The Glory of Life

by Michael Kumpfmüller

  8

  She is particularly glad that his parents now know about her, so that they are officially living together. She had been a little hurt to think that Franz had reservations about telling them, but they know the situation now, she has made occasional appearances in the letters exchanged by the family, she has a name, she is the woman at his side, and they are even grateful to her. His parents called her his good fairy in their last letter, almost like something out of a fairy tale.

  There is bad news about the apartment. They talked to the landlady, really only because they were thinking of giving up the second room on the grounds of expense, but now it turns out that she would like them to rent the third room as well. Frau Rethmann needs money, and the sum she envisages is beyond their means. Oh, what a pity, she says, and Franz wants to know when she would like them to move out. Well, not overnight, she says, she was thinking of 1 February, and there may be a substitute place available; an acquaintance of hers is looking for new tenants after someone died, and Frau Rethmann will have a word with her.

  It is not like last November; this time the news that they must move strikes as if out of a clear blue sky. Franz takes it very badly, feels that they are being driven away, doesn’t like the apartment any more, has his doubts about Berlin and their life there, probably they’d do better to go away. But where to? He has told her about Merano, he was in Merano years ago, but she can’t imagine it, and anyway he was only visiting at the time, more or less on holiday. So perhaps Lake Garda, where he has also been before, would be better? Lake Garda, he says, is almost as big as the sea, but Italian, with brightly coloured little villages and mountains in the distance. There are mountains everywhere in Merano as well, she is afraid of those mountains, she would never have thought that her life could be turned upside down so suddenly.

  She confers with Judith. Her friend has telephoned several times and says they must meet, she has news. No, not a man, because Dora has asked: Is it about a man? Well, perhaps, Judith said, but not in the way you think. They agree to meet in the Moabit area, in a café that belongs to one of Judith’s uncles, and even as they are giving their order her news comes out: Judith is going to Palestine at the end of May, or in summer at the latest. The man in question is called Fritz, he is not so very old, thirty-six, he is a medical doctor by profession and has been a Zionist for a long time. She plans to go to a kibbutz beside the sea with him. There is nothing else between them, but he has asked her whether she has someone who could accompany her. Wouldn’t you like to come? Dora tells her about Merano, she doesn’t know whether she can go to Merano. Judith says: If the two of you can go to Merano, you could just as well go to Palestine. But that’s out of the question, what would they live on there, quite apart from his state of health. Where, for heaven’s sake, are they to go?

  It snows and snows, and she thinks of Judith going to Palestine, while in her thoughts she herself is always walking in mountain ranges. Franz is very quiet; he wishes he knew how the business of the apartment will turn out, but Frau Rethmann’s acquaintance has gone away. Frau Rethmann meets them in the corridor; they exchange greetings and then go their separate ways. One afternoon she is at the door of the apartment with a man who is apparently interested in being her tenant, although he does not look very enthusiastic. He glances sideways at Franz, who is lying on the sofa, while Frau Rethmann sings the praises of the three rooms, and acts as if she were inconsolable over having to let these wonderful tenants of hers go.

  So they are still to some extent up in the air. Sometimes it seems as if it will be possible for them to stay, sometimes they see themselves living in the acquaintance’s apartment. Or should they leave Berlin? Once again the name of Merano comes up, and she prepares to adjust to it: Merano, why not? Then Franz talks of Vienna, which to be honest amazes her, because in Müritz he didn’t have a good word to say about Vienna, Vienna was out of the question in every respect, although it is certainly a city.

  He has hardly written anything since he had that fever. He sits down in the evening, but she can tell that he is not satisfied, the work is a strain, draining him of his powers instead of giving him new strength. Sometimes she would like to keep him from his work, and she warns him, begs him not to work as long as yesterday when he was busy through half the night again. She heard him come to bed, and would have liked to ask him about it but doesn’t dare to at breakfast, when she is sitting on his lap again, wearing his dressing-gown, and neither of them knows what will become of them now.

  She has never quite understood what he told her about that woman M., little as it was. He didn’t say she had ruined him, but that they were not good for each other, at least he had waited a long time for her, hoping for letter after letter, the two of them grinding each other down, until it was only a question of time before they fell apart out of exhaustion. Once or twice she has seen a letter lying about, handwriting on an envelope, and thought about it briefly, but that was all weeks ago.

  If he were to fall ill again she would not hesitate to call a doctor this time either. At supper yesterday she had a kind of sudden presentiment, he looked tired and feverish, and he did indeed have a raised temperature. From now on she takes it regularly. He has a temperature in the morning as well, falling until midday and then rising again, after which it is always around 37.5 degrees.

  As if that were not enough, Frau Rethmann says the decision is now final, they must move out on 1 February – and unfortunately nothing has come of the substitute apartment, it has already gone. Well, they were secretly expecting that, Franz even says in jest that this way at least they will get to know Berlin, but the joke sounds a little wary, as if it suddenly didn’t matter to him, although the names of Merano and Vienna are not mentioned again.

  The packages from home still give pleasure when they arrive with butter and things for the household. As a rule they are sent by Ottla or his mother, although once, at the behest of Max, they received a parcel from the Women’s League, the kind sent at this time to foreigners in Germany who are in need. Franz had wished for a bar of chocolate, something not to be had in Berlin, but instead the parcel contains only boring foodstuffs like semolina, rice, flour and sugar, tea and coffee, so their enthusiasm is no more than moderate. They could bake a cake, and indeed she immediately has an idea who for: the children in the Jewish Orphanage, where she worked as a seamstress last year. She is welcomed like an angel. The cake is eaten in no time, but all the same the children don’t want to let her go. Hungry, sad faces with big, dark eyes. I suddenly started singing, she tells Franz that evening. They sang together, they prayed, the tears when she said goodbye were hard to bear, as if they had known for certain that it was the last visit for a long time.

  Such expeditions are out of the question for Franz. I’m an entirely domesticated animal, he jokes. Would she have thought it possible in Müritz? I must have looked almost athletic on the beach, he says. I went swimming, I could easily run down to the water from my basket chair on the beach and then back, then to the landing-stage with you, I walked in the forest with you twice only a few days apart, and now see what I’ve come to. He wants her to meet other people, not to think she mustn’t leave him alone, for instance when he is asleep, he doesn’t need her at all then. Do you hear? When he asks her such things, he looks like a little boy; she nods, shakes her head, says she’ll think about it.

  She never wants to sleep without him again.

  They are heating only the bedroom now, to save money. It is almost like being back in Miquelstrasse: it’s surprising how little space one can manage with, for really they have only the bed – well, there is the little table, the chair and the wardrobe, but otherwise only the bed. They even eat there, although that means there are crumbs in it all day long.

  9

  It is not easy to say how he really is, apart from his temperature, he tells Max in a letter, which means that he has a guilty conscience about Emmy, who must be kept from any more escapades, but unfortunately he just doesn’t ha
ve the strength for it. He has no reason to rejoice. He sleeps, he eats, he has Dora, to be sure, but all things considered he feels rather infirm, his work is not going well, has not been much more than nocturnal scribbling. He is afraid he is going to be ill again, but when he names his fears in his long letter to Max he acts as if they were mere details: the ground beneath him must be consolidated, the abyss in front of him filled in, the vultures round his head chased away, the storm above him soothed. Well, if all that were done, he writes, then it wouldn’t be too bad.

  If visitors call he often receives them in bed now: the Kaznelsons, man and wife, came for half an afternoon at the beginning of the month, while he spent only half an hour with Dora’s friend Judith recently. Even that is often too much for him, but then again he sometimes feel elated, and likes to get out of the apartment so as not to leave so much undone, for instance the reading from The Brothers Karamazov this evening. Fräulein Bugsch from Dresden and the performance artist Midia Pines have suggested it, they have been here since early afternoon, and not a second has been tedious so far. The doctor is greatly taken with dark little Midia above all; they talk about the great Russians, the difference between Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, the art of reading aloud, there are even plans for later – after the reading why not go into the city? In the end it is those plans that show him he had better stay at home. He has overestimated himself. They are all surprised, indeed dismayed; they try to make him change his mind, and he even tries to get up, but that decides the matter once and for all.

  As it turns out, he seems to have missed something good. Dora came back greatly impressed, and has talked of nothing but Midia since. It is after seven in the morning, breakfast is on the bedside table, and he listens to her as well as he can, for sometimes his thoughts slip away, almost as if he were envious, to the enthusiastic people with whom she has been mixing – that hour in the wine bar, when all was unstinted praise for Midia. What a pity that it’s impossible to tell him about it properly, says Dora, but she is beaming, she was thinking of him all the time, the whole evening, while he was lying in bed here annoyed because of a telephone call from Elli, because soon after all the others had left the telephone rang, and it was Elli on the line with all her famous anxieties.

  They still have not found a new apartment.

  Dora has composed an advertisement: Elderly gentleman seeks two rooms, preferably in Steglitz, although they would accept Zehlendorf this time, making the city recede yet further into the distance. Sometimes he feels as if he were in prison. He has not been to the Jewish University for weeks, hasn’t even met Emmy, only called her briefly on the telephone, which was worse than seeing her, because she sounded very cool, spoke almost coldly of her tears, and how often and for how long she has shed them over Max, but now all that will be done with overnight.

  If he sits at his desk he wonders what he is still doing there, and consoles himself by thinking of the new apartment. He doesn’t understand why it is that he would really like to burn everything – because of his failing strength, or because he is resting too much, and can’t give it up so easily?

  The thaw began recently. The January snow is almost gone, although that is certainly not the last of it, but at least the sun is shining for a change. He goes into the park and sits on the bench where he once heard the girl call him a Jew; it has to be admitted that he is rather soon exhausted, so that he also has to rest on the next bench, and the one after that. In the showcase outside the Town Hall he finds a sheet of newsprint on display saying that Lenin is dead, he obviously died days ago. He is shocked to find how little notice he takes of such events, and it is cursory notice too, because the news seems to him only right and proper, perhaps never so right as now.

  He has never really thought about money.

  The telephone keeps ringing all the time in answer to the advertisement, but most of the offers sound dubious or are beyond their means. Furthermore, he has a temperature again, and can’t bring himself to look at most of the offers. Unreasonably, they are interested in an apartment that would swallow up some three-quarters of his pension, and they go two stations on the S-Bahn, hoping for a reduction, which of course is not forthcoming. All the same, the apartment is wonderful, much nicer than their present one, two rooms and a storeroom on the ground floor of a villa in Zehlendorf, right out in the green countryside, as he tells the family, with a garden, a veranda to lie on, electric light and central heating. We’re crazy, says Dora. But they seem to like that very thing, particularly as the telephone is still ringing all the time. The last call comes after ten, a friendly voice agreeing to everything and suggesting that they come to see round the apartment tomorrow morning. The owner of the voice is one Frau Busse. Busse? He has heard that name before. He looks it up in the telephone book; as far as he remembers the woman’s husband is a writer and can’t stand Jews.

  When they go to see the apartment, it turns out that Frau Busse is a widow; her husband, the writer that Franz had in mind, died of Spanish flu years ago. For a moment she seems to resent the fact that the doctor doesn’t know it – it was in all the newspapers, not only the Berlin papers. Well, never mind. The two rooms, heated by a stove, are not bad at all, he thinks, quite sunny if only the sun shines. They are on the first floor so that they would be more or less undisturbed, and in even more rural surroundings than the Steglitz apartment. The price is not ridiculously high, but still it is beyond their means. 25–26 Heidestrasse. There is a lovely view from the window, and they can use the garden too next spring, when it is to be hoped that the worse will be over for Franz.

  So far they have not stayed in any apartment longer than ten weeks.

  For a few days their feelings swing between exhaustion and expectation. The two visits to look round the apartment took quite a lot out of Franz, but otherwise he is cheerful, he is not coughing, his temperature has settled down, everything around him is very calm – and it is calm in his mind as well, where there are no real thoughts, no precise sentences forming, no ideas for anything.

  By way of a farewell they walk round the Steglitz district once again, as if for the last time, although they can come back again any time they like. An old fox meets them in the Botanic Garden. He is standing in a group of spruce trees, patiently looking at them as if greeting them fearlessly. Well, that was Steglitz, says the doctor, and Dora says she enjoyed Steglitz, it was the happiest time in her life.

  Max has phoned, saying that he is in town to talk to Emmy. He pays them a brief visit that afternoon. Emmy and he, he says, are in some kind of entanglement; they are hardly speaking to each other these days. There is still something left of their relationship, and yet it is destroyed; he thought seeing Franz and Dora would give him happier thoughts. No one can think of any good advice. Dora has already done most of their packing, but that is enough for now. They have tea and biscuits, and later a long reading from Franz’s last two stories. It was at Dora’s request; she is happy because she knows all about the stories, while Max sits motionless on his chair until the reading is over, is silent for a long time and then says something about underground burrows, very beautifully phrased.

  10

  He is not well on the day of their move. He feels feverish and is burning, but has no complaints, any more than he did in December; he is curiously cheerful, anything but surprised, and rather fretful at being unable to help with the move; he lies in bed amazed to see how much there is to be transported. Obviously their household goods have increased and multiplied since September.

  It is not good weather for moving house. Rain is falling, there is a strong wind, but Dora does not complain. Furthermore she is not doing it all by herself; a girl from the Müritz group, Reha, has offered to help. They met briefly and talked about the old days, so it wasn’t difficult to ask her. It’s a long way from the railway station, quarter of an hour on foot, so they stop and stand still now and then to get their breath back, but Dora urges Reha to hurry. She is worried by Franz’s new fever and the strange way he
smiles, as if he knew things that she can’t even guess. The two young women go back and forth twice, until early in the afternoon there are only small items left. Since Franz cannot possibly go out into the street, it is decided to make the last trip by car, which costs half a fortune, but then it is all done. That’s the last time, says Franz, and Dora herself believes it is for the last time; they will not have another apartment here in Berlin.

  Once again hours pass in a state between hope and fear. But she likes looking at him all the time to see if he is asleep at last, for he does sleep now and then, and when he is asleep she kisses his hot forehead, or just stands there watching him breathe quietly as his chest rises and falls. On no account can he or should he leave the house again. They are invited by Ludwig Hardt to an evening of readings. Among other things he will be reading from texts by Franz, so they would have liked to go, but it is out of the question now. Franz sends their regrets, writing a short letter, and again they ask Reha to deliver it, because Hardt’s hotel is in the city centre, a long way off, and Dora does not want to leave Franz alone as long as that.

  Unfortunately things go wrong. Obviously the letter never reached its intended recipient, or at least there is no reply, so a second letter has to be written. This time Dora is to deliver it, and in fact she attends the occasion and hears the famous man reading. Afterwards she has difficulty making her way through the crowd of people standing round him, asking questions, paying compliments on his reading, mentioning the comical tale of the ape who becomes human. She is Dora, she says; she has a message for him. By mistake she mentions only the sender’s first name: unluckily Franz is ill, she says, but she herself enjoyed the evening very much. Only now does he understand who she is talking about, he reads the letter, says how sorry he is that Franz isn’t well, he would very much have liked to go and see him, but unfortunately he is leaving on the first train tomorrow morning.