Part 5 (1/2)

'What kind of argument?' asked the man, and, as Karl didn't answer immediately he added, 'It's all right, you can tell me everything you have against those people. I hate all three of them, and especially your Senora. I would be surprised if they hadn't already tried to poison you against me. My name's Josef Mendel, and I'm a student.'

'Yes,' said Karl, 'they did talk about you, but nothing bad. It was you who treated Miss Brunelda once, isn't that so?'

'That's right,' said the student, with a laugh, 'does the sofa still smell of it?'

'Oh yes,' said Karl.

'I'm glad to hear it,' said the student, and ran his hand through his hair. 'And why are they taking lumps out of you?'

'There was an argument,' said Karl, thinking about how he could explain it to the student. But then he interrupted himself, and said: 'Are you sure I'm not bothering you?'

'In the first place,' said the student, 'you've already bothered me, and unfortunately I'm so nervous that it takes me a long time to get back into it. I haven't done a stroke of work since you've started strolling about on your balcony. Secondly, I always have a break at about three o'clock. So go on, tell me about it. I'm interested.'

'It's very straightforward,' said Karl, 'Delamarche wants me to be his servant. But I don't want to. I wanted to leave right away last night. But he didn't want to let me go, and locked the door, I tried to break it open, and then we had our fight. I'm sorry I'm still here.'

'Have you another job to go to?' asked the student.

'No,' said Karl, 'but I don't care about that, so long as I can get away from here.'

'Well now,' said the student, 'you don't care about that?' And they were both silent for a while.

'Why don't you want to stay with those people?' the student finally asked.

'Delamarche is a bad lot,' said Karl, 'I've had dealings with him before. Once I walked with him for a day, and I was glad when we parted company. And now I'm to be his servant?'

'If all servants were as pernickety as you are when it comes to choosing a master!' said the student, seemingly amused. 'You see, in the daytime, I'm a salesman, the lowest grade of salesman, more of an errand-boy really, in Monthly's department store. That Monthly is most certainly a crook, but I'm not bothered about that, I'm just furious I'm paid so badly. So take an example from me.'

'What?' said Karl, 'you're a salesman in the daytime, and you study at night?'

'Yes,' said the student, 'it's the only way. I've tried everything, but this way is still the best. Years ago I was only a student, day and night you know, and I almost starved doing it, I slept in a pigsty, and I didn't dare enter the lecture halls in the suit I was wearing. But that's over.'

'So when do you sleep?' asked Karl, and looked at the student in astonishment.

'Aye, aye, sleep!' said the student, 'I'll sleep when I've finished my studies. For now I drink black coffee.' And he turned round, pulled out a large flask from under his studying table, poured some black coffee from it into a little cup, and knocked it back, as you swallow medicine as quickly as possible, to get the least taste of it.

'Wonderful stuff, black coffee,' said the student, 'I'm sorry you're so far away that I can't give you some to try.'

'I don't like black coffee,' said Karl.

'Nor do I,' said the student and laughed. 'But where would I be without it. Without black coffee, I wouldn't last five minutes with Monthly. I keep saying Monthly, even though he wouldn't know me from Adam. I can't positively say how I would fare at work if I didn't keep a flask of coffee just as big as this one ready prepared at my desk, because I've never yet dared to stop drinking coffee, but believe me, I'd soon be curled up on my desk, asleep. Unfortunately they half suspect that anyway, they call me ”Black coffee”, which is a stupid joke, and has I'm sure already damaged my career prospects there.'

'And when will you be finished with studying?' asked Karl.

'It's going very slowly,' said the student with lowered head. He left the railing and sat down at the table again; with his elbows resting on his open book, running his hands through his hair he said: 'It could take another year or two.'

'I wanted to study too,' said Karl, as though that fact ent.i.tled him to more confidence than the now more taciturn student had already shown him.

'I see,' said the student, and it wasn't quite clear whether he'd started reading his book again, or was merely staring at it absent-mindedly, 'you should be glad you've given it up. For some years now I've only been studying out of b.l.o.o.d.y-mindedness. It brings me little satisfaction, and even less in the way of future prospects. What prospects am I supposed to have! America is full of quack doctors.'

'I wanted to be an engineer,' said Karl quickly to the student who now seemed wholly indifferent.

'And now you're going to be a servant for those people,' said the student looking up quickly, 'that must hurt.'

This conclusion on the part of the student was a misunderstanding, but Karl thought it might help him with the student. And so he asked: 'Is there any chance I might get a job at the department store?'

The question tore the student away from his book; it didn't even occur to him that he might help Karl to apply for a job. 'Try it,' he said, 'or rather don't. Getting my job at Montly's has been the greatest success of my life to date. If I had to choose between my studies and my job, I would choose my job every time. Although of course I'm doing my best to see that I never have to make the choice.'

'So that's how hard it is to get a job there,' said Karl, musingly.

'You have no idea,' said the student, 'it's easier to become the district judge here than the doorman at Montly's.'

Karl didn't say anything. That student, who was so much more experienced than himself, and who hated Delamarche for reasons Karl had yet to learn, and who certainly wished no ill upon Karl, didn't offer so much as a word of encouragement to Karl to walk out on Delamarche. And he didn't even know about the threat that was posed by the police, and from which Delamarche offered the only possible source of protection.

'You watched the demonstration down there earlier in the evening, didn't you? If you didn't know the circ.u.mstances, you might think that candidate, Lobter's his name, might have some prospects, or at least was a possibility, no?'

'I don't know anything about politics,' said Karl.

'You're making a mistake,' said the student. But be that as it may, you've still got eyes and ears in your head. The man certainly had his friends and his enemies, that can't have escaped your attention. Well, in my opinion the man hasn't the faintest chance of being returned. I happen to know all about him, someone who lives here with us knows him. He's not an untalented man, and his political opinions and his political career to date would seem to qualify him as a suitable judge for this district. But no one gives him the slightest chance, he'll fail just as comprehensively as it's possible to fail, he'll have blown his few dollars on his election campaign, and that's all.'

Karl and the student looked at one another in silence for a while. The student nodded with a smile, and rubbed his tired eyes with one hand.

'Well, aren't you going to bed yet?' he asked, 'I have to get back to my studies. You see how much I still have to do.' And he riffled through half a volume, to give Karl some idea of how much work was still waiting for him.

'Well, good night then,' said Karl, and bowed.

'Come over and see us some time,' said the student, seated at his table again by now, 'of course only if you'd like to. There are always a lot of people here. Between nine and ten in the evening I'd have some time for you myself.'

'So you advise me to stay with Delamarche?' asked Karl.

'Definitely,' said the student, and already his head was bent over his books. It was as though he hadn't said the word at all; it echoed in Karl's ears, as though it had come from a far deeper voice than the student's. Slowly he made his way to the curtain, took a final look at the student, now sitting immobile in his pool of light, surrounded by all the darkness, and slipped into the room. The combined breathing of the three sleepers met him. He felt along the wall for the sofa, and when he had found it, he stretched out on it quietly, as though it was his regular bed. As the student, who knew Delamarche and circ.u.mstances here well, and was moreover a cultivated man, had counselled him to stay, he had no qualms for the moment. He didn't have such lofty aims as the student, who could say if he would have managed to complete his studies if he'd stayed at home, and what barely seemed possible at home no one could demand that he did in a foreign land. But the hope of finding a job where he could do something and find recognition for it was certainly greater if he took the servant's job with Delamarche, and from the security that offered, waited for a favourable opening. This street seemed to contain many small and medium-sized offices that might not be all that choosy when it came to filling a vacancy. He was happy to be a porter, if need be, but really it wasn't out of the question that he might be chosen for actual office work and might one day sit as an office worker at his desk and look out of his open window with no worries for a while, just like that official he had seen in the morning while walking through the courtyards. It comforted him, even as he shut his eyes that he was still young, and that Delamarche would at some stage let him go: this household really didn't give the impression of being made to last. But once Karl had got a job in an office, then he would occupy himself with nothing but his office work, and not fritter away his strength the way the student did. If need be, he would do night work at the office too, which would be asked of him anyway, in view of his limited business experience. He would think exclusively of the interest of the business where he was employed, and accept all manner of work, even what other employees saw as demeaning to them. Good resolutions crowded into his mind, as though his future boss were standing by his sofa, and could read them in his face.

Thinking such thoughts, Karl fell asleep and as he was drifting off, he was disturbed once more by a vast sigh from Brunelda who, evidently plagued by troubling dreams, tossed and turned on her bed.

'Up! Up!' cried Robinson, the moment Karl opened his eyes in the morning. The curtain in the doorway had not yet been drawn, but you could see from the even way the sun poured through the cracks that the morning was already well advanced. Robinson was bustling about here and there, with a worried expression on his face, now he was carrying a towel, now a bucket of water, now sundry items of clothing and underwear, and every time he pa.s.sed Karl, he would nod in his direction to induce him to get up, and show him, by holding up whatever he happened to be carrying, how he was exerting himself on Karl's behalf, today and for the last time, seeing as he couldn't of course grasp the intricacies of serving on his very first morning.

After a time Karl saw whom Robinson was in the process of waiting on. In an alcove which Karl had failed to notice before, separated from the rest of the room by a couple of chests of drawers, great ablutions were in progress. You could see Brunelda's head, her bare throat the hair had just been pushed into her face and the nape of her neck, over the chests of drawers, and Delamarche's raised hand waving in and out of view, holding a liberally dripping bath sponge, with which Brunelda was being scrubbed and washed. You could hear the short commands Delamarche gave Robinson, who didn't pa.s.s things through the now blocked-off entrance to the alcove, but was restricted to a little gap between one of the chests of drawers and a screen, and was made to hold out each new item with extended arms and averted face. 'The towel! The towel,' shouted Delamarche. And just as Robinson, who had been looking for something else under the table, started at this call and withdrew his head from under the table, there was already a different command: 'Water, I want the water G.o.ddammit,' and the enraged face of Delamarche loomed over the chest of drawers. All those things that Karl thought were needed only once in the course of was.h.i.+ng and dressing were here called for and brought repeatedly, and in every possible order. A large pan full of water was always kept to heat up on a little electric stove, and time and again, with legs wide apart, Robinson lugged it into the washroom. In view of the amount of work it was understandable that he didn't always follow his orders to the letter, and once, when another towel was called for, he simply pulled a s.h.i.+rt off the great sleeping platform in the middle of the room, and tossed it in a tangled ma.s.s over the chest of drawers.

But Delamarche had his hands full as well, and perhaps was only so irritated with Robinson and far too irritated even to notice Karl because he was unable to satisfy Brunelda himself. 'Oh!' she cried, and even the otherwise uninvolved Karl shrank at that. 'You're hurting me! Go away! I'd sooner wash myself than go on suffering like this! I won't be able to lift my arm again because of you. You're squeezing me so hard, it's making me ill. I just know my back is covered with bruises. Of course, you'll never tell me if it is. Just you wait, I'll get Robinson to look at me, or the little new chap. All right, I won't but just be a bit more careful. Just show a little sensitivity, Delamarche, but that's what I say every morning, and it makes no difference. Robinson,' she cried suddenly, waving some frilly knickers in the air, 'come to my rescue, see how I'm suffering, he calls this torment was.h.i.+ng, that Delamarche. Robinson, Robinson, what's keeping you, have you no pity either?' Karl silently motioned to Robinson with one finger to go to her, but Robinson lowered his eyes and shook his head in a superior fas.h.i.+on, he knew better than that. 'Are you crazy?' he whispered into Karl's ear. 'She doesn't mean it literally. One time I did go in, and never again. Both of them grabbed hold of me and held me down in the bath, I almost drowned. And for days afterwards Brunelda taunted me for being dirty-minded, she kept saying: ”You haven't been to see me in my bath for a while now,” or ”When will you come and inspect me in my bath?” I had to get down on my knees and beg before she agreed to stop. I'll never forget that.' And all the time Robinson was talking, Brunelda kept calling: 'Robinson! Robinson! What's keeping that Robinson!'

In spite of the fact that no one came to her a.s.sistance, and there wasn't even a reply Robinson had sat down next to Karl, and the two of them looked silently across at the chests of drawers, above which the heads of Brunelda and Delamarche were visible from time to time in spite of that, Brunelda didn't stop her loud complaining about Delamarche. 'Come on, Delamarche,' she cried, 'you're not was.h.i.+ng me at all. What have you done with the sponge? Get a grip! If only I could bend down, if only I could move! I'd soon show you what was.h.i.+ng is. Where are the days of my girlhood when I used to swim in the Colorado every morning on my parents' estate, the supplest of all my girlfriends. And now! When will you learn to wash me, Delamarche, you're just waving the sponge around, you're trying as hard as you can, but still I can't feel anything at all. When I told you not to scrub me raw, I didn't mean to say that I just wanted to stand around and catch cold. I feel like hopping out of the bath and running off, just as I am.'

But then she didn't carry out her threat which she wasn't actually in a position to do anyway because Delamarche, worried that she might catch cold, seemed to have seized her and pushed her down into the tub, because there was an almighty splash.