Confession of a Murderer

Joseph Roth Confession of a Murderer

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SOME YEARS AGO I was living in the Rue des Quatres Vents. My window looked across the street at a Russian restaurant called the “Tari-Bari.” I often used to eat there. At any hour of the day one could get borscht, grilled fish, and boiled beef. I sometimes got up late in the day. The French restaurants, in which the customary hours for lunching were strictly adhered to, were already preparing for their evening meals. But in the Russian restaurant time played no part. A tin clock hung on the wall. Sometimes it had stopped, sometimes it was wrong; its purpose seemed to be not to tell the time, but to ridicule it. No one looked at the clock. Most of the guests in this restaurant were Russian emigrants. And even those amongst them who, in their own country, might have had a sense of punctuality and exactitude, seemed now, in a foreign land, either to have lost it or to be ashamed of displaying it. Yes, it was as though those emigrants were consciously demonstrating against the calculating, the all calculating and so very calculated, deliberations of the European West; as though they were at pains not only to remain real Russians, but also to play at being “real Russians,” to live up to the European conception of what Russians should be. So the inaccurate or inactive clock in the restaurant “Tari-Bari” was more than a necessary requisite; it was a symbol. The laws of time seemed to have been rescinded. And sometimes I noticed that even the Russian taxi drivers, who most certainly had to keep definite working hours, were as little concerned with the passage of time as the other emigrants who had no profession and who lived on the charity of their wealthier compatriots. Of such unemployed Russians there were many in the Restaurant “Tari-Bari.” They sat there at all times of the day and evening, and even late into the night when the host began to reckon up with the waiters and the outer door was already bolted and only a single lamp remained burning over the self-locking safe. Not till the waiters and the proprietor went did the guests leave the dining room. Some among them, who lacked a shelter or were drunk, were allowed by the host to pass the night in the restaurant. It was too much trouble to wake them — and even if they had been awoken, they would have had to have sought sanctuary with some other of their countrymen.

Although, as I have said, I mostly got up very late in the day, sometimes when I happened to wander across to my window in the morning, I could see that the “Tari-Bari” was doing brisk business. People were going in and out. They apparently took an early breakfast there, and sometimes even an alcoholic breakfast. For I saw several come stumbling out who had entered with perfectly steady feet. Individual faces and figures became familiar to me. And amongst those who were unusual enough to take my attention was a man who, I was led to assume, was to be found in the restaurant “Tari-Bari” at any time of the day. For whenever I walked to my window in the morning, I could see him across the way, standing in front of the door of the restaurant, in the company of customers or greeting customers. And whenever I came in to lunch late in the afternoon, I saw him sitting at some table or other, talking with the guests. And when I came into the “Tari-Bari” late in the evening — before “closing time” as business people say — to drink a last schnapps, the stranger would be sitting by the bar, helping the host and the waiters with their reckoning-up. In the course of time he seemed to become accustomed to the sight of me and to regard me as a sort of colleague. He conceded to me the distinction of being an habitué like himself — and after a few weeks he greeted me with the understanding and expressive smile which old acquaintances reserve for one another. I must admit that at first this smile disturbed me — for whenever he smiled, his otherwise honest and kindly face took on a not exactly repulsive, but somehow suspicious expression. His smile was not a bright one, it did not light up his face, for in spite of all his friendliness it was dark, it swept like a shadow over his countenance, a friendly shadow. And so it would have been preferable to me if the man had not smiled.

Of course I smiled back out of politeness. And I hoped that those reciprocal smiles would remain for the time being, or even for a longer period, the sole expression of our acquaintanceship. Yes, within myself I even decided to avoid the place, should the stranger one day address himself to me. But in time this thought, too, passed from my mind. I accustomed myself to the shadowy smile, I began to take an interest in this man. And soon I felt a desire to become more closely acquainted with him.

It is now time for me to describe him in somewhat more detail. He was a large man, broad shouldered, with fair hair turning gray. His eyes were clear, sometimes flashing, never clouded with alcohol; and he always looked the person he was addressing straight in the face. An enormous, carefully kept, horizontal mustache divided the upper part of his broad face from the lower; and both parts of his face were equally large. Because of this, his appearance struck one as somehow weary and meaningless, as though it hid no secret. I myself have seen hundreds of such men in Russia, dozens of such men in Germany and other countries. Particularly striking in this huge man were his long sensitive hands, and his soft, quiet, almost inaudible step; in fact, all his movements were slow, shy, and cautious. For that reason it seemed to me sometimes that his face nevertheless hid a secret, as though his open, lucid straightforwardness were only a pretense; it seemed that the man only gazed so steadily with his blue eyes at the people with whom he spoke, because he was thinking that people might have a reason for mistrusting him if he did not do so. And yet in the face of that glance, I had to keep saying to myself that if he could give such a complete although naive representation of straightforwardness personified, he must in actual fact possess a large degree of straightforwardness. The smile with which he greeted me was perhaps only dank from embarrassment; although, during the smile, his great teeth gleamed and his mustache took on a golden shimmer as though momentarily it lost its grayness and became even fairer than before. You can see that I became more and more attracted towards this man. And soon I even began, when I reached the door of the restaurant, to look forward to seeing him, as much as I looked forward to the familiar schnapps and the familiar greeting of our fat host.

I had never let it be known in the “Tari-Bari” that I understood Russian. But once, when I was sitting at a table with two chauffeurs, they asked me, straight out, what nationality I was. I answered that I was a German, but if they intended discussing any secrets in front of me, no matter what the language, they had better do so after I had left, if they didn’t mind. For I understood most European languages. But just at that moment another table became free, so I got up and left the chauffeurs alone with their secrets. Also they could not ask me, as was obviously their intention, whether I understood Russian. And so still no one knew that.

But they discovered it one day, or rather one evening; or, to be quite precise, late one night. And that was thanks to the man with the graying hair, who at that time was sitting exactly opposite the bar, exceptionally silent and gloomy, if that description could ever be really applied to him.

I came in shortly before midnight, with the intention of drinking a last schnapps and then leaving immediately. So at first I did not look for a table, but remained standing at the bar between two other late customers, who also seemed to have come in for only one schnapps, but who, contrary to their original plan, must have been there for some considerable time; for several empty and half-empty glasses were standing before them, while they possibly thought that they had still drunk only one. Time often passes quickly like that, when one stands at the bar instead of sitting at a table. When one sits at a table, one sees every second how much one has drunk, and the number of empty glasses marks the movement of the clock. But should one just “step in,” as they say, to a restaurant, and remain standing at the bar, one drinks and drinks and firmly believes that it all belongs to the single “step” originally intended. I myself noticed this on that particular evening. For, like the other two, I also drank one and then another and then a third, and I still stood there like one of those every hurrying, ever dilatory people who come into a house, refuse to take off their coats, keep hold of the door handle, intending every moment to say good-bye, and who yet stay longer than if they had at the beginning come right in and sat down. The other two customers were talking quietly with the host in Russian. The gray-haired man could certainly only half hear what was being said at the bar. He was sitting some distance away from us. I could see him in the mirror behind the bar, and he seemed in no way inclined to listen to the conversation or even to take part in it. I, too, as usual pretended to understand nothing. But suddenly a sentence caught my ear. I could not help hearing it. The sentence ran: “Why is our murderer so gloomy today?” One of the two customers had said this and at the same moment he pointed with his finger at the reflection in the mirror behind the bar. Involuntarily I turned towards the gray-haired man and thereby revealed that I had understood the question. The others immediately stared at me somewhat mistrustfully, but their expressions were mainly of astonishment. The Russians have, not without justification, a terror of police spies, and at all costs I wanted to avoid them suspecting me of being one. But at the same time the unusual description, “our murderer,” intrigued me so much that I immediately determined to ask why the gray-haired man was so called. When I turned round I noticed that the man had also heard this question. He nodded, smiling. And he would probably have answered for himself, had I remained indifferent and had I not in that short minute become an object of doubt and mistrust. “So you are a Russian?” the host asked me. “No,” I was about to reply, but to my amazement the gray-haired man answered behind my back: “Our friend here understands Russian, but he is a German. It was only his discretion that kept him quiet.” “That’s so,” I agreed, and I turned round and said: “Thank you, sir!” “Not at all,” he said, and stood up and came towards me. “My name is Golubchik,” he said, “Semjon Semjonovitch Golubchik.” We shook hands. The host and the other two customers laughed. “How is it that you know so much about me?” I asked. “One has not been a member of the Russian secret police for nothing,” answered Golubchik. I immediately envisaged a fantastic story. This man here, I thought, was an old official in the Ochrana and had killed a Communist spy in Paris; and that was why these White Russian emigrants so harmlessly and almost affectionately named him “our murderer,” and had no aversion to him. Yes, perhaps they were all four involved.