The Glory of Life

by Michael Kumpfmüller

  The evenings are the worst. When she writes to him and feels that she isn’t near him, that she isn’t where she ought to be, that she can’t console him. Once he writes about a dream he had. Street robbers abducted him from the Heidestrasse apartment and shut him up in a shed in a back yard, and as if that wasn’t enough they bound and gagged him and left him alone in a dark corner of the shed, so that he thought this was the end, but perhaps not, because he suddenly heard her voice, I heard your wonderful voice very close. He tried to free himself quickly, he even managed to get the gag out of his mouth, but at that very moment the robbers saw what he was doing and gagged him again. Isn’t that a disappointing dream? Just because it seems so true. He would like to have better dreams of her. In a certain sense he dreams of her the whole time, in bed in the afternoon, in the evening with his parents, when he goes for walks, because yesterday he walked half-way to Prague Castle by himself; but then again not by himself because he kept showing her something in his thoughts, as if she were here in Prague for a few hours, walking down the familiar streets with him.

  So she makes her way on from letter to letter. In the morning she waits for his evening letter, and when she gets home she finds his morning letter. She often reads it standing, still in her coat, to lose no time on the way to catch her tram, so a good deal escapes her and in the end she has two letters, a first one that is like music to her ears, and a second one consisting of words. No new sanatorium is yet in view, and then all of a sudden there is one, close to Vienna, about an hour away, and according to his uncle with just as high a reputation as Davos. It is all as good as decided, the civil servants are looking at his passport, and Dora is to apply for an entry permit, although he only suggests that by expressing his hope that she will soon be with him. Yes, Vienna, good, she replies, as if Vienna had always been her dream. Although they will probably not set eyes on the city at all, and the Austrian authorities can refuse a permit. What am I to say, she writes, for any cause for rejoicing is only conditional. What really made her happy was in their three apartments, and she lists it all for him: New Year’s Eve in bed, the little girl with the doll, my God, moving house, yes, the desks at which he wrote. She has found a pen down a tear in the sofa, he must have missed it, so she is writing to him with that pen. Her handwriting is changing, she has the impression that it is getting more like his, with its verve, its fanciful element, and with these ideas in mind she feels almost light at heart, as if it were evidence of her bond with him, her unconditional readiness.

  She is half waiting, half preparing to go. She applies for an entry permit to Austria, begins packing, her summer clothes, most of the books, everything that she thinks she won’t be needing. She will probably have to spend a few days with Judith; March is almost over, but perhaps developments will move faster than expected. She begins to say goodbye to friends, meets Paul, talks to the staff of the People’s Home, tells them she doesn’t know whether or when she will be back. Paul offers to let her store things in his cellar and says she can stay with him any time she likes, an offer that she politely declines. Even if Franz were anywhere near better, it is not certain that she will come back to Berlin. Even if he had as much strength as he did last autumn, they would have to decide whether they might not be better off in Prague close to his family, or moving to the country, to Schelesen, or one of all the other places where he has been before.

  3

  His uncle has sent for brochures about the new sanatorium. It lies above the village of Ortmann in a hilly landscape, built far into the slope, on the outside an elegant hotel but on the inside very modern, with a large dining-room, a salon, a music room. Only a few years ago it burned down to its foundations, so it is not certain whether the photographs show its present appearance, as Franz’s uncle claims for inexplicable reasons, praising the place in the highest terms and seeming slightly annoyed that the doctor is not delighted by these new prospects. In the morning he filled in a form giving power of attorney to his mother to collect the passport, but no decision can be expected before the end of the week, which causes his mother great concern; she is glad that he is here, but there is not enough room, and everything is topsy-turvy. In addition visitors come at the most impossible times: Max almost every day; once Ottla with her children who, because they are bored, race round the apartment making a lot of noise; Robert puts in an appearance, so do Elli and Valli, and Ottla again.

  As so often, it is easiest with Ottla. They strike the old familiar note at once, dreaming together of the country and Zürau in the past, when Ottla was trying her hand at the rural life, and he stayed with her for several months. Do you remember those mice? I set the cat on the mice to get rid of them, but how was I to get rid of the cat? Ottla and the people she was with almost starved at the time, in the fourth year of the war, but she often likes to remember those days, saying she would like to go back there. When you’re better, in May, once the sanatorium is behind you, together with Dora when it’s really warm. Don’t make trouble for me, she says. She seems to have enough trouble of her own; her marriage to Josef is in difficulties, he is away a lot, he is withdrawing from her, and from the girls too, Vera and Helene, who are vaguely complaining of it. When she comes to visit Franz she half lies on the bed with him, her eyes closed, saying that it helps her to think, and after a while she gives herself a little shake, stands up and leaves, but not without kissing him goodbye.

  When Max comes, he hears him talking to his parents in the hall. Max has been like a member of the family for years, they respect him as a famous man who has married and lives the kind of life that Franz’s father approves of. At least, he is successful, he travels, he appears on public occasions and has something to show for himself: half a dozen books available in any large bookshop, which is more than can be said of the always ailing doctor. Max finds such comparisons embarrassing; on the other hand he has often been able to put in a good word for his friend to Franz’s parents, after his engagement was broken off, and only recently in autumn when the doctor went to Berlin on false pretences, with a young woman from the east at that. They’ll get used to it, says Max. Once they really know Dora their reservations will soon be gone.

  They mention his illness only in passing, or in their usual way, as if it were a guest who turns up from time to time and then, it is to be hoped, goes away, although by now both friends rather doubt that. The doctor reads the mouse story aloud with his new voice, which forces him to stop several times, but Max’s first reaction is cheering. He praises the mouse story to the skies, saying it is among the best things Franz has ever written.

  He writes to Dora saying there is hardly anything to tell her. He does tell her about his bedridden life, now and then a few details about a visit he recently had, and how he immediately gave up the attempt to work: he is not writing much, he thinks of her, and thinks a great deal of walking round their former rooms with her, the ways they know so well in Steglitz. Dora is in the process of leaving the apartment, she moves in with Judith and assures him in every letter that she wants to come to Prague, every hour spent elsewhere is a waste of time. She has been back to Miquelstrasse and Grünewaldstrasse, and stood there for some time feeling incredulous, as if their life in Berlin had never existed. She thinks Frau Hermann noticed her; there was a slight movement inside the window, so she quickly went away. Please let me come to you. Did I just dream it all? If you have the papers I’ll get straight onto the train. Your parents don’t have to see me. We’ll meet at the station, you could get a car, and then I’ll fall into your arms. He writes saying that he hopes to get the entry permit by the end of the week. I’m not an edifying sight, he writes. But for a moment he can believe in the scene: the station, the moment when she gets off the train, tired from her journey, smaller than he remembers her, with that enchanting, wry smile.

  After half a night spent tossing and turning, he rejects the plan. He can’t go to the station on his own in this condition. Dora would have to fetch him from his parents’ apartment, whic
h for reasons they both know is impossible, so they must stick to the plan of his going to the sanatorium with his uncle and meeting Dora only when he gets there. He gives her some idea of his fears, even when, of course, he will not know anything for certain until he reaches the place. In many such institutions you are reminded, the whole time, that you are ill; others are like hotels, but in the end there is always some kind of regime to be observed. They force you to eat, which has always been his greatest horror, there are doctors, embarrassing interviews on your arrival, and in unfavourable cases medicaments, irrigations, injections of menthol and more such measures. He has already got to know most of them in one or more variants, which does not improve matters, for he was relatively healthy on his earlier visits to such places, but this time his case seems to be serious. You can easily imagine things standing in front of the mirror once you are used to the view, which unfortunately means that you are not objective. Is that his face? Very well, so it is his face, but that hoarse voice is striking, even if Elli doesn’t notice it and would rather talk about his weight and the fact that he eats nothing – his wretched condition in general, for which, without any ifs or buts, she holds Berlin responsible.

  They are all waiting for him to leave at last. Most of all the doctor himself, but also those around him: his mother, who brings him his post several times a day; the governess, who wants to be back in her room; even Max, who waxes indignant over the dilatory attitude of the authorities at every opportunity, never noticing how he is boring the doctor. It is high time for him to stop being a burden on them; as an invalid you are a liability, you have nothing to talk about. Washing and getting dressed are a nuisance to him, as is all the noise that never stops even when he says he has to sleep, but then he often does fall asleep; and now and then he makes a note of something, for instance a deathbed scene in the country which he has dreamed, and why death is not to be feared. Now, late in the afternoon, he is alone, for once. He is lying in bed, everything is pleasantly calm: his parents have either gone out or are reading the newspaper. He knows that these are his last few days or hours here, but he feels nothing except for a vague premonition of relief, and indeed the entry permit for Austria arrives next morning, and the day after that he leaves Prague.

  As his uncle cannot take him to Austria because of a visit to Venice planned long ago, Ottla volunteers to go with him, which is what he would have chosen himself out of all the possibilities. They think about what he will need in the sanatorium, suitcases are fetched, Ottla and his mother pack them, so he has hardly any peace and quiet for the next few hours. In the evening he telephones Dora, who is with Judith and is just cooking supper. He has obviously taken her by surprise, she has difficulty with his hoarse voice, but then she is glad. The waiting is over at last. My God, I can’t believe it. Is that really you? It is very strange to be talking to her on the telephone, as if she were not far away, practically in the next room – so that for a moment he forgets his old reluctance to use the phone. Dora says she will get herself a train ticket to Vienna, and she will also need a room in a few days’ time, preferably near the station. At the beginning of their conversation she was almost shy, but now she sounds really happy, she laughs, says something from time to time to Judith, who sends her regards, says again how surprised she was, your voice on the telephone, who’d have thought it! If she had her way she wouldn’t stop at all, she’d go on and on talking to him, in bed, under the covers with your voice.

  4

  She spends the days before she leaves in a kind of mist. Everything soon becomes strange to her, the faces in the streets, the traffic, the muted mood. Franz insisted that she was coming to Austria to see him just for a few days, but her feelings tell her that it is for ever. What she finds most difficult is saying goodbye to the People’s Home, to Paul, who keeps assuring her that the doctor must get better, of course he will, and when he has his health and strength back the two of you will live in Berlin again. He wants her to promise, but she can’t do that, in addition she must go to see the children, who have an exercise book full of Hebrew songs for her; they say prayers and sing, and then they all hug each other. It is long after six when she tears herself away.

  There is not much more to be done. Judith wonders how, for heaven’s sake, Dora is going to manage with so little luggage. She herself will need to take twice as much for Palestine, probably not winter clothes but plenty of books for the mild evenings, when it is to be hoped that she will have time for reading. Just now she sees herself more as a nurse working with Fritz, with whom she clearly has a close relationship, because she keeps saying ‘we’ about what they have thought, he and she. Judith has made supper, going to a lot of trouble this time, and she takes Dora in her arms, trying to encourage her. You are strong, she says, you love him, you’ll manage. Ever since the morning Dora has been thinking of him sitting in the train with Ottla, and how much longer they will have to travel. Now, early in the evening, he must have arrived at the sanatorium some time ago. She imagines him dropping into bed, exhausted, and is glad he has Ottla. She talks a little about Ottla, and then about Franz again, and Judith confesses that she isn’t really sure whether her Fritz is the right man for her, but they’ve been over that subject before, how can you tell who is the right one? They discussed that back in Döberitz, when neither of them guessed what would become of them. Judith says: I’d have liked to take you with us, and for a moment Dora feels rather sad, because at that moment she, too, would have liked to go with them.

  Only on the way to the station does she feel calm, and her mind clears. Judith insisted on going with her, and they set off late, so there is hardly any time to say goodbye. Dora has to promise to write as soon as she can, and then she is in her seat and on the way to Franz. She has his letters with her, all the letters she received in January, a handful of notebooks that don’t belong to her and that she has rescued without his knowledge. For a long time she just daydreams, leafs through the newspaper, waits for time to pass. The conductor comes along the train, at some point they reach the border and she shows her passport and indicates her luggage up on the storage shelf above her. For Franz, his second day in the sanatorium is just ending, less than two hours’ journey away from her. A Hungarian woman with whom she fell into conversation has recommended the Hotel Bellevue to her, just round the corner from the station. Is she really in Vienna? The atmosphere doesn’t seem so very different from Berlin, and the money-changer at the station isn’t exactly friendly, but they can let her have a tiny attic room; she has a wide view over the street below, she hears the sounds of the station where Franz himself arrived days ago.

  Next morning she telephones his family in Prague. She is lucky that Elli answers the phone, because she has already spoken to Elli just before Christmas, when she must have sounded as breathless as she does now. She does not learn much. Franz stood up to the strain of the journey well, says Elli, and asks for her Viennese address, she mustn’t leave before hearing from him. She gets the address of the sanatorium and sends a sinfully expensive telegram, saying only that she is here, giving the name, address and telephone number of her hotel, saying she longs to see him. She can be with him this afternoon. Then she waits, with a touch of annoyance that she will hardly admit to herself – why does he make things so complicated? The first few hours pass somehow or other. It takes some time for an answer to arrive, she tells herself to be patient, but then, from the afternoon onwards, she is in torment. He could telephone her, or get someone to do it for him. Please phone me. Or is he too ill to phone? She sits in the hotel lobby until long after nine, and eats something in the restaurant now and then, in a state of mute despair. Tomorrow, she reassures herself, just this one night to go. He sounded so gentle and longing in his last letter, so she reads his letter to comfort her, and looks again and again at the reception desk, where the telephone stands, and the narrow pigeonholes for post, most of them empty. There is a pigeonhole for her in one of the top rows.

  She runs everywhere the next da
y. He has written saying that he is expecting her, and since then she seems to be flying. She hurries to the station, where she boards the first train to Pernitz. Even during the journey she is in constant movement, she walks up and down the carriage, notices the new landscape outside, reads the telegram for the hundredth time. At first, when she arrives in Pernitz, she is at a loss, and asks an elderly rustic the way. Apparently there is a bus, but it doesn’t run very often, so she prefers to go on foot along a winding road in the most wonderful sunlight. At first the valley is very narrow, then it gradually becomes wider, with a farm here and there, and then, after more than an hour, she sees the sanatorium in the distance, a tall, broad building with two towers, much larger than the hotel in Vienna, almost a castle. It is not particularly warm weather, but all the same as she come closer she sees patients in dressing-gowns everywhere, and there are also patients on the balconies, which she scans in vain for Franz, as well as nurses in white uniforms pushing wheelchairs through the grounds, or supporting patients who are walking. She imagined the place as bleaker, yet she feels a certain timidity at the reception desk inside, where they ask her name and will not let her go straight in to him, but then after all they do, telling her that his room is on the first floor on the left. As she goes the last few metres she thinks she will explode with excitement. She knocks, and when there is no answer she simply goes in and up to his bed, stands there and hardly recognises him. She dares not kiss him, just stands there in this room at the end of the world and says: I’m here. At last, she says. He smiles and nods his head at a chair, rather sleepily; she has obviously woken him. He whispers, but not in the way she knows; she asks what on earth is the matter with his voice, and only now does she sit down on the bed, taking his hand and cautiously pressing it. He immediately returns the gesture. At first sight he is unchanged. He is weak, and thinner than when she last saw him in Berlin, but it is Franz. To begin with all she thinks is: I am here with him and nothing else matters to me. She doesn’t really hear what he is saying, the names of his medicaments, that he is in pain. The whispering alone would be nothing to speak of, but his illness has spread to his larynx: the doctors say it is swollen, luckily it seems that it is not dangerous. He asks about her journey, and whether she has found accommodation, because she won’t be able to stay here. After an hour she is sent outside the door, and only now, in the corridor, does she begin to understand what kind of place this is. She hears someone coughing for minutes on end on the other side of the nearest door, and there is coughing in the rooms further away as well, someone is groaning, someone else is laughing, although it sounds more like shedding tears. Then she is allowed back into Franz’s room. In the meantime she has seen to finding herself lodgings, and is now sitting beside his bed to some extent armed, she thinks, against whatever may happen. Yesterday evening in Vienna she had imagined she hardly knows what, she thought she would die of longing, and now he lies there in this room, strangely distant, as if she couldn’t reach him; how could she have thought he would be exactly as she knew him in Berlin?