The Pegnitz Junction Read Free Page A

sponge. He began stuffing toothbrushes and everything they would need for their showers into his briefcase, not at all out of sorts.
    Christine jumped down and made a dash in the right direction as soon as the train stopped. But the great haste recommended by Herbert had been for nothing: there were no showers. Nevertheless she paid her fee of one franc fifty centimes, which allowed her a threadbare dark-blue square of towelling, a sliver of wrapped soap, four sheets of glassy paper, and a receipt for the money. She showed the receipt to anattendant carrying a mop and a bucket and wearing rubber waders, who looked at it hard and waited for a tip before unlocking a tiled cubicle containing a washbasin. The tiles rose very high and the ceiling was lost in twilight. The place was not really dirty, but coarse and institutional. She took off her dress and sandals and stood on the square of towel. Noise from the platform seemed to seep between the cracked tiling and to swirl and echo along the ceiling. Even the trains sounded sad, as though they were used to ferry poor and weary passengers – refugees perhaps. The cubicle was as cold as a cellar; no sun, no natural light had ever touched the high walls. She stepped from the towel to her sandals – she did not dare set a foot on the cement floor, which looked damp and gritty. In these surroundings her small dressing case with its modest collection of lotions and soap seemed a wasteful luxury. She said to herself, If this is something you pay for, what are their jails like?
    Outside she discovered a new little Bert, subdued and teary.
    “He wanted his lunch first,” said Herbert. “So we changed our plan. But he ate too fast and threw up on the buffet floor. Nothing has worked as we intended, but perhaps there will be some unexpected facility on the German train.”
    Little Bert held on to his sponge and hiccoughed softly. His face was streaked and none too clean. He looked like a runaway child who had been found in a coalbin and who was now being taken home against his will.
    T he German train crossed the Rhine at snail’s pace and then refused to move another foot. Until it moved, the toilets andwashrooms would be locked. They sat for a long time, discontented but not complaining, gazing out at freight sheds, and finally were joined by a man as tall as Herbert, wearing a blond beard. He had a thick nose, eyes as blue as a doll’s, and a bald spot like a tonsure. He dropped his luggage and at once went back to the corridor, where he pulled down the top half of the window, folded his arms on it, and stared hard as if he had something to look at. But there was nothing on his side except more freight sheds and shell-pocked grey hangars. The feeling aboard this train was of glossed-over poverty. Even the plump customs man shuffling through seemed poor, though his regulation short-sleeved shirt was clean, and his cap, the green of frozen peas, rode at a proper angle. Something of a lout, he leaned out the window of their compartment and bawled in dialect to someone dressed as he was. Herbert sat up straight and squashed his cigarette. He was a pacifist and anti-state, but he expected a great deal in the way of behavior from civil servants, particularly those wearing a uniform.
    Little Bert had been settled in one of the corner seats; the other was reserved for someone who had not yet appeared. Christine and Herbert sat facing each other. They were both so tall that for the rest of the afternoon someone or other would be tripping over their legs and feet. At last the freight sheds began to glide past the windows.
    Christine said, “I don’t feel as if I were going home.” He did not consider this anything like the start of a conversation. She said, “The heat is unbelievable. My dress is soaked through. Herbert, I believe this train has a steam engine. How can they, when we have first-class tickets?” That at least made himsmile; she had been outraged by the undemocratic Paris