“Now, little Bert,” said his father at eleven o’clock. “We are almost at Strasbourg. I know you are not used to eating your lunch quite so early, but we are victims of the airport strikes and I am counting on you to understand that.” He drew the child close to him. “If there are shower-baths in the station …”
“We’ll eat our plum tart,” said little Bert.
“We’ll have to be quick and alert from the time we arrive,” said Herbert. He had more than that to say, but little Bert had put Bruno between his face and his father’s and Herbert had no wish to address himself to a bath sponge. He began stuffing toothbrushes and everything they would need for their showers into his briefcase, not at all out of sorts.
Christine jumped down and made a dash in the right direction as soon as the train stopped. But the great haste recommended by Herbert had been for nothing: There were no showers. Nevertheless she paid her fee of one franc fifty centimes, which allowed her a threadbare dark blue square of toweling, a sliver of wrapped soap, four sheets of glassy paper, and a receipt for the money. She showed the receipt to an attendant carrying a mop and a bucket and wearing rubber waders, who looked at it hard and waited for a tip before unlocking a tiled cubicle containing a washbasin. The tiles rose very high and the ceiling was lost in twilight. The place was not really dirty, but coarse and institutional. She took off her dress and sandals and stood on the square of towel. Noise from the platform seemed to seep between the cracked tiling and to swirl and echo along the ceiling. Even the trains sounded sad, as though they were used to ferry poor and weary passengers — refugees perhaps. The cubicle was as cold as a cellar; no sun, no natural light had ever touched the high walls. She stepped from the towel to her sandals — she did not dare set a foot on the cement floor, which looked damp and gritty. In these surroundings her small dressing case with its modest collection of lotions and soap seemed a wasteful luxury. She said to herself, If this is something you pay for, what are their jails like?
Outside she discovered a new little Bert, subdued and teary.
“He wanted his lunch first,” said Herbert. “So we changed our plan. But he ate too fast and threw up on the buffet floor. Nothing has worked as we intended, but perhaps there will be some unexpected facility on the German train.”
Little Bert held on to his sponge and hiccuped softly. His face was streaked and none too clean. He looked like a runaway child who had been found in a coalbin and who was now being taken home against his will.
The German train crossed the Rhine at a snail’s pace and then refused to move another foot. Until it moved, the toilets and washrooms would be locked. They sat for a long time, discontented but not complaining, gazing out at freight sheds, and finally were joined by a man as tall as Herbert, wearing a blond beard. He had a thick nose, eyes as blue as a doll’s, and a bald spot like a tonsure. He dropped his luggage and at once went back to the corridor, where he pulled down the top half of the window, folded his arms on it, and stared hard as if he had something to look at. But there was nothing on his side except more freight sheds and shell-pocked gray hangars. The feeling aboard this train was of glossed-over poverty. Even the plump customs man shuffling through seemed poor, though his regulation short-sleeved shirt was clean, and his cap, the green of frozen peas, rode at a proper angle. Something of a lout, he leaned out the window of their compartment and bawled in dialect to someone dressed as he was. Herbert sat up straight and squashed his cigarette. He was a pacifist and antistate, but he expected a great deal in the way of behavior from civil servants, particularly those wearing a uniform.
Little Bert had been settled in one of the corner seats; the other was reserved for someone who had not yet appeared. Christine and Herbert sat facing each other. They were both so tall that for the rest of the afternoon someone or other would be tripping over their legs and feet. At last the freight sheds began to glide past the windows.
Christine said, “I don’t feel as if I were going home.” He did not consider this anything like the start of a conversation. She said, “The heat is unbelievable. My dress is soaked through. Herbert, I believe this train has a steam engine. How can they, when we have first-class tickets?” That at least made him smile; she had been outraged by the undemocratic Paris Métro with its first- and second-class cars. Foul smoke streamed past the window at which the bearded man still stood. The prickly velvet stuff their seats were covered in scratched her legs and arms. The cloth was hideous in color, and stamped with a pointless design. The most one could say was that it would do for first class.
“All we need here are lace curtains,” Herbert remarked.
“Yes, and a fringed lampshade. My grandmother’s parlor looked like this.”
Little Bert, who seemed about to say what he thought of the furnishings, shut his mouth again; the owner of the window seat had arrived. This was an old woman carrying bags and parcels and a heavy-looking case that she lifted like a feather to the rack before Herbert could help. She examined her ticket to see if it matched the number at the window seat, sat down, pulled out the drop-leaf shelf under the sill, and placed upon it some food, a box of paper handkerchiefs, a bundle of postcards, and a bottle of eau de cologne, all drawn from a large carryall on which was printed WINES OF GERMANY. She sprinkled eau de cologne on a handkerchief and rubbed it into her face. She had sparse orange-blond hair done up in a matted beehive, a long nose, small gray eyes, and wore a printed dress and thick black shoes. As soon as she had rubbed her face thoroughly she opened a plastic bag of caramels. She did not wait to finish eating one caramel before unwrapping the next, and before long she had her mouth full.
Christine said to Herbert in French, “The German train may have unexpected facilities.” The air coming in at the window was hot and dry. The houses they passed looked deserted. “What would you call the color of these seats?” she asked him.
“We’ve said it: middle-class.”
“That’s an impression, not a color. Would you say mustard?”
“Dried orange peel.”
“Faded bloodstains.”
“Melted raspberry sherbet.”
“Persimmons? No, they’re pretty.”
“I have never eaten one,” said Herbert. He was not at all interested.
Little Bert spoke up and said, “Vomited plum tart,” quite seriously, which made the woman in the corner say “Hee hee” in a squeaky tone of voice. “Read to me,” said little Bert quickly, taking this to be universal attention.
“It isn’t a book for children,” Christine said. But then she saw that the woman in the corner was beginning to stare at them curiously, and so she pretended to read: “ ‘It was the fourteenth of July in Paris. Bruno put on his blue-and-gold uniform with the tassels and buttons shining …’ ”
“No, no,” said Herbert. “Nothing military.”
“Well, you read then.” She handed the book across. Herbert glanced at the title, then at the flyleaf to see if it was Christine’s. He pretended to read: “ ‘Bruno had a camera. He wore it on a strap around his neck. He had already dropped one in the lake so this one was not quite so expensive. He took pictures of Marianne, the housekeeper …’ ”