Did time in Vienna really pass so slowly?
Or not at all?
In the Eastern part of Germany, a state had been founded and had remained a state for forty years, had been a quotidian reality for forty years, with new buildings springing up, schoolchildren, the victory of Socialism, please wait to be seated, Heroes of Labor, 10-pfennig streetcar tickets, I’ll petition the authorities, run down to the Konsum and get yourself an ice cream, Karl-Marx-Allee at the corner of Andreasstrasse, the gathering place for May 1, picking cherries in Werder, Ernst Busch singing of the Peasant’s War, the lift is stuck again, Socialist sister countries, dear Comrades — and at some point, after an entire lifetime of life, everyday reality and state had broken apart, had disappeared, been stamped into the ground, wiped off the map, crumbled, been swept aside by the People — but in Vienna, it seemed to him, everything that had always been there had simply endured. Bombs falling on Vienna at the end of the war, as his mother always insisted — this is something he cannot for the life of him imagine, since all the buildings he’s seen here are so vast, so unscathed.
Although he’s traveled to Frankfurt am Main many times since the opening of the border, and also to London, Trieste, and once even to New York with his wife and children to see the Statue of Liberty, the man still privately thinks of Vienna as “the West.” Like it or not, the scent of coffee at Café Museum reminds him of the packages his first girlfriend used to receive from her relatives in the Federal Republic; he can’t stop calling the current era Age of the Winners, and again and again finds himself marveling at how so-called modernity appears to derive its superiority solely from the fact that it’s been around for a good hundred and fifty years now. Like it or not, when he looks at the people here, he sees they are used to driving fast cars, that they know what a tax return is, and have no cause to hesitate before ordering a glass of prosecco with their breakfast. Just the way they let the door slam behind them when they walk in shows him how sure they are of being in the right world everywhere in the world. Now he too is sitting in this right world, he even has the right money in his wallet, although he’s drinking water to conserve his “West money.” No dogs allowed. The signs with the images of the dogs prohibited from entering butcher shops, restaurants and swimming pools existed in East Germany as well, and probably they existed everywhere in the world. The border that used to separate him from the West has long since fallen — but now it seems to have slipped inside him, separating the person he used to be from the one he’s supposed to be now, or allowed to be. I don’t know how you recognize a human being, his mother said to him last time he visited. He doesn’t want prosecco with his breakfast, like it or not. And he couldn’t care less if the others can tell by his way of looking around, by his hair and cheeks, that he comes from the land that has finally, rightly so, thank God, high time now, been wiped off the face of the earth, the land of — what madness — publicly owned enterprises, red carnations for your lapel on May 1, rigged elections, old men wearing berets left over from the Spanish Civil War, and dialectics taught at school. A Man — how proud that sounds. Getting off the night train at six in the morning, he saw people sleeping on pieces of cardboard in the station. In what world had he spent the last forty years? What happened to that world? Will he have the heart of a dog now for the rest of his life?
Later he leaves the café in his own company, meaning to stroll for a little while before his appointment that isn’t until the afternoon, they’re selling horse meat at the Naschmarkt, herbs, apples, and flowers; he promenades across the square then strolls across to the Rechte Wienzeile; it’s still too early in the day for the porn cinema there, he has no desire to desire anything, blindly he strolls down a side street, makes a right turn without a plan, and onward: streetcar tracks, the entryways of the buildings giving off a smell of quicklime and dust as though it were summer already, he passes grimy shop windows, walking ever farther down this street. He’s happy not to have to go look at anything a foreigner in Vienna is supposed to see, he likes walking like this through everyday reality. In a spot where a very long time ago an angel kept watch over a building’s front entrance, the low building no longer stands, instead there’s a modern five-story hotel. Indeed, the building where his great-grandmother once lived fell victim to one of the few bombs dropped in the final days of the war, in March 1945, but by then his great-grandmother had already been dead for more than four years, her apartment had been emptied out and passed on to others. But he knows neither who his great-grandmother was, nor where she lived, he steps to one side when the revolving door deposits a group of tourists onto the sidewalk. As far as this descendent of a Viennese resident is concerned, Vienna has been washed clean of stories, it took less than a human lifetime for the city to lose all connection to him. Less than a human lifetime for homeland and origins to diverge. He is free, doubly free; he carries around within him a vast dark land: all the stories his mother never told him or that she hid from him; perhaps he carries with him even those stories his mother never knew or heard of, he can’t get rid of them, but he can’t lose them either, since he doesn’t even know them, since all of this lies buried deep within him; for when he slipped from his mother’s womb, he was already filled with interior spaces that didn’t belong to him, and he can’t just look inside to inspect his own interior. His father once spent three weeks in Berlin almost forty years ago, but he didn’t know about it, how could he have? His father later spent an eternity living in Vorkuta, and twelve years ago he died there, but the son knows neither of these things. The son can make his home anywhere in the world, in Berlin for example. If he knew what questions to ask, knew what, where, and to whom, then an official of the Jewish Community of Vienna would surely be able to dig up one or the other list and inform him that his great-grandmother was brought to Opole in the district of Lublin with the first transport of February ’41, that his grandmother moved six times within Vienna and then was sent via Minsk to Maly Trostenets in July ’42, and that his aunt spent many months hiding in a friend’s apartment and then was sent in ’44 to Auschwitz. But given what he knows, he finds Vienna just as dusty as any other metropolis. Kettenbrückengasse, Mariahilfer Strasse, Siebensterngasse, Mondscheingasse. There on the otherer side, as his mother would say, is a second-hand shop; who knows, maybe he’ll find something here that he can bring her.
The miniature grandfather clock, standing on a shelf beside the entryway, is just striking ten with tinny strokes, although he knows it has to be at least 11:30 by now. All around he sees tables and cabinets, chairs with woven seats, stools and ottomans, glass cases with jewelry tangled in old silverware; lamps dangle from the ceiling, and the walls are hung with oil paintings, mirrors, barometers, crucifixes, and trays that once held movable type; shelves bear candelabras, plates, books, and glasses, and under the tables are wooden buckets and baskets filled with linens. Everything is squeezed in tightly together, each object casting its shadow on the next, so that, even on this bright May day, the room lies in its own twilight. At first the man cannot make out a seller, and no one speaks to him in greeting; only after his eyes have become accustomed to the low light does he see a man sitting in an armchair off in the back, immersed in a book.
What might please his mother? His mother who didn’t want to take anything when she moved to the rest home but the yellow wall hanging with its Uzbek sun, the small dark-blue suitcase, whose contents are unknown to him, and the little box with the gold buttons. He wouldn’t mind acquiring this set of Goethe’s writings for his own use — the final authorized edition, surprisingly complete with all its volumes — that no doubt costs less here than at an antiquarian bookshop. At random he pulls out Volume 9, the spine of which is a bit scraped, and leafs through it; he reads “Farewell,” then puts the book back in its place. How can he carry an entire Goethe edition on the train to Berlin? A brooch set with amethysts might be nice, or a silver spoon with the Vienna city arms, but he doesn’t feel like asking the shopkeeper to open the glass c
ase. Finally he sees a miniature double portrait leaning up against a Meissen soup tureen, a double portrait of Prussian Kaiser Wilhelm II and Kaiser Franz Joseph as allies, In Steadfast Loyalty is written on the picture, and since his Viennese mother has wound up in Prussia, he thinks it might work, the piece’s political context now lying far in the past; he takes the picture from the shelf, approaches the man and asks: Excuse me, how much?
4
The owner of the Goethe edition and the clock is already nearly eighty when she has to leave everything behind, and in February ’41, leaning on her cousin’s arm, she begins her journey to the Jewish Home for the Aged on Malzgasse, which, for the sake of convenience, has been designated the first collection point for deportations to the East. The clock strikes eleven, the clock strikes twelve, Morning wind wings about the shady bay, then her cousin returns to the empty apartment. He sits for a while at the table, where a moment ago he shared a last cup of tea with the old woman. Es vert mir finster in di oygn, everything’s going black before my eyes. Then the clock strikes one. The old woman was forced to turn in her seven-armed candelabra the year before, for the metal collection. It’s surely long since been melted down. But the Goethe edition at least: the man now packs it up, grabbing three or four volumes at a time, in the very suitcase in which he transported it twenty years before on his cart. He removes the pendulum from the clock, wrapping the clock in a pillowcase and tying it up to make a package that he can put in a coal sack and hang over his shoulder. With suitcase and sack he leaves the apartment, which has grown completely cold, a thin sheet of ice has already formed on top of the water in the bucket. If he hadn’t slipped the clock’s pendulum into the breast pocket of his jacket, he’d think he was still hearing the clock ticking right through the sack and the soft fabric, as though he were hearing it through snow, he could swear the clock’s hands were still moving behind his back. After all, before the old lady started on her journey to Malzgasse, she had wound the clock one last time, just as she had done every morning for the last fifty years. With the stopped clock on his back, the old woman’s cousin walks through the February cold, the pendulum peeking out of his breast pocket with its delicate little hook, and the key to wind it is in his trouser pocket, where it is slowly growing warm. The cousin walks to the neighborhood around Arenbergplatz, rings a doorbell, speaks with someone, nods, then takes the streetcar to Mariahilfer Strasse 117, rings the bell, speaks, nods, then heads to Linzer Strasse 439, rings, speaks; Haidgasse 4, and finally he finds himself standing on Dampfschiffstrasse 10/6 in District II before a door, he rings the bell, speaks, and here he is finally relieved of his burden that has now become an inheritance, a reminder to the woman answering of something she doesn’t want to be reminded of, objects speak without speaking, and the woman now knows something she didn’t want to know: that there is a moment when it is forever too late. Last of all, the now-warm key from the cousin’s trouser pocket — oh, right — and the pendulum. The woman takes the key, pendulum, suitcase, and the coal sack, and carries them to a room belonging to her only in part, strangers are sitting there on beds, strange children playing under the table, strangers quarreling, and here — as if all these things had nothing to do with her — she takes the packet out of the sack, unwraps it, places the clock on the table, hooks the pendulum in its place, and already the clockwork begins ticking again, her mother’s life is still there in the tightly wound spring; she shoos a few children away, sits down in front of the clock, and watches as time — which is now forever too late — passes. Time is like a briar that has gotten caught in wool, you tear it out with all your strength and throw it over your shoulder. Minutes pass that no longer matter, cleanly divided by the minute hand one from the next.
Yet again, the suitcase and coal sack with the clock wrapped in its pillowcase are transported by the woman through the streets of Vienna, for a new official directive has ordered her to move from Dampfschiffstrasse to Obere Donaustrasse, and three months later from Obere Donaustrasse to Hammer-Purgstall-Gasse 3/12. Although the woman finds these moves quite burdensome, she nonetheless lugs the Complete Works of Goethe along with her, as well as the clock, these last two remaining possessions of her mother, who has long since been deported. And when she arrives at one or the other location, she unwraps the clock, winds it, then lays the key beside it, just as her mother always used to. Perhaps there’s secretly something magical about these inherited belongings, just like in the fairy tale, where, in time of need, a comb thrown over your shoulder can grow into a forest.
But no forest has grown as of August 13, 1942, when she boards the train at the Aspang Station in Vienna that will take her to Minsk. Forcing the doors, clearing out the shared apartment that served as a transit station for Jews at Hammer-Purgstall-Gasse 3/12, and making an inventory takes the Gestapo’s Division for the Processing of Jewish Personal Effects two and a half days. The clock has meanwhile come to a stop. The key for winding it lies, as always, beside it. Chaim Safir sticks the key through the little oval opening, through which you can see the pendulum, and into the clock case, then he puts the clock in a laundry basket, in which a stack of plates, a vase made of porcelain, several glasses and a crystal carafe are already awaiting deportation. To keep things from breaking, Chaim Safir stuffs some items of clothing between them, then he picks up the basket, carries it downstairs, and says to Herr Gschwandtner: All that’s left now is the furniture. Herr Gschwandtner follows him to do a check, looking around the room, he opens the cabinet doors, looks under the beds, pushes a little footstool aside, deftly pulling the suitcase out from behind it, saying: It’s probably full of jewels, you idiot. Chaim Safir says: I’m sorry, I overlooked the suitcase. Herr Gschwandtner says, The thing weighs a ton. At first the lid refuses to open, but then it does, such a mazl, Herr Gschwandtner says to Chaim Safir, nothing but books, just look what’s on the back of them: nothing but Goethe; he slams the suitcase shut again. To be or not to be, he says, grinning, as he gets to his feet. Chaim Safir nods without meeting Herr Gschwandtner’s eyes. Herr Gschwandtner pokes at the suitcase with his shoe-tip and says: This one goes downstairs too.
Suitcase and clock spend the weekend in the depot along with all the other items. On Monday morning the assessor comes and sorts the new arrivals according to value: the basket with the clock, carafe, and dishes is sent to Krummbaumgasse, ground floor, for private sale; since the suitcase looks so shabby, he doesn’t even open it before saying: That too. On the ground floor of Krummbaumgasse, shabby suitcases like this one — packed and then abandoned — sell for 2 reichsmark a piece (a pig in a poke, you take your chances, part and parcel, lock, stock, and barrel, blind man’s bluff, who doesn’t like a surprise), each is sold along with its contents, but opening the lid beforehand is not allowed. The newspaper prints a notice announcing the arrival of a new assortment of furniture and accessories for sale; a young wartime bride applies for an invitation to view the goods, enclosing her pay slip, she’s certainly poor enough and has a husband on the Eastern front, making ends meet isn’t easy for her. If she receives an invitation, she’ll be allowed to bring two friends or relatives when she comes, and she does receive one, so she brings her mother and a girlfriend — oh just look at that, isn’t that adorable, and really it’s not expensive. A vase, a carafe made of crystal, a set of sheets, or a plate. Just look at the clock, you can see its pendulum through the hole, maybe it doesn’t work, oh I’m sure it does, what’s that rattling around inside?, look, the key, I’ll fish it out, careful, let’s wind it up, my goodness, look at the size of this platter, why are you surprised? they’re the ones who carve up babies, what nonsense, it’s really beautiful, and I’m going to take this suitcase, it’s such a good deal, go ahead, who knows what’s inside, Jesus it’s heavy, maybe stones, maybe treasure, could I possibly have just a tiny peek inside first? Madame, a peek would cost more, all right, if you insist, how bad can it be, I’ll take it as is, maybe it’ll be the surprise of my life, but let’s not open it till we get home,
why not? I want to see what’s inside, why do you always have to be so impatient. . . . The clock strikes three, even though it’s only just after nine-thirty. What a pretty chime, I wouldn’t like it myself, it sounds annoying, not to me, I’ll fix it to show the right time, I think it’s pretty, so do I, what do you want with a clock?, everyone needs a clock. And I’ll take the platter. The Jewish platter? Why not? I’ll baptize it this Saturday: I’m making ham hocks.
Two years later when the war finally comes to an end, the wartime bride has a daughter, but her husband fell in Russia. The miniature grandfather clock strikes with tinny strokes all the hours that a life contains in peacetime, it strikes from one to twelve, one to twelve, and the next day the same thing, twice from one to twelve, it strikes at the crack of dawn when the janitor’s broom bumps against the front door from the outside, it strikes in the empty apartment all morning long while the girl is at school and the woman is at her office, strikes in the afternoon during the hour for coffee and cake, and in the evening during the lullaby The moon is arisen, it even strikes late at night when the war widow lets down her hair without a man to hang his belt over the back of the chair. It strikes from one to twelve for all the length of a peaceful Aryan life.
When the war widow approaches her fiftieth birthday, her elderly mother dies, and she dissolves her mother’s household with her daughter, who is meanwhile grown; in the basement, she finds the old Goethe edition: the surprise of her life back then, the pig in the poke; the volumes smell of the cellar but are not mildewed. The man in the antique shop next door, who’s always sitting around reading, pays her a respectable sum for the bit of rubbish. The shabby valise that in its day cost her mother a mere 2 reichsmark, even full, also contains an assortment of patches in different colors, and these she might still have use for herself.
The End of Days Page 21
