The Metamorphosis and Other Stories (13 page)

"Now I must really pay attention to every word," Karl told himself, and was delighted to note, from a sideways glance, that life was beginning to return to the stoker.

"During all the long years of my sojourn in America—although the word 'sojourn' is hardly fitting for an American citizen, which I am heart and soul—well, during all these long years, I have been living entirely without contact with my European relatives for reasons that, in the first place, have no business here, and secondly, would truly be too painful to discuss. I actually dread the moment when I may be forced to explain them to my dear nephew, and unfortunately it will be impossible to avoid frank references to his parents and their nearest and dearest."

"He is my uncle, no question," Karl told himself as he listened; "he's probably changed his name."

"My dear nephew is now—let us use the proper word—quite simply cut off by his parents, the same as a cat tossed out the door when it has become annoying. I wish by no means to gloss over what my nephew did to be so punished, but his fault was such that its mere mention is absolution enough."

"That sounds fair enough," thought Karl, "but I don't want him to tell everyone the story. Besides, he can't possibly know about it. Who could have told him?"

"He was, in fact," his uncle continued, occasionally rocking forward on his bamboo cane, whereby he did indeed successfully avoid the unnecessary solemnity the situation was otherwise bound to assume, "in fact, he was seduced by a maidservant, Johanna Brummer, a woman of thirty-five. I do not mean to offend my nephew by using the word 'seduced,' but it is difficult to find another word equally suitable."

Karl, who had moved much closer to his uncle, turned around at this point to gauge the reactions on the faces of those present. No one was laughing, they were all listening patiently and earnestly. After all, one does not laugh at a senator's nephew at the first opportunity that presents itself. The most that could be said was that the stoker was smiling at Karl, albeit faintly, which was encouraging in the first place as a sign of renewed life and pardonable in the second as Karl, in the stoker's cabin, had tried to keep secret this very same affair that was now being made public.

"Now, this Brummer woman," his uncle went on, "had a child by my nephew, a healthy boy who was christened Jakob, no doubt after my humble self, who I'm sure was casually mentioned by my nephew but made a great impression on the girl. Fortunately, I may add. For the parents, in order to avoid paying for child support or being further involved in personal scandal—I must emphasize that I am not familiar with either the laws over there or the parents' situation—therefore, so as to avoid paying for child support and their son's scandal, they shipped my dear nephew off to America miserably unprovided for, as one can see, so that he would soon, without the miracles that still happen, at least in America, in all likelihood have met his lonely end in some alley near New York harbor if that maid hadn't sent me a letter, which reached me the day before yesterday after a long odyssey and which provided me with the whole story, a personal description of my nephew, and also, very sensibly, the name of the ship. If my purpose here were to entertain you gentlemen, I could read a few passages of this letter"—he pulled out and flourished two huge, densely written pages from his pocket. "It would surely affect you, as it was written with a somewhat simple yet well-intentioned cleverness and with much love for the father of the child. But I wish neither to entertain you anymore than is necessary to enlighten you nor to potentially wound any feelings my nephew may still harbor; he can, if he so desires for his own information, read the letter in the privacy of the room that already awaits him."

Karl however had no feelings for that girl. In the rush of memories from an ever-dimming past, she sat in her kitchen, with her elbows propped up on the kitchen cupboard. She would stare at him whenever he would come into the kitchen for a glass of water for his father or to pass on some instructions from his mother. Sometimes she would be writing a letter, awkwardly sitting beside the kitchen cupboard and drawing her inspiration from Karl's face. Sometimes she would hide her eyes behind her hands, and then no words could get through to her. Sometimes she would kneel in her narrow little room next to the kitchen, praying before a wooden cross; Karl would then shyly watch her from the passage through the narrow crack of the door. Sometimes she raced around the kitchen and jumped back, laughing like a witch, if Karl got in her way. Sometimes she would shut the kitchen door after Karl came in and hold on to the latch until he demanded to leave. Sometimes she brought him things he did not at all desire and pressed them silently into his hands. But one time she said, "Karl," and led him, still shocked at the unexpected familiarity, into her little room, which she then locked with much grimacing and sighing. She almost choked him as she clung to his neck, and while asking him to undress her, she actually undressed him and put him into her bed as if she wanted no one else to have him from now on and wished to caress him and coddle him until the end of the world. "Karl, oh, my Karl!" she cried, as if by gazing at him she were confirming her possession, while Karl saw absolutely nothing and felt uncomfortable in the warm bedding that she seemed to have piled up specially for his benefit. Then she lay down next to him and wanted to extract some secrets from him, but he could tell her none and she was annoyed, either in jest or in earnest; she shook him, she listened to his heart beating, she offered her own breast for him to do the same, but she could not induce Karl to do so; she pressed her naked belly against his body, fondled him between the legs so repulsively that Karl thrust his head and neck from the pillows, then ground her belly against him a few times—it felt as if she were part of him, and perhaps this was the reason he was seized by a dreadful helplessness. He was weeping when he finally reached his own bed, after she entreated him repeatedly to visit her again. That was all it was and yet his uncle had succeeded in making a grand story out of it. And that cook
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had evidently been thinking of him and notified his uncle of his arrival. That was very kind of her and he hoped to one day repay her.

"And now," cried the Senator, "I would like to hear loud and clear whether I am your uncle or not."

"You are my uncle," said Karl, kissing his hand and receiving a kiss on the forehead in return. "I'm very glad to have met you, but you are mistaken if you believe that my parents speak only ill of you. But aside from that, your speech contained several errors, that is to say, I mean, everything didn't really happen like that. But you can't judge things so well from here, and besides, I don't think it will cause any great harm if these gentlemen are slightly misinformed about the details of a matter that could hardly interest them very much."

"Well said," remarked the Senator, guiding Karl over to the visibly sympathetic captain and asking: "Don't I have a splendid nephew?"

"I am happy," said the captain, with a bow that only a militarily trained person can execute, "to have made your nephew's acquaintance, Mr. Senator. It is a particular honor for my ship to have provided the setting for such a meeting. But the voyage in steerage must have been less than pleasant, it's difficult to know who's traveling down there. Of course we do everything possible to make the passengers in steerage as comfortable as possible, much more, for example, than the American lines, but we have not succeeded yet in making this excursion a pleasure."

"It did me no harm," said Karl.

"It did him no harm!" the Senator repeated, laughing loudly.

"Only I'm afraid I've lost my trunk—" and with this he was reminded of everything that had happened and all that still remained to be done; he looked around him and saw all those present, still in their former positions, ogling him and struck dumb with awe and amazement. Only the harbor officials, as much as their harsh complacent faces could be read, betrayed regret at having come at such an inopportune time, and the pocket watch they had now laid before them was probably more important to them than anything that was happening or might still happen in the room.

The first person to express his sympathy, after the captain, was oddly enough the stoker. "I heartily congratulate you," he said, and shook Karl's hand, trying to impart something like appreciation with this gesture. When he attempted to turn and address the same words to the Senator, the Senator pulled back as if the stoker were overstepping his bounds, and the stoker left off immediately.

But the others now understood what was expected of them and formed a huddle around Karl and the Senator at once. And so it happened that Karl received congratulations from Schubal, which he accepted and thanked him for. The last to step in, once order was somewhat restored, were the harbor officials, who said a couple of words in English that made an absurd impression.

The Senator was now well disposed to make the most of this pleasurable occasion by recalling, for his own benefit and that of the others, some of the more incidental details, which were naturally not only tolerated but greeted with interest. Thus he pointed out that he had recorded in his notebook, should he need them on short notice, Karl's most distinguishing features as listed in the cook's letter. And then, during the stoker's unbearable rambling, he had taken out the notebook for no other purpose than to distract himself and tried, for the sake of amusement, to compare Karl's appearance with the cook's observations, which were naturally not up to the standards of a detective. "And that is how one finds one's nephew!" he concluded, in a tone that seemed to invite further congratulations.

"What will happen to the stoker now?" asked Karl, ignoring his uncle's latest anecdote. He believed his new position gave him the freedom to express whatever crossed his mind.

"The stoker will get what he deserves," said the Senator, "and what the captain deems appropriate. I believe we have had enough and more than enough of the stoker, and I'm sure that every gentleman present here will agree."

"But that's not the point in a matter of justice," said Karl. He stood between his uncle and the captain and believed, perhaps because of this position, that he could influence a decision.

And yet the stoker seemed to have abandoned all hope. His hands were shoved halfway into his trouser belt, which had been exposed along with a strip of checked shirt due to his agitated movements. This did not trouble him in the least: He had vented all his woes and now they might as well see the few rags that covered his body, after which they could carry him away. He imagined that Schubal and the attendant, being the two lowest in rank of those present, should perform this final kindness. Schubal would have his peace then and no longer be driven to distraction, as the chief purser had put it. The captain would be free to hire no one but Romanians, Romanian would be spoken everywhere, and maybe everything really would run smoother that way. No stoker would be yammering away in the purser's office; only his last yammering would be fondly remembered since, as the Senator had explicitly stated, it led indirectly to the recognition of his nephew. This nephew, by the way, had previously attempted to help him a number of times and had been more than fully repaid by the stoker's aid in the recognition; it did not even occur to the stoker to ask anything further of him now. Besides, even if he were the Senator's nephew, he was still a long way from being a captain and it was from the captain's lips that the foul verdict must fall.—And in accordance with this view, the stoker did his best to avoid looking at Karl but, unfortunately, in this room full of enemies there was no other place to rest his eyes.

"Do not misunderstand the situation," the Senator said to Karl; "it may be a matter of justice, but at the same time it is a matter of discipline as well. Both matters, especially the latter, are for the captain to decide in this case."

"So it is," murmured the stoker. Those who heard and understood this smiled uneasily.

"In any event, we have kept the captain from his official duties far too long, and these undoubtedly accumulate immeasurably upon arriving in New York, so now it is high time we left the ship rather than make matters worse by turning this petty squabble between two engineers into a bigger incident through our completely unnecessary intervention. And I do understand your conduct perfectly, my dear nephew, but that is precisely what gives me the right to take you away from here posthaste."

"I will have a boat lowered for you immediately," said the captain, without, to Karl's utter amazement, raising the least objection to the uncle's words, although these could unquestionably be considered self-abasement on his uncle's part. The chief purser raced to his desk and telephoned the captain's order to the boatswain.

"Time's running out," Karl said to himself, "but I can do nothing without offending everyone. I can't desert my uncle after he's just found me again. The captain is certainly polite, but that's where it ends. When it comes to discipline, his courtesy stops, and I'm sure my uncle spoke from the captain's soul. I don't want to speak to Schubal and I regret I ever shook his hand. And all the other people here aren't worth a hill of beans."

And with these thoughts in his mind, Karl walked slowly over and drew the stoker's right hand out of his belt, gently cupping it in his own. "Why don't you say anything?" he asked. "Why do you take everything lying down?"

The stoker merely furrowed his brow, as if searching for the right words to express what he had to say. Meanwhile he gazed down at Karl's hand and his own.

"You've been wronged like no one else on this ship, that I know." And Karl ran his fingers to and fro between the fingers of the stoker, who peered around with gleaming eyes as if he were experiencing a joy that no one ought to begrudge him.

"But you must defend yourself, say yes and no; otherwise people will have no idea of the truth. You must promise me that you will do as I say, for I have every reason to fear that I will no longer be able to help you." And now Karl wept as he kissed the stoker's hand, and then took that cracked and almost lifeless hand and pressed it to his cheeks like a treasure that must be forsaken.—But his uncle the Senator was already at his side, leading him away, if only with the gentlest of pressures.