A Book of Memories

by Peter Nadas

  While he was talking, Melchior grasped my knees, leaned all the way forward in his armchair, and when he finished he planted conciliatory kisses on my cheeks, by way of having arrived at another station of his instructions; I remained unmoved, for now it was my turn to be distrustful and offended, and it was a little annoying but also amusing to realize that no argument or theory, however daring and powerful, could knock him out of the saddle of his obsessions.

  I became increasingly convinced that if I hoped to get anywhere with him I should not fight him with arguments and theories but surround him with the simpler language of the senses, but just what pathetic result I was after, and how clumsily, wrongly, and foolishly I went about achieving it, I shall relate at a later point; he kept nodding, his forehead almost touching mine, but wouldn't take his eyes off me for a moment.

  Well, he said, well, well, he repeated, as if finding the subject disagreeable, poor old Fredericus, he too must have had good reason to cling to his opinions, to speak of barbarism, to knock down what his father had built, and he must have had good reason also to affect that awkward posture, and incidentally, was I familiar with the story of Lieutenant Katte?

  I said I wasn't.

  In that case, hoping to advance my knowledge in Germanology, he would tell me.

  Sometimes I had the impression we were conducting a kind of experiment on each other, without knowing exactly what its purpose was.

  Our armchairs faced each other; he leaned back comfortably and, as on other occasions, put his feet on my lap, and while he was talking I'd knead and massage his feet, which gave our physical contact an unnecessary rationality, a pleasant monotony; he turned away for a second, the wineglass caught his eye, he took a sip, and suddenly there was a change in him—the expression with which he looked back at me was serious and pensive—but this had to do not with me but with that elaborate story which he was probably reviewing in his mind, quickly pulling it together before actually recounting it.

  The strange prince is eighteen years old at this time, Melchior began, he will be twenty-eight when ascending the throne and embarking on his grandiose building project, but now, after an especially exhausting quarrel with his father, he simply disappears from the palace.

  They keep looking and looking for him but can't find him anywhere; when bits of some servants' confessions are pieced together, a picture emerges: the prince must have escaped, and his escape had something to do with a certain Hans Hermann von Katte, a friend of his and a lieutenant in the Royal Guards.

  At the head of his entourage, the king himself sets out in pursuit of the fugitive prince—and I should try to imagine what the poor queen must have gone through while waiting for their return.

  The entourage returns on the morning of August 27 from Küstrin, but no one is willing or able to provide information regarding the prince's whereabouts; by late afternoon the king himself is back.

  Beset by worries and the most terrible premonitions, the queen hurries to meet him, and as they are quickening their steps, almost running toward each other, just as their eyes meet, the king, livid with rage, exclaims: Your son is dead!

  Worn out by the long wait but still hopeful, the queen is struck by these words as if by lightning, and she begins to scream, her words barely coherent: How? why? how is this possible? could Your Majesty be your own son's killer?

  But the king does not even stop with the queen, who seems to have turned into a pillar of salt, and simply tosses off his reply that this wretched fugitive was no son of his but a common military deserter who deserves to die, and trembling with rage he demands to see the prince's box of private letters.

  Wasting no time trying to unlock it, with two blows of his fist the king smashes the box open, grabs the papers inside, and rushes off with them.

  In the palace everyone is cowering, fleeing the king's wrath; the queen hurries over to her children's chambers, but presently the king turns up there, pushes aside the children, who are about to kiss his hand, and practically tramples them with his boots as he runs toward Princess Friederike, who is standing a little way off.

  Without so much as a word, he strikes her face with his fist three times and with such force that she immediately collapses, and if not for Fräulein Sonnefeld's presence of mind and remarkable agility in catching the fainting body, she would have cracked her skull on the edge of a large wardrobe.

  But the king's fury knows no bounds; he wants to trample on the prostrate body of the princess and is prevented only by the screaming queen and the children, who fling themselves on the inert body, shielding it with their own bodies, absorbing the stomps and kicks of the king's boots and the terrible blows of his cane.

  In her memoirs, Princess Friederike writes that their desperate situation at that moment was indescribable: the king's swollen face—-he was given to apoplectic fits anyway—turned blue and purple, he was nearly choking on his own anger, the look in his eyes was that of a cornered, crazed beast, his mouth frothing with gobs of spit spurting from his throat, while the queen kept flailing her arms helplessly, like a huge bird, emitting the most painful screams, and the younger children, racked by sobs, lay next to her and clung imploringly to the king's legs, even the youngest, who at the time was no more than three years old, and the two ladies-in-waiting, Frau von Kamecke and Fräulein Sonnefeld, just stood there stock-still, not daring to move or utter a sound, and she, Friederike, whose only offense was that she loved the prince with all her heart—and bore testimony to this love in the letters which had now been found—was the most wretched of them all, her face bathed in cold sweat; even when she came to, her body was flushed and shaking uncontrollably.

  For the king not only assaulted her brutally but heaped his most abominable threats on her, blaming her for the disintegration of the royal house, for being the one whose deceitful, conniving, and amoral machinations had thrust the family into the abyss of misfortune and misery, she would pay for it with her head, with her head, he yelled, and he included the queen in his threats, and since in his fury he forgot he'd already declared the prince dead, breathing into her face with the most bloodcurdling and blasphemous cries of vengeance, he swore he'd have his son executed, he'd die on the block, the king huffed, on the block.

  It seemed that nothing could check his colossal, vindictive wrath, but then a small, fretful voice announced that Lieutenant Katte had been apprehended.

  This had a somewhat sobering effect on the king, or more precisely, those around him watched him turn away from them, realizing that he did so only because mere mention of that name fanned the flames of his vengeance even more violently, and now the wild beast that had wreaked havoc only in his cage was loose; soon he would have enough proof, he said caustically to the queen, for the hangman to prepare for his job, and with that he rushed from the children's chambers.

  But he couldn't yet pounce on his new prey, because in his cabinet room the lords von Grumkow and Mylius, waiting for him, were ordered in a choked, breathless voice, in a hideous whisper, to conduct Katte's interrogation; his confession, he decreed, whatever its content, was to be used to initiate proceedings against his son; he briefly summed up the facts of the case and announced that the prince was not only a traitor, an accursed criminal, and an oath-breaking deserter but a hideous worm, a monster, a freak of nature, undeserving of any kind of mercy.

  That is when Lieutenant Katte was led in, a slender, twenty-six-year-old youth with large eyes and a handsome face that was now, of course, deathly pale, who immediately fell on his knees before the king; the king just as quickly seized him and violently tore the cross of the Knights of St. John from his neck and then proceeded to kick him and beat him with his stick until he was out of breath and the youth's body lay inert at his feet.

  As the permanent Grand Master of the Knights of St. John, the Prussian king had the right to tear away the Knights' cross from the neck of a man such as Lieutenant Katte.

  But to continue: with a pail of water and somewhat less violent slaps
than the king's, Lieutenant Katte was revived enough to confess, and the interrogation was begun.

  Katte answered all the questions put to him so honestly, displayed such moral courage and utter devotion to his ruler, that his conduct evoked the admiration not only of his interrogators but of the king himself.

  He confessed knowing about the prince's plan to escape, and because he loved the prince with all his heart and soul, he had been fully prepared to break his oath of loyalty to the king and follow his friend, but he had no knowledge as to which court the prince had intended to escape, and also, did not believe that either the queen or Princess Friederike was privy to the escape plan, since he and the prince had kept it completely secret.

  After his interrogation he was stripped of his uniform and given only a cloth apron, and, like that, almost naked, was made to march across town to the central guardhouse, where a court-martial was to sentence him, but its regular members were loath to take a stand in such a delicate matter and drew lots to pick the twelve officers who would have to carry out the unpleasant task.

  Count Dönhof and Count Linger were of the opinion that a more lenient sentence was in order, but the others, appreciating the utmost gravity of the offense, recommended that both Colonel Fritz—the king had forbidden them to refer to the heir apparent by any other name— and Lieutenant Katte be put to death.

  When the death sentence was read to him, Katte calmly declared his readiness to submit to Providence and to the will of his king, because he had committed no wrong, and if he had to die, it must be for a noble if to him unknown cause.

  A certain Major Schenk was ordered to return the prisoner to the citadel at Küstrin, where the heir apparent was also being held.

  They arrived at nine o'clock in the morning, and Katte spent the rest of the day in the company of a priest, talking to him about his life of debauchery, for which he now confessed the greatest remorse; he spent the whole night in fervent prayer.

  In the meantime, the execution platform was erected in the citadel's square, to be level with the prince's cell; on the king's direct order the cell window was enlarged, cut all the way to the floor, and the new opening, through which one could actually step out onto the platform, was, for the time being, draped with a black cloth.

  The noisy construction took place in the presence of the prince, with nine masons and seventeen carpenters working under several overseers, so the prince quite naturally believed they were making preparations for his execution.

  At six minutes before seven o'clock in the morning, the commander of the fort, Captain Löpel, entered the prince's cell, informed him that it was the king's wish that he watch Katte's beheading, and, having brought with him a brown suit, asked the prince to disrobe and put it on.

  When he finished changing, the black cloth covering the opened wall was removed, and the prince could see the newly and very professionally built scaffold.

  Three long minutes went by, and then his friend, wearing an identical brown suit, was led forth, while at the same time the prince was asked to step up to the opening in the wall.

  The strikingly identical suits made such a shocking impression on the prince—in no small measure because he knew it had to have been his father's idea—that he was ready to cast himself into the courtyard gaping below, but they pulled him back and held him by the arm; later, nothing would induce him to part with this suit, and for three years he wore it day and night until it was in tatters.

  When they pulled him back, he began to weep and wail, imploring those around him to delay the execution, for pity's sake; if his life was to be spared, he must write to the king at once; he pleaded and protested, he was ready to renounce everything, the crown, his own life, if that would save Katte's, they must allow him to send his plea to the king.

  Ignoring his sobs and screams, they proceeded to read out the sentence.

  After the last word had been spoken, Katte, who was also being held by his arm behind his back, stepped closer to the prince, and that's how they looked at each other for a silent moment.

  Merciful God, the prince shouted, how great a misery you have given me! my sweet, my dearest, my only friend, I am the cause of your death, I, who would so wish to take your place now.

  They both had to be held firmly, as Katte, calling him my dear prince, said in a feeble voice that if he had a thousand lives he would sacrifice them all for him, but now he had to depart this vale of tears, and with that he knelt in front of the guillotine.

  He was allowed to have his own servants accompany him on his last journey, and now one of them offered to put a blindfold on him, but he very gently pushed away the trembling hand holding the kerchief and, lifting his eyes heavenward, said. Into Thy hands I commend my spirit.

  The two headsmen placed the condemned man's neck under the blade, the two servants stepped back, and in that instant the prince fainted and sank into the arms of his attendants.

  They laid him on his bed, but not until midday did he regain consciousness.

  At the king's instruction, Katte's mutilated body had to stay on the block, in the prince's sight, until late in the evening.

  When he came to and looked out from his bed, the prince saw the stump of the neck sticking out from the naked torso and the bloody head in the basket.

  His body was racked with fever, and he began to wail so piteously, making sounds so piercing, that for a moment the sentries on the ramparts looked at each other in alarm, then he lost consciousness again.

  Lieutenant Katte's body was placed in a casket that evening and buried in the fortress wall.

  Crouching near the wall of his cell, the prince cried for two weeks, now and then accepting a little water but refusing to take food, and even after his tears dried, he remained silent for months, and when he spoke again, he said no, he wouldn't take off the brown suit, and when the brown suit turned to shreds on him, the pain crawled under his skin.

  In my anger I must have dozed off by the time they finished talking on the telephone, because it was the motionless silence in the room that woke me.

  I imagine that after he hung up he stayed in his chair for a while, ruminating; I could hear only his silence, the segment of lingering silence in which he sorted out and stored away what had been said and heard, and for this reason it seemed that what I was hearing was not the silence of his presence but his absence.

  And after my startled awakening I must have sunk back even deeper into that state of slumbering that hovers on the border of sleep and wakefulness, because the next thing I knew Melchior was pressing himself against the wall and squeezing me out a little as he climbed under the covers.

  Trying to settle in, he squirmed and wriggled some more, very slowly and considerately so as not to wake me, but I didn't feel like giving up my place or making the closeness inviting, and I let him have only as much space as he could squeeze out for himself, I didn't open my eyes, I pretended to be fast asleep.

  For a while he lay motionless, pressed to the wall, with my drawn-up knees against his belly; I could have relaxed a little, making believe I moved in my sleep, but because I was awake I continued all the harder to fake being asleep.

  I could let him have a little room, he said out loud, exposing my pretense and letting me know he knew I was awake.

  I was trying to loosen up, not to be so obvious about my shamming.

  Sticking one of his arms under my neck and hugging my back with the other, he wanted to pull me to himself, but my drawn-up knees made that impossible, giving him neither the intimacy he was looking for nor enough space to rest comfortably.

  For a while he seemed to be reconciled to his discomfort, to the impossible position of his body, and stopped squirming; resting his forehead on my shoulder, he began to breathe with a quiet, even puffing and wheezing, as if trying to breathe himself to sleep, then suddenly he let out a growl and pulled his arm from under my neck; Just you wait, he said, I'll show you, and with that he yanked the blanket off both of us, pushed himself away from
the wall, and slipped off the couch.

  He was getting undressed, I heard the swish of his shirt, the pants being unzipped, how he quickly threw all his clothes on the floor, then he leaned over me, fumbling around my waist and unbuttoning my pants, grabbing them at my ankles to pull them off while I made no move on my own, my body simply yielding to his forceful movements; he peeled the socks from my feet, reached under my behind, and raising it a little pulled off my underpants.

  To get to my shirt he had to crawl back, creep back on his knees on the inside of the couch next to the wall, and since the point of the game was for me to pretend to be asleep, he now had more room to maneuver, because when he yanked off my pants he also straightened out my legs and now they had to stay that way—moving, like pulling up my knees again, would have been breaking the rules of the game.

  He had to pull out my hand, which I'd stuck under the pillow, straighten and lift my arms, and pull out the shirt from under my back and shoulders, and he had to fight my body weight with every move; he was panting, grunting, and moaning, also part of the game, though I really had let myself become such a dead weight that his job couldn't have been easy.