Читать книгу Chasing the King of Hearts - Ханна Кралль - Страница 21

Hotel Terminus

Things aren’t bad: she rents a room in Wesola, a town on the outskirts of Warsaw, and fetches her mother. She becomes friends with her neighbor, who has a handicapped child. Mother and daughter spend the day riding the local trains. The daughter sings and the mother collects handouts in a canvas sack. The little girl has a long, thin neck; she leans her small head to the side and sings Brahms’s Lullaby with Polish words: Jutro znów, jak Bóg da, wstaniesz wesół i zdrów . . . Her voice is high-pitched, perfectly clear, with a nice vibrato.

Izolda returns to the ghetto for some bedding and carries the bundle back out via the theater warehouse. Then she takes a rickshaw to the train station.

A policeman standing at the corner of Świętokrzyska Street and Nowy Świat eyes her closely. He waves the rickshaw to the curb, climbs in, and says something to the driver . . . They turn onto Chmielna Street and stop at the Hotel Terminus. The policeman orders her inside. He takes a key at the reception. Inside the room he looks at her shrewdly and smiles: So what do we have here but a little Jew girl, am I right? Take off your clothes.

She takes off her clothes.

The policeman unbuckles his belt with the holster, takes off his uniform, and shoves her to the bed. His breathing is hoarse, loud, long, he smells of cigarettes and sweat. She thinks: Will he demand money? Take me to the station? Ask for my address? The policeman stops moving. She thinks: Will he follow me to Wesoła? Will he find my mother? The policeman gets up and dresses. He stands in front of the mirror and combs his mustache and hair. Put your clothes on, he says. Now go outside and get back in your rickshaw. You see how lucky you are, running into a decent person . . . He salutes and heads back toward Nowy Świat. The rickshaw driver asks: To the station?

Her neighbor is on the train, with her daughter. The girl is singing, Jutro znów, jak Bóg da . . . Izolda tosses five whole zlotys into the canvas sack—she’s happy he didn’t demand money, didn’t take her to the station, didn’t ask . . .

She starts to regret that she didn’t ask him for anything. At least for a place to stay. Since you are such a decent person, couldn’t you find me a safe address . . . Or even two. One for the people who can’t show themselves on the street and the other . . . As she washes herself and changes her underwear, she regrets letting such a great opportunity slip by: she ran into a decent person and didn’t ask for a thing.