Longreads | Exilpulp with KLAUS MANN
Excerpted & translated from Flucht in den Norden. Edited for length & clarity.
*****
1934
Johanna hesitated to leave the ship. She stood on the upper deck and searched for her friend in the crowd below without finding her. Karin probably didn't come at all, she thought, and it disappointed her so much that she didn't feel like moving. But then she spotted her, between all the waving people. Calm, serious and graceful, Karen stood still in the middle of the chattering crowd, perhaps she had noticed Johanna among the passengers on deck a long time ago, but only now, because Johanna’s gaze had found hers, did she smile. This gentle and serious smile was very familiar to Johanna, she recognized it from afar, it made her feel good and it touched her heart.
Johanna walked briskly across the deck and down the stairs to steerage. She gave her ticket to the clerk who stood at the barrier, and ran down the fairly steep jetty to land, so fast that she stumbled and nearly fell. She ran like a boy who is finally, finally, allowed to leave school. Her hair, which was blowing across her forehead, was cut like a boy's hair. From a distance one could have mistaken her for a high school student. Under the short linen skirt she had bare knees. She was colossally glad to get off this ship, and it was much more than the ship that she was leaving behind, as she stumbled so enthusiastically down the jetty. A little fear mingled with intense joy, what began now?
Karin caught her running. "There you are!" she said in her slightly husky, soft and deep voice. Johanna wrapped both arms around Karin and kissed her. "How terribly nice of you to come!" she said, still in the embrace. Then, slightly embarrassed by a fit of tenderness that was not usual between them: "I could have taken the train to you, I'd already written down the name of the station."
***
Karin asked about Johanna’s luggage. The porter was only found with difficulty. The two modest suitcases would have to be taken to customs; Johanna was quite at a loss and dazed, it was up to Karin to take care of everything and manage the formalities. She was energetic and skilful for all her gentleness and nonchalance. She spoke to the customs officials in that strange, confusing idiom which Johanna could not imagine ever understanding or expressing herself in. Johanna stood awkwardly and embarrassed next to Karin, who was acting purposefully and calmly. Finally the suitcases were freed, and Karin showed the porter where to take them.
*****
She drove the same car as she had last year, in Germany: a nondescript, four-seat sedan, painted greenish, covered in splatter and dust. “Still the brave old thing”, Johanna said appreciatively as she got in. It was wonderful to have Karin next to her at the wheel again. Nobody drove more safely and reliably than she. Johanna looked at her happily and admiringly from the side; how impressed she was by her relaxed and composed demeanor, how she loved that brownish face, at the same time sensitive and resolute, with good eyes of an indefinable color. (Were they dark gray with a tinge of brown? Or were they light brown, sometimes fading into dark blue?) Johanna no longer felt how overtired she was, how she was quite strained and frayed. Karin's presence refreshed and strengthened her, which is why she never took her eyes off of her, and didn't pay much attention to the strange city through which she was being driven.
***
Karin's room was furnished very simply: a bed, the white chest of drawers, the mirrored cabinet, a few narrow chairs. Karin sat down on the bed and lit a cigarette. "Would you like some tea?" she asked, smiling at Johanna. "I can make some quickly." Johanna sat down next to her without answering. "I'm terribly tired," she said, and closed her eyes. "From the trip?" Karin asked. Johanna, who didn't answer right away, widened her eyes after a few seconds, frightened, as if she were in danger of falling asleep right there, or at least of losing consciousness. "Not just from the trip," she finally said, in a tone as if she had to overcome something to admit it. "I know," said Karin in that deep, tender voice. She ran her hand lightly over Johanna's shoulders, which bent forward in sadness and fatigue.
Johanna got up.
I'm about to cry, she thought, and went quickly to the window, where she stopped. She looked out over the quietly elegant streets in the park. With all her strength she tried to concentrate her thoughts on their loveliness. But her mind was still far away. She clenched her hands.
"Was it very bad?" Karin asked from the bed.
"Let's not talk about it,” Johanna answered, almost in anger.
***
They had not seen each other for almost exactly one year; this year had been a very eventful one for Johanna. They had written letters rarely. But in their letters had been the memory of a great and well-established friendship; although their friendship had only gotten six months to develop and to become solid. Those had been the six months Karin spent studying in Berlin. She met Johanna at the university, Johanna was studying economics, Karin art history.
They met at a philosophical college and had first sat next to each other several times—half by accident, half on purpose—before speaking to one other. Then came an interval of daily get-togethers, until suddenly Karin had to go back up north in response to a telegram. It was the news of her father's fatal accident that had changed everything. Johanna accompanied her as she first froze in pain, then collapsed whimpering, to the northern German port city, where the ship left, back to her homeland.
It was during this time, on the train, that Karin first spoke about her family: about the estate where they lived, about her brothers and about her mother. Until then, she had almost never talked about it, or at most, she had talked generally about it: about the vast, sparsely-populated landscape of her country; or saying few tender words about her father. The pain of his loss was terrible for her; it rang out in her rare and short letters all the following year.
When Karin and Johanna separated, they still didn't know that the connection between them had become so strong. They realized it when they no longer saw each other. They thought of each other a great deal, although both were distracted and bitterly distressed by events in their own lives.
In the months after Karin's departure, Johanna had become more and more resolute, courageous, and radical in politics: an area in which, previously, she had only been interested in the most general and amateurish way. She joined a communist student group, wrote articles, spoke in meetings. She took an energetic part in her work, more devotedly every day.
She was deeply and personally affected by the catastrophe that befell her fatherland in the first months of the next year. Her brother and some of his friends were able to flee abroad; others were arrested, others killed. She herself had to hide, was caught, released again, didn't want to leave, didn't want to give up her place under any circumstances, but the next arrest was already imminent; she was warned, had to make up her mind to use false papers that were at her disposal; she left Germany.
Through a comrade, she had gotten news of her departure promoted to Karin through Stockholm.
***
"Let's not talk about it," said Johanna. "Later, not now.” Karin didn't ask any more questions. She gently touched Johanna's shoulders with both hands from behind. "Then lie down now!"
*****
Karen was tidying around in the room, then in other rooms of the apartment—probably the kitchen. Johanna heard rattling and rustlings. She guessed from the noises that Karin was preparing tea, sorting pastries in a bowl. While Karin quietly hummed back and forth, opening a cupboard there, spreading a cloth here, Johanna kept her eyes closed. She wasn’t asleep, but the feeling was lovely, like the moments right before one falls into a deep sleep. She felt wonderfully safe in Karin's presence. There was an almost mysterious certainty in all of Karin's words and movements, a gentle, friendly, determined composure, as if nothing could seriously harm her, and as if she were protected from any confusion by a special, quiet and powerful talisman.
***
They were both drinking tea, when the doorbell rang. Karin stood up. “That will be Jans” she noted, “Yes, he wanted to come pick us up.” She went to open the door.
Johanna, who was still lying in bed (Karin had put her teacup and a plate of biscuits next to the pillow, on a small table) half sat up, in order to receive Karin’s brother like less of an invalid. He came in laughing and talking, wearing a light fleece suit. He was broad-shouldered, stately and tall. The first thing Johanna noticed about him was his small, light-blond mustache, trimmed in the English style. He moved in a casual manner that betrayed vanity, and only took his hands out of his pockets in order to greet the room.
"This is my friend Johanna,” said Karin, stroking her friend's hair with her fingertips.
"I'm glad, I've heard a lot about you," said Jens, and bowed happily. His German had a slight American accent.
Jens had Karin pour tea for him and, after asking Johanna’s permission, briefly and laughingly, he sat down beside her on the bed. Johanna would have liked him, if his loud manner hadn't been a little irritating for her. Also he asked too many direct, somewhat tactless questions.
***
“So this isn't a pleasure trip you're taking, you fled Germany?” he enquired cheerfully. Johanna looked at him with astonishment; she found the expression on his face disarmingly naïve. “Yes”, she said, "That’s how it was, I had to go." "Did you have a passport?" asked Jens.
"I came with a false passport."
“Are you Jewish?” Jens asked with a suspicious expression. Karin, who was clearing away the tea set, giggled. Johanna remained serious. “They might say I'm non-Aryan."
"What’s that?" asked Jens, not ironically, eager to learn.
"We don’t really know," Johanna explained to him, “but it can happen to anybody.”
***
Jens took them to a large, popular garden restaurant. Through the open glass door, they stepped onto a wide terrace where the tables were close together, almost all of them occupied. From the terrace a few steps led down into a garden, where there were more tables. Far back in the garden, a stage was set up in front of a floor of benches. Music was playing; a singspiel or an operetta was being performed. On the distant stage, they could see a few colorfully dressed people, bouncing and eager like marionettes. A tenor voice sang slow, sad notes. Johanna would have liked to listen; but suddenly their voices were drowned out by the music of a dance band, which started to play on the terrace.
***
Jens looked at the two girls and laughed. Laughing, he said, "Really, you two look alike. You definitely have a certain resemblance, yes. You could be sisters, do you know that?” He laughed harder. Karin and Johanna blushed at the same time; Johanna's blush ran like a violent warmth over her forehead, while Karin’s flew over her cheeks like a delicate, blotchy pink. "Yes," said Johanna. "People have said that in Berlin before." Karin and Johanna looked each other in the eye for a second, quite seriously, searchingly, as if each of them were looking for their own reflection in the eyes and face of the other.
The fine oval shape of their faces was similar; the beautiful cut of the large, sad eyes was similar. Karin's narrow face, with her smooth brown hair parted in the middle, was reminiscent of gentle and intelligent Madonna icons. Johanna's face was fresher and more boyish; her dark blond, cropped, loosely parted hair could have a very light sheen—it didn't just depend on how the light fell on it; her hair had the property that it could change color of its own accord, reviving and dying as it were. —Karin had a narrow and pale mouth; the outline of the upper lip was of a precious beauty. Johanna's mouth was wider, more childlike and heavy; the lips were a little rough and had a tendency to crack, which gave that young mouth something awkward, touching, schoolboy-like. The worst part in Johanna's beautiful and clear face was the soft line of the lower lip, which led to a not-very-well-modeled, not-very-strong-willed chin. The bright forehead was very endearing, and the shape of the back of the head was wonderful, it seemed that it would have belonged to a bold and talented boy. "Funny," said Jens, "You’re opposites and related at the same time; a kind of reverse kinship...."
***
“Shall we dance?” he then asked, and Johanna stood up. She said: “I almost never dance anymore.…” and allowed him to lead her across the terrace. At first they danced in the crowd between the chairs, but then Jens made his way to a quieter part of the garden. There were no more tables here; the rhythm of the music became unclear. Jens held Johanna tighter to him; she put up with it, her eyes closed.
She only opened her eyes again when Jens stopped dancing and stood with her. He kept his right arm wrapped around her waist throughout. He tried to pull her face towards him with his left hand. She could feel his smell of alcohol, nicotine and sweat, she could already feel his breath. “But that's going too far!” she thought, pulled herself together and pulled away violently. Silent, angry, ashamed, she walked quickly through the garden and up the steps to the terrace. Jens followed. They arrived at Karin at the same time.
***
As Johanna walked behind Karin through the dark rooms of the curtained apartment, she noticed that she found it difficult to put one step straight in front of the other. She felt such an urge to zigzag. She swayed through the empty rooms, but she always held her head high.
In Karin's room she quickly got rid of her clothes. She tossed the stockings into a corner and laughed a little at them. Then she sat on Karin's bed and stared straight ahead with glassy eyes.
"Poor you, have you had too much to drink?" Karin asked, putting a hand on her forehead.
"A little too much," admitted Johanna with guilt. The cool touch of Karin's hand and the calm tone of her voice made her feel almost sober. She laid her head against Karin's shoulder and closed her eyes. She became dizzy as she closed her eyes; but not as much as she had feared. Karin and Johanna sat for a few minutes without speaking.
"Was Jens pushy?" Karin finally asked. “He often doesn't behave very tastefully towards girls. Otherwise he's a good boy."
Suddenly the memory of almost being kissed by Jens became confusing and embarrassing for Johanna. But she only said: "Intrusive? No… Why?” And when Karin didn't answer, she added: “He really is a nice boy.” She pressed her head tighter against Karin's shoulder, while speaking with a rather heavy tongue.
"You still have a lot to tell me," said Karin. “Later, when there’s time.” She had started stroking Johanna's hair. She also stroked her forehead and her ears; then her hand rested on the back of Johanna's head.
"Yes," answered Johanna, her eyes closed— she spoke almost as if asleep— "One shouldn't really be talking about anything else. Always about it. But I can't, Karin— I can't. It's so terribly difficult.” She sighed deeply. "It's so terribly difficult for my parents too," she continued in her sleeptalking way. “And for poor George. Bruno is in Paris, thank God. You should know him…” Karin had no idea who Bruno was. She continued to stroke Johanna's beautiful hair.
Johanna wrapped her arms tighter around Karin's neck. "There are moments now," she whispered, "there are moments now when everything seems so pointless to me— so insanely pointless…. Then I think: what are you doing here? It could just as easily have gone otherwise. Why weren't you kept in Germany? — I think then. You could have been killed in Germany, and that might have been for the best. Then I have a feeling as if I'm falling—as if I'm falling all the time. It's horrible, you know…. It’s: look out! Look out, something very, very terrible is about to happen— for all of us. We're at his mercy—it's coming!” She lifted her face and stared up at Karin with eyes that already seemed to see the terrible things that were coming: they were filled with that dreadful sight.
Karin's face remained bathed in an incomprehensible peace. She laid her soft, cool face against Johanna's face, which was streaming with tears. "My poor darling," she said. “We have to bear it." She touched her lips to Johanna's moist, hot cheek; she touched Johanna's mouth with her lips. She pulled her closer, not too gently. In their friendship this hadn’t happened before, but since it was happening now Johanna let it. She was still crying— sobbing, and she was grateful for infinitely tender way that Karin pressed her head back down into the pillow.
*****
