The Sons (6 page)

But they went on and came to a door above which there was a little pediment, supported by small, gilded caryatids. For a ship’s fitting it looked extravagantly sumptuous. Karl realized that he had never been in this part of the ship, which during the voyage had probably been reserved for passengers of the first and second class; but the doors that cut it off had now been thrown open to prepare for the cleaning of the ship. Indeed, they had already met some men with brooms on their shoulders, who had greeted the stoker. Karl was amazed at the extent of activity on the ship; as a steerage passenger he had seen very little of it. Along the corridors ran electrical wires, and a little bell kept ringing continuously.

The stoker knocked respectfully at the door, and when someone cried “Come in!” he urged Karl with a wave of his hand to enter boldly. Karl stepped in, but remained standing just inside the door. The three windows of this room framed a view of the sea, and gazing at the cheerful motion of the waves his heart beat faster, as if he had not been looking at the sea without interruption for five long days. Great ships crossed each other’s courses in all directions, yielding to the assault of the waves only as far as their ponderous weight permitted. If one squinted, these ships seemed to be staggering under their own weight. From their masts flew long, narrow pennants which, though kept taut by the speed of their going, at the same time fluttered a little. Salvos could be heard, probably from some battleship, and a warship of some kind passed at no great distance; the barrels of its guns, gleaming with the reflection of sunlight on steel, seemed to be nursed along by the sure, smooth, not quite even-keeled motion. Only a distant view of the smaller ships and boats could be had, at least from the door, as they darted about in swarms through the gaps between the great ships. And be
hind them all rose New York, and its skyscrapers stared at Karl with their hundred thousand eyes. Yes, in this room one realized where one was.

At a round table three gentlemen were sitting, one a ship’s officer in the blue ship’s uniform, the two others harbor officials in black American uniforms. On the table lay piles of various papers, which the officer first glanced over, pen in hand, and then handed to the two others, who read them, made excerpts, and filed them away in portfolios, except when one of them, who was constantly making an odd little noise with his teeth, dictated something or other to his colleague.

By the first window a little man was sitting at a desk with his back to the door; he was busy with some huge ledgers lined up on a sturdy book-shelf on a level with his head. Beside him stood an open safe which, at first glance at least, seemed to be empty.

The second window was not obscured and offered the best view. But near the third, two gentlemen were standing conversing in low tones. One of them was leaning against the window; he also wore the ship’s uniform and was playing with the hilt of his sword. The man to whom he was speaking faced the window, and now and then a movement of his disclosed part of a row of decorations on the chest of his interlocutor. He was in civilian clothes and carried a thin bamboo cane which, as both his hands were resting on his hips, also stood out like a sword.

Karl did not have much time to study all this, for almost at once an attendant came up to them and asked the stoker, with a glance that seemed to indicate that he had no business here, what he wanted. The stoker replied as softly as he had been asked that he wished to speak to the Head Purser. The attendant made a gesture of refusal with his hand, but all the same tiptoed toward the man with the ledgers, avoiding the round table by a wide detour. The ledger official—this could
clearly be seen—stiffened immediately at the words of the attendant, but at last turned toward this man who wished to speak to him and waved him away violently, repudiating the attendant too, just in order to make everything quite plain. The attendant then sidled back to the stoker and said in a confidential tone, “Clear out of here at once!”

At this reply the stoker turned his eyes to Karl, as if Karl were his heart, to which he was silently imparting his woe. Without stopping to think, Karl launched himself straight across the room, actually brushing against one of the officers’ chairs, while the attendant chased after him, swooping with wide-spread arms as if to catch an insect; but Karl was the first to reach the Head Purser’s desk, which he gripped firmly in case the attendant should try to drag him away.

The whole room naturally sprang to life at once. The ship’s officer at the table leapt to his feet; the harbor officials looked on calmly but attentively; the two gentlemen by the window moved closer to each other; the attendant, who thought it was no longer his place to interfere since his masters were now involved, stepped back. The stoker waited tensely by the door for the moment when his intervention should be required. And the Head Purser at last made a complete rightabout turn in his chair.

From his secret pocket, which he was perfectly willing to reveal to these people, Karl pulled out his passport, which he opened and laid on the desk in lieu of further introduction. The Head Purser seemed to consider the passport irrelevant, for he flicked it aside with two fingers, whereupon Karl, as if that formality were satisfactorily settled, put it back in his pocket again.

“May I be allowed to say,” he then began, “that in my opinion an injustice has been done to the stoker? There’s a certain Schubal aboard who is giving him a hard time. He has a long record of satisfactory service on many ships, all of whose names he can give you, he is diligent, takes an
interest in his work, and it’s really hard to see why on this particular ship, where the work isn’t as heavy as on cargo boats, for instance, he should get so little credit. It can only be sheer slander that keeps him back and robs him of the recognition that should certainly be his. I have confined myself, as you can see, to generalities; he can lay his specific complaints before you himself.” Karl had addressed this speech to all the gentlemen present, because in fact they were all listening to him, and because it seemed much more likely that among so many at least one just man might be found, than that the one just man should happen to be the Head Purser. Karl also cleverly concealed the fact that he had known the stoker for such a short time. But he would have made a much better speech had he not been distracted by the red face of the man with the bamboo cane, which was now in his line of vision for the first time.

“It’s all true, every word of it,” said the stoker before anyone even asked him, indeed before anyone so much as looked at him. This overeagerness on his part might have proved a great mistake if the man with the decorations—who, it now dawned on Karl, was of course the Captain—had not clearly made up his mind to hear the case. For he stretched out his hand and called to the stoker, “Come here!” in a voice as hard as an anvil. Everything now depended on the stoker’s behavior, for about the justice of his case Karl had no doubt whatever.

Luckily it appeared at this point that the stoker was a man of some worldly experience. With exemplary composure he drew out of his sea chest, at the first attempt, a little bundle of papers and a notebook, walked over with them to the Captain as if that were a matter of course, entirely ignoring the Head Purser, and spread out his evidence on the window-ledge. There was nothing for the Head Purser to do but also to come forward. “The man is a notorious grumbler,” he said in explanation, “he spends more time in the
pay-room than in the engine-room. He has driven Schubal, who’s a quiet fellow, to absolute desperation. Now you listen to me!” here he turned to the stoker. “You’re really much too persistent in pushing yourself forward. How often have you had to be booted out of the pay-room already—and it serves you right too—for your impudence in demanding things to which you have absolutely no right? How often have you gone running from the pay-room to the Purser’s office? How often has it been patiently explained to you that Schubal is your immediate superior, and that it’s him you have to deal with, and him alone? And now you actually come here, when the Captain himself is present, and dare to pester him with your impudence, and as if that weren’t enough you bring along a trained mouthpiece to reel off the stupid grievances you’ve drilled into him, a young boy I’ve never even seen on this ship before!”

Karl had to restrain himself from springing forward. But the Captain had already intervened with the remark: “Better hear what the man has to say for himself. Schubal’s getting a good deal too big for his boots these days. But that doesn’t mean I think you’re right.” The last words were addressed to the stoker; it was only natural that the Captain should not take his side at once, yet everything seemed to be going the right way. The stoker began to state his case and from the very beginning controlled himself to the point where he even referred to Schubal as “Mr. Schubal.” Standing beside the Head Purser’s vacant desk, Karl felt so pleased that in his delight he kept pressing the letter-scales down with his finger.—Mr. Schubal was unfair! Mr. Schubal was prejudiced in favor of foreigners! Mr. Schubal ordered the stoker out of the engine-room and made him clean toilets, which was not a stoker’s job at all!—At one point even the competence of Mr. Schubal was called into question, as being more apparent than real. At this point Karl fixed his eyes on the Captain and stared at him with earnest defer
ence, as if they had been colleagues, to keep him from being influenced against the stoker by the man’s awkward way of expressing himself. All the same, nothing definite emerged from the stoker’s outpourings, and although the Captain still listened thoughtfully, his eyes expressing his resolve to hear the stoker out this one time to the very end, the other gentlemen were growing impatient and soon the stoker’s voice no longer dominated the room, a bad sign. The gentleman in civilian clothes was the first to show his impatience by toying with his bamboo cane and tapping it, though only softly, on the floor. The others still looked up now and then; but the two harbor officials, who were clearly pressed for time, snatched up their papers again and began, though somewhat distractedly, to glance over them; the ship’s officer turned back to his desk, and the Head Purser, who now thought he had won the day, heaved a loud ironic sigh. The only one who seemed to be exempt from the general dispersion of interest was the attendant, who sympathized to some extent with this poor fellow confronting these great men, and gravely nodded to Karl as though trying to explain something.

Meanwhile outside the windows the life of the harbor went on; a flat barge laden with a mountain of barrels, which must have been wonderfully well secured to keep them from rolling around, went past, almost completely obscuring the daylight in the room; little motor-boats, which Karl would have liked to examine closely if he had had time, shot straight past in obedience to the slightest touch of the man standing erect at the wheel. Here and there curious objects bobbed independently out of the restless water, were immediately submerged again and sank before his astonished eyes; boats belonging to the ocean liners were rowed past by sweating sailors; they were filled with passengers sitting silent and expectant as if they had been stowed there like freight, except that some of them could not refrain from
turning their heads to gaze at the changing scene. Activity without end, restlessness transmitted from the restless element to helpless human beings and their works!

But everything demanded haste, clarity, precision; and what was the stoker doing? He was talking himself into a sweat; his hands were trembling so much that he could no longer hold the papers he had laid on the window-ledge; from all points of the compass complaints about Schubal streamed into his head, any one of which, it seemed to him, should have been sufficient to dispose of Schubal for good; but all he could produce for the Captain was a pathetic hodgepodge in which everything was jumbled together. For a long time the man with the bamboo cane had been staring at the ceiling and whistling to himself; the harbor officials now detained the ship’s officer at their table and showed no sign of ever letting him go again; the Head Purser was clearly restrained from letting fly only by the Captain’s composure; the attendant stood at attention, waiting every moment for the Captain to give an order concerning the stoker.

Karl could no longer remain inactive. So he advanced slowly toward the group, running over in his mind the more rapidly all the ways in which he could most adroitly handle the situation. It was certainly high time; just a little longer, and both of them might well be kicked out of the office. The Captain might indeed be a good man and might also, or so it seemed to Karl, have some particular reason at the moment to show that he was a just master; but he was not, after all, a mere instrument to be recklessly played on, and that was exactly how the stoker was treating him in the boundless indignation of his heart.

So Karl said to the stoker: “You must put things more simply, more clearly; the Captain can’t do justice to what you are trying to tell him. How can he know all the mechanics and errand-boys by name, let alone by their first names, so when you mention so-and-so, how can he understand
who you’re talking about? Take your grievances in order, tell the most important ones first and the lesser ones afterward; maybe it won’t even be necessary to mention most of them. You always explained them clearly enough to me!” If trunks can be stolen in America, one can surely tell a lie now and then as well, he thought in self-justification.

But was his advice of any use? Might it not already be too late? To be sure, the stoker stopped speaking at once when he heard the familiar voice, but his eyes were so blinded with tears of wounded dignity, of dreadful recollections, of extreme grief, that he could hardly even recognize Karl. How could he at this point—Karl silently realized this, facing the now silent stoker—how could he at this point suddenly change his style of argument, when it seemed plain to him that he had already said all there was to say without evoking the slightest sympathy, and at the same time that he had said nothing at all, and could hardly expect these gentlemen to listen to the whole rigmarole all over again? And at such a moment Karl, his sole supporter, has to break in with so-called good advice which merely makes it clear that everything is lost, everything.