Flotsam Read Free

Deprived of citizenship.”
    The captain looked up. “At twenty-one? For what reason?”
    “None. My father was deprived of citizenship. Since I was a minor, I was too.”
    “What had your father done?”
    Kern was silent for a moment. A year’s experience as a refugee had taught him to be cautious of every word he spoke to the authorities. “He was falsely denounced as politically unreliable,” he said finally.
    “Are you a Jew?”
    “My father is—Not my mother.”
    “Aha …”
    The captain flicked the ashes from his cigarette onto the floor. “Why didn’t you stay in Germany?”
    “They took our passports away and told us to leave. We would have been locked up if we had stayed; and if we were going to be locked up anyway we wanted it to be somewhere else—not in Germany.”
    The captain laughed dryly. “I can understand that. How did you get across the border without a passport?”
    “All you needed then, for short trips across the Czech border, was an identification card. We had that. With it you were allowed to stay for three days in Czechoslovakia.”
    “And after that?”
    “We got permission to stay for three months. Then we had to leave.”
    “How long have you been in Austria?”
    “Three months.”
    “Why haven’t you reported to the police.”
    “Because then I’d have been ordered to leave immediately.”
    “Indeed!” The captain struck the arm of his chair with the palm of his hand. “How do you happen to know that?”
    Kern did not mention the fact that he and his parents had reported to the police the first time they had crossed the Austrian border. They had been deported the same day. When they came back again, they did not report.
    “Perhaps it isn’t so?” he asked.
    “It’s not your place to ask questions here. You just answer,” the clerk said sharply.
    “Where are your parents now?” asked the captain.
    “My mother is in Hungary. She was allowed to stay because she is Hungarian by birth. My father was arrested and deported while I was away from the hotel. I don’t know where he is.”
    “What’s your profession?”
    “I was a student.”
    “How have you lived?”
    “I have some money.”
    “How much?”
    “I have twelve schillings with me. Friends are keeping the rest for me.” Kern owned nothing besides the twelve schillings.He had earned them peddling soap, perfume, and toilet water. But if he had admitted that, he would have been liable to additional punishment for working without a permit.
    The captain got up and yawned. “Are we through?”
    “There’s one more downstairs,” said the clerk.
    “It will be the same story. Lots of bleating and not much wool.” The captain made a wry face at the lieutenant. “Nothing but illegal immigrants. Doesn’t look much like a Communist plot, does it? Who lodged that complaint anyway?”
    “Someone who runs the same sort of place, only he has bedbugs,” said the clerk. “Professional jealousy probably.”
    The captain laughed. Then he noticed that Kern was still in the room. “Take him downstairs. You know the sentence. Two weeks’ detention and then deportation.” He yawned again. “Well, I’m going out for a goulash and beer.”
    Kern was taken into a smaller cell than before. Beside him there were five prisoners there, among them the Pole who had slept in the same room.
    In a quarter of an hour they brought Steiner in. He sat down beside Kern. “First time in the coop, kid?”
    Kern nodded.
    “Feel like a murderer, don’t you?”
    Kern made a face. “Just about. Prison—You know, I can’t get over my early feeling about that.”
    “This isn’t prison,” Steiner explained, “this is detention. Prison comes later.”
    “Have you been in prison?”
    “Yes.” Steiner smiled. “You’ll get a taste of it too, kid. The first time it will hit you hard. But not again. Particularly notin winter. At least you have peace while you’re in. A man without a passport is a corpse on parole. All he’s