Translated by Joe E. Bandel 2008
Copyright 2008 by Joe E. Bandel
Protected under United States Copyright Law as a derivative work of a foreign Author originally published prior to 1923
Chapter Two
Beryl
“The beryl is the color of the ocean and of the sky. It is the stone of St. Thomas who made a long sea voyage to India as an ambassador of God to preach to the unbelievers and believers.”
-Andreas, Bishop of Casärea
Nevertheless, during these days as they crossed the continent, the resolution grew in him to return to Germany with the other two. This conviction was slow and gradual in forming but entirely certain and solid. It was simply the best thing that he could do.
The basis of his decision was entirely different from the other two. For them there was only one thing-Germany! Their Fatherland had been attacked tenfold by many countries. It would bleed to death and die if it could not defeat the enemy with its last bit of strength. They were part of Germany’s strength, both of them! They didn’t feel this as a duty they must perform but as something they must do for themselves.
They were a part of this mighty Germany and Germany was fighting and defending itself to the last drop of its blood. It must win or it must die. That was what they must do as well. To them there was no other way to think. Every German must feel the same way. They didn’t have the slightest doubt that Frank Braun felt it too- Fatherland- Germany- mother- with every breath, with every heartbeat just like they did.
He didn’t feel it that way at all. What he saw happening as he stood back in a detached way was every individual disappearing, dissolving into the mass, melting together with millions of others. Suddenly overnight a young, mighty, titanic being grew into existence, the people.
But he didn’t belong to it. Everything that he was, that he stood for was in constant war against it. Yes, he was only himself, an individual. The others? All the other people, the Germans, the masses, the folk, the multitudes? It was a new life for them. They had been nothing and now this great hour had created them, created them as a small part of this giant body, yet as a part that lived, breathed and went to war.
But it would rob him of everything, would make him, like all the others a bit of dust, a miserable shred of bleeding meat in the body of the people. What meant life to others meant death to him, going back, submerging, disappearing, losing himself-No!
It was the soul and when the Fatherland called, the soul exulted loudly. It gave them high courage, perseverance, strength, gave them the will to win. His soul heard the message as well, heard it loud and clear. He saw it too, just like the others, all of them! But he remained cool and calm, not intoxicated, not following the reverberating call.
His body, yes, it wanted to go, his legs, belly and brain. His two thighs that could grip a horse, an eye sharp enough to hit the target, a fist that had often enough swung a gleaming saber. He understood affectionately but in the end was indifferent why he should go there when he had just arrived here!
Surely they could make use of him. He was not new to war, had been in four or five of them. So what if they had only been monkey wars, revolutions in Mexico, in Haiti, Venezuela and Peru. It was still the same for the soldier there as it was in Europe. They were still shot with warm bullets, stabbed and cut with long knives.
In a way it was even more barbaric, almost childlike, and not at all workmanlike. Today in Europe at least they were using science to carry on the great murder of people. Oh yes, he still wanted to be over there! Not out of patriotism but purely for the love of adventure.
He had dreamed of being in the South Sea in Samoa when the French ravaged Tripoli, had first heard of the great Balkan slaughter in Cashmere after it was all over. He had already missed two opportunities, this time he must be there. Yet it was not any different to him than if he were going to a foreign war travelling with strangers. It was like that time in El Paso when he tossed a silver dollar with a Texan cowboy. Heads or tails? For Pancho Villa or the usurper Huerta?
It was like that only this time he had no choice of which side he should ride on. He thought it was a good enough reason and decided with certainty and conviction that he would fight for Germany and not against it. Still, it was scarcely more than a convenient justification, something inherited, something from the way he was brought up that now guided him. It was like not wearing a stranger’s shirt as long as his own was nearby.
* *
*
It was as they were leaving out of Salt Lake City, that a man sat there in front of him, three or four seats away. He sat there and spit, spit regularly every two minutes into a large brass spittoon. Not into the one right in front of him, he spit in an arch to a different one over two seats away and not once did he miss, always landing exactly in the middle of the target.
“An excellent spitter!” The second said.
The assistant crowed, ” The fellow should be a submarine, his spit a torpedo and the spittoon an English cruiser.”
Frank Braun stared at the stranger. He had not been there earlier, must have just now gotten on at the train station or come in from a different car. Frank Braun stared at him. He resembled his uncle, the old Medical Councillor ten Brinken-resembled him to a hair.
He was a little man and ugly enough, smooth shaven, fat watery bags hung under his eyes with swollen lips and a huge meaty nose. The eyelid drooped heavily over the left eye but the right stood wide open, squinting out in a predatory manner.
Only his uncle didn’t spit, he didn’t do that. He drooled too; it ran here and there exactly like this man. It was not the Medical Councillor, certainly not. He was dead, entirely and completely dead, had hung himself. It was three years now, thank God.
The second stood up.
“I’m going to the diner car,” he declared. “I’ve seen some good Dago spitters in my life, but nothing so black as that, damn it all! But that doesn’t bother me as much as the regularity. It makes me fidgety. I count to one hundred fifteen-then it patters in the basin! He doesn’t move and I count all over again.”
“Counting has always been your special joy!” The assistant laughed. “Are you going to chart it like you did the quarantine days?”
“You counted them too!” The second cried back at him.
His uncle sat there, still, silent and staring. He didn’t read, didn’t smoke, didn’t move. He just spit.
Frank Braun counted the intervals, he broke it off at one hundred twenty three, then it was two seconds more and then four seconds less. Almost exactly two minutes he thought and counted again, counted four times, ten times, fourteen times.
Then the man stood up, glanced furtively, quickly across at them. A phlegmy, putrid smile crossed his hanging lips and at that moment Frank Braun believed that it most certainly was his uncle Jakob and no one else! But at the same time he equally resembled the dead Chinese that had floated to the surface and swam around the fever ship. But then he was once more his uncle, the Privy Medical Councillor ten Brinken. He put his head in his hands.
The assistant cried, “Thank God the pig is gone!”
Frank Braun looked up. Yes, the man was just going through the door into the next car.
“Funny,” he said. “That man looks just like my uncle.”
“Well then, your uncle is no great beauty, ” said the assistant.
Frank Braun said, “No, that he is not. I want to go after him.”
“Who?” asked the other.
“That man, the spitter,” Frank Braun stood up slowly and unsteadily. His voice rang harmoniously, “He looks exactly like the Chinese!”
The assistant pricked up his ears, “Like whom? Who does he look like?”
“Like the Chinese,” answered Frank Braun. “Like the Chinese. You know, the one that died of fever and I sewed up. The one that floated to the top and swam around the ship.”
“Just a minute Doctor,” interrupted the little assistant. “Is it a little too warm in here for you? That fellow looks just like the Chinese and just like your uncle? Or was the Chinese also your uncle? Then I congratulate you! Go in there and drink a highball or something cold please. It will do you good.”
Frank Braun looked straight at him.
“He resembles both,” he stammered. “I must go after him.”
“It’s all right with me, ” laughed the assistant. “Then if you don’t mind, I will take your place until you come back. The sun is shining right in my face here. Greet your spitting Chinese uncle for me.”
thanks for your work, Joe