Background to Danger Read Free Page B

and probe and pry. But I said no. No prying and probing into me, my friends; I have a better way. They ask me what it is, but I laugh. I am not one to be tricked into telling such things to prying doctors. But you are no doctor and I willtell you.
Pasta
is the secret. Nothing but
pasta
. I ate nothing but
pasta
for six months and I am cured. I am no prying Italian, but I tell you
pasta
is good for the stomach.
Maccheroni, fettucine, tagliatelle, spaghetti
, they are all the same; all are
pasta
and all good for the stomach.”
    He continued in praise of flour and water, and Kenton’s face must have revealed his wandering attention, for the owner of the iron stomach broke off suddenly and announced that he would sleep.
    “Please to wake me,” he added, “when we approach the frontier.”
    He took off his hat, replaced it with a copy of the
Völkischer Beobachter
to protect his head from the smuts and, curling up on the seat, seemed to go to sleep. Kenton went outside to smoke.
    It was ten-thirty by his watch and he estimated that another hour should see him at Passau. As he crushed out his cigarette he noticed that he was no longer alone in the corridor. A few compartments down a man was leaning on the rail, gazing out at the distant lights of a Bavarian village. Kenton had the impression that the man had that second turned his head and had been watching him. Then the man started walking towards him. Kenton noticed that he glanced in each compartment as he passed it and that he had small dull eyes set like pebbles in a puffy, unwholesome-looking face. As he came up, Kenton flattened himself against the window to allow the other to pass, but the man did not do so. Glancing behind him, Kenton saw that he was gazing into the compartment at his sleeping fellow traveller. Then, with a muttered
“Verzeihung”
, he walked back and disappeared into the next coach. Kenton dismissed him from his mind and returned to the compartment.
    The newspaper had slipped from the little man’s head. His eyes were closed. He looked sound asleep. But as Kenton passed him he saw that the man’s forehead wasshining with sweat.
    Kenton sat and watched him for a bit, then he saw the brown eyes open slowly and flicker towards him.
    “Has he gone?”
    “Who?” said Kenton.
    “He—the man in the corridor.”
    “Yes.”
    The other sat up and, after fumbling in his pocket, brought out a large and dirty handkerchief. He wiped his forehead and the palms of his hands. Then he looked at Kenton.
    “You are, perhaps, an American?”
    “No, English.”
    “Ah, yes. You will understand—it was not your speech but your clothes that made me think.…”
    His voice trailed off into inaudibility. Suddenly he leapt to the switch and plunged the compartment into darkness. Kenton, not quite sure what was happening, stayed in his corner. If he were sharing a compartment with a madman, a negative attitude was probably safer. The next moment his blood froze as he felt the man sit on the seat beside him. He could hear him breathing heavily.
    “Please do not be alarmed,
mein Herr.”
    The voice was strained, as if its owner had been running. Then he began to speak, slowly at first, then quickly and breathlessly.
    “I am a German,” he began.
    Kenton said “Yes,” but disbelieved him. He had been trying to place the man’s accent.
    “I am a German, a Jew. My father was a Gentile, but my mother was a Jewess. Because of her I am persecuted and robbed. You do not know what it is to be a German with a Jewess for a mother. They have ruined my business. I am a metallurgist. You say perhaps this man does not look like a metallurgist, but you are wrong. I am a metallurgist.I have worked at Essen and at Düsseldorf in the foundries. I had my own business, my own factory—small, you understand; but you are English and will know that it is the small factory that is sometimes good. Now that is over. I have a little money. I wish to leave the country of my father and my