by Bruce Duffy
I’m all right.
Good, said Gretl, not sounding at all sure. They were heading toward the house, when she suddenly stopped with a stunned look, then asked: Tell me — do you know how to react to Kurt? I certainly don’t. I mean, he was so queer you don’t know what to feel. I hate to say it, but for me, he didn’t matter — he barely existed. But you know, I’ve had the most incredible feeling that — that it’s not his death at all but — I don’t know. She looked around, her eyes widening to remember, then said, So you’ll be here a week? Two weeks?
Six days.
But you’ll rest, she said solicitously. And Paul shall be here, and Mining. Poor Mining — Mother has been so difficult, especially since the news. I know she’s displeased with me, but I can’t hide my feelings — you know how I hate this funerary business. I’m so pressed, I’ve been terribly busy lately, but for you of course I will make time. But only six days you have? That’s all the time they could give you? Six days, for a death in the family?
Well, he said, it’s not set down on schedules, so much for this, so much for that. It depends on staff levels, one’s commanding officer.
But this was the wrong tone. Gretl immediately bridled at his stupid military superciliousness, not to mention his complacency. The idea that he, as a Wittgenstein, should subject himself to the whims of the state!
But surely you can get a few more days, she insisted. Then, pushily, Oh, come now. Sure you can.
But I can’t, I really can’t. He was getting annoyed. You don’t understand.
Oh, I know. A civilian.
It’s just a different world. Not everything is negotiable.
No, she agreed. For you nothing is negotiable, is it.
She was not one to cry, but then she burst into tears — furious with herself, as if she had spilled something down her dress front. And again for him there was that truncated feeling, a sense of profound emotional clumsiness, as if he were a giant trying to sip from a teacup. Smoothing his sister’s round shoulders, he looked at his father’s sprawling house and then realized that their world and past, their gentle speech and culture, values and manners — these were anachronisms that were now as worthless, in the world’s hostile eyes, as the sagging imperial currency. Ancient world, he thought, your scruples are misunderstandings, and your sacred cows give not milk but thin tears. Wittgenstein saw then what Gretl had been saying between the lines. What she mourned was not Kurt but the slow passing of a family and a culture. These shtetl Jews were the first refugees, but by no means the last. If anything, Wittgenstein was amazed, in the aftershocks, to find their fussy little music box world even standing.
Still, he had his own illusions, the memories that soldiers carry around like grubby little photos in billfolds, believing that those at home are as warm and secure for their sacrifices as they themselves are insecure and vulnerable. For Wittgenstein, one such myth was his father’s dinner table, which, in his memory, provisioned itself from its own former sumptuousness, serving up dreams, course upon course.
And so, at dinner that first night home, he was in for another small shock. The embroidered damask cloth, the brightly shined silver and the fearfully rare candles in the candelabra couldn’t dispel it. The thick brown gravy, the powerful marinade and spices couldn’t mask it, and the red wine, long buried in the cellar, couldn’t purge it from the palate afterward. Horse meat, and none too savory horse meat at that. Turnips with horseradish. Cooked carrots. Wittgenstein, who could contentedly eat most anything now, looked with shame at his sisters and laid his fork on the side of the plate. The sight of his mother doggedly trying to chew stringy horse meat was almost more than he could bear.
Kurt posed another problem of memory.
What was there to remember? The way Kurt could sit for hours smoking and drinking cup after cup of coffee while reading three newspapers? His rare and unmemorable statements about politics and opera? The Pekingese dog he loved or the young French chef on whose cooking he grew fat before the war?
Indolent and unpatriotic as Kurt was, it was miraculous that he enlisted in the first place. Equally surprising was the fact that at first Kurt seemed to like it, his commission being the first thing in life ever to seriously engage his interest.
Being sent to the front forcibly got Kurt’s attention. The last time Wittgenstein had seen him, eight months before, Kurt’s natural vacancy had had a different cast to it — Wittgenstein knew the look. Kurt had acquired the habit of morbidly wringing his hands and in conversation would fall into long, vacant pauses in which he sat nervously flipping his foot. The army had also given him a taste for brandy, which he sipped throughout the day, sieving just enough through his gills to remain agreeably submerged.
Even then Kurt didn’t say much, but Wittgenstein did recall one afternoon when the foot had suddenly stopped flipping. Wittgenstein was reading. Facing around, Kurt said:
You know, this war is getting rather out of hand. Kurt sat shaking his head. Several months ago, we had a boy shoot his captain. Oh, it was gross hypocrisy for us to stand the boy up and have him shot. Actually, nobody blamed him a bit — the man he killed should have been court-martialed for dereliction.
Kurt clapped his hands together, then wrung them between his knees. I mean, he resumed after a long pause. I have no illusions about myself. I’ll be the first to admit that I shouldn’t be leading men — no, no, it’s true. He drew a sharp breath. But at least I can truthfully say that I care about them. That alone makes me more fit than most.
Kurt trailed off again, then lit up with a jerk. Oh, but here’s the corker. I found myself feeling vaguely proud because I didn’t think my men would shoot me in the back. That’s it. Proud. Isn’t that the end — that morale should sink to that?
Thinking of this as he lay in bed his first night home, Wittgenstein realized that this was probably the most intimate conversation he’d ever had with his brother. What he could not get over was the idea that even the torpid Kurt could be driven to suicide. How? Was it the shame of being deserted? Fear of capture? Or was it, rather, something in Kurt’s nature — in his very blood?
But there was no way to know this. There was no way to know anything. Wittgenstein thought of his father’s expression for Kurt. A mute shrug. A hapless pass of the hand.
A lost brother was one thing, but to behold one’s last remaining brother was another. Thrown together at home, Wittgenstein and Paul felt like a nearly extinct species — a pair of dodos who sense that their best chance for survival is to remain apart.
It was particularly difficult for Wittgenstein to be whole while his brother was not. Between them Paul’s missing arm loomed like a third person. It was not a question of ignoring the loss, or of appearing natural about it. Paul wasn’t about to let the missing arm go unnoticed; for him, the empty sleeve was an obsession. This injury would not stop him, he said. Why, to hear him, it was as if the arm had been a nuisance — an impediment to his true calling as an artist.
You watch, Paul challenged. In two years I’ll be performing in concert halls, and not as a freak, either. In fact, I am in the process of commissioning piano pieces for the left hand. I have approached Strauss and also plan to contact Ravel.
Wittgenstein must have looked askance, because Paul then insisted on demonstrating his new one-handed piano technique.
You see, explained Paul with a frown as the lone hand began to yawn and stretch itself. I realized that I could play by reconstructing in my mind the playing of the right hand — I mean the movement of every muscle and fiber — while playing twice as fast with the left. Close your eyes and I’ll show you. I swear you’ll hear the right hand playing.
At that, the clenched hand pounced down twice, resoundingly, then raced fluently up and down the keyboard, the loose sleeve flapping. Wittgenstein couldn’t keep his eyes closed: Paul’s lightning-fast scales, his frenetic arpeggios and thundering chords were making him seasick. In his zeal, Paul never noticed that his brother had opened his eyes. This was m
ore than brute determination; it was a feat of levitation, a virtuoso display of the raging single-mindedness over loss and past. One hand could play like two. Three sons could pull like five, and two even as well as three. After several minutes, Paul was sweating, and Wittgenstein was praying that he would stop. Paul’s jaw bulged, his chin jutted out and the veins stood out on his forehead as the hand stammered down and down, bludgeoning the keys, then leaping back up the scale like a salmon plunging upstream. Wittgenstein heard the second hand. In that torrent of notes, Wittgenstein heard hands dead and living. Heard his father, too — the whole sorry orchestra.
On his third day home Wittgenstein’s mother called him into her room and said with a glimpse of her former forcefulness, I must know something, and I want you to tell me the truth.
His heart stopped. He thought she was going to say she knew about Kurt’s suicide. But instead the old woman asked, I must know what they do about burying the dead after a battle. Surely, they can’t bury each man separately.
Wittgenstein sat down beside her and gently explained:
Often they bury the dead in what the Russians call a brothers’ grave. All the dead — Russian and Austrian — are buried side by side in a large trench. It’s not as heartless as it sounds — it’s really rather fitting. Not long ago, during a truce, a group of Russians led by an Orthodox priest came down from their trenches and prayed with us while we buried several hundred from both sides. There’s no hatred between our armies. The Russians are generally more religious than our men, and they certainly treat prisoners more humanely than the Germans. But as I was saying, we were all standing together, praying and singing. Well, afterward, there was a Russian, an older man, who saw my Bible and said, Here, you must take this. It was a German edition of Tolstoy’s Gospels. He was a lieutenant, a refined man with a wife and daughter — a schoolteacher, I think. He spoke quite passable German. He told me he had found the book on a dead German and urged me to read it. I suppose we talked for a good twenty minutes before officers from both sides ordered everybody back. Well, we shook hands and that was it. An hour later we were shooting again. Ever since, I’ve carried that book with me. I’ll show it to you later if you like.
Wittgenstein thought this story would comfort his mother, but it didn’t. Instead, she covered her mouth with her hankie and started to cry.
I feel so angry, she said. Three boys I’ve lost — three! But you know what I can’t get over? None of my boys has ever died at home. They’ve all gone away and died, and other people have always found them. And no matter what the army says, I’ll never know for sure if the man they found is even my Kurt.
Between Wittgenstein and Gretl, meanwhile, there remained the issue of whether he would seek a discharge.
Everyone in the family, including Paul, agreed it was an honorable course, and one in the family’s best interest. Certainly, Wittgenstein had done his part in the war — more than his part, they felt, considering that the army had rejected him on his first physical.
It was his rupture that flunked him, but Wittgenstein didn’t let that stop him: he had surgery and then had a second physical, this one successful. But even after he had been trained and sent on his first assignment, it took several months and many petitions before he was finally sent to the front. In fact, the army seemed so peculiarly reluctant to send him that he accused Gretl, despite her emphatic denials, of political meddling.
This time, though, Gretl made no secret of her efforts to get him discharged. Still, she hated this perennial role of intriguer, exhorter and advocate; she was tired of always having to intercede with him on the family’s behalf. She knew the pressure he was under. She didn’t want to spoil these few days he had at home, and she went out of her way, as he did, to avoid unpleasantry.
But he, in the meantime, had another idea — a patriotic idea, which for Austria, if not for her enemies, even verged on the philanthropic. Wittgenstein had already anonymously donated money to artists like Rilke and Trakl, but now he wanted to make another anonymous and far more sizable donation for the development of a new trench mortar.
With this mission in mind, Wittgenstein donned a freshly cleaned and brushed uniform one morning and went to see Herr Brundolf, guardian of the family trust, about disbursing the necessary funds. Herr Brundolf was delighted to see in one piece this young man he had known since a boy, and he was quick to extend his condolences for the family’s recent loss. Then, seeing Wittgenstein’s impatient single-mindedness — so much like his father’s — he said, Well, then, what do you wish to discuss today?
And so, while Herr Brundolf listened, the young sergeant, showing qualities that would have made him formidable in any boardroom, explained in the most serious and lucid detail the urgent tactical need for a trench mortar built to specifications he had developed in accordance with his own careful field observations. The former engineer had come amply prepared, with extensive scale drawings of both the mortar and the 75-millimeter shells it would fire — twenty to twenty-five high-explosive shrapnel shells per minute, to be exact, all delivered with devastating accuracy at ranges of up to three thousand meters. Nothing had been left to chance. It would, he said, save lives and help win battles, and it would be easier to erect, fire, maintain and transport.
Well, then, said the sergeant, concluding this five-minute précis. I figure the army will need at least one million kronen, give or take a hundred thousand. With his gray woolen cap sitting on his squared knees, the sergeant faced the old solicitor, waiting, no doubt, for the man to prepare the necessary papers and send him on his way.
Herr Brundolf had risen to his position of eminence not only through his business acumen but through his ability to carefully hear out the mystifying, sometimes harebrained, but often lucrative ideas that brilliant men will have periodically. At the same time, the solicitor subscribed to the popular and, as it seemed, probable wisdom that the war could not continue much longer — that Austria, having nothing more to gain, ought to press for peace now, before her economy was ruined or she was crushed and forced to accept even more ruinous peace conditions.
Wittgenstein almost immediately sensed these defeatist sentiments in Herr Brundolf. He hated this distastefully fiscal attitude toward what, for him, was a war of flesh and blood and spirit. But what really incensed him was to hear Herr Brundolf explain, in the cautious, muted tones of money, that the bulk of his fortune was, in effect, untouchable.
You see, Herr Brundolf explained, the money is invested in various American bonds. Very good securities, you’ll be happy to know. And invested in accordance with lengthy instructions your father — your most prescient father, I might add — set forth in the addendums to his will. Oh, yes, years ago, your father said there would be a war — of that he was certain. And consider: here, while many of our finest families are on the brink of ruin, your family’s fortune has vastly increased.
The sergeant could not believe it. Standing up, he said, Yes, I see we’ve done marvelously — and all at the fatherland’s expense!
When he returned home from his unsuccessful interview, Wittgenstein was even more incensed by his family’s reaction to his proposal. Their attitude was a scandal! Cynical! Unpatriotic! Gretl wouldn’t hear of it.
Oh, please, she said. You were so grandiose about the money when father died. You refused to discuss it! But now, after years of ignorance about your own finances, you practically accuse us of being war profiteers.
Not profiteers, he said with leveling eyes. Opportunists.
She was trying not to get angry, keeping her voice faintly musical, farcical. Oh, stop, she said, making a face. You don’t know what you’re talking about. The money was invested before the war. It’s not as if we capitalized on the war, buying steel and pork bellies.
No, he agreed, we just capitalized on our good fortune.
And why not? she asked, growing more indignant. Thank God somebody in this country will be solvent once the war is over. And if someone has to be wealthy — Gretl pa
used for emphasis — well, it might as well be us! And why not? Certainly, we’ve used our money to better ends than most people. I know we can do better than squander it on mortars.
And spend it on what? he retorted. Refugees?
Listen to you! I’ve spent nowhere near the sum you’re asking for.
He lost his patience. That’s not the point, that’s not the point at all! You just lost a brother, yet you say, in effect, that our money is squandered saving the lives of soldiers but well spent on refugees. Forgetting, I might add, that soldiers — and indeed your very husband — are the ones defending you and your precious refugees! And defending you for what? So you can consort with this impudent little Jew who you say is so clever?
He regretted this as soon as he said it. Gretl flew right back at him.
This is outrageous! What do you mean, consort?
I mean the way you fawn over him. Your whole demeanor.
I don’t fawn over him! Don’t be an ass. What on earth are you suggesting?
I’m not suggesting that, he hedged, though he knew for a fact that he was. It just annoys me, that you tolerate such impudence from him. But, as you say — he is so wonderfully clever!
She looked at him in astonishment. He’s not so terribly impudent. And, yes, he is clever — so what?
Wittgenstein leapt on this. Oh, of course! All Jews are clever! All Jews have poignant stories. As for those of us on the front — well, we can all go to hell as far as you’re concerned. We’re not so picturesque.
Oh, of course! she said, her voice beginning to squeak. And as for your family — we can all go to hell, too. But it’s so very selfless to get yourself killed, isn’t it? In the army, you can live out your little Tolstoyan fantasy of the common man, shooting those God-fearing pogrom-loving peasants whom you so adore. So Christian! Such a lover of the common man to pillory me for having an unspeakable little Jew for a driver! Worried you might be a bit of a Jew yourself, is it?
No, not worried, he said, moving toward her in a bottled rage. What I’m speaking about is seeing clearly.
