Peter Rabe - A Shroud for Jesso

Once, on the way to the station, Jesso looked out and laughed. They were passing the intersection where the ambulance was parked near the restaurant. There were two more tickets on the windshield. Renette didn’t ask him why he laughed and he didn’t tell her. They hardly spoke in the car. Their hands lay on the seat between them and sometimes, with a turn of the car, their fingers touched.

They got out of the Mercedes in front of the station. The chauffeur helped with the luggage and they found the train. Kator had done it up brown this time; it wasn’t any tourist- or third-class ticket. They had a compartment, and when the chauffeur was gone they locked the door, pushed the suitcases out of the way, and sat down. When the train was moving they looked out of the window. At first the landscape looked flat, industrial; even the small fields had a square mechanical look. Later the fields rolled and there were more trees. Renette sat close, with her legs tucked under her. She had the rest of her twisted around so that she leaned against him. They smoked and didn’t talk. There was nothing to talk about. They looked almost indifferent, but their indifference was the certainty of knowing what they had.

She had on a wide-necked dress with a large collar. It had been made by a French designer at a time when they thought the female shape was O.K. as it was. She saw him looking at her and blew smoke in his face. He watched the pearl roll there.

“Who gave it to you?”

“Mother Nature.”

“The pearl, I mean.”

“No one. I got it myself.”

“Lucky pearl.”

“I’ll give it to you.”

She gave it to him and he held it in his hand. Then he put it away in his pocket. They kissed as if they had a lot of time.

It turned dusky outside. Renette put her feet to the floor and sat up.

“I’m hungry.”

Jesso rang for the porter. A small table came up from under the window and there was soup, something called glazed Wildhuhn, potatoes, and asparagus, and a cold pudding with sour cherries in it. She told him what wine to order and they had that too.

“Helmut really your husband?”

“Oh, yes.”

“He know about you?”

“What is there to know?”

He finished his wine and rang for the porter. “Plenty,” he said.

“Not until yesterday,” she said.

They drank coffee and brandy, and then the porter took the things away. They got up. Jesso turned her around in the middle of the small room, because the buttons were in the back. She held her breath so it was hard to get them open, and then she exhaled, laughing, and held still so he could get done. Jesso pulled down the bed and she stood by the wall grille and let the hot air blow up her bare legs. Then the dusk was almost complete and they didn’t notice for a long time that it had turned night again.

She was asleep. The train made the same rhythm, swaying slightly, and Jesso could glimpse the moon now and then. He got up and dressed.

The corridor outside was chilly and a dim light showed the seesaw motion where the corridor met the door of the next car. Jesso walked right and stood on the connecting platform. It was even colder there. Except for a man at the other end of the car, he might have been alone on the dim train. Jesso lit a cigarette and dragged hard. It felt raw and good.

The train started to clatter across rail junctions and then a dark station platform shot by the window. They were going like hell, straight and steady. He’d been going straight and steady. There had been bumps and a couple of falls, but now, Jesso thought, he was going like hell. And it didn’t feel like rushing and panting, not since Renette, but straight and steady with nothing in the way to make any difference. Almost too easy. Tomorrow the Munich deal and then Kator was out. Kator had been almost too easy.

Jesso left the clanking platform and crossed into the next car. This one had a corridor too. They all did. They had a corridor squeezed to one side and glass-doored compartments on the other. Everyone was asleep. When Jesso came to the club car he smelled tobacco smoke but the place was empty. He sat in an easy chair and looked to the other end. The door opened and a man came in. He sat down by the door. Jesso noticed he was smoking a pipe.

“Got a match?”

He jumped around and there was the other one. The cigarette in his mouth was lit.

“I know, I don’t need one. Just wanted you to turn around. And take your hand away from your pocket.”

Then the one with the pipe stood there too.

“Been waiting for you ever since Hannover,” said the pipe. “Been busy, huh, Jesso?”

“American?”

“Sure,” one of them said.

“But not tourists,” said the other.

“You were hanging around at the other end of my car,” Jesso said.

“Right. And the name’s George.”

“And Ralph,” said the pipe.

They sat down, George opposite and Ralph next to Jesso.

“You’re nervous, Jesso. And you got a lot to be nervous about.”

“Keep talking, Ralph boy.”

“Keep your hand away from that pocket, Jesso. We don’t carry no guns.”

Just for that, Jesso had the revolver out and was up on his feet. The two men just sat. George had his hands between his knees, big hands, and Ralph, who was small and sandy-haired, kept sucking his pipe.

“Now what, Jesso?”

“Now this,” and he waved the gun for them to get up. “You guys know my name, so I guess you know who I am.”

They got up this time and kept their hands where he could see them. He frisked one, then the other. They were clean.

“Park yourselves. And talk.”

“That’s what we’ve been waiting to do, Jesso. Christ, ever since Hannover we’ve-“

“So shut up and talk.” Jesso sat down too and looked at George, the big one.

“We’re in the same game like J. Kator,” said George, “only a different outfit.”

“Fancy that.”

“I knew he’d be suspicious,” Ralph said. “I just knew-”

“We are,” said George. “And we’re buying.”

“Right now you’re just talking.”

“We’re buying. You got the key from Snell and we’re buying.”

“Who told you, Kator?”

“I knew-”

“Will you keep your cotton-pickin’ mouth clamped shut on your cotton-pickin’ pipe, if you please?” George sighed and turned back to Jesso. “He’s a pain.”

“Not to me.”

George stuck his long legs across the aisle and put his hands in his pockets. “Look, Jesso, we can’t prove a thing, so we won’t even try. It would take a lot of time, and time we don’t got. We got money, though.”

“So buy yourself something.”

“I’m trying to, Jesso. I’m trying to.”

“What George means,” said Ralph, “is we want the key. Snell’s dying words, if you know what I mean. Now you wonder how do we know so much? Simple. Kator wasn’t the only one after that info. To wit, Snell was going to jump off Kator’s wagon and sell elsewhere.”

“That’s us. Elsewhere,” said George. “But you know what happened. We missed the boat. So right now we’re trying to catch up is all.” George got up. “Wanna come and look at some money, Jesso?”

Jesso kept sitting. “You haven’t said a thing yet.”

“Money talks, Jesso.”

“What good’s it to you? Kator’s got the figures.”

“We don’t need ‘em. We got later ones.”

“Look, Jesso.” Ralph sounded serious now. “Let me tell you the whole thing. We got figures, Kator’s got figures. Together they’d give a much more reliable score for estimating bomb production than either of the lists alone. With your information in our hands, we can argue with Kator. We can get together, make a combine.”