Authors: B. TRAVEN
“No,” they said.
Then he said: “Shershey!” which is French, and which means: “Search him again.”
One really gets sick of so much searching.
“So during the war you were a German officer, weren’t you?” he asked when the searching was done and nothing was found save a comb and a piece of soap, which they cut open to see whether I had hidden a machine-gun or something inside of it.
“No, sir. I wasn’t even a common soldier.”
“Why not?”
“I am a C.O. I mean I was one of those birds who had to remain in prison while the war was on.”
“For spying?”
“No, sir. Only, the Germans thought that I would not allow them to make war if they let me go free, so they put me in jail, and then they felt safe to do as they pleased.”
“You mean to tell me that you and a dozen more who were also in jail would have been able to prevent the war?”
“That’s what the Germans believed. Before they put me away I never knew how important a person I was.”
“Which prison were you in?”
“In — yes — in — in Southphalen.”
“What town?”
“In Deutschenburg.”
“Never heard of such a place.”
“Nor have I. I mean not before I was in prison there. It is a very secret place, about which even the Germans themselves don’t know anything.”
The officer took a book, opened it, looked for certain chapters, read them, and said, when he was through: “You will be shot at sunrise. Sorry. On account of being in a fortification near the Spanish border. Since the Spaniards and we ourselves are still at war with the African colonies, the war regulations have not been canceled. Nothing else for me to do but shoot you.”
“Thank you, officer.”
He stared. Then he asked: “What are you thanking me for?”
“For the good meal you have to give me before you shoot me. Y’see, officer, I am hungry, very hungry; in fact, I am nearly dying. What do I care about being shot so long as I am sure of getting a good farewell dinner?”
At this the officer roared with laughter. He gave an order to one of the soldiers, and I was taken out and given coffee and cigarettes.
About six in the evening I was taken to still another room and ordered to sit at a table. I was hardly seated when two soldiers started bringing in plates, glasses, knives, spoons, forks. As soon as the table was laid, the two soldiers began to bring in the eats.
The officer who had sentenced me to be shot came in. He said: “Don’t ever think that we French are stingy, not even to a Boche. For your farewell dinner you will get the officers’ Sunday dinner, in double portions. We don’t want you to go — All right, I don’t know where you will go, and I don’t care either. What I mean to say is, we do not send anybody away, no matter where to, without giving him a good meal.”
I think the French are far more polite to the fellows they want to execute than the Belgians, who gave me only a bite of potato-salad and three slices of liver-wurst.
The French are really poets when it comes to cooking dinners. “
Mon dieu
, officer, sir, for a dinner like that I wouldn’t mind being shot twice every day in the year. I am sorry that I have only one life to be shot; I wish I had a thousand.”
“I like to hear that, my boy,” he said; “I take it as praise of my nation. Have two cigars and make yourself comfortable until sunrise. Good night.”
Funny, I couldn’t feel like a condemned man who has only seven or eight hours to live. The dinner had been too good to let me have any foolish sentiments. I think the horror one has of being shot, hanged, electrocuted, strangled, beheaded, drowned, or killed by whatever other means people use to kill the condemned — I think that horror is not of the execution in itself, but of the stingy last dinner that one gets the night before. In China they get nothing; just kneel down, and off goes the head. Everything looks different when your belly is full of an elegant dinner. Of course, a hamburger and a cup of coffee won’t do the trick. Nor hash.
15
Reveille awakened me. The sun was already out. I thought they had forgotten me and had shot somebody else instead. Or maybe the French have another notion as to what sunrise is than we have. But they’ll let me know on time. Why worry?
A soldier opened the door.
“Breakfast,” he said. “Washed up already? Fine. The officer wants to see you right after you have your coffee. Come along.”
After breakfast, which was a short affair, I was taken to the officer.
Said he: “Still alive? How do you like it? We have delayed execution because I got a telephone call from headquarters concerning you. I shall have to ask you some more questions. All you have to do is just tell the truth regardless of the consequences.”
“All right, shoot, sir.”
“Suppose we let you go. Where would you go?”
“To Spain, and if I cannot go to Spain, I want to be shot of course, with the understanding that I get another last dinner.”
He broke out into a terrific gale of laughter. Still giggling, he said: “If I were not convinced that you are a Boche, I would think you an American. Only Boches and Yankees think of nothing but: When do we eat? So you are going to Spain?”
“Yes, colonel.”
“Captain to you.”
“Yes, captain colonel.”
“We would rather that you go back to Germany. Free railroad fare.”
“Not even in an aeroplane, colonel,” I said. “Germany is entirely out. Not for the kisses of two French girls. Note me.”
“But then you would be at home.”
“Who wants to be home, colonel? I am happy that I am so far away from home.”
“What do you want to go to Spain for? There is no job waiting for you.”
“I don’t mind the job, captain. You see, colonel, it’s like this. Winter is coming on. I have not stored away any fuel. I thought it might be a swell idea to go to Spain, where there is always sunshine. And no worry about where the food will come from either. It’s warm there all the time. One just sits in the sun and eats grapes and oranges and chestnuts and such things. Fruits grow wild there. You just pick them up wherever you see them.”
“I think,” the officer said after some meditation, “we cannot let you go to Spain. Will you promise to go back to Germany if we let you go free?”
“I won’t promise, and I won’t do it either. Spain or death. I hate to help the Germans pay the reparations. And I don’t want to go there. You are really nice people, you French people. But I shouldn’t like to stay here in France either. You also have to pay too many debts. I don’t feel like paying those debts, because I did not make them. I never like to pay the debts of other people. I am going to Spain. And if I cannot go to Spain, you may shoot me; it’s okay with me.”
Another young officer, who was sitting in a corner of the room and had listened to our conversation, stood up and came over to the desk.
The two officers talked in the French soldier’s lingo, which I could not understand.
When they had talked for a while, laughing most of the time, the officer in charge said: “Now listen here, fellow, we shall do as you wish. We are not barbarians, and I think I can take the responsibility for what I am about to do. You are going to Spain. We shall bring you under guard to the border, and if the Spaniards have no objection to letting you into their country, you will be handed over to them. The Spaniards are fine people. They won’t hurt you a bit. They are better off than we are. They like the Boches. Of course, if you were an American, you couldn’t live in Spain for twenty-four hours. But a Boche — that’s different. Dismissed, until we call you.”
I did not heed his order. I shifted from one foot to the other. “Anything else?” he asked.
“Yes, colonel, captain.”
“Well, what is it?”
“May I — I mean, can I — or rather, would I get another Sunday officers’ dinner, double portions, before I leave? What I mean is, since this is the last dinner I’ll get on French soil, may I have the Sunday officers’ dinner, double portions, colonel, captain?”
Did the officers and the soldiers in the room laugh? I should say they did.
I could not see why they were laughing. What is there to laugh about if a guy is hungry and tries to get as much out of the army kitchen as he can? I stood amazed, and so they laughed all the harder.
Finally the captain said: “That’s out, my good fellow, no Sunday dinner today, because it is Monday. But you’ll get the officers’ dinner, and double portions. I sincerely hope that it will be the last meal you ever eat in France. If I ever catch you eating another, I will see to it that you are shot, spy or no spy.”
They started laughing again.
16
Two soldiers, with bayonets fixed to their rifles, accompanied me to the border. With all military honors I marched into sunny Spain.
It was the turning-point of my life. I did not know it then, but I know it now; yes, sir.
“He has no papers,” the corporal said to the Spanish customs officers, who appeared to be glad to get something to worry about, because the post was a quiet one.
“Es alemán?” the Spaniard asked.
“Si, señor,” I answered, “soy alemán con mucho hambre.” Which is Spanish and which means: “I am a Boche and I am plenty hungry.”
“Bienvenido,” he said, which is the same as our “Be welcome.” We, of course, seldom mean it, but the Spaniards really mean it and they act accordingly.
The soldiers presented a paper which the Spanish officer in charge signed. Then the soldiers, their duty done, sat down and talked with the Spaniards. They got wine and cheese, and they made merry, because after a while Spanish girls came along to pep up the lonely post. They played guitarras and accordions and danced. The wives of the customs officers were in the village and could not see what was going on here, where, they thought, their husbands sweated about the collection of customs and the writing of reports.
As soon as I was handed over to the Spaniards they pulled me, almost triumphantly, into the customs house. They shook hands and embraced me. Some kissed me on my cheeks.
War against the Americans, and you will find no better friends on earth than the Spaniards. If they had only known who I really was, that I had robbed them of Cuba and the Philippines, and that I had cracked up some of their battleships! I still wonder what they would have done to me if they had known my nationality. I was a victim of circumstances, and I hope the Spaniards will forgive me, and besides I personally had nothing to do with Cuba and the battle-ships, because all this happened before my time.
My outward appearance was exactly what a Spaniard had imagined a German would look like. Since the
Tuscaloosa
had sailed, I had changed neither suit, cap, nor shoes, for there was nothing to change them for. My linen looked like linen when it has been washed in brooks, creeks, and rivers, sometimes with soap, mostly without. Yet my appearance was, to them, the best proof that I had come directly from Germany.
They were sure that I must be as hungry as only a man who has been blockaded by the English can be. Consequently they gave me enough food to last a week. Whenever I tried to stop eating, they used all kinds of tricks to make me go through the whole course again.
While I was eating, two of the officers went to the little town near by. When I was stuffed to the limit, the two officers came back with bundles. I got a shirt, a hat, shoes, half a dozen socks, handkers, collars, ties, a pair of pants, a jacket. I had to throw away everything I had about me, and I had to dress. When this was finished, I looked so much like a Spaniard that anyone who had known me back home would have thought I had turned bullfighter.
It was late. The French soldiers said they had to go home. So they left, saying good-by to me. I told them to give my regards to their colonel, and thank the whole of France for what they had done to me. They won’t pay their debts anyhow, so why shouldn’t I send them my regards?
Now the customs officers started playing cards. They invited me to play with them. I did not know how to play with those funny-looking Spanish cards, but I was taught. Soon I played so well that I won quite a stack of Spanish pesetas, which pleased them immensely, and they urged me to go on playing. I felt like a robber. Whatever I did, when a play was over, they said I had won.
Oh, you sunny, wonderful Spain! May you prosper and live long! No one calls you God’s country. It was the first country I met in which I was not asked for a sailor’s card or for a passport. The first country in which people did not care to know my name, my age, my beliefs, my height. For the first time my pockets were not searched. I was not pushed at midnight across the border and kicked out of the country like a leper. Nobody wanted to know how much money I had, or what I had lived on for the last three months.
The Spaniards did not fight for liberty, and that’s why they still have it.
I spent my first night in Spain in the customs house, because it was late when we had finished playing cards, and I was not yet used to the gallons of wine I had drunk.
From then on I had to pass every night in another house in the little town. Every family considered it partly the greatest honor, partly the highest duty, to have me. Each family wanted to keep me for a whole week. Most evenings there were fights going on over me. The family I was staying with did not want to give me up to the family whose turn it was next to have me. When all turns were up, the whole round started over again. Each family tried to do better than the former. I felt myself getting fat. Worse than that, I got sick. These people were all well-to-do. Smuggling is still a great business, and it is a very honorable business. The king of the smugglers was honored by being made mayor of the town, and the vice-king was made chief of police. No wonder these jolly folks treated me like a bishop on a vacation.
I escaped one night. Like a thief. I am sure these good people think ill of me. They think me ungrateful for having left them without saying good-by and many thanks. Anyway, only an imbecile or a feeble-minded individual could have stood it for long. Those folks would never understand it, good-natured as they are. They think a man treated as I was treated should feel as though he’s in heaven. But even in heaven I should feel sick if I just had to sit around and eat and eat. Slavery results from such treatment. You forget how to work and how to look after yourself. I should feel unhappy in a communistic state where the community takes all the risks I want to take myself. In that Spanish town I could not even go into the back-yard without having some one yell after me if I were sure I had soft paper. Yes, sir. I mean, no, sir.