio ledgers, which were lined up before him on a sturdy bookshelf at head level. Beside him stood an open cash box, which—at least at first glance—was empty.

The second window, which was vacant, afforded the best view. At the third, however, stood two gentlemen, speaking in undertones. One, leaning against the window and dressed in the ship's uniform, toyed with the handle of his sword. His interlocutor, who stood facing the window, moved a little now and then, exposing the row of decorations on the other man's chest. The latter wore civilian clothes and carried a small thin bamboo stick that, owing to the way both hands rested on his hips, stood out like a sword.

Karl had little time to gaze at everything, for before long an attendant approached them, looked at the stoker as though he did not belong there, and asked him what he wanted. Responding as softly as he had been asked, the stoker said that he wished to speak to the chief bursar. The attendant dismissed this request with a wave of his hand, but nonetheless, tiptoeing in a wide arc around the circular table, he approached the gentleman beside the folios. At last that gentleman, who, as one could see quite clearly, almost froze on hearing the attendant's words, looked around at the man who wished to speak to him, dismissed the stoker with a vehement gesture and, just to be sure, the attendant likewise. The latter returned to the stoker and, as if imparting a confidence, said: “Get out at once!”

Upon hearing these words, the stoker gazed down at Karl, as though Karl were a sweetheart to whom he was silently pouring out his woes. Without further reflection Karl broke free, ran straight across the room, and even brushed up against the officer's chair; the servant ran after him, bent low, arms ready to make a catch, as though chasing vermin, but Karl reached the chief bursar's table first and clung to it in case the servant should try to pull him away.

All of a sudden the entire room became animated. The ship's officer jumped up from the table; the gentlemen from the port authority watched, calmly but alertly; the two gentlemen at the window now stood side by side; the attendant, believing his presence was no longer required since even the distinguished gentlemen were now taking an interest in the matter, stepped aside. By the door the stoker waited intently for the moment when his help should be needed again. And finally the chief bursar in his armchair swiveled sharply to the right.

Karl rummaged through his secret pocket, which he had no hesitation in showing to these people, took out his passport, and rather than saying a few words by way of introduction, simply laid it down open on the table. The chief bursar seemed to attach little significance to the passport, for he flicked it aside with two fingers, whereupon Karl put it away, as though the formality had been satisfactorily resolved. “If I may say so,” he began, “I believe that the stoker has been treated unjustly. There's a certain Schubal on board, who's been giving him trouble. He's served in a most satisfactory manner on many ships—he can give you their names—is diligent, does his work in good faith, and so it's rather difficult to understand how he could possibly be ill suited for a job on this particular ship, where the work is not so exceedingly difficult as, say, on merchant vessels. So those slanderous allegations are all that stands between him and the advancement and recognition that would otherwise be his due. I've addressed this matter only in the most general terms, he himself will inform you about his specific complaints.” Karl had directed his remarks at all of the gentlemen, since everybody was indeed listening, and it seemed much more likely that there should be a fair-minded person in their midst than that the fair-minded one should happen to be the chief bursar. Karl had, to be sure, neglected to mention that he had not known the stoker long. Also, he would have come up with an even better speech had he not been distracted by the red face of that gentleman with the little bamboo stick, and indeed it was only now from this new vantage point that he had first noticed him.

“It's all true, word for word,” said the stoker, before anyone had asked him a question, let alone glanced in his direction. The impulsiveness of the stoker would have been a grave mistake if the gentleman with the decorations—who, as Karl now realized, was indeed the captain—had not already decided to hear out the stoker. The captain reached out his hand and called to the stoker: “Come here!” in a voice so firm that one could have almost hit it with a hammer. And now everything depended on how the stoker conducted himself, for Karl had no doubt about the justice of his case.

Fortunately, it soon became clear that the stoker was a man who had seen a great deal of the world. With exemplary composure he reached into his little suitcase and on his first attempt pulled out a little bundle of papers and a notebook, and then, as if this were the most obvious course of action, completely ignoring the chief bursar, he went over to the captain and spread out his evidence on the windowsill. The chief bursar had no alternative but to join them. “That fellow is a notorious crank,” he said by way of explanation, “he spends more time in the bursar's office than in the machine room and has driven even Schubal, who's such a calm man, to despair. Now listen to me once and for all!” he said, addressing the stoker, “you've been far too intrusive. How often have you been justifiably thrown out of the disbursement rooms for continually making such demands, which always turn out to be completely unreasonable! How often have you run over from those rooms to the main cash office! How often were you politely informed that Schubal is your immediate superior and that you, as his subordinate, must learn to live with him! And you even come in here when the captain is present; you're not ashamed to disturb him and dare to bring along this little fellow, whom you've taught to reel off your fatuous accusations and whom I'm now seeing for the first time on board.”

Karl had to restrain himself from intervening. However, the captain had already approached them and said: “But let's listen to what the man has to say. In any case I think Schubal has become much too independent of late, though this doesn't necessarily speak in your favor.” Those last words were directed at the stoker; of course, it was only natural that the captain could not take his side right away, but otherwise everything seemed to be going well. The stoker launched into his explanations, and, overcoming his reluctance, began by addressing Schubal as “Mister.” This greatly pleased Karl, who stood by the chief bursar's deserted desk, pressing the letter scales repeatedly in sheer delight: Mr. Schubal is unfair. Mr. Schubal gives preferential treatment to foreigners. Mr. Schubal banished the stoker from the engine room and made him clean toilets, which was certainly not his responsibility. At one point the stoker even questioned the competence of Mr. Schubal, which was, he claimed, more apparent than real. Whereupon Karl directed a most intent look at the captain, assuming an engagingly collegial expression merely so as to prevent such an awkward manner of speaking from disposing the captain unfavorably toward the stoker. There was indeed little enough to be gleaned from the latter's many speeches, and although the captain continued to stare into space with eyes that showed his determination to hear out the stoker, the other gentlemen were becoming impatient, and ominously enough, the stoker's voice no longer held sway in the room. The gentleman in civilian clothes was the first to move, stirring his little bamboo stick and tapping the parquet floor with it, if ever so lightly. Every now and then the other gentlemen glanced over; clearly in a hurry, the gentlemen from the harbor authority returned to their files and began to peruse them, if still rather absently; the ship's officer returned to his position beside his table, and believing that he had carried the day, the chief bursar heaved a great ironic sigh. The only person who was evidently immune from this general distraction was the attendant, who could at least partially sympathize with the sorrows of a poor man who had suddenly been set down amid the mighty, and who nodded gravely at Karl, as though wishing to explain something.

Meanwhile, beyond the windows, the life of the harbor went on: a flat cargo ship transporting a huge pile of barrels, which must have been marvelously well stacked to prevent their rolling about, passed by, plunging the room into almost complete darkness; little motorboats, which Karl could have observed more closely if only he had had the time, rushed straight ahead, guided by the jerking hand of a man who stood erect at the steering wheel; now and then peculiar floating objects bobbed up from the choppy waters of their own accord, only to be quickly covered and to sink before one's startled eyes; perspiring sailors rowed away from ocean steamers in boats filled with passengers who remained seated expectantly, mostly in silence, in the same seats into which they had been pressed, although some could not refrain from turning their heads to gaze at the changing scenery. There was endless motion, and unrest borne from the restless element to helpless men and their works.

But although everything cried out for haste, clarity, and the most precise description, what did the stoker do? He had certainly talked himself into a sweat and was no longer able to hold the papers on the windowsill in his trembling hands; he kept thinking of new complaints about Schubal from every conceivable angle, each of which would, he believed, have sufficed to demolish Schubal, although he had managed to give the captain only a pathetic mishmash of all that. For some time now the gentleman with the little bamboo stick had been whistling softly at the ceiling; the gentlemen from the harbor authority had detained the officer at their table and gave no sign that they were about to release him; only the composure shown by the captain made the chief bursar refrain from bursting in, as he longed to do. The attendant, who stood at attention, awaited an imminent order from his captain with regard to the stoker.

Karl could no longer remain idle. So he walked slowly toward the group, considering all the more quickly as he approached how best to tackle the matter. It was truly high time—any moment both could be sent flying from the office. The captain might indeed be a good man and might especially now, Karl thought, have a particular reason for wishing to show himself a just superior, but in the end he was not merely an instrument one could go on playing until it fell apart—and that was precisely how the stoker was treating him, though of course only out of the boundless indignation of his heart.

So Karl said to the stoker: “You must speak more simply, and more clearly too; the captain cannot understand your story because of the way you're telling it. Can he really be so utterly familiar with all of the family names, let alone the first names, of the machinists and the messengers that you need only give somebody's name and he will know at once whom you mean? Organize your complaints, start off with the most important followed by the rest, and then you may never have to mention the greater part of them. After all, you've always given me such clear explanations of everything.” If one can steal trunks in America, one can also tell a lie every now and then, he thought to himself by way of excuse.