Playthings

by Alex Pheby

  ‘But your father was the stronger. You cried and they watched and there was a stalemate. Heaven knows how much time passed. It felt like an hour. It was Anna who ended it. She ran past Gustav and stood in the middle of the room and she spoke a torrent of words, none of them you’d remember, I suppose. I doubt you would have heard them above your wailing. Anna stood straight with her hands behind her back, except when she needed to point to one or other of the boys, and she explained everything. She was fast and intense, a firecracker, just as she has always been and all eyes were on her.

  ‘Her words were charming, somehow, in their earnest intensity. When you sensed that the attention was taken from you, your eyes opened a slit and it was then that you saw your father, and what had been anger in his eyes and the clenching of his jaw had transformed itself to something else, something you had never seen. Like you, he had tears in his eyes, and on his cheeks, and his face was red and white, like the knuckles of his hands. I think you were the only other one who noticed it, whatever it was. Shame? Love and guilt? It was a complicated emotion and something in you couldn’t bear to see it. You edged forward, safe in the distraction that Anna provided, and then Gustav joined in the speaking and the focus of the room shifted to him. He was high-pitched, wavering and nervous, croaking with tears, and you stepped from board to board, feeling the cracks between them with your toes, and all the while watching the tears well in the corner of your father’s eyes. You edged forward, unseen, and took your father’s hand and stood there like a statue, listening to them speak. You held your father’s hand tight, the hand that had only recently slapped your bare arse, and your father held your mother’s arm, his fingers pinching into her, and the speaking just went on and on, and the grip of your father’s fingers on your mother’s arm was so tight that she couldn’t bear it anymore and she called out:

  ‘“Moritz!”

  ‘Everything went silent. Your father dropped to one knee. The hand that had been at his wife’s arm now covered his face, gripped the skin of his face, his other hand clutching hard at you. There came a strange whining noise into the room, like a wounded dog’s keening, and it was a long time before anyone realised it came from your father.

  ‘No one knew what was going on, least of all your parents. In the end your mother took the baby, and she led the others out of the room and closed the door behind her. She knelt down and made them all gather around her, and in the quietest possible voice she told them that their father was very unwell, that he had been hit by a ladder, and that they were to be very good little boys and girls and never again to do what they did that morning. When they all nodded and nodded with sad little faces, she kissed each one of them on the top of their heads and took them away and dressed them with warm clothes from the laundry. When that was done she opened the door a crack, and when she saw that your father was still there, on his knees in the middle of the room, whining, with your hand held tight in his, she came and prised off his fingers and led you through the house and out into the garden. There you did your exercises, and all of you tried to pretend there was nothing wrong or different in the way your mother did them, even though she did not know the routine. Now, faced with our Rössler here, similarly failing to provide the correct example, bending wrongly, not reaching to the proper extent, lapsing from symmetry for God’s sake, even as he thinks to claim that authority that your father had, doesn’t it bring it all right back? Like a slap in the face? Or on the arse? Look at him—his movements are hardly better than those that you did as a child. Worse.’

  Even though this Jew was vile, it could not be argued that he was mistaken, though how he knew what he knew Schreber could not begin to understand. Schreber felt a longing for the straight body of his father and the certainty of his beliefs.

  When Rössler’s own collar came loose it was the end of it.

  A button failed, and Schreber wished that his father had never died. There was a wattle of loose skin at the doctor’s neck, which prickled with white hair inexpertly shaved back. It bulged through the gap in the starched collar, a fraction more with each partial bend until there was a thumb’s width protruding, and the sight brought his father back so strongly that Schreber could almost not bear it. His father would have run thirty miles at the sight of an ounce of fat building on his frame. He would have scrubbed himself raw with pumice, and scraped his flesh down to the bone with a thrice sharpened razor to prevent just that bulge of flesh, that prickle of hair. The sensation of his father’s disgust at this doctor was so strong that Schreber ignored the man’s instructions and, much to the delight of the Jew, he went into the routine he remembered from his childhood, remembered down in his bones and in the muscles of his thighs and in the breath of his body. The Jew clapped his hands together twice, as Schreber’s father often did before beginning, and he performed the routine too, learned from those long mornings in the garden where they had all worked hard and true at the exercises, his father too, his legs straight, knees back, never hiding behind his role as educator, as this Rössler did. Now, when Rössler indicated a certain twist or lean to the left or right, Schreber defied him, bending in a way that should not be possible for a man of his age and condition, and, though his face whitened with the effort and sweat began to pool in the small of his back and slicked down from under his arms, he went on, sure in the truth of his father’s teaching. The Jew followed him perfectly, egging him on.

  After a while, Schreber shut his eyes, the better to concentrate on the perfection of the angles of his limbs, but he was certain the Jew was beside him, matching him turn for turn. The fluidity with which he went from one posture to the next was absolute, and if his chest heaved, what of it? The body would be subservient to the mind, the flesh to the will, the son to the father. A tickling at the back of the throat as each new breath was dragged down against his lungs’ attempts to force the old one out was nothing to Schreber, had been nothing to him as a boy. The proper end of the exercises was dictated not by his puny body, but by the world itself, by the scripture of gymnastics, by numbers and the science they represented, by certainties more carved in stone than the flesh was carved. If lights danced behind his eyelids and his ears buzzed like bees, then that was nothing compared to the necessity to stop not at ten, but at twenty-five. Schreber bent and jumped, to show that fat-necked doctor what it meant to move the body, to have control over the gross physical machine, and Rössler, despite his arrogance, was a fool, a man who allowed the hair of his body to grow where it would, a man who allowed his skin to loosen with age and let his collar come loose, a man with no understanding of discipline, or of health. He wanted to make his father proud, kneeling like a soldier defeated—by what, he couldn’t understand—and even though the welt on the back of his legs was still ever so sore, he looked up to the upstairs windows of the house, and he hoped to see some movement that might mean his father was rustling the curtains. He might see how badly his wife was drilling the children, and, despite his defeat, he might come down and take that intricate care over them that he had always taken before, every morning. If he was stern then it was through love, hadn’t he said so a hundred times? Like a general is stern with his men, in their best interests, to make strength in them that might one day save their lives. He was no less loving of his children, so that whatever he did, however they imagined they suffered, this was a loving kindness. When they were older they would understand, as they watched the flabby, ill-disciplined boys and girls of their schools wither and fail in the face of life. They would fall to their knees at the first obstacle, whimpering, while the Schreber children would march on to great things! They would never shy from pain when it needed to be felt, or exhaustion in a good cause, their bodies and minds would never let them down. So much was the effort their father put into their health and happiness that he himself was brought low. His fingers clutching so hard at him, so that he had to bite his lip, Papa on his knees, clutching his face, the fingers on his other hand pushing into his eye socke
ts, that strange sound like the wounded dog, speared through its side, that they had once come across in the park, pathetic and wide-eyed, keening, the victim of some childish viciousness, kicked and beaten and laughed at.

  ‘Father, we must take him home!’

  His father said nothing but shook his head slowly. There was a pool of blood that coloured the ground at the dog’s side. Paul reached down to touch his little head. The dog shuffled toward him, but the stick dragged, and there was a shriek. Paul’s hand hovered, too frightened of hurting the little thing to comfort it, and tears came without restraint.

  When Paul looked up at his father there were tears there, too, like there would be in Klara’s room, when his father was defeated, kneeling. In the park he had been strong, and he knelt down and twisted the dog’s neck, cracked his little neck, made his eyes go glassy and his head loose. His father picked Paul up, as he never did, and they marched away.

  It was only when Schreber found that he was not moving, lying again on the grass with the vicious snap of smelling salts in his nose, that he opened his eyes.

  There was the ape, no longer laughing. There was the doctor—his collar now miraculously rebuttoned, the sweat from his brow dried and the wattle gone—leaning over him. The Jew was nowhere to be seen, and Müller picked Schreber up under the knees and across the back, as if his legs were useless, and placed him gently back into the Bath chair.

  ‘I think we have enough to be going on with,’ said Rössler.

  A memory of a time before his father’s illness, in which a family of Jewish boarders are trapped. One of them is called Alexander. Isn’t that the name of the mysterious Jewish gentleman who torments Schreber?

  XV

  The five of them stood in order of height: Gustav first, then Paul, Anna, Sidonie, and, last, Klara, moving from foot to foot, the tiles so cold and no time to find their slippers. In the candlelight, the walls around them came closer and moved back with each flicker of the flame. Their mother ran from room to room, gathering things: a shawl, a shoe, a packet of bread and butter, all of which she put into a big doctor’s bag. Outside there was shouting.

  Their father stood by the door.

  Down on the street: the sound of breaking glass and men calling to each other.

  Boots clattering on cobbles.

  Their father buttoned his long blue coat, pushing the brass through the slits in the fabric and polishing them with his sleeve when they came through. His tall knee boots were pulled up and his hat pulled down so that the peak hid his eyes. The gold chin strap sparkled.

  Someone screamed outside.

  Father stood straight and turned to face the children. He was neat and stiff.

  ‘There is nothing to fear, children!’ he said. ‘No matter what you see or what you hear tonight, fear is of no use to you!’

  He went over to a window and pulled aside the curtain.

  ‘No amount of noise from the street, no Catholic, no Jesuit can ever threaten you if your will is strong. Do you understand?’

  Paul, like the others, nodded once, but none of them understood what he said.

  ‘You are strong, brave children. Fine girls and boys!’

  In the street there was a terrible crashing.

  Wood splintering.

  Rifle fire.

  Their father licked his teeth and marched to the window. He opened it and leaned out. Their mother was back now, kneeling before them so that she could look them all in the eye. She whispered that they must be obedient and not worry because their father and the other men of the militia would make sure they were safe. They would all go to their grandmother’s for a few days. Wasn’t that wonderful?

  The children said nothing, even though it was a great thing to be allowed to go to their grandmother’s house, where even Father smiled as he sat and smoked in the best chair.

  When Father called them to attention he stood in front of them, heels together and now he looked like a God: not the God of the vicious Catholics who would burn a house down and turn a child by torture to their papish ways, but like a God of the olden days, such as those in the books that Gustav got down from their father’s shelf. He was like Woden or Thunor: he stood strong and straight. His boots shone in the candlelight, and the bright, brass buttons were like stars.

  Their father clicked his heels and left the room, the steel tips of his boots ringing on the stone flags, quicker and quicker as he went down the stairs.

  When the door opened onto the street, the noise of shouting grew very loud and angry. Mother took Gustav by the hand and then each one took the hand of the next in line and they followed her into the hallway. Though the lamp had not been lit and there was nothing but darkness and the light from outside, they didn’t complain; they went quickly, paying no attention to the door through which Father had just left, and lined up against the wall.

  ‘When the carriage comes to take us to Grandmother’s we must all go to it without a moment’s fussing. Do you understand, children? There will be no time for silliness!’

  ‘What is the noise, Frau Schreber?’

  Their mother looked up.

  There, in their doorway, was the boarder and his family, still in their nightgowns. He leaned at a peculiar angle on account of his deformity, and so did his son, but the women of the family also made a poor show, and the mother had not even taken the time to run a brush through her hair before coming down.

  ‘Nothing, Herr Zilberschlag,’ Frau Schreber said. ‘Please go back to sleep.’

  ‘It doesn’t sound like nothing,’ said Frau Zilberschlag.

  The daughter squirmed and whined. Frau Zilberschlag cooed at her and shifted her higher on the hip.

  The boy spoke.

  ‘Papa,’ he said, ‘why are they all dressed up to go out? I thought it was bedtime?’

  ‘It is bedtime, Alex dear.’

  ‘So why aren’t we in bed?’

  ‘That, little one, is exactly what we are out of bed to find out, isn’t it?’

  Herr Zilberschlag smiled at Frau Schreber, but she said nothing and after a while he stopped smiling.

  They were weak, these Zilberschlags. Their eldest boy was about Paul’s age and it wasn’t really his fault, but he had a twist in his spine, and it made him feeble. And they had no money, because of the fees, so that their mother couldn’t buy the material she needed to mend their clothes, let alone make new ones.

  ‘Are you going somewhere nice, children?’ Frau Zilberschlag said, and before Frau Schreber could stop her, Sidonie replied that, yes thank you, they were going to their grandmother’s.

  ‘The country? Very nice. And why wait until morning? Strike while the iron is hot! Very sensible.’

  Outside there was a bang that shook the glass in the windows and then, almost straight after, one of the windows came in. All at once, a curtain billowed, glass shattered, and a rock the size of a man’s fist landed in the middle of the room. It skidded across the boards and came to rest at Herr Zilberschlag’s feet.

  They all looked at it in silence.

  After a long time Paul said, ‘You can’t come with us.’

  His mother shushed him and gathered the children together, fussing over their coats, but he went on.

  ‘You can’t come with us!’

  ‘Paul!’

  ‘No, Mama! There is no room in the carriage. And look at them!’

  ‘Young man, we have not asked to come with you,’ said Herr Zilberschlag.

  ‘You couldn’t go anyway. Your nightclothes are grubby. You’re all crooked. Your backs go off to one side. You have to live in a medical institute! You can’t come anyway!’

  ‘Paul! You will be silent this instant!’

  ‘It is nothing, Frau Schreber, really.’ Herr Zilberschlag came over and knelt in front of Paul. He meant to be nice. He reached forward and tried to touch Paul’s ha
nd, but Paul stepped back.

  ‘Papa says you get what you deserve! There are people like us—like me and my brothers and sisters, like Mother and Father—we make sure we are good and strong and good things happen to us. And there are people like you.’ Paul hesitated, suddenly aware everyone was watching him.

  ‘Go on,’ said Herr Zilberschlag, ‘there are people like us…’

  ‘Paul! Get here now!’

  ‘There are people like you, Catholics and Jews, who wake up late, and stay half-asleep all day, and if you were set fire to in your beds then that would be no one’s fault but your own.’

  Herr Zilberschlag nodded and looked back at his wife, but neither of them had anything to say.

  ‘Why don’t you get yourself a uniform?’ said Paul. ‘Why don’t you go out with the militia and fight, like Papa?’

  Herr Zilberschlag stood, with difficulty. The twist in his spine—it made it tricky to stand up all in a moment.

  ‘There are many reasons, Paul.’

  ‘All excuses. Papa says that some people are only any good at wheedling their way out of things. If you were straighter, not so twisted, you might be able to wear a nice uniform like Papa’s, with a hat and brass buttons.’

  There was a knock at the door.

  ‘That will be the carriage…’

  Frau Schreber opened the door and beckoned for the children to come forward, but it was not the carriage driver. It was a tall man in the same uniform their father wore, except it was torn at the arm, and this man had no hat. His brass buttons were dull, and his moustaches were uneven.

  ‘Might I help you?’ Frau Schreber asked.

  The man said nothing. He looked off over her shoulder and when he saw the Zilberschlags he smiled. In the front row of his teeth only two remained whole—the others were ragged black stubs.

  Outside there was laughing and Paul caught sight of a man running in his nightshirt. His white legs were bare up to the knee and his feet jarred against the cobblestones as he ran. There was a man in blue running behind him, with a stick, beating him like a man beats a horse. The man in his nightgown fell and the stick was raised high.