A woman we knew had this happen — her husband said he wanted his ashes flung to the winds from a dune by the North Sea. No planes in those days, had to take the ashes over by boat. Went up to Holstein, would climb on a dune, change her mind. Hated to part with poor Jobst. Noticed more and more barbed wire along the dunes, didn’t know why. Never read the papers, had got out of the habit in the USA. Dreamed that Jobst appeared and said the world would experience a terrible catastrophe if she didn’t scatter his ashes. Went back to the beach as near as she could to the sea, flung one handful east, one south, one west, was about to turn north when somebody grabbed her arm, two men with revolvers, the conflict had begun, they thought she was making signs to submarines.
They arrived at Pegnitz at dusk. Everyone began to shuffle along the corridor, peering out at the station they had been told was a junction. The train seemed becalmed in an infinity of tracks meeting, merging, and sliding away. Little Bert said to his sponge, “There are cows, one black, one brown, one dappled.” But of course no cows were to be seen in the yard, only lights flashing and signal stations like sentry boxes. The woman sorted out the food she had left — biscuits, chocolates, grapes, oranges, macaroons, portions of cheese in thin silver paper — and placed everything in one clean plastic bag which she unfolded out of her purse, and on which was printed
CANARY BED
WARM, HYGIENIC, AGREEABLE
Above these words was the drawing of a canary tucked up in sheets and blankets for the night. Shirley Bimbo, Shirley Bimbo, she was telling herself.
All of them got to their feet too soon, as people do when they are tired of traveling. The train seemed to coast slowly and endlessly along a long platform. Christine stood between the Norwegian and little Bert, who put his nose on the window, making it white and button-shaped. When he glanced up at her he had two round patches of dirt, one on his forehead.
“Again,” exclaimed the Norwegian.
“What?”
He did not mean little Bert. He was glaring at a detachment of conscripts lounging and sitting slumped on their luggage, yelling at one another and laughing foolishly. Christine said, “They are only farmers’ sons who have been drafted, you know. Poor lads who have never studied anything. Boys like that must exist everywhere, even where you come from.” But then she remembered how kind he had been to little Bert, and how generous about singing. She tried to agree with him: “I must say, they aren’t attractive. They do seem to be little and ugly.” She paused. “It’s not their fault.”
“They always looked that way,” said the Norwegian. “They were always very little and very ugly, but they frightened us.”
Christine had none of Herbert’s amiable ambiguities. She said sadly, “We don’t even know each other’s names.”
He pinched his nostrils and did a few seconds’ puffing without making a reply. The important part of the journey had ended, as far as he was concerned, because he had finally said what he thought.
Yet it isn’t over, she said to herself. She saw threads, crystals, flying horizontally like driven snow, and she caught as clear as the summer night a new tone on a different channeclass="underline" Dear Ken sorry I haven’t written sooner but you know how it is Dear Ken sorry I haven’t written sooner but you know how it is
“Now, be ready,” called Herbert over his shoulder. He had seen their new train standing empty on the far side of the tracks. “Christine? Little Bert?” Little Bert clasped his sponge and was ready. Herbert opened a door on which was written DO NOT OPEN and helped the other two down. But after making a run for it they found the carriages were dark and the doors locked, and that a sign hanging upside down said COBURG-PEGNITZ, which was more or less where they had come from. “You must never do this, little Bert,” said Herbert.
“Never do what?”
“Open the wrong door and cross the tracks. You could be killed or arrested.”
They made their way to the platform by lawful means, through an underpass. The station was crammed with passengers who had been turned out of a number of rerouted trains, shouting, arguing, complaining, and asking questions. The American girl stood gazing up at PEGNITZ as if she could not believe what she saw. She seemed fragile and lonely.
“Help her,” said Christine. “She doesn’t understand. Herbert, you can speak English.”
“En quel honneur?” said Herbert. “Her German is probably better than little Bert’s.”
Perhaps it was true, or else when she was among Germans she did not want to hear what they said. She had just returned from the square behind the station where the bus to Pottenstein was usually parked. But everything had been changed around; there wasn’t even a schedule in sight, and everyone on the platform was trying to find out when some train would come by to take them away from Pegnitz. She was seven and a half months pregnant, she had been traveling for hours now, and her back ached. All at once she turned and looked at Herbert. He looked back — respectfully, she believed. She pushed her way over to him through the crowd on the platform and said in her haughtiest English, “Sir! Vare iss ze boss to Buttonshtah?” which was enough to tell any careful census taker (Herbert, for one) her nationality, schooling, region, village — what part of village, even, if one was particular over details.
The fact of the matter was that she was on her way home to Pottenstein and that her shape was bound to be something of a shock to her parents. However, once they had recovered consciousness they would certainly try to help. For instance, they had a friend, a garage mechanic who had worked for two years in America and knew the customs. He had returned to Pottenstein for two reasons: One, when Americans invited him to their houses they would offer him something to drink and never a bite to eat, which showed that they were not refined; and two, he had been offended by the anti-German tone of the television commercials for a certain brand of coffee. This man would be called in to look at the letter she had intercepted, stolen, read in secret, and reread until she could see every word with her eyes tight shut. He would tell her how to use the letter in order to further her case — providing she had a case at all.
Just as Christine understood all this from the beginning, just as information arrived in the form of an unwieldy package the color of bricks, Herbert, with sober face, began to speak with the accent of their train conductor. He said she was not far from Buttonshtah, only a few miles. He believed there existed a bus service.
“I know, but vare iss ze boss?” she complained, before she remembered that she was not supposed to know any German, let alone German spoken with that accent. She had been deceived by the look of Herbert; he was nothing more than a local product like herself. “Country pipples,” she said, and showed them what it was to walk off with your nose in the air. Christine caught again, faintly, Dear Ken sorry I haven’t written sooner hut you know how it is
Herbert did not want to rub it in but he did say, “You know, an American could live fifty years in Pottenstein without knowing it was Buttonshtah.”
The Norwegian still thought the girl might be an American. He said that perhaps she had mistaken the P of “Pegnitz” for the first letter of “Pottenstein,” and been too disturbed to read the rest. But Herbert laughed and said no American would do that either.