In any case, the development of this new medicine may well be delayed because of something that strikes me as absurd. Something that has nothing to do with medical matters. The scientist in question, Gerhard Domagk, is in serious trouble with the authorities because he’s been awarded the Nobel Prize this year. For this particular discovery, as it happens. Even though it’s strictly forbidden for any German citizen to accept the prize since the Swedes have given it to opponents of the National Socialist regime. And to Jews. That’s the way they decide things now.
Friday 1 September 1939
This morning, the armies of the Reich invaded Poland. A surprise attack. Now it’s clear why the gauleiter cut short the Festspiele by a week.
I remember my war. Especially the noise. The cannon fire, the yelling of the officers, the neighing of the horses. And the menacing silence at night, just before dawn. But that was something else, the Great War. It lasted four years!
I’ve just come back from the canteen. The others irritate me. They’re all worked up. They talk about troop movements, and panzers. They pass the newspaper around. There’s a map of the combat zone on the front page. They’re delighted. As if this offensive had anything at all to do with us. Who cares about Poland?
I didn’t even glance at the daily paper. I prefer the news in brief on the wireless. One sentence per subject, short and sharp. This morning, the German armies invaded Poland. That’s all you need. I should write my memoirs in the same concise, telegraphic style. Didn’t go down to the canteen this evening. Reread beginning of Werther.
The silence of my room comforts me for once. After all the commotion. I’m really pleased that I’m no longer part of all that.
Sunday 3 September 1939
Bad day. Coughing like an old man. Unable to stop. The tea burns my throat. When it’s cold, it makes me nauseous.
There may be a war on, but the city has never seemed so peaceful. Through the window, I can hear the sparrows chirping in the trees out in the courtyard. As it’s Sunday, there’s a reduced staff. Everyone’s resting. Even the wireless is off.
I’m coming down with something, I’m sure of it. Tonsillitis, perhaps. I don’t dare bother the duty nurse. Everything is so calm. The disease is running its course. Inexorably. What’s the point of calling for help?
Friday 22 September 1939
Three weeks in bed, with fever and stomach pains. I look at myself in the mirror. In hospital pajamas, dirty and creased. My face emaciated, yellowish. I’ve lost several pounds. I can barely stand on my feet. I’m starting to look like the patients on the third floor, the advanced stage. We never see them. Or very rarely. We can hardly hear them. Everyone prefers to avoid the third floor. Even those of us who are already seriously ill. Out of superstition, I suppose.
Apart from the nurses and the cleaning woman, I haven’t seen anybody. The doctor only came once. He told me it wasn’t serious. I just have to drink a lot until it passes. I didn’t even ask him how the war was going. Maybe it’s already over.
Monday 25 September 1939
Freud died the day before yesterday. Euthanasia. He had cancer of the mouth. All those cigars . . . Three doses of morphine and it was all over. It’s food for thought. He left Austria in extremis, in 1938. That was something I thought about too.
Thursday 5 October 1939
Autumn is good for me.
I went down at teatime to listen to the radio. Everyone was there. All present and correct. Too bad. There’s a new arrival. As consumptive as could be. He coughs a lot, covering his hand with his mouth in embarrassment. He’s not used to it yet.
I remember my first day. The disease was one thing. But finding myself there, suddenly, among these dying men . . . At the beginning, I looked at them like a spectator, as if from a distance. Even now, I avoid their eyes. And anyway, I’ve learned to stop paying attention to them. Especially those who moan and groan. I’ve learned to obey the house rules. Or at least to give that impression. To always be polite to Dr. Müller. To obey the nurses, even though their dictatorial manner is so off-putting. To bribe the custodian’s son with candies. I’ve gotten into the habit without anybody telling me. Without anybody having to explain. Instinctively.
The newcomer sits in his corner, away from everyone else. Nobody talks to him. He seems embarrassed to be here. And shy. He doesn’t dare look up at us, the veterans. He’ll learn eventually. Or not.
I’ve just heard planes in the sky. They passed very close, just above the upper town. For the first time, I feel something. That there’s a war. That I’m stuck here with the others. Difficult to get back to sleep.
Friday 6 October 1939
Cod and boiled potatoes. I’ll never get used to it.
Sunday 8 October 1939
Listened to Chopin on my phonograph, then went down to the courtyard for a walk. The newcomer was there, sitting on a bench. He told me he was very fond of Chopin. He didn’t introduce himself. I didn’t reply.
The nights are more and more interminable. I’m too tired to read. In any case, I’m soon going to be forced to sell off my books if I want the custodian’s son to keep buying me saveloy. I’ll start by selling the libretti, because I know them all by heart. The Italian operas first. Mozart last.
I had a dream I founded an orchestra. With the patients. It was quite amusing. All those skeletons in their pajamas playing Schubert at the door of the canteen! Too comical for words.
Thought again about my mother and her viola. The hours of practice in the drawing room, going over and over the same piece. At the time it used to get on my nerves. What a perfectionist! I attended dozens of her concerts at the Mozarteum. She wouldn’t look for me in the auditorium, she kept her eyes on her score. And as a critic myself, I avoided listening too closely to the strings. She was stiff, too wedded to the notes. Very provincial. Not at all Viennese. I think about her more and more. Which surprises me.
Wednesday 18 October 1939
My phonograph isn’t working very well. The crank mechanism is worn. It’s too expensive to replace it. The records are there, lined up on the lower shelf. I take out an album at random and hum the tune from memory. With variations. Eyes closed.
I saw a gurney pass at the end of the corridor. Covered in a sheet. Usually I don’t take any notice. It’s not like at the beginning. But this corpse was taken away in a magnificent hearse, without going through the morgue. A funeral cortege.
Downstairs, in the canteen, five or six patients were missing. Impossible to know who was just poorly and who had gone to the funeral. Strangely, I remembered that the Jews require at least ten men to recite the prayer for the dead. Where could I have heard that? What happens if there aren’t ten men?
Monday 23 October 1939
Yesterday, a gloomy Sunday.
Saturday 28 October 1939
I thought I was hallucinating, off my head. With all these wretched drugs. I actually suspect Müller of using us as guinea pigs. Anyway, I heard some Chopin. In the distance. The E major Scherzo. The notes of the piano hovered over the courtyard, slid between the foliage of the plane trees, bounced cheerfully off the wall of the covered yard. So there’s someone else who has a phonograph. It must be the new patient. I’ll find out on Monday, from the cleaning woman.
On reflection, it doesn’t really matter where the music came from or who has a phonograph. I’ve resigned myself to the idea that mine is broken, and I get along perfectly well without it.
Thursday 9 November 1939
Assassination attempt on Hitler in Munich yesterday. By a Communist. With a bomb. But the Führer wasn’t there. He had left earlier than planned to catch the train, the bad weather having prevented him from getting back to Berlin by plane. Several people were killed. It was a close-run thing.
Three o’clock in the morning. Insomnia. It’s raining. It’s true the weather is bad.
Five o’clock. Still dark. Is it so easy, then? To kill him?
Saturday 18 November 1939
Al
Capone was released from jail on Thursday. I imagined him leaving his prison uniform in the cloakroom and emerging from the gate of the penitentiary in an impeccable suit, a cigar in his mouth, in beautiful winter sunshine. As if he were leaving a business meeting.
I looked at my good clothes in the wardrobe. I considered going out. It’s nice outside. It’s one of the last decent days. Before the cold really sets in.
I would have done better to go out. I slipped a couple of banknotes to the cleaning woman. To let me feel her up. I looked like an idiot, with my hands on her breasts. She was kind. She rubbed me a little. Nothing happened. Even though I wanted it . . . Nothing.
I feel colder and colder.
Tuesday 21 November 1939
Hans came to see me. He talked a lot about the war. Several young musicians have left for the front. He’s managed to get himself declared unfit for service. He was wearing a gas mask, in order not to catch my germs. He brought me some cookies. I didn’t have much to say to him. We talked about Karajan, his meteoric rise, his career, his concerts in Berlin. I’m a bit jealous. I told Hans that Karajan was too heavy-handed, that he had talent but wasted it in trying to appeal to the masses. Hans didn’t like that. I don’t know if he’ll be back in a hurry. But I had to say something, to make it seem as though I’m up to date. To fill in the gaps.
On reflection, I’m sorry I behaved so boorishly toward Hans. None of this is his fault, the war, the tuberculosis, Karajan’s fame. He was quite brave to come here, to the sanitarium. It can’t be very entertaining. But how to make him understand? The degradation, the constant proximity of death. That hospital smell, which I’m sure repels him, I don’t even smell anymore. I’m part of it, and it’s part of me. It stinks like the cod on Friday. How to tell Hans that it isn’t the bacteria that cause this decay? It’s the drab corridors, the grey walls around the courtyard, the languor that envelops everything like a shroud.
Monday 4 December 1939
Total hibernation. The window panes are covered in frost. The radiator is working badly. It hisses. I went down to the canteen for the first time in about two weeks. The newcomer gave me a little smile. He’s lost a lot of weight.
The wireless talks about the Russians, the Italians, the British. Everything has become huge. Millions of men, hundreds of bombs, billions of Deutschmarks. It’s all meaningless.
Received a letter from my tenant. Her husband has been enlisted. The trains he drives now are going east. She has no money left to pay the rent. I threw the letter in the trash. The treasurer told me he would contact the railway administrators to make sure I’m compensated. I didn’t believe him.
There’s nobody to count on but oneself. It’s pointless expecting anything from other people.
Wednesday 6 December 1939
Some detectives came and searched our rooms. And the library. They were looking for decadent works. At first I thought they meant the Romantics. But no, they didn’t touch my nineteenth-century editions. My opera librettos in Italian didn’t seem to interest them either. The French books rather more. I told them that Anatole France was a professor at the Conservatory. My collection is mostly devoted to music. They quickly shuffled a few of my records and then left. Heil Hitler!
It was the first time anyone had given me the official salute, with the arm well extended. I’ve trained myself to do it, in front of the mirror.
Dr. Müller came to examine me, even though it isn’t my day. I think he was surprised the policemen hadn’t found anything compromising in my room. I almost gave him the Nazi salute, to force him to reciprocate.
Friday 15 December 1939
Boiled potatoes, but no cod. Rationing. The custodian’s son says you can still find saveloy on the black market. Too expensive.
There’s a Christmas tree in the canteen. It hasn’t been decorated yet. I’d really like to meet Father Christmas this year. I’d give him a piece of my mind.
The wireless crackles, because of the snow. The reception is bad. As if that weren’t enough, most of the patients have caught cold, and they cough and sneeze in unison just when the news is coming on. The Russians are marching on Finland. The snow doesn’t bother them.
Wednesday 20 December 1939
I haven’t seen the newcomer for several days. Neither in the canteen nor in the dayroom. I was told he’s not well at all. That they’re thinking to transfer him to the third floor.
The third floor is to be avoided at all costs.
For the first time, I thought about suicide. About ending it all. I wondered how to go about it. Get drunk and then throw myself naked in a river. Or out the window. But the rivers are frozen at this time of year, and the building isn’t high enough, with all this snow. Maybe I should wait until spring.
Sunday 24 December 1939
Christmas Eve. Pope Pius XII calls for peace. Pax. The tree has been decorated. Below it, someone has placed a little crèche filled with papier-mâché figures. Decent meal, given the circumstances. Unusually lively atmosphere in the canteen. I waited as long as possible to go back up to my room.
Monday 25 December 1939
Christmas.
Thursday 4 January 1940
My tenant is penniless. Her husband isn’t sending her any money. He’s somewhere in Poland, or Yugoslavia, I can’t remember which.
To make my savings last, I’ve resigned myself to abandoning my private quarters. I’m going to be transferred to Ward 5, which has six beds. And a view of the courtyard.
A record dealer came to buy my phonograph, which has stopped working, and my collection. He took advantage of my situation, the bastard. I know the exact value of each record, each score. He offered me less than a tenth. Take it or leave it. Business is bad, he says. Because of the war. Life is hard. He dared say that to me, life is hard . . . The room looks empty now. I’m ashamed of myself. For selling my music cheap. War or no war. And for going to the Nazis’ Festspiele. It’s unforgivable. How can I redeem myself?
Saturday 6 January 1940
I don’t dare look at myself in the mirror. I’m convinced, though, that I must look better than the others. It’s just that I’ve lost a lot of weight since the custodian’s son stopped bringing me saveloy. My clothes hang loose on me.
The trees in the courtyard are bare. Their leafless branches sway in the wind, as if they too were shivering with cold.
Sunday 7 January 1940
Hans paid me a surprise visit. I suspect the management of informing him of my financial situation. He offered me money. A loan. I refused. But I did accept the nice box of cookies he brought. Viennese macaroons. What a delight!
He says the news is quite good. The Reich is winning on all fronts. He also says that times are hard. Just like the record dealer. The Jews have been transferred. And the gypsies. They’re contributing to the war effort. Like everyone else. Even Karajan is giving free concerts for the soldiers. And Hans is already preparing the program for the next festival, this summer.
Hans promised to come back and see me again next month. He’s going skiing. I didn’t tell him I’m being moved to a general ward.
I hope my sister is in America. I can’t exactly see her contributing to the war effort. Her manicured nails, her well-groomed hair, her aristocratic airs . . .
Monday 8 January 1940
Impossible to sleep. I think about my sister, my nephews, and even my brother-in-law, who I don’t like, with his spectacles perched on the end of his nose. Oh, these doctors . . . I’m worried about them. I have a bad feeling. Of course, I can’t do anything for them. Especially in my condition. I’d just like to know. What’s the connection between the Jews and the Gypsies? They have nothing in common. Apart perhaps from being wanderers.
I really can’t get to sleep.
I may not need to kill myself. There’s been much talk of euthanasia lately.
Friday 12 January 1940
My birthday. Boiled potatoes. No cod. But I did get a nice present from Dr. Müller. An extra week in a private
room, at the sanitarium’s expense. Müller’s not such a bad sort after all. He knows how hard it’s going to be for me to live in a general ward. I can’t bear the other patients, their smells, their slow gestures, their negligent attire.
I again considered going out, even if it means dropping dead two streets from here. For my birthday. It’s a good day to make resolutions. So I set myself a goal. Go one last time to the Festspiele, in suit and tie. It’s in about six months. If I can only hold out until then, even in a shared ward, even surrounded by the stench of disease.
I don’t think I’m likely to get better. Just delay the end. The symptoms are there, clear for all to see. The unmistakable signs that my illness is running its course. I’m not pretending to ignore them. I’m not burying my head in the sand. It’s just that one should never envisage the worst.
Sunday 14 January 1940
The newcomer died last night. On the second floor! That’s never happened before. The incurables are kept on the third floor. And those who can’t pay for their continued treatment.
I thought about him. All stiff in a drawer in the morgue. It’s funny, I wasn’t sad. Just irritated. As if annoyed with him for dying on our floor and not on the third. I don’t even know his name. I rejected his company, his advances. As soon as he arrived, I could see he wasn’t going to pull through. So what would have been the point?
Decided to do a little investigating. One of the nurses has family in Vienna. I didn’t tell her about my sister, obviously. Only about the building, telling her I had friends there that I wanted to write to, the Haüsers, but I wasn’t sure of the exact address, if it was 45 or 47, or maybe even 46 opposite. The Haüsers are neighbors and friends of my brother-in-law. They live on the fourth floor. And my sister on the third.
Saving Mozart Page 2
