Joseph Roth: The Silent Prophet

When it was suggested to him that he should go to one of the border subsidiaries, he immediately assented, in the hope of a lucky change of fortune and an interruption of the normal routine, which he detested. On this first journey he took with him his foresight, his cunning, and his ability to dissemble, qualities bestowed on him by nature.

Before he climbed into the passenger train which left for the east, he cast a yearning and yet reproachful glance at an elegant coffee-coloured international sleeping-car which was due to depart from Trieste for Paris.

‘One day I shall be one of the passengers in that coach,’ thought Friedrich.

Forty-eight hours later he arrived at the little border town where the Parthagener family ran a branch of the shipping agency. Old Parthagener had owned the inn, ‘The Ball and Chain’, for over forty years. It was the first house on the wide street that ran from the frontier to the town. Here the fugitives and deserters came and encountered the pure and calm serenity of the old man with the silver beard, who seemed to be a manifestation of nature’s blind intent ultimately to clothe all men, irrespective of their sins or deserts, with the white colour of dignity. Over his weak and light-sensitive eyes Herr Parthagener wore blue spectacles. They merely deepened further the serenity of his face and were reminiscent of a dark curtain over the window of a bright and luminous house-front. The agitated refugees at once placed their trust in the old man and left him a good part of the possessions they had brought with them.

The three Parthagener sons had an official, even nautical, appearance, thanks to their white sailor-hats and armbands of navy blue. They distributed among the emigrants illustrated prospectuses inviting one to contemplate dark-green meadows, brindled cows, cabins with blue smoke rising, endless fields of tobacco and rice. From the prospectuses wafted an air of lush and peaceful surfeit. The refugees became homesick for South America and the Parthageners sold steamship tickets.

Not all the emigrants possessed the necessary papers. Thus they were turned back on their arrival in foreign parts. They remained confined in mass hutments, endured one disinfection after another, and finally embarked on a long tour of the police cells of several countries. However, for those who could pay, papers were manufactured at the frontier. A man named Kapturak supplied the circumspect and well-to-do with false documents.

Who was Kapturak? A diminutive man with a greenish-grey complexion, spindly limbs, deft movements, a quack doctor and a shady lawyer by calling, renowned as a smuggler and on good terms with the border officials. His smuggling of goods was only a cover for his traffic in human beings. The many terms he served in the various jails of the territory were his voluntary concessions to the law. Every year, in spring, he appeared at the frontier like a bird of passage. He emerged from one of the many jails of the interior. The snow melted. It rained warm and fragrant in the veiled nights. And the frontier slept. One could cross it silently and invisibly.

During the months of February, March and April he worked. In May he sat in the train in broad daylight with his pack of uncustomed wares, pretended to escape from the inspectors and allowed himself to be imprisoned. Sometimes he treated himself to a vacation and travelled to Karlsbad, for the good of his stomach.

He and the Parthagener family worked together. In the morning, an hour after sunrise, he would bring his protégés to ‘The Ball and Chain’. They would pay for three days’ board and lodging in advance. At this point a young Parthagener would appear with prospectuses.

From time to time, however, someone from the agency had to make a so-called ‘spot-check’, at night, across the frontier. For it occasionally happened that Kapturak led his fugitives to another town, to other Parthageners, in other inns, handed them over to other branches of the firm. So one had to catch him unawares on Russian territory, in the so-called ‘border taverns’.

Friedrich arrived at the Parthageners’ on a sunny day in March 1908. There was a steady cheerful drip from the icicles on the gutters. The sky was light blue. Old Parthagener sat in front of his inn door. A dirty dark-grey crust lay over the large piles of snow on either side of the highroad. The winter was beginning to break up.

Friedrich was young enough to note all the processes of nature and relate them to his experiences. He drank in the special light of this day. It was strong like the warm young south-west wind, the darkness of the crooked gateway and the silvered dignity of the old man.

‘He might as well bring a “batch” across next week!’ said the ancient to his sons, who were standing at the open window in their gleaming white sailor-hats.

‘Come along in,’ he then said to Friedrich, ‘and have something to drink!’

From then on Friedrich remained at ‘The Ball and Chain’.

A week later he was sent to the border tavern to bring a ‘batch’ across. The train had arrived at eleven at night, they were not due to cross the frontier until three in the morning. Four deserters slept huddled together on the floor, a double row of bodies, heads on their bundles. Behind the counter sat the deaf and dumb landlord. He opened his eyes wide, for they served him instead of ears and he could hear with them. But now there was nothing to hear. Kapturak had nodded off in a chair. Against the door, haggard and menacing, leaned the swarthy Caucasian, Savelli. He refused to sit down, he was afraid of falling asleep. He mistrusted Kapturak. The authorities would have been prepared to pay a high price for Savelli. Who knew whether Kapturak might not intend to turn him in?

The adventurousness of this nocturnal hour intrigued no one but Friedrich. For those who had been engaged in smuggling for years it was usual and ordinary. It was not until years later and in distant lands that the deserters, who were now overcome by fatigue, would remember the weirdness of this place between death and freedom, and the stillness of the encircling night in the midst of which this tavern was the only lighted place, the bright focus of an immense darkness. Only Friedrich listened to the regular slow ticking of a clock which counted out its seconds as if time consisted of the costly drops of a rare and noble metal. Only he observed the large sluggish flies on the wide petroleum lamp whose wick was turned down to a narrow strip and whose broad shade of brown cardboard darkened the upper half of the room. And only he noted the distant whistle of a locomotive which resounded in the night like a frightened man’s call for help.

Towards two in the morning another whistle sounded, cut short, suppressed, fearful. Kapturak heard it. He jumped up and woke the sleepers. Each put his bundle on his back. They went outside. The night was dim and humid, the ground moist. The steps of each were audible. They went through a wood. Kapturak stood still. ‘Lie down!’ he whispered, and all quietly lay down. A twig snapped.

After a while Kapturak jumped up and began to run. ‘Follow me!’ he shouted. Behind him they all jumped over a ditch. They continued running to the edge of the wood. Behind them a shot rang out and died away in a long echo.

They were over the border. The men walked slowly, silently, heavily. Each one’s breathing could be heard. Friedrich could not see them but he remembered their faces clearly, simple snub-nosed peasant faces, eyes under puny foreheads, massive trunks and heavy limbs.

He loved them, for he was sensitive to their distress. He thought of the innumerable frontiers of the gigantic empire. This very night hundreds of thousands were leaving, moving from misfortune to misfortune. The boundless silent night was peopled with human fugitives, flattened wretched faces, massive trunks, heavy limbs.