The Passenger Read online

  Silbermann sat down, picked up an English newspaper, and began leafing through the pages, every so often casting a grim glance at the people he had decided were foreigners. Then he lit a cigarette and began to read an article.

  Suddenly he felt someone nearby and looked up. Standing in front of him was Herr Rose, the hotel manager, whom he had known for years. Judging from the man’s sheepish expression, Silbermann could guess what he was after. Nevertheless he greeted him with an unselfconscious “Guten Tag” and held out his hand.

  Rose first tried to ignore the gesture but then whispered, “Please don’t.”

  Silbermann quickly retracted his hand. His felt his face turn red and was ashamed of his shame.

  “Herr Silbermann,” Rose said as quietly and politely as could be expected from a man who had spent his whole life in the hotel business, no matter what the situation. “This is extraordinarily embarrassing for me. You are an old and dear guest of the hotel. But … you understand? It isn’t my fault, and things surely won’t stay this way, but…”

  “What’s going on?” asked Silbermann, who knew very well where Rose was heading but had no intention of letting him off the hook. Instead he felt he needed to hear a candid admission of what Silbermann saw as a lack of character. And the other man’s embarrassment almost did him good, or at least helped him get past his own.

  “So you wish to throw me out?” he finally asked, his voice dry, and looked at the hotel manager.

  “Please don’t put it that way,” Herr Rose implored, straining to cope with the demands of the situation—the snubbing of a valued client with impeccable credit. “We were always very happy,” he continued, hastily, “to have you here so often as our guest, and if in the present moment we are obliged to ask you, it is very much against our will, and we hope…”

  “It’s all right, Rose.” Silbermann cut him off, realizing that the man’s meek manner made him feel better than he wanted to admit. “I understand.”

  Silbermann brushed off any further explanation with a wave of his right hand, nodded to the manager, who bowed slightly in return, and left the reading room. He passed through the lobby and paused as if he wanted to say something to the concierge, who now also made a slight bow, but then went on his way. When he reached the revolving door that led outside, he stopped once again.

  Where can I possibly go? he wondered. The Jewish guesthouses have undoubtedly been ransacked by the SA. And the small hotels are absolutely unsafe: many of them are storm trooper hangouts or the like. Should I simply find some flophouse and stay there? Those should still be open to us. But are they really? Even those aren’t worth the risk, because if I show up at one by myself and ask for a room, I’ll look suspicious. And whatever I do, I can’t let that happen.

  Nevertheless he decided to look up a small hotel he had sometimes used to host business friends from out of town, and after waiting awhile in vain for a streetcar, he decided to take a cab. When he pulled up to the hotel, he noticed a storm trooper standing by the entrance, but after a moment’s hesitation Silbermann stepped calmly past him and entered the small lobby.

  “I’d like a room,” he told the waiter who was coming to meet him.

  “Shall we have your luggage brought from the station?”

  That’s right, he thought: you need luggage if you’re spending the night in a hotel, otherwise you might stick out.

  “No, thanks,” said Silbermann, trying to appear absentminded. “May I first have a look at the room?”

  The waiter, who was evidently also taking on the role of concierge, grabbed a key from the numbered board, led Silbermann to the elevator, and accompanied him upstairs.

  “Bad weather,” he said.

  “That’s for sure,” Silbermann answered, reluctantly.

  “Excuse me, sir,” the waiter continued, “but is there something going on in town today?”

  “Such as what?” asked Silbermann, at pains to keep calm. “What’s supposed to be going on?”

  “So many Jews are staying here. I wonder if we aren’t making things difficult for ourselves.”

  “Really?” Silbermann muttered. “How so? Have they now declared it’s illegal to host Jewish guests?”

  “I don’t exactly know,” the waiter replied. “Anyway, I couldn’t care less. After you.”

  The elevator had stopped at the fourth floor. As far as I’m concerned we can go right back down, Silbermann thought to himself, as he stepped into the corridor to let the waiter show him the room.

  At first Silbermann couldn’t make up his mind, so he paced up and down the room with the disgruntled expression of a disapproving guest. The waiter’s remark had made him distinctly wary and had set off a chain of anxious thoughts. But in the end Silbermann took the room, having decided that other hotels would be no less dangerous.

  He rode back down with the waiter and, as he had feared, the man handed him a registration form.

  “Yes, yes,” he said gruffly, as though preoccupied with other matters. “Later … what was the room number again? Forty-seven?… Ah, right … forty-seven.”

  As he left the hotel he bumped into someone on the street. He mumbled a brusque “Excuse me”: recent experiences had convinced him that a rude and impolite demeanor offered the most effective protection.

  “Excuse me,” the other man apologized with an excessively polite, almost abject voice. But then he added in amazement, “Silbermann, thank God, Silbermann. You’re the first real human I’ve met.”

  It was Fritz Stein, the former proprietor of Stein & Co., and an old business friend. They shook hands. Stein was so excited, he clung to Silbermann’s hand and wouldn’t let go, despite the latter’s attempts to wrest it back.

  “What do you think?” Stein asked. The short, chubby man was greatly distraught. “Have you already heard?” Silbermann finally managed to free his hand from Stein’s grasp.

  “I know everything,” he explained. He found Stein’s jumpiness disconcerting, even though he realized it was more than justified, given the circumstances.

  “Then you know more than I do,” Stein responded.

  “Did they also pay you a visit?” Silbermann inquired with a smile.

  “You might say that.” Having found a companion in misery with whom he could speak openly, Stein’s inner posture grew more erect and less cowering. “What are we going to do?” he asked. “I’ve often wanted to call you these last days about a business proposition. Actually now would be a very good time to talk about it. I think it could be extremely interesting for you.”

  “Listen,” said Silbermann, somewhat taken aback by the other man’s change of mood. “Do you really believe that at the moment I feel like making any kind of deal? Clearly my constitution isn’t as hardy as yours, my friend.”

  “Let’s just say it doesn’t need to be. For months now bankruptcy has been circling over me like a vulture crowing ‘seizure of assets.’ I truly feel sorry for my creditors. Their things were all smashed up in my wife’s apartment, as if it all still belonged to me.”

  After briefly pacing back and forth, they stopped in front of a shop window.

  “I admire you,” Silbermann said thoughtfully. “You’re a brave fellow. If I had more of your optimism I wouldn’t be so apprehensive.” He laughed. “You’ll even manage to make money off the rope they hang you with.”

  “I should hope so,” Stein hurried to answer very cheerfully. “Otherwise how would my wife be able to pay for her widow’s veil?”

  “Are things really that bad, or are you just joking? You shouldn’t do that.”

  “I’m not—I mean every word in earnest,” said Stein. “As you know, I sold my business, and now the buyer isn’t paying. What am I supposed to do? I have to chase up a living somehow. But to get to the point, if you’re willing to risk putting up thirty thousand marks…”

  “No, stop,” Silbermann responded. “Forget about that. Right now I really do have other worries.”

  “I wish I were in your
shoes,” Stein answered slowly. “You’re just unhappy. Whereas on top of everything else, I don’t have anything to eat.”

  Silbermann looked at him in surprise, then took out his billfold.

  “Would fifty marks be of help?” he asked. “Sadly, I don’t have much on me.”

  “Of course it would be of help. I’ll take it. I’ll pay you back next week. Every now and then the man who took over my business gives me a small partial payment, but naturally that depends on his mood.” He stashed the money in his pocket. “What are we going to do?” he asked again, and looked around, eager to do something.

  “I have to call Becker. Unfortunately he’s gone to Hamburg.”

  “And how are you coming along with your house? You better hurry and sell, if you want my advice.”

  Silbermann described the negotiations. Stein nodded his head at every sentence, as if he had expected that everything would turn out the way it did.

  “I wish I were in your shoes,” he finally said again, with that quiet note of envy that counts as a compliment for the person envied. “You look so Aryan. At least people aren’t afraid of you, the way they are of me. There’s no place to turn, and people avoid me as if I had the plague. I keep saying: people are afraid I might infect them with my Jewish nose.” He gave an unhappy laugh.

  “Admittedly I have two Aryan friends left,” said Silbermann. “Becker and Theo Findler.”

  “Calling Findler a friend,” said Stein, “strikes me as a bit rash. Friendship with that man isn’t something anyone’s ever been able to boast about.”

  “You may be right, but if you no longer have any real friends left, you sometimes just have to squint and pretend you do. At least that can be a little reassuring. But what are you planning to do now?”

  “I’ve taken a room there,” Stein pointed to the hotel that Silbermann had just left.

  “In that case … perhaps we’ll see each other again.”

  They said good-bye.

  Silbermann watched the other man leave. There was something calming about Stein’s gait, something confident and life-affirming. He didn’t place his feet straight on the ground, but at an angle, and his body had an almost imperceptible sway as he walked. As usual, his bowler was tilted back on his neck, and as he watched, Silbermann forgot all about the time and circumstances. He felt as though they’d just made a deal after all, neither particularly good or bad, merely something to keep connected, to stay in business together.

  And to think that once I backed him up for credit in the amount of fifty thousand marks, Silbermann recalled wistfully. Stein & Co., serious people, not a big firm, but solid. And now on the verge of ruin.

  He stepped into a restaurant to have a bite for supper. I ought to have invited Stein, he thought, as he looked over the menu, but then I, too, was afraid of his Jewish nose.

  He ate with relish. After supper he lit a cigar and spent a few peaceful moments thinking of nothing. Then he remembered what he had to do and hurried over to the telephone. He dialed his home number and grew increasingly anxious as the ring tone kept sounding in short intervals. Minutes passed. No one answered. Finally he hung up.

  Maybe there’s something wrong with the phone, he thought, searching for a benign explanation. That happens every now and then, so why not today? On the other hand, why should that happen precisely today? he then thought. That would be very strange indeed.

  He tried again, but with the same result. He grew more and more worried, and wondered if it wouldn’t be better to go there and see what was happening firsthand, despite the danger that would entail for him as well as for his wife. Then he had the comforting thought that his wife must have decided to play it safe and was spending the night with one of her female friends. This was all the more likely given the fact that under the present circumstances she would be in need of company as well as protection. Of course in that case the servant girl ought to have picked up the phone, but Silbermann simply assumed she must have taken advantage of the opportunity to go to the movies, for which she had a pronounced fondness.

  So he was calmer, if not entirely reassured, when he dialed the number of one of his wife’s good friends, thinking she might have gone there. And even when Fräulein Gersch informed him that she hadn’t seen his wife in weeks, he wasn’t too distraught, because this did not disprove his theory. Fräulein Gersch, he now learned, had had a falling out with his wife. But she did offer to go to the apartment right away to keep Elfriede company, if she was at home. Fräulein Gersch was probably even glad to have an excuse. She also assured Silbermann that as far as she knew, women had in no way been harmed in the events of the day.

  Silbermann asked Fräulein Gersch for the names and telephone numbers of his wife’s other friends, so that he could call them as well. For his part, he had always been much too caught up in his business dealings to know who his wife’s current bridge partners were.

  As it turned out, Fräulein Gersch didn’t know all of his wife’s friends, either, so after he had dialed the given numbers with no result, he still believed it was possible she was staying with a different acquaintance.

  To distract himself from worries about his wife, he asked to be put through to Hamburg. After just a few minutes he was connected to the Vier Jahreszeiten hotel, where Becker, who had put on certain airs of late, was newly accustomed to staying. Silbermann had to wait on the phone for a long time, and he was annoyed that he hadn’t booked a person-to-person call, because even now he was still opposed to unnecessary spending. Finally he was told that Herr Becker was not in.

  He’s out gambling, Silbermann concluded, appalled. At this very moment he’s gambling away my money, my chance to survive. Silbermann left the restaurant and went back to his hotel.

  I should have gotten hold of a suitcase somewhere, he thought as he entered. This is making a horrible impression. Hopefully they’ll think I’m some husband whose wife has kicked him out. That’s an acceptable kind of misfortune—one that isn’t considered a crime.

  Should I even sign the registry with my real name? Silbermann wondered. If there’s an inspection they’ll haul me in right away, but if I give a false name I’d be breaking the law. It’s terrible. The state is practically forcing a person to commit an offense.

  This time they didn’t give him the registration form but simply handed him his room key and let him know that a Herr Stein was waiting for him in the vestibule. Stein really could show me a little more consideration, Silbermann thought, and was immediately ashamed of his reaction.

  “Good news?” asked Stein, who was sitting with another gentleman with similarly Jewish features.

  “None at all.”

  “No news is good news. But why don’t you sit down?”

  “I’m pretty worn out from all the commotion. All I really want to do is go to bed and sleep.”

  He said good-bye, went to the elevator, and rode up to his room. A waiter, who was holding a full tray in his hands, went with him.

  “Did you do away with your concierge?” asked Silbermann on their way up.

  “He was arrested this afternoon. He was a Jew, after all.”

  Silbermann was taken aback and said nothing.

  Once in his room, he quickly locked the door and then threw himself on his bed to think. “He was a Jew, after all,” he heard the waiter’s sober explanation. “He was a Jew, after all…” Obviously the waiter found this explanation sufficient. As though he viewed the arresting of Jews as something utterly normal, as much part of the daily routine as collecting a tip from a guest. A Jew was arrested, but then again: he was a Jew. Was any further explanation necessary? Evidently not, as far as the waiter was concerned.

  I’m not staying here, Silbermann decided. He jumped up and looked around the spacious room. It’s absolutely impossible for me to sleep here. They might drag me out of bed in the middle of the night, and if that makes a racket and bothers the guests enough, they’ll open their doors to ask a maid what’s going on, and she’ll say, “Oh
, nothing. They’ve just arrested a Jew, that’s all.” And perhaps the guests will answer, “Oh, is that it?… But do they have to make so much noise in the process?” The only thing these people want is not to be disturbed, that’s all they’re concerned about.

  Of course once I’m arrested it makes no difference what the other people say or how they say it. Only that’s not true, because if they weren’t so apathetic … In any case I’m not safe here. They’re going to arrest me, possibly even kill me. If only so I won’t protest and become a bother and disturb the good citizens who are entitled to their rest. Because what they care about more than everything else is their sleep.

  Silbermann paced up and down his room.

  It’s a wonder I’m even still alive, he thought. I no longer believe they’ve merely forgotten about me. But perhaps they’ll carefully undress us first and then kill us, so our clothes won’t get bloody and our banknotes won’t get damaged. These days murder is performed economically.

  He straightened his tie in the mirror and ran a comb through his hair. Then he cautiously opened the door to his room and peered out into the broad corridor, without seeing a soul.

  Look how spooked you’re getting, he thought. Just now I imagined I heard steps. And to think I fought in a world war. But that was different. Many against many. Now I’m completely alone and have to wage my war all by myself. Am I a conspirator? That would be good—at least then I would know how to act. But I’m just a businessman, nothing else. I have no energy, no momentum, that’s it. Even a thief on the run with his loot has a smirk on his face—whereas all I have is fear.

  He sighed quietly and stepped into the corridor, then walked quickly to the elevator and rang to call it up. Once back in the lobby, he went over to Stein, who was still sitting with the other gentleman, discussing past or possibly future business dealings.