Clara Mondschein's Melancholia

by Anne Raeff

  “‘Your guides?’ I said laughing, and they lowered their heads.

  “‘The Russians will not hurt us if you are with us,’ the old man said.

  “‘So you know who we are?’ I asked.

  “‘Yes,’ he said, but he bowed his head again and did not elaborate.

  “‘There is strength in numbers,’ Karl said, and the old man looked up at us.

  “‘Thank you,’ he said and then went to tell the rest of the villagers our answer.

  “At first they insisted we ride in the wagon, which the men pulled—the horses had been slaughtered by the Russians. But they pulled so slowly—as if they were dragging their dead relatives to the churchyard. We couldn’t bear it, sitting atop all their worldly possessions like a royal family fleeing, abdicating the throne. Karl volunteered to help them pull, but they said they did not want the Russians to see us working.

  “We didn’t run into the Russians, though. We ran into the Germans—bedraggled troops heading reluctantly towards home and, accompanying them, lines and lines of civilians with wagons piled high with bundles and farm equipment, heading west away from the Russians. The old and sickly took turns riding in the backs of the German trucks and, because of Clara, the German soldiers encouraged us to accept a ride, but we preferred walking. It made us feel stronger and I had visions of a once fat and red-cheeked sergeant throwing her gleefully from the truck.

  “We tried hanging back to distance ourselves from the German troops and their co-travelers, but it was impossible to lose them because the line of refugees went on behind us as long as the eye could see and much farther. After we joined the Germans, our villagers ignored us, except when it came time to distribute food and drink. They handed us our provisions with bowed heads and always looked away if Clara’s face was uncovered. We didn’t try to engage them because there was no point. We simply received our rations as they all did, quietly and humbly. We wondered what happened to our original hostess and if there was some reason why she had stayed behind. But there probably was no real reason except that she was the sort who preferred to stay home, the type who is more afraid of what she does not know than of what she knows.”

  “And you, Mrs. Mondschein, which are you more afraid of?” Tommy asked.

  “The known,” I said. “There is always hope in the unknown.”

  “Hope is what scares me the most because it will come to nothing and then you are just back to the known.”

  “I don’t think it comes to nothing,” I said, not really sure if I believed what I was saying, but saying it nonetheless. “If nothing else, it comes to something else than what you had before, which is at least a change, something you have to figure out, something to keep you engaged for a while longer.”

  “What do you think happened to that woman?”

  “She probably had children. Women almost always have children.”

  “So you don’t think she was killed by the Russians?”

  “No.”

  “Why are you so sure?”

  “I’m not sure. I just don’t think she was. I think she had children and worked hard and was cold in the winter and looked forward to the summer.”

  “I bet she stayed behind because she was waiting for her husband to come home.”

  “Maybe, but if she had a husband, he probably didn’t come home.”

  “Probably not,” Tommy said, sinking back into his pillow. “Do you think she ever regretted not going along?”

  “Yes, and if she had come with us, she would have regretted that. She would have spent years in a dingy house in Cleveland, dreaming of her village and complaining about how the bread in the United States could never be the same as the bread that came out of her three-hundred-year-old oven in her three-hundred-year-old house back in her village in Czechoslovakia, and her grandchildren would raise their eyebrows every time she started talking about bread. At least we were spared that.”

  “Spared what?”

  “The nostalgia.”

  “You never miss Vienna? Not even during those moments just before you fall asleep at night, when your mind wanders to places you don’t usually let it wander to? You don’t sometimes think, wouldn’t it be nice to spend a rainy afternoon in a café, drinking coffee and savoring some overly sweet and creamy pastry?”

  “No. Sometimes I think of my sisters’ heavy arms mixing dough with wooden spoons, and then I have to get up and listen to the radio until I can no longer see the little beads of sweat that formed on their forearms as they mixed and mixed and mixed in that quiet apartment with its yellowing curtains and Passover silver.”

  “Well, then in some way you are lucky because in the summer I still wake up yearning for the sounds of lawnmowers and the Good Humor Man and my mother vacuuming that horrible orange shag carpeting she was so proud of and that feeling of summer, knowing I had the whole day to myself, knowing that my father was on his way to work, sitting on the train reading his stupid paper, and, best of all, knowing there was no school with bullies that made fun of the way I walked or held my pencil or threw a ball. It was just me and the hot, long day. Don’t you have any memories like that at all?”

  “No. Do you feel like some music?” I asked. He lay very still, looking up at the ceiling, as if he were trying to imagine the long line of people moving like one wounded mass towards the west. His eyes strained up toward the ceiling, as if he saw an actual image on the ceiling and was straining to get it into focus.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Do you want to listen to some music?”

  He sat up then, fighting to get himself upright, pushing me away when I tried to help him, his breath rattling in his chest. “Doesn’t certain music remind you of Karl, of your first year together, before the war, before your father’s death?”

  “No, when I listen to music, I think of nothing at all.”

  “How could that be?”

  “I have trained myself. It’s the only reprieve I get from my thoughts.”

  “I’ve never wanted a reprieve from my thoughts, no matter how terrible they may be.” Tommy tried to raise himself up even higher, but he was too weak.

  “We all have our weaknesses,” I said, smiling, but Tommy remained utterly serious.

  “And Karl, did music have the same effect on him?”

  “I don’t know, but I doubt it. It takes quite a bit of practice to empty your mind so completely.”

  “Did he know that’s what you do?”

  “No, we never discussed it.”

  “So, when you used to go to concerts together, he had no idea?”

  “No idea,” I said.

  “Hmm. Maybe he knew and just didn’t let on.”

  “Maybe, but I don’t think he did. Did you know? You and I have listened to a lot of music together.”

  “No, but Karl had a way of knowing things.”

  “Yes, but he was better at knowing things about strangers than about me.”

  “That’s because you kept secrets from him.”

  “Yes, and he kept secrets from me.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I just do.”

  “Still, I wouldn’t have kept anything from him,” Tommy said with the utmost seriousness, but then his seriousness embarrassed him, so he chuckled and asked, “So, how did you train yourself to be thoughtless?”

  “I started with Bach because it’s the purest of all music. The Brandenberg Concerti worked the best because the harpsichord is so crisp, just short, finished notes that don’t linger in the air like pain the way organ or even piano music does. With the harpsichord you can concentrate on each individual note separately as if it were a section of an even, black line separating you from your thoughts, from everything. After you learn to separate each note, y
ou can let them flow back towards each other without any interference and then all you know is the music.”

  “Do we have the Brandenberg Concerti here?”

  “Yes, should I put it on?”

  “No, I feel like something more emotional. Maybe some crying will do me good. Let’s put on the Mahler Adagietto again.” And when it was over, he asked me to play it again and then again and then again. Finally, after four times he cried out in a high-pitched, hoarse yelp, “Enough! I guess I’m just not up for crying today. Let’s go back to your line of pathetic refugees.”

  “Fine. We shuffled on, stopping as little as possible, especially as we got closer and closer to Germany. The Germans kept a steady pace too, as if they were eager to hand in their weapons and go home, as if they expected everything to be the way it had been when they left. Just outside Regensburg we met up with American troops, who ordered the German soldiers to give up their weapons and then led them away. They didn’t meet with any resistance at all. I don’t know where they took the soldiers, but they piled us into trucks and took us to the Displaced Persons camp that was to be our home for almost two years.

  “The camp was a former army base with rows of simple wooden barracks covered with tin roofs. When it rained, we lay awake listening to a strange drumming that was half cacophonous and half soothing, like crows cawing at dusk. At first we shared our barracks with some Ukrainians. How they had made it west before us, we never knew. We kept to ourselves and so did they, all of us tiptoeing on the wooden floors as if we were sharing the room with a dying celebrity. They prayed before each meal. After about a week, they left. I don’t know where they went, but they were replaced by Polish Jews, all young men who tried to speak to us in Yiddish. We pretended we understood less than we did, so they left us alone too, spending most of their time in the canteen drinking cup after cup of weak coffee and smoking American cigarettes. After a few weeks, they left for Palestine, so we got new barrack mates, who also left for Palestine, as did the next set and the next.

  “No. Do you feel like some music?” I asked. He lay very still, looking up at the ceiling, as if he were trying to imagine the long line of people moving like one wounded mass towards the west. His eyes strained up toward the ceiling, as if he saw an actual image on the ceiling and was straining to get it into focus.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Do you want to listen to some music?”

  He sat up then, fighting to get himself upright, pushing me away when I tried to help him, his breath rattling in his chest. “Doesn’t certain music remind you of Karl, of your first year together, before the war, before your father’s death?”

  “No, when I listen to music, I think of nothing at all.”

  “How could that be?”

  “I have trained myself. It’s the only reprieve I get from my thoughts.”

  “I’ve never wanted a reprieve from my thoughts, no matter how terrible they may be.” Tommy tried to raise himself up even higher, but he was too weak.

  “We all have our weaknesses,” I said, smiling, but Tommy remained utterly serious.

  “And Karl, did music have the same effect on him?”

  “I don’t know, but I doubt it. It takes quite a bit of practice to empty your mind so completely.”

  “Did he know that’s what you do?”

  “No, we never discussed it.”

  “So, when you used to go to concerts together, he had no idea?”

  “No idea,” I said.

  “Hmm. Maybe he knew and just didn’t let on.”

  “Maybe, but I don’t think he did. Did you know? You and I have listened to a lot of music together.”

  “No, but Karl had a way of knowing things.”

  “Yes, but he was better at knowing things about strangers than about me.”

  “That’s because you kept secrets from him.”

  “Yes, and he kept secrets from me.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I just do.”

  “Still, I wouldn’t have kept anything from him,” Tommy said with the utmost seriousness, but then his seriousness embarrassed him, so he chuckled and asked, “So, how did you train yourself to be thoughtless?”

  “I started with Bach because it’s the purest of all music. The Brandenberg Concerti worked the best because the harpsichord is so crisp, just short, finished notes that don’t linger in the air like pain the way organ or even piano music does. With the harpsichord you can concentrate on each individual note separately as if it were a section of an even, black line separating you from your thoughts, from everything. After you learn to separate each note, you can let them flow back towards each other without any interference and then all you know is the music.”

  “Do we have the Brandenberg Concerti here?”

  “Yes, should I put it on?”

  “No, I feel like something more emotional. Maybe some crying will do me good. Let’s put on the Mahler Adagietto again.” And when it was over, he asked me to play it again and then again and then again. Finally, after four times he cried out in a high-pitched, hoarse yelp, “Enough! I guess I’m just not up for crying today. Let’s go back to your line of pathetic refugees.”

  “Fine. We shuffled on, stopping as little as possible, especially as we got closer and closer to Germany. The Germans kept a steady pace too, as if they were eager to hand in their weapons and go home, as if they expected everything to be the way it had been when they left. Just outside Regensburg we met up with American troops, who ordered the German soldiers to give up their weapons and then led them away. They didn’t meet with any resistance at all. I don’t know where they took the soldiers, but they piled us into trucks and took us to the Displaced Persons camp that was to be our home for almost two years.

  “The camp was a former army base with rows of simple wooden barracks covered with tin roofs. When it rained, we lay awake listening to a strange drumming that was half cacophonous and half soothing, like crows cawing at dusk. At first we shared our barracks with some Ukrainians. How they had made it west before us, we never knew. We kept to ourselves and so did they, all of us tiptoeing on the wooden floors as if we were sharing the room with a dying celebrity. They prayed before each meal. After about a week, they left. I don’t know where they went, but they were replaced by Polish Jews, all young men who tried to speak to us in Yiddish. We pretended we understood less than we did, so they left us alone too, spending most of their time in the canteen drinking cup after cup of weak coffee and smoking American cigarettes. After a few weeks, they left for Palestine, so we got new barrack mates, who also left for Palestine, as did the next set and the next.

  “At the camp there were rabbis, whom Karl and I avoided, and there were the Zionists to whom we half-listened with polite expressions on our faces but who scared us even more than the rabbis. It was amazing how quickly our fellow prisoners grasped at Israel. How our fellow survivors cried when young American Zionists spoke of sinking their hands elbow-deep into the soil of the Promised Land, their eyes brimming over for the grapes and wheat and oranges they would pick, and the sheep blood they would spill with their own hands. These were people who had never even planted a flower nor thought of keeping a potted plant in their dark apartments, people who had always covered every inch of their bodies and avoided sunlight whenever possible. It was as if centuries and centuries of a repressed longing for nature rose to the surface. Men and women alike woke up at the crack of dawn, even though they had nothing but time on their hands, to do their exercises, prepare their bodies for the hard work of turning desert into farmland. In the evenings they sang songs and practiced speaking to each other in Hebrew, turning pages and pages of memorized Blatts into talk about children and clothes and their favorite foods.

  “But we studied English. We followed the relief workers around, asking
them silly questions in our horrible accents just for the practice, and, when they were not too busy with important things like making sure everyone was taking parasite medicine, we invited them for coffee and we asked them about their families in broken English, carefully writing down our new vocabulary in little notebooks that we carried with us everywhere. They were always very polite and thanked us for the coffee and gave us chewing gum, which we graciously took and hoarded in our small box of belongings along with our tin plates and enamel coffee cups. We gave all those things to Clara on her eighteenth birthday. She had been begging us to give them to her for years and finally we relented. We should have just left everything in the camp, but people grow attached to material objects and to memories.

  “We had a special place for those memories in our apartment in the buffet behind the Scotch and brandy and gin Karl’s patients gave him, which we never drank from except on rare occasions when we had guests. I can count the guests who came to our apartment on two hands and that’s including Simon when he and Clara were dating as well as the one or two school friends Clara invited over the years. We had no time for guests and preferred to stick to ourselves, spending the free time we did have at concerts. We didn’t go to the opera much. It had lost its appeal, but we took comfort in the neat austerity of chamber music. Once when Clara was still very young, we took her to the symphony. It was Mozart, the Thirty-ninth. Clara held her hands over her ears the whole time and afterwards told us she could feel the music pounding in her stomach. But she didn’t cry. She just sat stiffly, her hands over her ears, doing everything in her power to keep from screaming.

  “Clara never cried as a child. She would only stiffen. It was her version of crying, a carryover from her first days, when she instinctively knew that crying would be the end. For the first few weeks after Karl and I were reunited, she stiffened every time Karl tried to pick her up and that stiffening was worse than the most piercing scream. And then it just stopped. One morning she looked up at Karl and smiled, only it wasn’t really a smile, more of a half-smile. And after that morning she almost preferred Karl to everyone else, including me, even to the sweet-smelling UNRO nurses who brought her chocolate milk and played with her toes.