Peter Rabe - A Shroud for Jesso

There’s one thing about those German trains, they all have a catwalk along the side, so when George came clattering through the platform between the cars he didn’t see Jesso because Jesso hung outside the door. Then Ralph came by. They went the way Jesso had gone, down the long end of the train. Jesso got back in and walked to the stateroom where the dough was. He didn’t even run. The suitcase was there, and they had left his gun because without bullets there wasn’t much point to it. Jesso took the bullets out of his pocket and reloaded the cylinder. Before he picked up the suitcase he thought about leaving a note, something like “You know how it is. The right combination is tick-tack-toe diagonally across the list, honest,” but then he let it go because it came to him where they’d be headed first. He went out into the corridor.

He held the revolver in one hand and the valise in the other, and kicked the door to his stateroom open.

“Drop it,” Jesso said, and they did.

“Honest-” George said, but he saw Jesso didn’t look conversational.

“I got a proposition.” Ralph’s voice was squeaky.

“Shut up. You’ll wake up the girl.”

Renette hadn’t even opened an eye. She’d got to be a heavy sleeper. They all turned to look at her in the bed and she looked sexy as hell.

“Turn around.”

They did.

“To the other wall, you bastards.”

They turned.

“Now lean.”

They knew what he meant, and they leaned against the wall with their hands out. Jesso kicked the door shut, put the case down, and started to wake Renette. It took a while. She didn’t ask any questions because she was still half asleep, but then her clothes weren’t handy.

“George,” Jesso said.

George started to turn.

“Face front, you sonofabitch, or you’ve taken your last look.”

George looked front.

“Those clothes on the seat under you. Throw ‘em back here.”

George reached down and tossed the dress back. Renette held the dress and looked at Jesso.

“The other stuff first, damn it. What’s the matter with you!”

George threw the other stuff and Renette got dressed. Then she went to the bathroom and combed her hair. She did it as if she had all the time in the world, as if there were nothing on her mind but combing her hair. There wasn’t.

The three men waited. After a while Ralph started to moan because of his arms and George hissed something at him. But Ralph kept moaning.

When Renette came back, Jesso told her to keep out of line of his gun. She turned and went back to the mirror to put on some lipstick. Then she came back.

“Ralph.”

Ralph didn’t answer, but he stopped making his noise for a moment.

“You can turn around and sit. The lady’s presentable.”

Ralph did and sighed deeply. Then Jesso told George to do the same.

“Ever hop trains, you two?”

They shook their heads.

“You’ll learn.”

“God, Jesso, this thing’s going ninety.”

“Next curve you jump.”

They came to the next one and the train never slowed down.

“Open the window.”

They sat with the icy blast coming in and listened to the black roar outside. Then came the grade, with the clacking getting slower all the time.

“Next turn you jump. George, on your feet.”

George stood by the window and waited.

It had got cold in the compartment and Renette shivered. Jesso sent her to the bathroom, where her coat hung on a hook.

“Out, George.”

George climbed through the window, held on, found the catwalk with his feet.

“You’re next, Ralph.”

When they both were outside, Jesso stood by the window holding the gun on them. At the next curve, on top of the grade, they jumped.

The train took half an hour to the first stop on the run. Jesso carried the suitcases. They got off and headed for the round booth that said “Information” in German, English, and French. It was the middle of the night but somebody was ahead of them. They waited and then Renette looked up at Jesso. She had to blink her eyes in the light.

“Where are the other two?” she said, but Jesso figured he’d explain that one later.

Jesso went to the ticket window and pronounced the name of the town he wanted. The man at the information desk had told them the name; the earliest train went there. Renette stood by the train gate and waited. She was awake now. Jesso had told her what had happened and she had said only, “I’ll go with you.” Even if she had said no she knew he would have taken her.

They took a train with short, high cars, and once they were inside they saw that the whole car was one compartment. They rode and every few miles they stopped. Then a gray light started to come, showing fields outside and long stretches of wood. A conductor came through turning off the gas lights in the ceiling.

After a while a woman came in carrying two crates with live hens. She put them on the floor. A farmer wearing a blue shirt that hung down to his hips sat in the seat next to them. He smelled of animals and held a sack of seed grain between his knees. The train made a slow clatter, stopped for a while, clattered again.

“No joy ride,” Jesso said.

She shrugged. “It won’t last long,” she said. Then she looked at the two women across from them, who kept staring at her, and then she looked someplace else.

The market town was Bad Brunn. They got off and walked to the bus terminal across the square. The sun was up now, and the air was clear, without moisture. Not like Hannover or Hamburg, with the constant dampness blowing in from the North Sea. This was a warmer climate, with country smells; the houses looking small and busy.

They climbed into the yellow bus and waited for it to fill up. The motor started to shake the bus, they took a slow turn around the fountain in the middle of the square, and then came the country road. This time it was cherry trees along both sides, cherry trees and every so often a dead one. It was a very old road. They took twenty miles of it and then they got out; over egg baskets, apple crates, and tools lying in the aisle, they finally got out, they watched the bus hobble off with blue dust behind and stood in the gravel where the two streets of the village crossed.

“This is it,” Jesso said.

Renette looked down both streets. She laughed but didn’t say anything. She smelled a cow odor in the air, and when she looked at the rutted dirt roads again she was reminded of Pomerania. Except that the low houses had slate on the roofs, or wood shingles. In Pomerania they used swamp grass.

“The whitewashed job over there, with the balcony,” Jesso said. “That must be the one that rents rooms.” He picked up the suitcase. “At least, that’s what the information guy said.”

But Renette wasn’t listening. She was still looking at the village street. It had been a bad moment, seeing it. Not that there was swamp grass on the roofs; there wasn’t. But the streets with the spaced, squat houses, with the dirt ruts and a chicken walking across, had suddenly felt like the desolate time, like the dank and poor time before Johannes had helped her and she could leave her home. And all this in spite of the sunshine on the street and the peaceful warm smells in the air. Jesso hadn’t noticed, of course. She saw Jesso crossing the road ahead of her and for a moment she felt like running.

Then she followed him. Suddenly it was easy, because everything was different now, as different as having left the rotten estate and having joined Johannes. Now she could even be through with Johannes and it would not turn bad again. She had lost poverty. First, through Johannes, who had given her the comforts of his money Then she had done with another poverty, now that Jesso had come. It was a freedom.