Flotsam Read Online Free

latter casually flipped up the lowest card in the deck—the ace of clubs.
    “What a coincidence!” The Chicken laughed.
    The cardsharp did not laugh. “Where did you learn that trick?” he asked Steiner in amazement. “You belong to the profession?”
    “No, I’m an amateur. That’s why recognition by an expert pleases me so.”
    “It’s not that.” The cardsharp looked at him. “The fact is I invented the trick.”
    “Really?” Steiner pressed out his cigarette. “I learned it in Budapest. In prison, before I was deported. From a man named Katscher.”
    “Katscher! Now I understand.” The cardsharp sighed with relief. “So that’s where it came from! Katscher is a pupil of mine; you learned it well.”
    The cardsharp handed him the deck and looked inquiringly at the candle. “The light is bad—but of course we’re only playing for fun, gentlemen, aren’t we? Strictly aboveboard.”
    Kern lay down on his bunk and closed his eyes. He was full of an unformulated gray sadness. Since the hearing that morning he had been thinking steadily of his parents—for the first time in a long while. He saw his father as he had appeared when he had returned from the police station. A business competitor had denounced him for talking against the State—in order to bankrupt his small laboratory for the manufacture of medicinal soap, perfumes, and toilet water, and then to buy it up for a song. The plan had succeeded, as a thousand others had at that time. After six weeks’ detention,Kern’s father had come back a completely broken man. He never spoke of his experiences; but he sold his factory to his competitor at a ridiculous price. Soon afterward came the order to leave, and with it the beginning of an endless flight. From Dresden to Prague; from Prague to Brünn; from there by night over the border into Austria; the next day past the police back into Czecho, two days later slipping secretly across the border to Vienna—making improvised splints from branches for his mother’s arm, broken during the night; from Vienna to Hungary; a couple of weeks with his mother’s relatives; then the police once more; the farewell to his mother, who was allowed to remain because she was of Hungarian descent; the border once more; Vienna once more; the heartbreaking business of peddling soap, toilet water, suspenders, and shoestrings; the constant dread of being denounced and caught; the night when his father did not return; the months alone, stealing from one hiding place to another…
    Kern turned over, bumping someone as he did so. On the bunk beside him lay something that looked like a bundle of rags in the darkness. It was the final occupant of the cell, a man of about fifty who had hardly moved all day.
    “I beg your pardon,” Kern said. “I didn’t see you—”
    The man made no reply. Kern noticed that his eyes were open. He knew this condition; he had often encountered it on the road. The best thing to do was to leave the man alone.
    “Damnation!” the Chicken suddenly shouted from the corner where the card players were. “What a fool I am! What a terrible fool!”
    “How’s that?” Steiner asked calmly. “The queen of hearts was exactly the right card.”
    “That’s not what I mean. But that Russian could have sentme my chicken. God in Heaven, what a contemptible fool I am! A simple, weak-minded idiot!”
    He looked around him as though the world had come to an end.
    Kern suddenly discovered that he was laughing. He didn’t want to laugh, but now he found he could not stop. He laughed until his whole body shook, and he didn’t know why. Something inside him was laughing and throwing everything into confusion—sadness, the past, and all his memories.
    “What’s up, Baby?” Steiner asked, glancing up from his cards.
    “I don’t know. I’m laughing.”
    “Laughter’s always a good thing.” Steiner threw down the king of spades, stealing a dead-certain trick from the speechless Pole.
    Kern reached