The Eternal Philistine

by Odon Von Horvath

  It was a very tragic film and had just one funny episode. That is, the millionairess had a lady’s maid. And one time this lady’s maid secretly put on her mistress’s “grand” evening gown and went out on the town with one of the chauffeurs in a “grand” fashion. Only the chauffeur did not exactly know how the “grand” world held a knife and fork, and so both of them were exposed as attendants and then shown out of the posh restaurant. One of the guests even gave the chauffeur a good slap in the face, and the unhappy millionairess fired her lady’s maid on the spot. The lady’s maid bawled and the chauffeur’s face was not exactly clever either. It was very funny.

  Of course it was very dark in the movie theatre, though Herr Reithofer did not make any advances on Anna. He never did things like that at the movies, as a matter of principle.

  It was already dark outside when the showing came to an end. Anna felt really secure inside because she could forget herself. But now that she was wedged between all those strangers and making her way out into the harsh reality, she had already decided how she would confront Herr Reithofer. She would simply give him the choice, even though he really was a nice man. But anything nice a man does is merely a ploy.

  As they got up from their seats, Herr Reithofer noticed that she was smaller than he remembered. And now he thought how noble it would be just to run his fingers through her hair like a father, give her some candy and say: “Go on home, my dear child!” But everything about love life in nature is just so incomprehensible! Sure, it’s a powerful necessity, but you’re free to fight it with your will, provided that you have one. And so he said: “Come on, Fräulein, let’s go for a walk. It’s an incredibly mild November evening.”

  But then she drew back and delivered her hard line: “It doesn’t work like that!”

  “Why not?” he inquired harmlessly. At the moment he could not imagine what exactly she meant.

  “Because it’ll cost you something,” she said, and looked quite scornful because she liked it when the gentlemen got angry. Now she was waiting for an outburst.

  But she was to wait in vain. Herr Reithofer would never have thought her one of those types, which is why he remained silent for a while.

  “So you’re one of those types,” he said softly. He was looking at her with such resignation that it gave her the creeps.

  “I only recently started” slipped out by accident.

  “I’m sure,” he smiled, “but I haven’t got any money.”

  “So this is where we say goodbye!”

  Now he was looking at her again like before. “Now I don’t bear you any ill will,” he said, “but letting somebody in my economic situation treat you to a movie—that’s a really mean thing to do!” Then he walked off.

  CHAPTER 3

  HE SLOWLY WALKED DOWN SENDLINGER STRASSE and, as if looking at a more beautiful future ahead of him, did not turn around once.

  “Well, she was some shithead,” he expressed. At that moment he hated Anna. He could not help but think of his first love; she had only sent him a single postcard. But soon his thinking took a conciliatory turn again, for he was an experienced connoisseur of women. He told himself that pretty much every woman was untrustworthy, and they’d even tell you an outright lie just to be able to say something pleasant. Women pretty much just had a slave nature, they really couldn’t help themselves. And only men were to blame for it because they’d been buying women everything for millennia. “But she really was some shithead!” he concluded this train of thought.

  In Rosenstrasse he stopped apathetically in front of a photographer’s shop window. An enlarged family photo hung inside, portraying eight righteous people. They were attired in their Sunday best and stared out at him with deceitful and bigoted eyes. All eight of them were exceptionally ugly.

  Just the same, Herr Reithofer got to thinking that it might be nice sometimes to be able to call such a family his own. He, too, would sit in the middle and have a beard and children because without children people would die out, and there’s really something sad about dying out, even if you don’t have any legal claim to German unemployment benefits as an Austrian citizen.

  And suddenly he could not get rid of a preposterous idea. He had no idea why it had come into his mind.

  It occurred to him that a blind man had once said: “Please look at me when I’m speaking to you. It bothers me, my dear sir, when you look elsewhere!”

  It was nighttime. It kept getting later, only Herr Reithofer did not want to go home because, despite being very tired, he would not be able to fall asleep. After all, once again he had walked around all day without finding any work. He had even tried his luck in the Continental. And after watching his haughty colleagues fawning upon a true lord he hated his profession, not for the first time. And now on top of that this adventure with that shithead—this would totally rob him of his sleep.

  He was standing in Müllerstrasse, full of dust, inside and out. Across the street he discovered a bar; it was situated so enticingly. He stared at it for a long time.

  “Well, if the world is collapsing,” the thought suddenly seized him, “then I’ll risk another thirty pfennigs and buy myself a glass of beer!”

  The world did not collapse, but instead fulfilled its predestined course in a thunderous march. Its aspect gave the angels strength as Herr Reithofer walked into the bar. The lofty works, incomprehensible, remained as fair as on the primal day.

  CHAPTER 4

  HERR REITHOFER WAS THE ONLY PATRON. HE drank his beer and read in the Münchner Neueste Nachrichten that the unemployed had it decidedly too good because they could even afford a glass of beer. “The orator’s speech was perfectly structured,” the newspaper said, “and people were duly happy about having conquered materialism yet again—”

  Here he sensed that somebody was looking at him.

  A lady he had never seen before was standing in front of him. He had not heard her coming at all, or he would have sat up.

  “Good evening, Herr Reithofer!” said the lady he had never seen before. She then blurted out that running into each other here was a huge coincidence. And such a coincidence could easily be the subject of an entire novel, a novel published in serial form. You see, she was a passionate reader.

  “You don’t mind if I join you, do you?” she asked. She was very happy. “How long have you been in Munich, Herr Reithofer? I’ve been here since last May, but I’m not going to stay much longer. You see, I just found out that I’d be better off in Cologne. There was that enormous journalist exposition there not long ago.”

  —And so she greeted him quite familiarly, but all he could give was a self-conscious smile. He still could not remember where she knew him from. She, on the other hand, seemed to know him very well, but he did not want to ask her where she knew him from because she was sincerely delighted to see him again and held him fondly in her memory.

  “Not every exhibition is good for me,” she continued. “I went a whole four days without getting any business at the GESOLEI Exhibition for Healthcare, Social Welfare and Exercise in Dusseldorf. I was totally out of it, and out of sheer annoyance I accosted an exhibition attendant. He was a very polite man from Krefeld. I told him that things weren’t going so well for me at your GESOLEI Exhibition. The guy from Krefeld said that he could see why I wasn’t doing any business if I was approaching the gentlemen in front of his pavilion. And that’s when it hit me: I had been standing at the health department for the last four days, right in front of the pavilion for sexual transmitted diseases. And then of course I realized why I hadn’t made any money. I walked out of the pavilion disgusted with myself—I just wanted to cry. Exhibitions like that are absolutely pointless! Exhibitions of paintings—artistic events in general—are good for me. Automotive exhibitions aren’t bad either. But agricultural exhibitions are the best for me.”

  And then she went on to talk about the German Museum, where the foundation stone for the future library had been successfully laid in the presence of von Hindenburg
, the President of the Reich, then about a grand homeland rally in Nurnberg, and then about the Catholics Day in Wroclaw.

  Herr Reithofer was thinking, “This is a real talker! Perhaps she’s mistaken me for somebody else. After all, complete strangers have the name Reithofer too,” when suddenly he noticed that she was cross-eyed, albeit only slightly. Nevertheless a colleague came to mind, somebody he had worked with before the war in Bratislava, namely in Restaurant Klein. He had a cooperative disposition; he was a big kid. This kid got married right before the World War and said to him: “Believe me, my dear Reithofer, my wife is cross-eyed, but only slightly. She’s got a good heart.” Then he died in battle in Montenegro. His name was Karl Swoboda.

  “After my husband died in battle in Montenegro,” said the talker, “I thought about you a lot, Herr Reithofer. I thought to myself, wonder if he also died in battle, the poor Reithofer? I’m happy you didn’t. Can you still remember my doughnuts?”

  Now he also remembered her doughnuts. You see, one time he picked up Karl Swoboda to go to the horsetrack and it was here that Swoboda introduced him to his young wife. He commended her homemade doughnuts. He could still see how the two beds had not matched up, but he had not taken advantage of it. Swoboda was very depressed after the horse race because he had lost five Gulden. He said sadly: “Believe me, Herr Reithofer, if I hadn’t married her she’d already be totally depraved, by my honor she would!”

  “You really did commend my doughnuts,” said Karl Swoboda’s widow. There was a rather wistful expression on her face: she hadn’t been born under a lucky star. Although it was written in her horoscope that she had a lucky hand, all she had to do was beware of the month of April, this being her unlucky month, and then she could accomplish anything. When she discovered this, she cried out in a deliberately funny way: “In that case I shouldn’t even be alive!” Her birthday was in April.

  The restroom attendant had given her this horoscope and claimed to have a precise knowledge of the universe, albeit only as far as the fixed stars. Her name was Regina Warzmeier. The patrons adored her because she always knew how to give advice and guidance, which is why they dubbed her “granny.”

  While Herr Reithofer was thinking about those Bratislava beds, the granny drew closer to him. You see, when she was not busy, she would stand in front of her two doors and observe the patrons in order to discover even more about them. This is how she noticed that Gretchen treated Herr Reithofer like an older brother. She had real motherly feelings for big siblings like that, so she took a seat at Herr Reithofer’s table.

  Gretchen was just relating that, sadly, many strong men died in battle and that afterwards even she had totally lost her grip. Hereupon the granny said that losing such a war was pretty much awful for officers. That’s why many officers became drunkards after the war, especially in Augsburg. She once serviced a large men’s restroom that was frequented by a colonial officer who traded in all of his exotic antlers for a keg of beer. And a pilot officer likewise traded in a whole propeller for a half-dozen glasses of eggnog. And this pilot was so drunk that he greeted you with “Cheers!” instead of “Hello!”

  Herr Reithofer said that, sure, the World War didn’t bear any fruit, and of course these officers would’ve been better off if the war had been won, and even though he wasn’t an officer, losing a war was still pretty awful for him, but he was of course still convinced that even as a victor he’d be suffering from the same economic depression. It’d been ages now since he had had work, and there wasn’t the slightest prospect of things getting any better.

  This is where an elderly gentleman butted into the conversation. Out of curiosity he, too, had taken a seat at the table. He said that it was a real shame that Herr Reithofer wasn’t a young lady because then he’d have work for him right away.

  “What do you mean by that?” inquired Herr Reithofer warily, but the elderly gentleman refused to get flustered.

  “I mean it well.” He gave a friendly smile and explained to him that, were he only a seamstress and not a waiter, he’d have a position for him right this instant.

  That is, he knew a prewar Councilor of Commerce who was the owner of an enormous tailor shop in Ulm on the Danube, but that Herr Reithofer couldn’t be an Austrian woman either, given that the Councilor of Commerce was also an Austrian and so was reluctant to hire other Austrians. But maybe he might hire an Austrian woman as a favor to him. You see, he held a certain power over this Councilor of Commerce because his daughter, who had also been a seamstress there, had gotten pregnant by this Councilor of Commerce five years ago. And of course the Councilor of Commerce’s wife couldn’t find out about this. The daughter was now living nicely in Neu-Ulm so as to fully devote herself to raising the child, for the Councilor of Commerce was an uncommonly decent Austrian.

  This friendly gentleman was a regular and repeated himself frequently. He also loved to debate with the granny and knew no limits. And so he told her that the first caveman to draw an ox on the cave wall had been worshipped by all the other cavemen as a mysterious magician, and this was precisely how every artist should be worshipped today. (He was, you see, a talented pianist.)

  Then he would argue with the granny about whether the five-pfennig mark was called Schiller or Goethe (he collected stamps to boot), whereupon in most cases the granny would retort that the forty-pfennig mark was at any rate the great philosopher who had made a poor critique of reason, and the fifty-pfennig mark was a genius who wanted to lead mankind to noble aims, and she really couldn’t imagine how one would begin such an endeavor, whereupon he would say that pretty much every beginning was difficult, and then he would add that the thirty-pfennig mark had introduced the age of individual consciousness. Then the granny would fall silent and think that this dogmatic guy had better go and play a nice old waltz.

  CHAPTER 5

  WHEN HERR REITHOFER HEARD ABOUT THE JOB for the young lady, he could not help but think of that shithead from earlier who had suckered him into going into that stupid movie theater. He said to himself that, of all jobs, this one could really be her salvation. After all, she told him that she was actually a seamstress and had only just started being one of those types. Maybe it would cost him but a word now and tomorrow she wouldn’t be the other thing anymore, as if he were the Emperor of China. “Only I’m not the Emperor of China,” he said to himself, “and she’s just a shithead!”

  The older gentleman got up to grab the new illustrated magazine. “He’s a strange character,” said the granny ironically. Herr Reithofer thought, “This strange character is probably also a shithead!”

  “But it’s really nice of him to want to help Herr Reithofer,” said Swoboda softly, and flipped vacantly through a magazine.

  “Sure it’s nice,” smirked Herr Reithofer, and suddenly a thought crossed his mind: “He’s got no idea whether or not I’ll also turn out to be a shithead! My goodness, I really am one!” And he kept thinking, which made him feel well in a melancholy way: “If all the shitheads went and helped each other out, then every shithead would be better off. Yeah, shitheads should help each other out more often—it’s just downright indecent not to help somebody when you can.”

  “That man’s lying!” said the granny.

  “No, he’s not!” Swoboda defended him, and grew fierce.

  “We’ll see about that right now!” said Herr Reithofer and turned toward the strange character was once again walking up to the table with his magazine. “So listen, sir. I’m afraid I can’t turn into a woman, but I do know of one for your Councilor of Commerce, and a first-class seamstress at that! You’d be doing me personally a huge favor,” he stressed, and this was a lie.

  Now, then, it’d be no trouble at all, the strange character cut him off. It would only cost him a phone call, given that the Councilor of Commerce just happened to be in Munich as of yesterday. And he rushed over to the telephone.

  “Well, now, that’s one touching shithead,” thought Herr Reithofer, and Swoboda thought, reverentl
y: “That’s an uncommon man and an even more uncommon artist.” But the granny said: “He’s lying.”

  However, the granny turned out to be wrong. The uncommon man reappeared just a few minutes later, looking like he had won the World War. That stuff about the Councilor of Commerce was absolutely true, and in his flush of victory he found it hard to return to his seat straightaway. He was walking around the table and explaining to Herr Reithofer that his young lady could take up the post immediately, only thing was she’d have to report in at the hotel German Emperor at exactly seven thirty tomorrow morning. All she’d have to do would be to ask for the Herr Councilor of Commerce from Ulm and he’d bring her along. That is, he was going to return to his Ulm at eight o’clock.

  And Herr Reithofer asked him how he could thank him, but the uncommon man just smiled: one hand basically washed the other, and perhaps someday Herr Reithofer would be in the position to procure him a job, were he only a masseuse and not a salesman. And he wouldn’t let him pay for the telephone call either. “It’s nice to make a phone call for someone else every once in a while,” he said.

  “I don’t know how to sew,” Swoboda muttered, “I’ve pretty much forgotten how to do everything.” Even the granny was moved, but the most moved of all was the uncommon man himself.

  CHAPTER 6

  IT WAS ALREADY PAST CURFEW, AND THE Holzstrasse stood next to the livelier Müllerstrasse in silent serenity. That shithead would probably be wandering around here somewhere, thought Herr Reithofer. He was thinking logically.