Heir to the Glimmering World

by Cynthia Ozick

  Some three weeks after Mrs. Mitwisser's injury ("my wife's accident," he called it, as if she had merely dropped and shattered a dish, which sometimes happened), Mitwisser announced that we were to return to the work on al-Kirkisani.

  He seemed less concentrated than usual, almost desultory. I waited while he searched through a bundle of papers, murmuring some syllables I could by now identify as Arabic, and tapping the arm of my chair when he could not find what he wanted.

  "The passage on ladders and bridges," he said, as if to no one; but he meant me.

  I riffled through my old transcriptions, and discovered it there: ladders and bridges toward the perception of revealed truth. "It's number four in the 'Principles,'" I said.

  Ladders and bridges, lights and watchtowers! All this threw me into a delirium of rapture. It was not only the intoxication of these magicking words (which anyhow were nearly meaningless for me), but the wash of knowledge that came flooding in their wake: that the world was infinitely old, and filled to the brim with schisms and divisions and furies and losses. Not yet out of my teens, historyless, I was confident that I had plumbed the revealed truth of history. And that I was in mystical confraternity with Professor Mitwisser, more so than he could ever conceive.

  He fixed his sea-colored look directly on me with a self-consciousness that had never before been evident.

  "My son Wilhelm informs me," he said, "that you are in correspondence with Dr. Tandoori. Please to clarify."

  "It isn't a correspondence. I mean I haven't answered. He asked me to come and work for him."

  "That is scarcely what Wilhelm conveyed."

  Willi's a snoop, I did not say.

  "Do you intend to leave here? My wife, particularly after her accident, would wish you to remain. Particularly in the absence," he said hoarsely, "of my daughter."

  He almost never spoke of this. He would not speak of it now.

  "My wife," he resumed, "has grown attached to you, and I myself continue to find you of use. May I suggest that you will not profit from a ... a position, let us call it, with Dr. Tandoori."

  I asked why not.

  "The man is godless."

  It was an odd remark. A signal, or a symptom.

  "But you liked him," I said.

  "A divertissement. An artful pantaloon." He shut his eyes against me, and it was clear that he was suffering. "Perhaps," he said, "if Dr. Tandoori had not been present—then perhaps I—or you—if you had not lingered, Fräulein, if you had gone where your duty lay, with my wife, the accident might never—"

  He wheeled round to spew out his broken accusations in the direction of the big bed across the room. But it was not Dr. Tandoori he was accusing, or his own dereliction, or mine. I remembered how Dr. Tan-doori had charmed him; it was not Dr. Tandoori who harrowed him now.

  "Godless men destroy young women," he finished.

  What his wife had seen into long before, he believed at last.

  Anneliese and James had been gone a full month. What was customarily done when a girl of sixteen, of her own volition, went off with a man who was a familiar of the house? Was it or wasn't it a question for public scrutiny? I did not dare to broach these uncertain speculations with Professor Mitwisser. His silence was a moat. He could not say his daughter's name.

  Mrs. Mitwisser in the privacy of our bedroom bleated it out again and again. That wistful experimental "if"—"If they will come"—had lately turned into a remnant of a wail: "Anneliese, Anneliese, she does not come..."

  I said carefully, "The police—"

  "No police!"

  "They help with missing persons—"

  "That one, he is thief. He takes."

  "All the more reason—"

  "No police, no!"

  She shrank from the word; she shrank from uniforms. Uniforms are dangerous, one must not put one's trust in uniforms! No police, no, no, one must have scruples, one must protect one's child, if there is shame it must be hidden, there is danger in police, there is danger in shame!

  Fear of uniforms had never occurred to me. Neither, to tell the truth, had shame.

  46

  c/o Capolino

  14½ S.E. State Street

  Albany, New York

  PLEASE FORWARD

  Dear Bertram,

  I was so very sad to learn that you've lost your job at the hospital. But since it's weeks since your letter came, by now you've surely found something suitable.

  You didn't say how to reach you (that's a habit of yours, or is it Ninel's idea again), so I'm sending this to your old address. Maybe your ex-landlady will know where you've gone to. You say you're relieved that I'm not "strapped for cash." The truth is that this entire household is right now nearly without funds. Hard times.

  If you get this and you do want to write again, be sure to mark the envelope PERSONAL.

  Rosie

  P.S. You'll be impressed to hear that I've had a marriage proposal!

  c/o Mr. Thmas R. Washington

  2 Showcorner Blvd., 6B

  Albany, New York

  Hello Rosie!

  I've written PERSONAL all over the outside, so any potential cul-prit is well warned. That must be some unwholesome bunch you're with, if that's what's required!

  It didn't take very long for your (slightly sour) missive to wend its circuitous way. Mrs. Capolino, out of a guilty conscience I'm sure, brought it right over to the local Y, where I'd been staying (fact is, I ran out of money and had to get out), and the Y—last known address, so to speak—shipped it down here. But Mrs. Capolino says I can have my mail sent to her place from now on, she'll hold it for me. She's got a new tenant and she's feeling sorry for me. I didn't let on that her geranium's dead.

  As for work, I haven't found a thing—not so far, anyhow, and not for want of trying. Turns out I've got a bigger—meaning worse—reputation than I knew. I'm blacklisted just about everywhere as a rabble-rouser and troublemaker, if you can believe it! Not one other hospital would touch me—I'm tainted with unionizing. I suppose I've had my name and photo in the papers more than I should, but Ninel thought it was a good thing, scares the bosses, etc. Well, I didn't realize I'd gotten famous all over town!

  After the hospitals I tried the drug chains, and one of them, not a bad fellow running it, kept me on for two days, and then sacked me when he sniffed out my evil history. The doctors at my old job wouldn't give me the time of day either—I thought maybe Prescott could help out, Prescott's the one who got your father the job at Croft Hall—but your dad's troubles left a bad taste, I'm afraid. I was hoping I could get to teach chemistry or the like to the oligarchs, but no go. Last week things got so bad that I walked into a restaurant and washed dishes for cash. Twelve hours of hot steam and it doesn't add up to rent money. If not for Thomas I'd be out in the street with the other bums. Thomas is an angel—he's putting me up for a while. You may remember him, he's the orderly I gave your dad's fancy English shoes to. He can't have me here much longer, though—his wife and little girl are on a family visit to Georgia, and when they get back I'll need to move on.

  Here's an embarrassment. Since you're gainfully employed and your poor old cousin Bertram isn't, I was thinking if you could spare five or ten bucks now and then? Just till something works out. But it seems you folks have troubles of your own.

  Bertram

  P.S. I hope you haven't said yes to whoever's asked for your hand. Hey kid, you're a kid!

  Dear Rose,

  I cannot write to papa, he will be so angry. James is taking care of me. He is taking care of all of us. In the little packet inside this letter you will find money for the house. It is a great deal of money, so you must be careful with it. There is also money for your wages. Please tell papa that I am all right. James is showing me many new sights. We never stay two nights in one place. It is very exciting!

  Anneliese

  c/o Mr. Thomas R. Washington

  2 Showcorner Blvd., 6B

  Albany, New York

  Rosie,
I don't know how to tell this.

  I'm still here with Thomas. His wife's mother in Georgia took sick, so he expects she'll be down there another week or so.

  I don't know how to tell this.

  I've just come from Mrs. Capolino's. There was actually a check from Prescott—a surprise, considering. I'm a bit of a charity case these days. I probably look the part.

  So.

  Charlie wrote from Albacete, they have their headquarters there. Charlie's part of Ninel's New York gang—a bunch of them went over third class on the Normandie, to Le Havre. They got past the border, made it to Albacete to pick up some equipment—God knows what that means, Charlie doesn't say—and then got shipped off to Barcelona. Some sort of workers' games to protest the Olympics in Berlin. The whole crowd was under fire, the government was trying to break it up, there was fighting in the streets. They hadn't let Ninel go with the men—they put her in a truck with some nurses. Charlie was shot in the leg, not all that bad, he says, but Ninel got it in the shoulder and was losing blood, so they sent her to a military hospital somewhere. Can't decipher it—La Sabriñosa? They patched her up, but an infection set in, and then pneumonia, and she's dead.

  Rosie, Ninel's dead.

  I don't know what to do or where to go. I don't know anything.

  Bertram

  Dr. Gopal V. Tandoori

  118 Gravesend Neck Road

  Gravesend, Brooklyn, New York

  Dear Dr. Tandoori:

  Thank you for the kind compliment of your invitation.

  I regret that I must decline. I am content to remain in Professor Mitwisser's employ.

  Respectfully yours,

  (Miss) Rose Meadows

  Dear Bertram,

  I've just gotten paid, so here's half. It's tragic about Ninel.

  Rosie

  47

  MRS. MITWISSER'S WOUNDS were becoming thin red streaks. Scar tissue had grown up over ragged shallow trenches. She sat on a stool near the bedroom window, high above the street, and looked out. She watched her sons leave in the morning and return after school. She observed the bickerings of birds from roof to roof. I thought she was waiting for Anneliese.

  I did not tell Professor Mitwisser about Anneliese's letter—at least not at first. The household money she had sent I put in its usual place: James's china creamer, with its yellow petals and gilt spout. The money that had been designated for my salary, I noticed, had been increased by five dollars. One of these dollars I changed into coins—three dimes, ten pennies, two quarters, one nickel with the head of an Indian on it, and one without—and gave them to Waltraut. I had often seen James empty his pockets into her small hands. He had taught her to build squat round towers of money, and laughed when, with a child's brutality, she scattered them. There were lost pennies under all the chairs.

  I was now established as Mrs. Mitwisser's intimate. At times a lava of talk came rushing out of her, shreds of rage or reminiscence, in a jumble of German and English; she complained that she was a prisoner in this room, in this house, in this deprived land—"dieses Land ohne Bildung"—and that only Anneliese in her rashness, in her folly, had eluded imprisonment. But I had begun to reassess these outcries—they seemed more calculated than spontaneous. They were (I had suspected this long before) feints and trials. In reality they were the lamentations of exile. It was not that she missed old comforts; she missed old dignities. She spoke often of Bildung, a term that eluded me. I had discovered Anneliese's worn German-English dictionary abandoned on a kitchen shelf, among the teacups. Sitting with Mrs. Mitwisser, I sometimes stealthily consulted it. But when I looked up "Bildung," I found only "education." For Mrs. Mitwisser it meant elaborately more. She would say of her grandfather (I learned that he had founded a chain of newspapers at the close of the century), "Er war ein sehr gebildeter Mann," and she said the same of Erwin Schrödinger. Eventually I understood that a man in possession of Bildung was more than merely cultivated: he was ideally purified by humanism, an aristocrat of sensibility and wisdom.

  Once, she told me, she had bought a mischievous painting; it had betrayed her. It was meant to divert her husband, yet only his fireflies had the power to engage him. It was the week after New Year's, in 1925; she had just returned from Switzerland, a difficult journey. The un-heated train faltered, then halted, then toiled warily on. Her feet in her boots were numb. All of northern Europe was under snow. A telegram from Rudi was waiting: there was no point to setting out, he could get only as far as Pamplona. Beyond that the ice barrier loomed. All the trains heading north were stopped, it was impossible to predict how long he would be delayed—but all was well, his work had gone satisfactorily, the Spanish warmth was a marvel, and how was the dear little Anneliese? She must not catch cold, Elsa must see to it that Mademoiselle De Bonrepos keeps the child from chill.

  Anneliese did not catch cold; she was perfectly healthy, and perfectly silent. Her mother had promised to bring her a Christmas present from far away, if she would promise not to tell papa how mama had gone to a secret place, the only place in the whole world where rocking horses were sold, and didn't Anneliese wish for a rocking horse more than anything else? The rocking horse place was a secret, a secret even from papa, so don't tell! Anneliese would not tell; Mademoiselle De Bonrepos testified that she was the most obedient child she had ever come upon. To Mademoiselle De Bonrepos Mrs. Mitwisser explained that she was inescapably obliged to leave for Switzerland on Institute business, but since the child's father—how besotted he was with this child!—would likely disapprove of her absence from Anneliese during the festive holiday time, Mademoiselle De Bonrepos was also not to tell. And to ensure that Mademoiselle De Bonrepos did not tell, she tucked a much-fattened Christmas bonus, together with the governess's wages, into a little silken sack tied with a satin drawstring.

  There were no rocking horses in Arosa. Instead there was the great Tannenbaum with its hundred candles and its thousand tinkling crystals, and the delightfully argumentative walks with Erwin, and the working nights in Erwin's room, and the revelation of the bitten egg.... The rocking horse was right here at home, almost around the corner, on the Kurfürstendamm, in the window of an antiques shop; she had passed it often enough. The Kurfürstendamm and the streets that led to it glittered; the light that struck the snow was stupendously bright—a dazzling Berlin winter light, sharp and blinding. Underfoot an invisible membrane of ice crackled with the sound of popcorn over a fire. The shop windows gleamed, the rings and wristwatches and earrings and spectacles of passersby flashed lightning sparks. In the aftermath of the storm, though there were still intermittent gusts, the air smelled of a strange electricity, as if a dynamo at the core of the earth had burned out all vegetation. The scraping of shovels on pavements rang out like bells grown hoarse. She was elated: the cold, the brightness, the rapture of the bitten egg, Arosa! She wore the same alligator-skin boots that she had worn in Arosa—collared and lined with gray fur, buttoned up to the ankle; and also the same long maroon coat that fell nearly to her heels, and the same gray fur hat that hid all her hair, and kept it safe from the wind. On one of their walks Erwin, arguing a point, had snatched it off:

  —There! The thing's as plain as the hair on your head!

  Her tidy bun flew apart, and her hair tumbled down, dropping loosened pins onto the path.

  —Now look what you've done, she scolded. But she saw how he stared. Her hair was a thick brown flood. It looked syrupy, like boiled honey, and its wildness shocked him—the wind tore it from her scalp and threw it across her mouth. They had been talking of gene mutations induced by X-rays, and of the heat wave caused by the intense oscillations of atoms: a violent explosion produced by ionization. Her hairpins lay like curled-up insects at their feet. He stooped to pick them up, and she plucked them, one by one, from his open palm.

  The rocking horse was lifted out of the window. Its price was more than equal to the extravagant bonus she had given to Mademoiselle De Bonrepos (could this obsequious young woman be trus
ted?); nevertheless the rocking horse was purchased and ordered to be delivered. It had once belonged to the Gräfin von Brandenburg in her childhood. Only the leather reins were missing, the proprietor told her, but these could be easily replaced. Anneliese would not mind about the reins, or else red ribbons would do just as well. The truth was that Anneliese had never wished for a rocking horse—what sort of child is it who doesn't dream of owning a rocking horse? She was uncommonly docile, uncommonly quiet. What pleased her was to sit in her father's lap and play with the things on his big desk—the toylike curved blotter that tipped up and down, for instance, with its ivory handle in the shape of a horse. It was the blotter that had suggested the rocking horse, and there it was in the window on the Kurfürstendamm ... but no, say it had come from the secret rocking horse place far away.

  The proprietor stood at his counter, patiently watching her remove her gloves to write the check—they were gray, furred and lined at the collar, like her boots. Her hands were noticeably small, and had the habit of mildly quivering when she was excited. The painting excited her: it was of a god distributing planets. It hung on the wall behind the proprietor's head. A portrait of a juggler tossing eight shining spheres—but only seven were in the air, describing a kind of stuttering wreath. One, as white as the white of an eyeball, had plummeted onto an old creased bit of parchment discarded on a patch of grass. The bottom corner of the painting, on the right side, was charred. The juggler's face was elongated, melancholy, stricken. Still, it was frozen in a theatrical grin.

  —Who made that? she asked.

  —The painter is unknown.

  —You have no idea?

  —It came from someone's estate, the proprietor said. A fire. If it was ever signed, the signature is burned away. I believe, he said, it is an allegorical portrait.

  A second check was written, this one for the juggler. An allegorical portrait? A notion of minor interest to her. The price of the painting was far less than that of the Gräfin's rocking horse. To begin with, the painting was damaged, which decreased whatever value it might have had originally; and then, given one's ignorance of the painter, what value could one place on it in any case? Probably it was no more than thirty or forty years old. A Surrealist parroting, a little too deliberate. After all, it was no more than a curiosity.