Georg Letham (14 page)

And how did the thin one carry out his extortion? Did he appeal to the fat one's sense of fairness? Of course not. He twisted the manacle to try to dislocate his wrist. A little jujitsu between friends. If only it had been a prearranged fight! The supposed sunstroke victim bravely throws himself upon the aggressor and gives as good as he got–a terrible thing to see (and yet something is laughing in me!). To the laughter of the hardened guards and the horror of the screaming “loving hearts,” roaring, cursing, and raging as one, foaming at the mouth like animals, the two of them try, each with his free hand, to box each other's ears, to twist each other's arms and legs, until they roll over the feet of their loved ones (who retreat slowly, unable to help their son or relative) and onto the stones that slope down to the harbor basin.

The guards, leaning on their gleaming bayonets (one of them playing with his grenade, but with the safety catch prudently left in place),
phlegmatically adjust their helmets, spit, and wait for the two idiots to come to their senses.

No real blows are landed, nothing that could do any damage. The two of them rushed into the clinch, as boxers call it, and are too tangled up to really hurt each other. They start to go down, still locked together, but they catch themselves in time. Now they help each other up and trot back to the group with a few cuts and scratches. None of their relatives came close enough to slip them the expected articles. Now that they have both lost the day, the group is vicious and gleeful and someone trips them. The two fall, get up, and hang on to each other unsteadily. They look around in astonishment. Gloating on every side. What did they expect? Who could have any sympathy for them when they have none for each other? People are never more merciless than toward their fellows.

Or is that true? The high authority is even more merciless. It can only be called the most asinine mercilessness to make us stew here for almost twelve hours with bayonets hanging over us. All human feeling stops at forty degrees centigrade. We relieve ourselves when and where the opportunity presents itself, like animals in the pen at the slaughterhouse. The stifling heat makes this foul air a true torment to breathe. It would be a relief to pass out and sink to the ground, but that has to be avoided. Would anyone think it was a real fainting spell? Two, three men near us keel over with symptoms of sunstroke, then a few more farther off.

They all crash down with dismal groans, the same animal sound, a kind of gurgle, as though they were imitating each other. But this is no imitation, this is the real thing, this is nature. Bluish red faces. Limbs
twitching and convulsed, eyes open and staring, with swollen lids and livid conjunctivae. On these no-longer-human faces an expression of dumb agony. Real! Real! But no sign of life.

My companion is already too far gone even to flinch when I shake him or respond when I talk to him. I don't even know his name, so I call him by his number. Ah, who needs numbers, who needs names! Shade! Shade! Shade for us, shade! No, no, once again no. And yet not even a hundred paces away, beautiful, deep warehouses, spacious, shadowy, dark, empty, smelling of coffee and spices. They belong to the government. The free port has hygienic facilities, including a W.C. Not for us. So must we do as animals do? Of course we must. For the warehouses belong to another department, Tax and Customs, and we belong only to Judicial Administration, Criminal Justice, Deterrence and Retribution. Tried under prevailing law, to be consigned through the usual administrative channels to the
Mimosa
for purposes of deportation, so many hundred head of morally wanting men . . .

I just want the sun to set on this terrible day. It seems to be moving in tighter and tighter circles in the whitishly blazing sky. If I could only cover my face, hold my right hand over my eyes, wrap my left around the back of my head–but how? Why don't they take us away at last? It must be infinitely better there on the
Mimosa
, which we can see sparkling and rocking gently on the sea. There it will be airy, shadowy, and cool, like a cellar. There are no real accommodations for us, only bunkers of a kind, stables originally, with iron plating for the dividing walls. At one time this glorious ark was used for shipping livestock. It was never remodeled, hardly ever properly disinfected. We know all this, the prisoners discussed it in the prison and on the train. But none
of that matters, let's go! It can only be a thousand times better there, down below where the delightful sun doesn't shine, a thousand times better than here! Anywhere but here. Useless. Pointless thoughts, idle fantasies. Who is there to talk to? Who is there to complain to? I can't even curse. I don't have enough spit left.

My neighbor is beginning to babble. I hear something about a “cadet.” His lips flutter, like the flews of a dog snapping at flies in the sun. His limbs twitch, arms and legs. He focuses his clear blue eyes on them wonderingly, seemingly surprised by their electrified movements. With his (and my) captive hand he grasps at his free one, which had the first spasms, as though he could stop it from twitching like a frog's leg, bring it to its senses, calm it down. His face shows no awareness of what he is doing. How many things people do of which they have no awareness!

The handsome face abruptly sags, the head falls onto the chest, as though something holding it up has been cut with a pair of scissors. His breath comes in laborious gasps, he brings up the wretched food, and his glazed-over eyes dart about.

I hold his heavy, hot, damp head as far away as possible; I have no truck with sympathy and for my own sake can't think of having any. His breathing is stertorous: I hear a rumbling in his chest like the sound of water boiling. I blow on him as though he were a saucepan of milk about to foam over. The pleasant breeze revives him a little, and he looks up at me strangely with the eyes of a loyal dog.
Now
would be the time to immortalize you in photographs, you suffering frog, you picture of misery! He shakes his head in surprise, as though he had guessed my
thoughts. A little child, its kind father's index and middle fingers on its chin to steady the tiny, slack jaw, could hardly look more innocent. He wants to be a good boy and pull himself together.

And he does. He summons his strength, swallows hard. He keeps the rest of his food down. If only the ominous slaty bluish gray in his sagging child's face would go away! I loosen his shirt and coat at his throat, working around him with my hand (and his hand) in front of his face and neck. Meanwhile my free hand is occupied with holding his head–and everything becomes that much harder when he leans against me, his body close in the atrocious heat.

Luckily his sunstroke is not yet fully developed. He is not unconscious, only dazed. I am able to get him to stand up and gather his strength to stagger with my assistance to the edge of the crowd, where there are stacks of crates that will surely give some sort of shade.

The angle of the sun has changed. The crates are big, new, they smell strongly, of disinfectants, cresol and such. Perhaps they are on their way to the medical service in the colony. They are no hundred-year-old cork tree, there might be twenty centimeters of shade at best, but enough to lay a tired head in, or at least protect the eyes. His head and mine too. We are a community of interests, a collective. If I am an altruist, then I am an egoist. So I lay my head (which is buzzing alarmingly) on the filthy pavement next to his. Go ahead, brother mine! Relax and don't worry. Now pull the man's brown cap over his eyes, mine too, but be quick about it! Glowing sparks are flying now, I see them even with my eyes closed, and it was a close call–for him? For me! My ears are roaring like a hurricane.

But before long everything will be wonderful! Soon the sweet shade from the crates has crept down over the bridge of my nose, then over my
mouth, neck, chest, hips, and knees, and both of us are as in the bosom of Abraham, lying in the promised land of shade down to our toes. We are not the only ones. Just the first. They come pair by pair. Without a word. No cursing, no mischief, no tussles, just breathing and quiet. The murmur of the “loving hearts” is like distant surf, and the surf is like the murmur of a restless crowd, no difference, same thing.

Suddenly a stir. Everyone wakes up with a start. The district commandant, the top dog, long awaited, has appeared. A deeply tanned bon vivant's face, handsome in a weathered sort of way and full of dash and charm. Bushy white eyebrows but black toothbrush mustache, neatly trimmed and shining like pitch or mustache dye. Truly there are no graybeards anymore. Very erect posture. Self-discipline or corset? In his tight-fitting, sky blue Litewka coat, buff-colored, wide, baggily elegant breeches, knee-length leather gaiters laced up in front with brass hooks and eyes, decorations across the pigeon-breasted chest, gleaming leathers and holster at his waist, monocle in his left eye, he stalks through our ranks, a god amid his brute creation, which is expiring while he shakes out the skirts of his tunic in back as though afraid vermin from us might be clinging to him. How would they dare, Excellency? He seems pressed for time. Two white-skinned (or powdered), red-cheeked (or discreetly rouged) young adjutants follow at a respectful distance. The big man and his handsome aides make disgusted faces as they race through a group of sallow convicts, many of whom are suffering from crusty skin conditions such as are prevalent in the tropics.

But these sallow penal colonists are no “common criminals,” in the tactful words of the penal code. These are top-grade people, political offenders: misguided, but idealistic, spirited, self-sacrificing people
who let nothing stop them in the service of their political ideal, not even the sanctity of government property, the invested capital of their country. Their judgment may deserve a question mark, but their character merits an exclamation point. And what do they get? They're down in the same muck with murderers and other felons.

The stiff-legged old stallion hurries on. It's all just a formality. No one has even counted the deportees.

One of the sallow political prisoners has a belt around his thin belly with his mess kit attached, and one of the armchair officers gets a spur caught on it. But no matter, he just flicks his riding crop behind him (there are no horses for miles around) into the poor idealist's rapidly reddening and swelling face, then continues on his way at a smart double-quick pace as though walking on hot coals, dragging along mess kit and do-gooder until one of the three has to give, and of course it's the poor devil, who rolls in the dust. Talk about a mess!

But this is what the young gentleman is paid for. He comes up with his boss in time to hand him his own fountain pen so the old man can sign some official paperwork that the junior officer on duty has set down on a crate. The boss makes no effort to read this official document. The junior officer did, so it must be all right. And as soon as he has signed his august name with a flourish, he faces about like a clapped-out parade horse on its hind legs at the circus, and the three minor deities hurry back to their car, a sleek, cherry red automobile six meters long. One of the adjutants holds the door, the general slips in with a gracious nod to the aide, who scampers in beside him, the third officer takes the wheel, turns the key, puts it in gear, steps on the gas, and off they go, the engine purring. Dust, and a bad smell. And
this
is who we've had to wait for all day. Had to? No! Been permitted to.

Two figures, not attached to each other, are now slinking back from the city under guard. Their former companions used a file to get away, but then had to be hospitalized. One got malaria following sunstroke, the other had epileptic seizures. But there were still others who got their eternal reward.

By all accounts things came to a merciful conclusion today. The “loving hearts” can give thanks to providence and rejoice. On the previous transport, on the same dock, in the same glorious, cloudless, windless weather, waiting in the same place for the same signature by the same general, no fewer than–no, G. L., old boy, pay attention!–no
more
than fourteen men became ill as a result of the heat, six fatally. So we can consider ourselves lucky.

The two unattached parties have teamed up. Were they unable to bear being single among all the exclusive couples?

One is a small, clean-shaven, lively, but horribly emaciated and constantly coughing man who could be anywhere between twenty-five and fifty, an old jailbird. The other is a bear of a man, a deeply tanned, broad-shouldered giant, black, greasy curls, an unruly mass of hair above the low, heavy, coppery forehead. He has an oriental look, and I hear people calling him “Sultan” or “Suleiman.” He strokes the little fellow's sweaty neck with his big black paws, a brutish smile of almost animal sensuality on his thick lips. The little man tries to escape from the heavy arms, but the “Sultan,” revealing a magnificent set of teeth, grins in a kind of bliss as though he were drunk or lying in the arms of a Persian princess. Far from it, fortune's fool! Believe it as long as you can.

Now the general exodus is beginning. High-ranking officers are no longer present. The press photographer and his brother have disappeared. The junior officers are celebrating the embarkation in the docklands bars hereabouts. The military band has assembled near a church in a neighboring square, as it does every evening.

The sky begins to darken very slightly. The blue is becoming more penetrating. A gentle, wafting breeze, warm as though from a bakery, billows the sails in the harbor, which are being trimmed for night sailing. The crews of the iron pontoons are preparing for the short trip to the steamer. They are waiting for the launch to return with the officers' family members. Now the “loving hearts” are heard again. This is an important moment, the final one. Will the long, expensive trip have been in vain? They shout for the transport commandant, hoping to make their wishes known to him. Even His Excellency the General would have nowhere to hide if he were here.