Ship of Fools by Katherine Anne Porter Page B

as if their blood had not been sufficiently renewed for generations. Their bare feet were bruised, hardened, cracked, knotted in the joints, and their hands were swollen fists. It was plain they were there by no will or plan of their own, and in the helpless humility of complete enslavement they were waiting for whatever would be done to them next. Women nursed their starveling infants; men sat fumbling among their wretched possessions, tying them up more firmly; they picked at their feet or scratched in their hair; or they sat suspended in uneasy idleness, simply staring. Pale anxious children, miserable, uncomplaining, sat near their mothers and gazed at them, but asked for nothing.
    Several officious-looking men were moving among them, counting them with pointing fingers, writing down something over each one, consulting with each other and steadying themselves as they felt their way between bodies by laying a hand upon the nearest head as if it were a newel or a doorknob. The strangest silence was over the whole scene—strange, thought Jenny, because the misery is so great and something so terrible is happening to them, you might think they would all be howling and crying and fighting to escape. “David, what can it be?” she asked, but he shook his head. They came out into the open air, and there was the ship looming up, the gangplank ready.
    Almost everyone on shipboard forgot his reserve for the moment, and strangers were asking each other questions and getting answers full of rumor and conflicting theories. The young officers found themselves under a rapid fire of curiosity about the beggars on the dock who now seemed to be coming on board the Vera . The officers could only shake their heads. They were sorry, but they had no idea who the steerage passengers were, nor why there were so many, nor what their situation was precisely, except that anyone could see they were of the lowest class. No doubt everything would be known in time.
    This answer raised greater curiosity all around. Professor and Frau Hutten, who had persuaded their seasick bulldog Bébé out for a breath of air on solid earth, had been told by someone in town that the strange people were political malcontents and were being deported as dangerous and subversive elements. Professor Hutten, observing them carefully, remarked that they seemed to be quite harmless though unfortunate people. Herr Lutz, the Swiss hotelkeeper, told the Professor that he had heard that the people were returning to Spain because of a new sudden demand for labor in that country: since the Spanish had thrown the king out, Spain, it was said, was lining up for progress, catching up with the modern world. “Same old story,” said Herr Lutz, “the grass looks greener in the next pasture until you get there. It is the first I have heard of prosperity in Spain.”
    Herr Rieber and Lizzi Spöckenkieker pranced onto the deck, and Lizzi screamed out to little Frau Otto Schmitt, whose tender heart was plainly to be surmised in her soft pink face: “Oh, what do you think of this dreadful fellow? Can you guess what he just said? I was saying, ‘Oh, these poor people, what can be done for them?’ and this monster—” she gave a kind of whinny between hysteria and indignation—“he said, ‘I would do this for them: I would put them all in a big oven and turn on the gas.’ Oh,” she said weakly, doubling over with laughter, “isn’t that the most original idea you ever heard?”
    Herr Rieber stood by smiling broadly, quite pleased with himself. Frau Schmitt went a little pale, and said in a motherly, severe tone, “There may be such a thing as too much originality—for shame, I don’t think that is funny!” Herr Rieber’s face fell, he pouted.
    Lizzi said, “Oh, he did not mean any harm, of course; only to fumigate them, isn’t it so?”
    â€œNo, I did not mean fumigate,” said