“Do you need help?” asked Lotte.
“No,” she said, and a tight little smile appeared at the corners of her lips.
“I’ll help you with pleasure. I can’t fall asleep.”
“I’m used to it. I’ve worked all my life,” said Trude simply.
“Where did you work?”
“In a factory, the second shift. Ever since then I find it difficult to sleep at night.”
“And have you no relatives down below?”
“No.”
“I have a daughter. Her name is Julia. I haven’t seen her for ages. She finds it difficult to get up here, it seems.”
“You’re an actress, aren’t you?”
“I worked in the theater for many years. Small parts, on the whole. Something inside me, perhaps my appearance too, prevented me from getting to the top.”
“I’m sorry,” said Trude. It was evident that she had not conversed with anyone for many months. The words came out loudly.
“No, I’m making an effort to improve. I’m preparing a selection of Rilke’s poems. The grant has made it possible for me to prepare myself.”
“I’m glad,” said Trude.
“I’m trying my best. I don’t know if I’ll succeed.”
“It must be hard work.”
“I work on every sentence. Nothing less will do, it seems to me.”
Trude laughed softly. As if a breeze had brushed her cheek. Lotte continued: “Because of my appearance I was always given servants’ parts to play. Later on I grew tired of trying.”
“You must try. We must always try,” said Trude. Her eyes expressed a cold sadness.
“Are you happy here?”
“When I was a girl I wanted to convert to Christianity. I went to a Catholic school. The church appealed to me, but my father stopped me. Before he died I promised him never to convert.” She spoke as if she was confessing her deepest secrets.
“And you can’t break that promise?”
“Not I,” said Trude, and her face seemed to tighten. The cold look returned to her eyes.
“I understand,” said Lotte.
Trude rose to her feet, wrung out the cloth, and without another word she turned into the lobby and went straight to the kitchen.
The next day Mirzel announced that she was leaving. She was twenty-nine years old. The two years she had spent in the retreat had transformed her utterly. She had grown fat and spoke in a German-Jewish accent. She had learned more than she had taught. She had learned to speak in a whisper, say thank you and I beg your pardon, and to wear city clothes. At the time, she had inherited Sophia’s clothes, and more recently Isadora’s. She had entered into a number of temporary liaisons with the residents. These affairs had left no traces of resentment in her heart. On the contrary, she remembered them with secret affection. Naturally, she also cheated, told lies and stole a little jewelry, but none of these things helped her to keep her figure. Now she looked like one of the female residents of the retreat, younger, but no less spoiled. In the course of time she had learned to appreciate a slab of chocolate, a glass of liqueur and even to long for the plains.
“Why are you going, aren’t you happy here?”
She did not know what to say. She had grown accustomed even to Trude’s persecution.
“Are you homesick?”
“No.” This was the unvarnished truth. Her father was strict, her mother blind, her elder sisters treated her like a servant.
“In that case, why are you leaving?”
“I don’t know.” And this too was the truth. Sometimes she would ask herself: What am I doing here with these Jews? I’m a Christian born and bred. What have I to do with them? As a young girl she had gone to church to pray, but ever since her mother went blind she had begun to lie: I’ve been to church already. Or, I’m going in a little while.
She had grown accustomed to the way of life here, to the eccentricities of the residents and their little self-indulgences. Lauffer, as usual, was severely practical and said, “Think hard. The village isn’t paradise either.” He had good reasons for saying this. He had spent many a pleasant summer night with Mirzel in the forest. But Mirzel had made up her mind, she was leaving at the end of the month. It was not the fault of the residents, or even of Balaban’s illness. But bad dreams attacked her in the night, her blind mother appeared and ordered her to come home. To tell the truth, her mother had been telling her to come home for two months already. And Mirzel would say, in a little while, in a little while. But she did not keep her word.
And thus the coaxing came to an end. Each of them came and offered up his gift. Mrs. Kron brought her a fine piece of jewelry, made by an artist in solid silver. Lauffer went down to the village and bought her a fur coat. Everyone brought something. Some gave cash and some jewelry.
Mirzel stood there embarrassed, blushing at the shower of gifts. Apart from these gifts, her room was crammed with the things she had received, stolen or inherited over the years, but she was obviously moved nevertheless. In the end Rauch delivered a short speech in his own name and on behalf of all the inmates. He said, “We are all grateful for your loyal services, your devoted care. You have helped us a great deal. You have taught us much.” He spoke in the manner to which he had been accustomed in the bank, in the words which he had acquired there, but nevertheless they now sounded heartfelt and genuine, perhaps because they were spoken in the hall, and perhaps because of Balaban’s groans, which were clearly audible.
Mirzel for her part said, “Thank you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I’ll never forget you. You will all be engraved upon my heart for ever.” And she immediately burst into tears. They all ran up to embrace and console her. And while this wave of emotion flooded the hall, Herbert rose to his feet and announced: “Mirzel will come and visit us. We are not saying goodbye forever. We are people after all, not mountains.”
This consolation had its effect: Mirzel quieted down, gathered up her gifts, packed her suitcases, put on Sophia’s winter clothes, made up her face and went to stand on the front steps. She looked like an attractive middle-class woman who had ordered a carriage to go to pay a family call. Now too a number of emotional words were spoken, warm and choked. But Mirzel’s thoughts were already elsewhere.
Soon afterward Herbert appeared with the cart. Robert helped her to lift her many cases. The following thought crossed his mind: This servant girl is putting on the airs of a great lady. She doesn’t even lift a finger to help load her heavy cases onto the cart. And when the cart moved off at last he did not even bother to raise his head.
NINETEEN
Balaban’s illness grew worse. Once a week the converted doctor came to examine him and prescribe medicines. He came and went with the regularity of a clock ticking in an endless gray mist. What was there to say? The words rang hollow as a pendulum in a sealed old box.
But for Betty people would have sunk into their own reflections, but she never stopped talking, telling stories and pouring out her intimate confessions, a ceaseless stream of chatter which embraced past and present, her father and her mother, her ex-husband and her girlhood friends. If only she had married an Austrian born and bred her life would have been different, but her father, although he himself was not observant, had forced her to marry a Jew. And the Jews, begging their pardon, understood nothing about music and the theater.
“Nor do the Austrians,” said Lauffer carelessly.
“You’re making a big mistake,” retorted Betty in a voice which was not lacking in importance.
“No, madam, I know them only too well.”
“And how do you account for the fact that my parents stopped me from studying acting and forced me to marry a Jew even though I didn’t love him?”
“Because you are a Jew yourself. Jewish stupidity must go on.”
“I may be a Jew by birth, but not by temperament.”
“Austrians, madam, only make their confessions in front of a priest and on their deathbeds.”
“Jews have been at the bottom of all my troubles. I never had a chance to study. They never let me study. They corrupted my character.”
“Study what?”
“Why the theater, of course, music and the plastic arts.”
“You haven’t got any talent.”
“You should be ashamed of yourself. Of course I’ve got talent. Everybody says so.”
Strange, nobody was angry with Betty any more. These conversations, exposed and empty, filled the air with a dull noise. Lotte sat and listened, as if someone had placed a magnifying mirror before her eyes. She too, to tell the truth, was drawn to them as if by magic—it was never the Jews who appealed to her heart, only the tall, blond Austrians, in each of whom she imagined she could see an artist. True, her mother had not prevented her from going on the stage, but it was only the sick ambition of a Jewish mother to see her daughter famous. Never mind at what.
The thought crossed her mind that people are not as different from one another as we sometimes think.
Lotte felt a faint stirring of sympathy for this fat woman everyone contemptuously called Betty the babbler. For years, ever since she was a girl, she had been trying to escape her fate, a weak woman with unsteady nerves, and now she no longer had the strength even to keep her most intimate secrets to herself. One desire still remained to her: Robert. But this aging peasant had already had his fill of women.
“You don’t seem to like the Jews”
“No, I don’t,” she said. “Certainly not. Let others like them. Not me.”
“Why?”
“Because they’re weak. Unstable.”
“So what?”
“They lack the beauty of nature. They’re born in grocery shops. Among the barrels and the sacks.”
Thus Lauffer sat and teased her. The people at the tables no longer reacted. Since Balaban’s illness had taken a turn for the worse he no longer shouted or cursed. Trude and Herbert took care of him devotedly.
In Lotte’s life the clamor quietened. For hours on end she sat in the hall. Herbert’s checked suit was faded, there were dark grease stains on his shoes. He spoke little, and when he spoke to Trude in the kitchen he sounded painfully practical. There were no potatoes and no beetroot. Rauch’s suit too lost its shape. He sat in the kitchen peeling squash. He did his work to Trude’s satisfaction. Lang too had found the right rhythm in his morning runs. He did not stop preaching, but his sermons were no longer angry. Why don’t you go out for a morning run? A morning run revives the spirits. That summer he intended buying a cabin in the village. A cow, and a piece of land. The Jews had done a lot of harm, to themselves and others. Commerce had ruined their characters. Only the land could cure them now. And although he sang the same tune every day, nobody told him to keep quiet. Perhaps because his words sounded like some dull, endless drone, incapable of doing any harm to anybody.
TWENTY
Balaban died at the end of March. It was a fine day, with no wind blowing on the still, snowy slopes. There was a transparency in the air. From the wide front window the plain spread out below as far as the eye could see, until it was swallowed up in a sea of mist.
During his last few days he was quiet. He hardly complained at all. From time to time, at night, a word in his mother tongue escaped his lips, but apart from these not a murmur. It was hard to imagine Balaban leaving life. Even in his severe illness he had not seemed like a sick man.
Betty burst into tears. People stood next to her and comforted her as if it were her own personal tragedy. Herbert was quiet and matter of fact and went out to look for a suitable place to bury him. Wrapped in his winter coat he looked like a merchant whose wide-ranging business interests imposed restraint on him even in the hour of his distress. Lang muttered, “He was a great man. We never appreciated his greatness. He was a generation ahead of his time. We have to admit, we never plumbed the depths of his thought.”
As always now there was no lack of grief that was skin deep, crocodile tears and lip service. Herbert made the necessary arrangements without ceremony. He went down to the cellar and brought up three spades, an ax and a pick. These crude implements stood in the doorway and showed more than anything that the spirit, or whatever we like to call it, is not divorced from the body.
They dug the grave in the ice-covered ground, and the funeral was consequently postponed until the last light of the setting sun. The digging was hard work, and those who took part in it came back dirty and sweating and immediately began to make practical arrangements: they brought up the stretcher and the blanket, all the things which had been used for previous funerals too. Robert cut wood for the sign.
Now again they saw the clear slopes, the bare trees planted unsteadily in the snow. Lotte kept to the rear, in order to avoid Herbert’s eye. She was afraid that she would be called upon again to stand up and read. This little fear accompanied her throughout the procession. The path was slippery and the stretcher-bearers tripped and stumbled a number of times. But Lotte was unaware of these incidents; she was afraid and angry at herself for not being able to overcome this weakness.
Lang wept. In his dirty athletic attire he looked like a poor day laborer with not a penny in his pocket to show for his work. He wept not only for Balaban’s death but also for his funeral. He deserved a different funeral, an athletic funeral. And when he said this he looked even more pathetic than before. His short sleeves exposed his skinny arms, blue with cold.
Trude did not take part in the funeral. The moment she heard the news she packed her bags without a word to anyone and left. To her credit, it must be said that in the last days she had not stirred from his bedside, like a devoted sister. Everyone knew that she was busy tending him day and night. And let it be said to her credit too—before she left she cleaned the shelves, polished the pots and wrote a few practical instructions down on the notice board.
And as at every funeral, what was there to say? How was it possible to keep silent? No one came to Herbert’s aid. Herbert bowed his head and eulogized Balaban. He spoke of Balaban’s great dreams in simple, practical terms. It was plain that his many trips to the village, the buying and the selling, had taught him words he had never used before. Life was nothing grand or glorious, but since we had been given it we were not at liberty to despise it. Balaban had tried to teach them this wisdom. It was not easy to learn from him, but his intentions had been serious. He had lost all his property.
As at previous funerals, Robert wore a black band on his sleeve but he now looked no different from the others. He wore a suit which one of the residents had given him when he left. In this suit he looked like a retired clerk who kept the whole of his small income in his waistcoat pocket, out of suspicion and fear. Even his hands had grown pale, as if they had never seen the sun.
The people climbed the smooth slope, slipping and holding onto each other. The sun lingered above the horizon and the sky was clear and pure. And as always, this time too a number of remarks were made which were ugly in their nakedness. Like Hammer, for instance, who did not restrain himself and said, “It was no dream, but a delusion. Let a man do what he has to do without making a fuss. And first of all, let him look out for himself. We were not intended for great things. My experience has taught me that a man who takes care of himself first may have something left over for others. Let nobody expect any favors.” His tone was as smug as that of a petit-bourgeois businessman talking to his sons and daughters who wanted to save the world. And that was exactly what he looked like too. Short, slightly round-shouldered, and horribly gray.
Afterward they stood at the doorway as if they were afraid of going inside. The light poured down cold and blue as if it were the beginning of winter. Herbert wasted no time. He went straight into the stable, fed the horse and gave it water, cleaned the floor and laid down a bed of straw. He wanted to groom the horse too, but night suddenly fell and there was utter darkness in the stable.
And as after every funeral—thirst. They were all thirsting for a cup of hot coffee. Strange,
Betty of all people, who had not stopped wailing and screaming all morning long, was now the first to say, I’ll make the coffee. Sit down everybody and leave it to me.
The sight of the clean kitchen, the utensils hanging on their hooks and the explicit instructions which Trude had left behind her, brought a practical gleam back to Betty’s grieving eyes: to prepare and serve a meal. And she did it efficiently too, like a practiced housewife. In no time at all the steaming pots of coffee and plates of hot sandwiches arrived on the tables. The cold hall was suddenly filled with homely vapors. Betty’s hands were full of work. It was evident that the work made her happy. The grief of the others also was eased by the hot food.
Only Lang refused to be consoled. His thin, unshaven face showed more clearly than words that his world had collapsed. Lotte, for some reason, sat at the table and wrote a letter to her daughter. She told her at length about the grant she had been awarded, so that she was no longer in need of any assistance. Her needs were now taken care of. She wrote quietly, above all in order to ease her daughter’s conscience. Lately she had sensed that Julia was about to come and visit her and she truly wanted to see her face, but not to cause her unnecessary sorrow.
And thus life resumed its normal course. The inmates, for the time being, found relief in talking. They talked of the past and the present, about the affairs of the retreat, and even about politics. And for a moment the place seemed like a poor roadside inn where people find a temporary shelter for the night.
Now Hammer was as practical as ever. He ate one sandwich and wrapped the other in wax paper to take up to his room. People should eat no more than was necessary. Who knew what tomorrow would bring? Lotte sat and watched them closely: of all her many friends and relatives only these were left to her. Not particularly close, but people who could be relied on in time of trouble. This realization wrapped her for a moment in a veil of sadness.
The Retreat Page 10
