Newcomers (4 page)

V
ATI CAME BACK
and mother went with him back into town to see the authorities. I had to stay alone with Gisela and look after her. She wanted to play on the divan by the window and on the carpet. I set her back on mother’s bed and told her she had to be quiet … I ran out into the hallway and looked out through a window. What a vivid picture presented itself to me! The gray train station, a locomotive with cars, trees, two or three streetcars and just a few people … but it was all so bright, warm, slightly sticky and as colorful as Africa! Most interesting of all was a man in a round red cap with a black pompon standing right down below at the corner of the tall hotel. He had a box strapped onto him which jutted out at his belly, with all different kinds of things in it – combs, little wooden boxes, harmonicas, pinwheels … He stood next to a door where people – some of them ordinary, others darker-skinned and unshaven – were constantly going in and coming out. Hm, what was he up to?… My eyes went from him across the long, sunlit street to the row of skinny trees that I had noticed the night before. The tramcar was green, not red or white like they were at home … I swear it rang exactly the way they did in Basel … and it was passing along the row of trees … when the bow collector and roof of another tram pulling a second car behind it came from the other
direction. They weren’t very crowded … but outside the train station and on the street there weren’t many people either … Near a fence where some red train cars stood some of them were walking slowly but with a comical persistence like pairs of black scissors … until they came close enough for me to see them … now they were no longer mysterious in their movement, but since I could understand nothing of their language, they were mute, as if wrapped in invisible cotton. A locomotive on the far side of the fence was puffing smoke. Three grown-up boys crossed the street barefoot. But of all the people, the most interesting was the fat man with the red cap and box of goods who was still standing at ease by the door, motionless … Gisela started to cry and I had to go back to the room to quiet her down, then back out into the hallway. Once I was back, the man in the cap down below was gone and I couldn’t find him anywhere on the street or in the vicinity of the station … a locomotive with a trumpet-shaped smokestack began puffing on the far side of a building and then pulled up to the fence, “Tshhhh, tshhhh” …

Vati and mother still weren’t home. The minutes stretched into hours. I sat Gisela down on the first bed and propped her up with all available pillows so she could sit upright. Since she wouldn’t calm down, I told her everything Vati had told me about the horses, airplanes, boats and all the other things we were going to see at uncle’s house, where we were going to live. Gisela grinned and, using her mouth and eyes, imitated all my expressions. I improvised a comedy about animals for her, with the two of us first riding horses – that part wasn’t hard, since I’d had a hobby horse at home – and we would
ride them like cowboys like this, hanging out of our saddles off to the side, and when we galloped into a meadow, we would hitch them up to a tree and climb into a little red airplane that we’d fly off into the sky … and I ran around the room, over the beds and divan with my arms stretched out … and then we’ll land … and I stretched out on the carpet … All around at our feet there will be nothing but little chickens going cheep-cheep, and puppies will come racing in wearing sailor’s caps, and cows moo-moo, and then a horse with two colts. We’ll step into a boat and row to the other shore. That’s where there’s a forest. Rabbits standing in front of a bush will wiggle their ears at us and hold out their paws all covered in paint, because they’ve been coloring Easter eggs, and they’ll say, “Salut! Guten Tag, Gisela! Guten Tag!”
^*
I became a rabbit and held my paw out for Gisela and shook her little hand with the tiny vein in it, and Gisela said hello back, embarrassed, “Guten Tag, Häsli, was macht’s?”
^†
“Ich laufe im Walde und warte auf Gisela,”
^‡
the rabbit said … Gisela blushed and said hesitantly, “Weisch, das Boot isch zu langsam gfarre …”
^§
“Er isch halt a Remorker. Gehen wir in den Wald. Der Wald ist schwarz.”
^‖
 … “Wart’, dort isch a Heks,” she said. “Die will uns fressen!”
^a
“Wir
schmeissen sie ins Feuer.”
^b
I grabbed the down comforter, beat it up, pushed it off the bed with some mighty shoves, fell onto it, stomped on it and then kicked it under the bed … As we were playing we suddenly heard a knock … We didn’t breathe another word. We looked at the door. Again there was a knock and we didn’t move, we just waited to see what was going to happen to the room. We didn’t dare open the door. Gisela rolled toward me.

T
HE DOOR MOVED AWAY
from the wall … In the doorway stood a tall gentleman dressed in black who resembled the men in the dining room … and he wasn’t too old, so he was safe. He looked all around the room. Then he said something to the room or himself in his foreign, monotonous language (he was probably sick, too, and this had dried out his throat). Neither the melody nor the pauses between sentences helped me understand what he was saying, though I wanted to understand more than anything. He had a bony face, resembling a skull, but without the smile … and such a narrow forehead that he must have cracked it whenever he tried to think. He pointed around with his hand. “Allein? Mama? Papa?”
^*
he asked, his face rearranging itself. I pointed to the open door. “Zimmer aufräumen, Betten machen. Leute schlafen.”
^†
 … So what was this now? Something white appeared behind him. The door opened and a woman dressed in
white, with a white cap and a red face, the same height as me and carrying a whole armful of sheets, entered the room. Never before had something that I wished for appeared … it was always some other, surprising thing that came … The woman set the sheets down. As if he’d been wound up, the man pointed to Gisela, “Aufstehen, kleines Mädchen.”
^‡
The woman, who was quite wide, pulled the pillows off one of the beds. The gentleman picked Gisela up and set her down on the divan. As long as he was standing there, I didn’t move, but when he took a step aside, I joined Gisela. The woman made the bed and when she went up to the wall, she was etched in the air like a pillow moving all by itself … she picked up the down comforter and said something quick, round, and almost jovial. The gentleman leaned his hard forehead down toward me and pointed to the comforter that the midget was taking over to the window. “Kak dein Mädchen,”
^§
he said and wagged his skinny finger at me, which must have grown at the same rate as his forehead. I felt the pressure of tears welling up and I tensed my forearm to be ready to push him away … The white woman, whom I also found it hard to look at because she had such a squat, red face and round, little eyes with too much make-up – probably a washerwoman or a baker – also threatened us with her fingers, which were like little red sausages. So, here we’d done something wrong right off the bat … oh, this was not good. I turned toward the window. Gisela was sitting on my pillow, swiveling her head back and
forth. Just as long as she didn’t start crying. But it must not be that bad if they weren’t taking us with them. The man stood at the door, looking at us. How did he look? He had drawn his lips in, an indication of scorn or something like it. I turned my back to him once more. Just as long as Vati and mother came in the door in time to keep them from sending us back to the train. The cook was changing the bed, taking the sheets that had been on it, perfectly smooth and unruffled, and throwing them on the floor … The man kept standing there, while I looked out the window at the castle, which still interested me. Its tower was stuck right onto the buildings, onto the flat and pitched roofs … of the city … The door was still open when some sheets went billowing up toward the ceiling with a snap. As the man finally began to step backwards out of the room, a new person moved in from behind him, a thin woman in a black dress and white collar, who came into the room and went past the bed. As she went from the door to the bed they said something to her that sent sparks flying, like a power line. I watched the black-clad woman as she moved past the divan. She had dry, colorless eyes. She was so big and powerful that Gisela and I suddenly became tiny and flat. With her strong back to us, she went to the wall and stopped next to our suitcases, one of which was open. I became afraid that she was about to make a decision to send us both back to the train. She hurried back to the door and I kept watching her. Then the washerwoman approached the divan and with a big smile on her face bent down toward us. “Hitler, huh?” she said. I had no idea what she wanted. I knew the name. I had seen pictures of Hitler and a zeppelin with a swastika on its tail that had flown over the
Barfüsserplatz. My friend from across the street, Friederli, and his sister and I had shouted and shaken our fists at it. At one point the zeppelin stopped right over the square and we ran away terrified, because we thought it was going to drop a rope ladder for the whiskered Führer to climb down. I nodded and she threatened me with her index finger and gave such a big laugh that I could see her teeth and tongue … she was probably happy. “Aufstehen!” I got right up, then she said, “Kleine,” and pointed to Gisela and me. I couldn’t understand what she wanted. She put her arms around Gisela and lifted her up as Gisela beamed happily. She set her back down and pointed to me. I didn’t know what she wanted. She lifted my arms up and put them around Gisela. “Up-sy,” she said, lifting Gisela and putting her in my arms. She pulled the sheets off the divan, threw them on the floor, and then gestured for us to sit down. Then she bundled the sheets, went out, and came back in without them. Again she motioned for me to pick Gisela up, then she stepped backwards to the door, curling her fingers toward herself to get me to follow her. Out in the hallway she kept on like this, motioning to me. I came to a stop holding Gisela, who was heavy, and couldn’t move any farther. The washerwoman stopped next to a small table and pointed to a little chair. I didn’t move, but she kept nodding and pointing … and at that moment the black-clad woman marched past and waved a hand for me to go with her. I didn’t want to follow these women. I stopped several times, and each time the thin woman said something out loud. Finally I reached the chair and she indicated for me to set Gisela down. When I did that, they both called me back into the room, each of them, the white and the
black one, each curling a finger to get me to follow them. What do you want? I was reluctant to go with them, because I was afraid something could happen to Gisela and that they might do something to me, too. My face was buzzing with fear. Back in the room they pointed to the open suitcase and to mother’s nightgown, which was draped over the back of a chair. The washerwoman lifted the nightgown, spread it out and gave it back to me folded, and motioned for me to put it in the suitcase. When I had put it there, the washerwoman lifted the things and then looked. I was supposed to close the suitcase, but because it was full, I had to sit on top of it to get it to close. The black and white women carried the other suitcases away, while I carried mother’s, and we put them next to the table and chair in the hallway. Then they carried the bundles of sheets downstairs amid much talking and laughter, which echoed up the staircase so distinctly I was amazed. I put Gisela on my lap, still not understanding what had happened.

T
HE VOICES HAD ALMOST DWINDLED
away in the kitchen at the foot of the staircase, when some other, agitated voices mixed in with them, becoming progressively louder and angrier … Had something happened to mother, too? She appeared at the top of the steps in her white coat, gloves and hat, with only her face red. The washerwoman with the sheets, the black-clad woman, the tall gentleman and Vati all followed behind her, but stopped at the top of the steps and watched her. “Was habt ihr mit den Kindern angestellt? In den Gang gefeuert
mit allen Koffern? Das ist eine pure Tollheit und Unverschämtheit,”
^*
she shouted, pointing to us and waving her other hand at them … So were Gisela and I going to have to move from this place in the hallway now, too? Once mother calmed down and approached us she wasn’t just red, she was drenched in tears. The white and black women smiled contentedly. “Sag doch was!”
^†
she said to father. Taking his usual short, refined steps, Vati approached the gentleman, and the tall gentleman approached him. Vati said something in his language which was like the semi-audible sounds a person might make while eating and drinking. Both women approached and listened, practically cheek to cheek, when the black-clad gentleman spoke. The hallway became almost drafty with tension … and I could hardly wait for us to get out of there. Vati went over to mother, who kept taking her coat off and putting it back on, and he explained something to her, making small gestures with his hands. “Und wenn! Und wenn es auch zwölfe ist, noch kein Mensch hat das Zimmer gemietet,”
^‡
she exclaimed. The white and black women stood there looking, while the gentleman with the bony face and narrow forehead had already left. At last we went down the stairs, too, with the suitcases and Gisela, who walked by herself with her feet turned out like a clown’s. We left the suitcases behind the desk with the keys and in exchange got a tin disk with a number.