The Glory of Life

by Michael Kumpfmüller

  They urgently need a doctor. Years ago in Breslau, it occurs to her, she met one. Like her, he went to Berlin, where he works at the Jewish Hospital. Dr Nelken. At first she can’t reach him on the telephone, and leaves a message asking him to call back. After two hours, when he still hasn’t called, she tries again, this time successfully; oh yes, Breslau. He promises to come quickly.

  Franz looks terrible. He has got up and dressed, receives the doctor in a suit, describes his case and lets Dr Nelken examine him. There is not much to be done. The doctor, a wiry little man, says what they have known for a long time. You must get away from here. I thought so myself, says Franz. But he is very far from her now as he stands there, leaning against the window-sill, with a smile as if he wanted to tell Dr Nelken that his visit, he is sorry to say, was a sheer waste of time.

  As Dr Nelken would not accept a fee, Franz sends him a book about Rembrandt the next day. Dora takes it to the post office and queues for a long time, thoughtful and troubled. Franz did not exactly blame her for calling a doctor, but it was clear that he didn’t like it. He probably wouldn’t like her telling Elli about it on the telephone either, while she stands down in the hall saying only what they know already, and brings Elli up to date with their latest attempts to find a sanatorium; they are putting out feelers in all directions, but so far they have found no solution to the problem.

  Should they really go to Prague together? To Franz that seems as good as settled, just for a few days before he goes on to Davos – so the plans run. He is not going a step without her, he says, strange as it may seem to his parents and much as he himself still resisted the idea weeks ago. They discuss the city for a long time, the things he would like to show her if he is able to do so. He is in a cheerful mood; his publisher has sent the contract for the new book, there will be money coming before the book is even written, an incredible sum, he claims, and for a few hours he basks in that notion.

  She isn’t so sure about Prague.

  Judith has been to Heidestrasse for the first time, bringing chocolates as a late birthday present, and tries to encourage them both. Franz is lying on the veranda and complains that they don’t know nearly enough about each other; they haven’t used their time well, for now their ways will soon be parted, they will be scattered to all points of the compass. Judith isn’t travelling in May after all, but at the end of this month. Franz gives her the Bergmanns’ address, just in case she needs help or wants to talk in the old language. He hopes she will write to them; like so many others, he says, he has only dreamed of Palestine, and you are really going there – please don’t forget us. He sounds sad, sobered, and then again he cracks jokes, at least he’ll soon be a rich man, and rather famous if he’s not much mistaken, at least as famous as Brenner.

  The money from the publisher hasn’t arrived yet, but he begins spending it already. He writes to Elli, saying he wants to settle his debts to the family, talks of a handsome present to his mother; he must get something for the governess and for Dora. They will go shopping together in Prague, he promises, a new handbag, a handsome fountain pen to write with, whatever she wants.

  She wants never to have to write to him.

  They don’t go to Prague for the time being. They have discussed it; there wouldn’t really be room at his parents’ place, she would have to go to a hotel, no one can tell when there will be a bed in a sanatorium for him, and as soon as they know that she will follow him. She has never known him to be as depressed as he is today. He is taking it worse and worse all the time: saying goodbye to Berlin, their imminent parting, the end of their freedom. How am I going to live without you, can you tell me that? He hasn’t told her anything like what she means to him, he says, although that isn’t true. They are sitting on the sofa, and she thinks, just this one time, as she is leaning her head against his shoulder, oh, she thinks, you stupid, stupid man.

  They are expecting Max tomorrow. They have telephoned each other, there is a little argument about the time, but he says he is ready to fetch Franz at once. Everything is still in its place, just where they have left it: an open book on the sofa, her sewing things, his jacket on the back of the chair, underwear and clothes in the cupboards, his notebooks. It is evening, and still light outside, you can feel winter retreating; they dream of spring, of journeys that they will probably never take, even in good times, supposing that these are not the good times themselves, and they are good, certainly.

  Three/Going

  1

  Max has said he will arrive late in the afternoon so that he can get some work done. Franz is not feeling well, but all the same he has been working for a few days without stopping on the story about singing, or rather squeaking, because he is writing a story about mice. It is almost a pleasure to be here again with Dora in this room, as she sits on the sofa letting him do as he pleases, writing here perhaps for the last time, for at once that is what it feels like. Dora has said that she likes the name, Josefine. Is that what you are? A singing mouse? For by now she has understood his method; he writes about animals, and the story is no less about animals because it is a parable, just as the ‘I’ who writes is a parable, for this time he is writing in a certain sense about himself. It is not about the singer. What interests him is the view of the crowd, the audience giving itself up to her arts, yet knowing all the time that they are not of any great importance, even after her death, for one day Josefine’s singing will fall silent. He would like to get the story finished before setting off for Davos. He is not really thinking any further ahead, for so far Davos is just a name, and having to go to Prague is enough to frighten him. Dora wishes she could accompany him, and envies Max, is a little cross with him – but it is only for those few days. Anyway, someone must look after the apartment, and Dora has her duties in the People’s Home, whereas for Max it is a normal journey.

  They do not talk much more that evening. Max is tired after travelling but must leave at once because he has an appointment, but not with Emmy, of whom he has heard nothing for weeks. He brings two large suitcases, there are greetings, the usual expression of concern, perhaps a little more than that – for yes, Max seems positively dismayed, full of sympathy for Dora to think that it is ending like this. I am so sorry for you both. Whereupon Dora bursts into tears in front of the clearly embarrassed Max, who as so often has a guilty conscience, and hardly shows himself over the next two days. Dora has begun packing, while the doctor writes reassuringly to his parents, thanking them for a parcel – the wonderful new waistcoat, the butter. The governess has said she is prepared to give up her room for him, he must thank her for that, and no, his uncle’s manservant does not need to meet him at the station on Monday evening, and please let Robert stay in Prague as well, obviously they have sent everyone crazy at home. Dora asks him every few minutes what is to be done with this or that item, she is packing three cases at the same time, unpacking something and then packing it again, underwear, papers, just now the suits he wore in his early days in Berlin, his gloves, the foot-muff. Once he says she ought to stop for a rest. Here, he says, and as if she didn’t know where he was she turns round to him, with the look that he loves so much and that almost breaks his heart.

  Saturday evening passes, Sunday morning. Writing is laborious, but he manages a good two pages. The last meals are eaten, the last touches exchanged, although they are both acting as if their lives were unchanged. Dora even goes to spend two hours at the People’s Home, where new children have arrived, hurries back, flies into his arms still in her coat, it is almost like being back in Müritz. Max arrives later. They talk about Davos, and in passing about the story; he is to give a reading of it as soon as possible, which raises the question of where and when. Everyone is still counting firmly on Davos, to which his uncle, according to the latest thinking on the subject, will accompany him, and so they arrange to meet in Davos, the most beautiful place in the mountains. Such is the opinion of Max, the only one to know Davos, and Dora says oh, if spring would only come at last, because
although it is sunny out of doors it is also cool and windy.

  Their goodbyes are difficult and elaborate, it seems they will never end: over breakfast in the morning, in the car going to the station, and then again before the train leaves. Dora looks grey with exhaustion, for she hardly slept half the night, lying in his arms, silent for most of the time, so that he thought she was asleep, but she was not sleeping, she had all kinds of anxieties about the journey, said for the hundredth time that it was only for a few days, said how happy she is with him, how from the very first she had been glad of every minute they spent together. Even on the platform at Anhalt Station she repeats it, and all at once she runs off and comes back with a newspaper and two bottles of water, then is very fidgety because she has forgotten the most important thing, how could I forget to tell you what’s most important of all? But it is too late now, he and Max must get into their compartment, the bell has already rung twice, and then she is standing on the platform waving until he can’t see her any more.

  For the first hour he feels more or less numb; behind him, as if through a veil, he hears Max’s voice saying one or two things about Dora, nothing consoling, no lies about a possible improvement in his state of health, but about the happiness he has known, not just now on the platform when she was bent crooked with misery. Just before Dresden he finally falls asleep, not a very deep sleep, everything is shallow and empty, and in the brief phases when he is awake he meets the eyes of Max, who feels his forehead in concern and promises every possible support, just before the city of Prague that he hates so much comes into view round the last bend in the line.

  They have all assembled when Max delivers him: Ottla, Elli, his parents, the governess, his uncle. It is in his father above all that he thinks he senses the disappointment that he represents for the family, they are concerned and at the same time disgruntled; all Berlin did was to cost time and money, and now they can see what came of it. Fortunately he has Max with him, for Max has always had a soothing effect on his parents, who talk to practically no one else, asking about the journey and whether he will stay to supper, an invitation that he elaborately declines. Max would like to leave, it is late, he says, it is essential for Franz to go to bed, and only then, as if they were coming round from a state of rigidity, do they begin thinking of Franz. His uncle takes his luggage to his new room, the governess apologises for its inconveniences, while Ottla strokes his hand soothingly, and asks how Dora is.

  He never thought he would have to go to Prague again. He has always feared it, but not in these circumstances, and he is only glad that Dora cannot see him in the governess’s room, which is far too small for him and where he sits writing to her in this silence, for everything is strangely silent, muted, so to speak, as if the whole family were just waiting for him to leave for Davos.

  Unfortunately it is only for a few hours. He is usually exhausted early in the afternoon, and then he lies down again; his fever is draining him of the best of his powers, and so are Max’s daily visits that both animate and tire him, the conversations about Emmy, whom Max has left, and the state of Max’s marriage. He writes to the manager of the spa at Davos and to his uncle, who will accompany him there, saying that he fears it is impossible for him to get there, his fever keeps him in bed. He writes to Dora: I can perfectly well leave my bed, if only for a few hours at a time, as you know from our time in Berlin. To the cursory glance of an outsider it might look as if my life were the same as in Berlin, but on closer observation, without you, it is the precise opposite. Berlin was paradise, he writes, why, for heaven’s sake, did I let myself be driven away from Berlin? Dora also wrote him a quick postcard, sitting on a bench on the station platform, followed that evening by two more, strangely composed, and yet less so if you read between the lines: it was as if she were talking and praying at the same time.

  Next day he writes the last few sentences of his story, as if he had decided on them some time ago, as if they were something you hear at a certain point and then gradually note down, like a tune heard in the street when someone whistles it, giving all passers-by the unconditional right to whistle it themselves on their way home. The story is one of his longest. He fully realises that it is, so to speak, the last word about himself and his work, his attempt to be a writer, which all things considered has failed, the futility of art coinciding with the futility of life. In the evening he loses his voice. In reality he is only hoarse, but perhaps it is more; he begins squeaking like Josefine, which somehow seems suitable. The others soon notice it at supper, his mother asks what the matter is, but nothing is the matter, and sure enough his voice seems to be all right again in the morning.

  2

  Now that he has gone Dora spends most of her time at the People’s Home, looking after the new children, helping Paul to arrange the tables and benches in the dining-room, and going back to Heidestrasse as late as possible. Paul thinks she has changed. She is older, he has the impression that she is calmer, yet Müritz is only six months ago. On one of the first evenings that they spent in a restaurant, she talked at length about Davos, about her anxiety, about how much she misses him. Paul didn’t know that she was going to Davos. She hasn’t yet found out exactly where this place Davos is, and admits to feeling scared because Franz looked so terrible when he left. She does not tell Paul much, not how she hoped at first that Franz had left something behind, how she searched the whole apartment, going through every room again and again. Should she confess to kissing his letters? On the morning after that dreadful farewell she ran straight to the letter-box, in case he had written to her at once on the train, but he hadn’t. Everything was bad when she woke up, when she laid the breakfast table for the two of them, two forks, knives and spoons, and felt as if she no longer knew what his voice sounded like, but then she did remember after all, and if she tried hard she remembered the sound of his laughter. In the summer, after he went away, she had known every last little detail about him for weeks, but this time she is entirely distracted, she forgets her purse, jumps in fright when the telephone rings in the hall, runs to the letter-box at the most impossible times.

  His first letter is quite long. He writes about the journey, the twilight hours, his reception by his family, first praising them, then complaining that they had so little to say to each other. She can imagine most of it. She can see dear Ottla, Elli and their mother, and she hopes they respect his need for rest. Max looks in every day, and once Robert, who sends Dora his regards. He has finished the story now, he tells her, but the fever won’t go away, and she will have to get used to his hoarse voice. He writes that he dreams of her almost every night, even if in the morning he can only guess at much of the dream. But she is there, watching over him in his sleep, if indeed he does fall asleep, because he often lies awake until morning. And now it is spring, too, in Prague no less than in Berlin. His mother reads what is going on in Berlin from the newspaper to him every morning, Ottla also sends her love, a long and heartfelt message. Soon, he writes. I hope you won’t take fright when you see me. Would you like to ask Frau Busse whether you can store a few things there if another place can’t be found?

  She hadn’t thought of Frau Busse until now. At first she hadn’t taken much notice of her, but now she turns out to be very friendly and sympathetic. Only yesterday she had come to the door, asking for news of Franz. The rent of the apartment is paid until the end of March, but if Frau Busse has any say in it then Dora has nothing to worry about, certainly not when it comes to storage for their things, because there is a cellar, and the house is large and empty; unfortunately she hasn’t got used to that yet. Dora has asked her to come in for a moment. And now they are sitting over a cup of tea talking about their menfolk who aren’t there, that terrible Spanish flu, it cost millions of people their lives back in the last weeks of the war and the following winter. He died on the fifth day at eight in the morning, says Frau Busse, and Dora tells her how Franz had flu as well, and wasn’t sure for a long time whether he would survive. Somehow or other
the conversation gets round to writing, since that is the other thing their men had in common, although Dora has never read a line by Busse and Frau Busse has never read a line by Franz. Once Frau Busse calls her ‘poor child’, and then she asks why she and Franz haven’t married; as long as you’re both alive it doesn’t make much difference, but as a widow you’d change your mind. Or do you reject the idea of marriage? My husband had very strict ideas on such matters, luckily he doesn’t know what the times are like now. There’s something very Jewish about you, she says, well, it’s your nose, I think, because Dora is so pretty, and in general Jewish girls are very pretty.

  She meets Judith, who calls Frau Busse an anti-Semite and thinks you ought not to accept help from an anti-Semite. But that, unfortunately, is no longer in question, because nothing is going to come of Davos, Franz hasn’t been granted an entry permit to Switzerland and all their plans have fallen through. He doesn’t tell her the precise reasons, but he won’t be able to leave Prague for the time being, the search for a sanatorium is beginning all over again, and they won’t see results in a hurry. Dora says this waiting is sending her crazy, yet it’s only a week since he left, and in autumn it was over six weeks. Judith keeps talking about this doctor, who of course wants to seduce her, or maybe seduced her a long time ago, she doesn’t want to say anything explicit about it. She already sees herself as a farmer’s wife, digging with a spade in the desert along with her Fritz. She jokes about the two names, both beginning with F and R, obviously they bring luck, although the journey to Palestine is by no means a certainty, it’s not so easy to get a permit, and unfortunately her Fritz is already married. We have to wait, says Judith, sounding very thoughtful, perhaps I’m living the wrong life, unlike you, even when you have so much to worry about, and I envy you for that as well.