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Polaris, v. 2, issue 2, June 1941

Page 6

6

THE HAT
by Donald A. Wollheim

I have checked this matter pretty thoroughly, even to having microscopic examinations made, and I tell you that I could not be mistaken. But it does not help to think too much abut it. It is all very odd.
These refugees, you know. These days all sorts of people are being routed out of Europe. British children and German Jews are really only a small part of it. You've no idea, really, unless you are a New Yorker with your eyes wide open, how many types of people are coming over here these days. Poles, Spaniards, Frenchmen, Danes, Roumanians, Hungarians, oh, all sorts of people. But to get back to my subject.
I was sitting in a cafeteria in lower Manhattan very late one night. It was a smallish cafeteria, not too clean, not too dirty, and not too crowded. In fact there weren't more than three or four people there, mostly having coffee and doughnuts. The time was very late, or very early, depending on whether you were just gettng up or just going to bed. About two or three in the morning. I had just come from a friend's house who lives down in that crowded section and had dropped in for a bite before going home.
Anyhow, as I was saying, there were only a few people there; two chaps who looked like Italian workmen who, I judged, were probably on their way to the docks, a chap who was probably a truck-driver, and him. He was a nondescript sort of chap sitting over in one corner hunched over a paper. I never got a closer look at his face, after all who was he to me? I only remember what he looked like by afterthought.
I seem to think he had rather poor clothes on, shabby and all that. And I have an impression he was unshaven and his hair scraggly. Anyway he was sitting there reading a paper in some Slavic language or maybe it was Hungarian or Greek. I wouldn't know.
Now, nothing really happened, you understand. I hope you haven't been expecting anything from this yarn. Because all that did happen was that this guy suddenly put down his paper, looked up at the clock, muttered something under his breath and got up. He walked hastily to the cashier, plunked down a nickel and rushed out.
So what's that to me, you wonder. Nothing except he forgot his hat, a black, rather battered, fuzzy brimmed fedora. I, like the dope that I am, went over, picked it off the rack and went after him, but I couldn't find him. So I came back. The greasy waiter, who was both counterman and cashier, shrugged his shoulders and indicated I should leave the hat back on the rack or do what I pleased with it. I was going to stick it back on the rack when I noticed a number of loose hairs sticking around the fuzzy inner rim of the hat. That's nothing, too, a lot of hats would show loose hairs. Only no, not like these.
I know hairs, and these hairs were coarse, grey-tapering-into brown. They weren't like any human hairs. They struck me as odd then and they still do.
But I said that there are all sorts of refugees flooding the country these days. What with war in Greece and in the wild country

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6 THE HAT by Donald A. Wollheim I have checked this matter pretty thoroughly, even to having microscopic examinations made, and I tell you that I could not be mistaken. But it does not help to think too much abut it. It is all very odd. These refugees, you know. These days all sorts of people are being routed out of Europe. British children and German Jews are really only a small part of it. You've no idea, really, unless you are a New Yorker with your eyes wide open, how many types of people are coming over here these days. Poles, Spaniards, Frenchmen, Danes, Roumanians, Hungarians, oh, all sorts of people. But to get back to my subject. I was sitting in a cafeteria in lower Manhattan very late one night. It was a smallish cafeteria, not too clean, not too dirty, and not too crowded. In fact there weren't more than three or four people there, mostly having coffee and doughnuts. The time was very late, or very early, depending on whether you were just gettng up or just going to bed. About two or three in the morning. I had just come from a friend's house who lives down in that crowded section and had dropped in for a bite before going home. Anyhow, as I was saying, there were only a few people there; two chaps who looked like Italian workmen who, I judged, were probably on their way to the docks, a chap who was probably a truck-driver, and him. He was a nondescript sort of chap sitting over in one corner hunched over a paper. I never got a closer look at his face, after all who was he to me? I only remember what he looked like by afterthought. I seem to think he had rather poor clothes on, shabby and all that. And I have an impression he was unshaven and his hair scraggly. Anyway he was sitting there reading a paper in some Slavic language or maybe it was Hungarian or Greek. I wouldn't know. Now, nothing really happened, you understand. I hope you haven't been expecting anything from this yarn. Because all that did happen was that this guy suddenly put down his paper, looked up at the clock, muttered something under his breath and got up. He walked hastily to the cashier, plunked down a nickel and rushed out. So what's that to me, you wonder. Nothing except he forgot his hat, a black, rather battered, fuzzy brimmed fedora. I, like the dope that I am, went over, picked it off the rack and went after him, but I couldn't find him. So I came back. The greasy waiter, who was both counterman and cashier, shrugged his shoulders and indicated I should leave the hat back on the rack or do what I pleased with it. I was going to stick it back on the rack when I noticed a number of loose hairs sticking around the fuzzy inner rim of the hat. That's nothing, too, a lot of hats would show loose hairs. Only no, not like these. I know hairs, and these hairs were coarse, grey-tapering-into brown. They weren't like any human hairs. They struck me as odd then and they still do. But I said that there are all sorts of refugees flooding the country these days. What with war in Greece and in the wild country