Playthings

by Alex Pheby

  The man with black teeth beckoned to the Zilberschlags.

  He stepped up, as if to come in.

  He smiled.

  The door slammed in the man’s face—red painted wood—and Paul’s mother pulled across the bolts.

  Gustav ran to the door.

  ‘But Father!’

  She took the boy by the elbow and walked him away, struggling.

  At no time did she look away from her boarders.

  ‘Upstairs, children.’

  ‘But what about the carriage?’

  ‘What about grandmother’s?’

  Frau Schreber pushed them up the stairs, and nodded politely to Herr Zilberschlag as she followed them up.

  Schreber visits Rössler with a request. The doctor is distracted. When Schreber forcefully attempts to secure his full attention, he makes a mistake.

  XVI

  The corridor was empty. Through the windows the late afternoon sun made blocks of cold white light on the floor, jointed where they met the opposite wall. Schreber looked behind him, to where the stairs from the orderlies’ quarters emerged from below. No one. He made his way without hesitating to Rössler’s office. He knocked twice and flinched to hear the sound echo in every direction.

  The door swung open.

  ‘What is it?’ Rössler snapped without looking up from the starched white shirt he was attempting, without much success, to put on. His bulb-knuckled fingers kept slipping on the smooth mother-of-pearl studs.

  ‘Well?’ he said, still not looking up.

  Schreber clicked his heels and sniffed, at which point Rössler at last deigned his visitor a glance.

  ‘Oh… I thought… Müller!’ He shouted, ‘Müller!’

  Rössler bent down and, audibly creaking, pulled at the strap of his left dress boot, which made no progress over his heel.

  ‘My nephew… formal dinner. Müller!’

  ‘He isn’t available, Herr Doktor.’

  ‘No, so it seems. Do you wish to see me, Herr Schreber? It is just that I am rather…’

  ‘For a minute, if you are able. I would very much appreciate it.’

  Rössler hopped on one leg but, despite becoming red in the face, was unable to coax his boot on.

  ‘Bloody gout now is it?’ Rössler cursed, ‘Can’t a man get dressed without his body making things difficult for him?’ he sighed, and let the polished boot slip down so that it lay like a pool of black oil beside his thick woollen stocking.

  ‘Herr Schreber, please come in.’ He went over to his desk, sliding slowly on his stocking foot and letting the booted one edge him along. ‘Age,’ he said, and didn’t see the need to elaborate.

  Rössler nodded to the patient’s chair, only noticing his dress jacket as Schreber went to sit on it. Suddenly a man twenty years younger, Rössler was across the room in a flash and holding his jacket straight. He brushed it with the back of his hand twice and hung it on the coat rack. He looked at the clock on his desk.

  ‘I’m afraid you catch me at a bad time. My nephew will be here imminently, and he is not the kind of man who enjoys being kept waiting—quite the opposite. So…?’

  ‘One question. I wish to return home by Christmas. Is this something you expect to be possible, now you have your diagnosis?’

  Rössler raised his eyebrows and examined Schreber closely, apparently to see if he was joking.

  ‘My expectation is that a cure should not be difficult, and that I should be well enough to take some time away from the asylum to attend to my duties at home. Is this your understanding?’

  Schreber waited, but Rössler said nothing, and now, his state of undress forgotten, he was instead turning over piles of paper on his desk, looking for something.

  ‘My daughter, Fridoline, was here…’

  ‘Your daughter?’

  ‘Yes. Frida was very keen that I should be home for Christmas.’

  ‘You admit, then, that you have a daughter?’

  Rössler found the papers he was searching for. He rifled through them until he found one in particular which he pulled out and held up, letting it twist between his fingers until Schreber could see the writing on one side.

  ‘You no longer believe that she is,’ Rössler turned the paper back over and, putting his glasses up onto the bridge of his nose, read it: ‘“a cruel fiction, a parody stitched together from the corpses of innumerable tiny birds, whose aim it is to mock and crow and speak of the corruption of the Schreber family line”?’

  Rössler lowered the paper and stared over the top of it, like a hawk.

  ‘I don’t recall saying those things. But I’m sure I promised Frida that I would be home by Christmas. I am a man of my word and I would not like to be proved otherwise.’

  ‘Do you recall that you said that “she has been taken over by the soul of a palsied whore who stares out from her eyes and takes lascivious pleasure in deriding your masculine pride”?’

  ‘Do you think I might be home for Christmas?’

  ‘That “her wrists and ankles are moved by the agency of the lower God?” Your own words, Herr Schreber, not mine.’

  ‘I do not recall saying anything of that sort.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘Will I be home for Christmas?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But I promised.’

  ‘It would be wise to make no further promises. Without, at least, consulting with me first. Your condition is too severe. You don’t believe me? Let me read from your notes… This is for last month: “In the main part there is no change… very rarely speaks with doctor… says that he is being tortured with food he cannot eat… constantly tormented by hallucinations… sleep poor… stands in bed, stands in front of window listening intently… unreachable…” Does this sound like a man who will be returning to his family for Christmas? Now I really must get ready. We can talk further in the morning, if, of course, we find you still disposed to do so.’

  Schreber shook his head vigorously, but Rössler returned to the matter of his boots and whether there was any chance he might get them onto his feet. Schreber stood over the doctor, who was now sitting on his rug, grimacing and holding the top edges of the boot with his hands and forcing his leg to straighten into the boot.

  ‘Sir, I do not know what kind of man you are,’ Schreber said, ‘though I have my suspicions, but in my family a man’s word is his bond. It may be a trivial matter to you—to break a promise to a young girl—but to me it is something I would not do unless there was absolutely no alternative.’

  ‘This damn boot! Müller! Where is the man?’

  ‘Is there absolutely no alternative?’

  Schreber knelt beside the doctor, the better that the man should see that he was in earnest.

  ‘I implore you!’

  ‘Müller! The carriage will be here any minute…’

  ‘You aren’t listening to me. This is a matter of great importance.’

  ‘Müller! All I need is a horn. I felt sure there was one here…’

  ‘Perhaps an exeat? A supervised visit? Anything.’

  ‘I was given a silver shoehorn as a gift. Lord alone knows where it has got to.’

  ‘Please?’

  Rössler went quiet and let the boot drop. He looked off over Schreber’s shoulder, and a thoughtful expression played across his face. He rubbed his cheek, and pushed his glasses up his nose. He ran a hand through his hair. Schreber waited, his knees aching from kneeling.

  ‘Please?’ Schreber repeated, and he held his hands together, as if in a prayer.

  ‘Please what?’ Rössler asked with a frown, ‘Müller! If I’m late I’m going to have that man fired!’

  ‘You aren’t listening to me!’ Schreber barked.

  He leaned over and grabbed the doctor by the lapels and when he tugged him forward so that thei
r faces were no more than a few inches apart and the doctor at last seemed to pay him some attention, he was breathing fast and heavily, so that Rössler blinked with Schreber’s every exhalation. The doctor said nothing. Schreber opened his mouth to speak, but somehow the words did not come.

  ‘Did you call for me, sir?’

  ‘Yes, Müller.’

  ‘Would you like me to…?’

  ‘Of course…’

  Müller was over, bringing with him the sour odour of liquor. It stung Schreber’s eyes and Rössler sniffed twice, pointedly. Müller seemed not to notice, picked Schreber up under the arms, and pulled him away. At first Schreber did not let go of the lapels, but Müller tugged and he came loose.

  ‘Shall I…?’

  ‘Take him back to his rooms.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Your carriage…’

  ‘Outside already? Yes, I thought it might be.’

  ‘I told him to wait.’

  Rössler turned away from both of them.

  Müller whispered in Schreber’s ear, ‘Now you’ve done it, you silly old sod.’

  In his rooms, Schreber writes a letter of apology to Fridoline. His thoughts turn to the importance of a child’s having brothers and sisters on whom she can rely. He remembers a day in the garden of the Institute which, though difficult, was ultimately one of his happiest moments. Later, he cannot find the letter he was writing.

  XVII

  Schreber smoothed the paper with his sleeve before taking up the pen. The breakfast things lay on their tray at his feet, untouched. He pushed them out of sight with the toe of his slipper and ignored the chime his glass made as it fell and hit the side of his plate. He lifted the lid of the inkwell and charged the pen’s bladder with the lever. A thick drop of black hung precariously from the end of the gold nib. When he moved the lever backward it shrank, but when he returned the lever to its proper place the drop swelled. There was no blotting paper, so he wiped it on the sleeve of his dressing gown. He picked off a snagged thread and coughed.

  My dearest Fridoline,

  Silly little thing!

  So like her aunt—so like Anna—though neither of them would admit it. A firecracker! He hated to see them upset. The turning over of the bottom lip—it was the same with both of them—the shadow that came into the sockets of their eyes, like bruises, deepening as their eyes reddened. To be told there would be no excursion, for this reason or that—to the zoo, or to the lido—he hated to see the disappointment and the sadness.

  My dearest Fridoline,

  Despite my promise, I am very sad to say that my doctor does not hold out much hope for me making it home for our usual Christmas celebrations…

  That he was the source of the disappointment, that was the problem, when he broke his promises, or caused a fuss. It didn’t matter if nothing was said, it was the unmistakable atmosphere, an understanding which passes between people without the need for words, transmitted in a more basic language than speech, heard not by the ear, but felt by the skin on the space between the shoulder blades. Or, on the back of the neck and then the prickling of the hairs of the arm—not words, but sensible nonetheless. Disappointment. A quivering lip and, perhaps, a little sniff. A handkerchief taken to the corner of the eye. They were very similar, Anna and Fridoline. And Sabine.

  ‘Why is it that I must be the one to tell her?’

  Schreber watched the end of his pen, motionless on the paper. Beneath it the full stop was growing. The ink leached into the fibres of the paper, and the nib shook with the vibrations of his nerves. His hand twitched for no reason—for absolutely no reason—and spoiled the page with a long thick upward-leading mark. Schreber grunted and put down the pen. He slid the paper off the desk and onto the ground. It curved down, cutting the air quite slowly, before coming to rest on his breakfast tray.

  Voluptuousness has become God-fearing.

  He took another piece of paper from his drawer.

  Dear Fridoline,

  The raincoats returned to their pegs.

  ‘Your father does not feel well.’

  ‘But he promised!’

  ‘Next week?’

  But he promised. Poor old Fridoline, taking off her fur-trimmed suede, the one with the big black buttons, and when the last button was undone she hung it herself, taking her scarf next and drawing together the two ends, putting the middle of it in one of the coat pockets so that it would be there when she next needed it—her own innovation—placing the paper packet of walnuts in their shells on the table by the door, the top neatly crimped. Such a good child, never complaining, except that lip, curling over, just like her Aunt Anna’s—exactly the same—a strange coincidence but unmistakable despite Sabine’s blank stare whenever he pointed it out.

  ‘The child is only a Schreber in name—she will not resemble any of you.’

  But it was there nonetheless. He was not imagining it—the disappointed curl of the lip.

  Dearest Fridoline,

  Easier to read, this time. The ink had flowed more easily. The nib had not caught on the right angle between the letter ‘r’ and the letter ‘i’ and there was no consequent overshooting of the dim, half-obscured line from the guide sheet below. The lip. Hadn’t Anna done just the same thing as a child?

  Please know that there is nothing that saddens me more than breaking a promise to you, but this is just what I must do.

  Would there be tears? Or would that be too mild a reaction? A girl cries over many things. When she cracks the porcelain on the head of her doll, or when her hair is pulled—that little scoundrel! He should have clipped his ear, whatever the boy’s father said. A girl might cry for a thousand other things. Wasn’t this worse?

  I remain well and my doctor is confident I will make a full recovery in only a few days or weeks, but not by Christmas.

  To be abandoned by one’s father? A terrible thing. It could make a child turn in on herself. Without a father’s authority what was a child to do? Go to her mother? Sabine? Seek comradeship and support in others? Anna had her brothers and sisters. Whom did Fridoline have? The skivvy? Cook? With Father gone, Anna had relied on the others. Up to the point at which the household passed into anarchy and beyond it, when the law seemed to have collapsed. Wasn’t that true of all of them?

  My greatest regret is that you have no brothers and sisters on whom to rely.

  Because, in the absence of discipline, they took to each other the roles and requirements of the system and acted it out, after a fashion, in the manner that it had been acted out upon them. A most valuable thing, to know one’s place. When they played in the garden, the law of nature was the proper ruler and their activities found natural limits in the extent to which things could be done, and at what speed, and by what measure. The other children, whose fathers and mothers had not changed or gone, were markers for them.

  There is much to say for communal living, particularly for children, as they require others to play with, their own internal resources not yet sufficient to occupy them. The same can be said for the outdoors, where the world contains enough variety to fill a day. It was when they were obliged to be in—when the sun went down, or before and after meals—that the weight of their father’s removal from the place became most apparent. It was on Gustav that the change was most visible. He stood straighter than he had and his chest was puffed out, and in his actions a sternness of mood became apparent. Would this happen with Fridoline? She had never been a boisterous girl; more inclined to needlework and her paints than wholesome play in the garden.

  ‘What do you expect her to do out there all day?’ Sabine said.

  They stood at the window, and she stood lost by the damson tree, a perfect red circle at her feet: a hoop, untouched. Sabine huffed and went down, and, after a delay, Schreber saw her take the girl’s hand and she brought her in. This was where she stayed, and when the hoop was next picked up, benea
th it there was a ring of flat, washed-out, yellow grass.

  In the garden one day Gustav hit Paul. There had been some trifling incident—Paul had allowed the seat of his trousers to become grass-stained by sliding down the steep approach to the lake’s edge. Seeing what he had done, and knowing that this would cause trouble for his mother, he had allowed himself a tear or two. Gustav became enraged, and the look of fear in his brother’s eyes made it worse—little sissy!—and he swung down a slap from on high, moving his hand in a snap from the position of a Roman salute down and across Paul’s cheek, too hard—much harder than he had intended—so that the slap sounded through the garden like a dry branch snapping from a tree.

  The boarders’ children stopped in their play and one of them, Alexander—a boy who always appeared to be craning over to his left, as if he carried a heavy weight on one shoulder only—came over and said:

  ‘That was a beauty! Right across the cheek! Do it again!’

  ‘Shut up!’ said Anna, who had come running at the sound, and now knelt by Paul. He was trying to swallow the lump that had come into his throat. He was blinking and blinking as if it would stop tears.

  Gustav’s mouth was suddenly dry, and he looked back toward the house.

  Nothing.

  He licked his lips and told Paul to get up and stop behaving like a girl.

  Alexander laughed.

  ‘You tell him, Gus,’ he said, ‘that prissy little girl. Get up, girl!’

  ‘Shut up!’ Anna said. ‘Tell him, Gustav!’

  ‘No cripple tells me what to do, and no girl either.’ He dragged Paul up roughly by the arm and span him round so that the stain on his bottom was visible to all of them.

  ‘He’s made a right mess, hasn’t he, Gus?’ Alexander said.