Mohr

by Frederick Reuss

  A change! Of course! How perverse, but also how right!

  He was out walking with Käthe one afternoon when it all came out. The fresh air felt good; to be outside after a heavy rain. “I think I should go to Berlin,” he said.

  “What for?” she asked, struggling to keep the wheels of the baby carriage from running into the muddy ruts in the road.

  “There are things I can only do there, in the city.”

  “What things?”

  “Radio. Film.” He hated having to spell it out to her, but as he did he felt that he was simply being practical.

  Käthe looked at Eva, asleep under the blankets. “You know the field that Berghammer wants to rent?” she asked, stopping suddenly.

  “The one over by Sonnenmoos?”

  “I was talking to Marie the other day and she says they can rent it only if they promise to use manure. No chemical fertilizers.”

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  She wasn’t smiling exactly, though her eyes were shining as though she might be, someplace inside. “Cultivate and culture. Isn’t it funny that both have the same Latin root?” She resumed pushing the carriage.

  Mohr stumped along sullenly behind her for the rest of the walk. The weather changed and the sun broke out, bright and clear and crisp on the wet mountainsides. He went to Berlin later that year, began a period of shuttling back and forth between misconceived and steadily eroding notions of what was necessary and what was merely possible. What happens is always different from what is dreamed—yet all that matters, in the end, is vision: how one sees. He sits at his desk, spends his evenings sorting and sifting through notes and scattered scraps. He is surrounded by countless bits of paper. What an absurd pastime, putting things down on paper—in words, in pictures; inducing dreams in others.

  A KNOCK AT the door.

  “Captain Brehm!” Mohr stands up, beaming. “What a great surprise! When did you get in?”

  “The day before yesterday,” Brehm says, entering. “I would have telephoned first, but . . .”

  Mohr claps the captain on the shoulder as if to hold him in place. It has been nearly six months. Wong appears in the doorway, smiling. “Gee o pow whiskey, Wong!” Mohr tells him, pull some bills from his pocket. “Number one bottle. Chop chop.”

  Brehm looks unsteady in street clothes. He tosses his hat on the table and sits down on the sofa. He seems grayer and thinner since his last visit. The ruddy face that once could be read like a navigational chart now seems all folded up. “Where have you been, Captain? You had me worried.”

  “A leave of absence,” Brehm says flatly. He accepts a proffered cigarette, taps it once, twice, then, instead of putting it to his lips, rolls it contemplatively between his fingers.

  “And have you returned from it yet?”

  Brehm manages a smile.

  “Well, it’s good to know you weren’t lost at sea! Last time the Saarbrücken was in port, I went looking for you. They said there was no Captain Brehm aboard. They were completely unhelpful, told me there was a new captain. I don’t remember his name.”

  “Henkel.”

  “Right, Henkel. He’d gone ashore so I wasn’t able to learn anything.” Wong returns carrying a tray with a bottle of Red Lion Whiskey, a pitcher of water, and a bowl of salted nuts. “Only two glasses?” Mohr asks as he sets the tray down. “Catchee three piece glass!”

  Wong bows tolerantly, goes off to fetch another glass. When he returns, Mohr pours out the whiskey and hands the glasses around. Wong accepts with some embarrassment. He touches the glass to his lips, sips tentatively. “B’long number one whiskey,” he smiles.

  “Doctor talkee gut?” Brehm asks in his flatfooted, German-inflected pidgin.

  “Number one,” Wong answers.

  Mohr laughs, begs to differ. “Shun mo hwah! Boo yow hoo schwo!”

  “Oh dien buh tso!” Wong insists politely. “Shih dzai hao kan.”

  “What did he say?” Brehm wants to know, holding his glass out for a refill.

  “He says my Chinese is unmistakably grand.”

  All laugh. Mohr refills Brehm’s glass. Wong excuses himself with a polite bow, takes his drink with him. Zappe begins to squawk—Brüderlein fein Brüderlein fein. Einmal muss es sein. Mohr has been trying to teach it to say that for weeks. He coaxes it to keep on, but the bird will not repeat.

  In short order, the bottle is almost gone and the afternoon with it. Mohr calls himself a wanton and a drunk as Brehm brushes the notion aside with slug after slug of whiskey. What Mohr wants to call himself is unfaithful, but in spite of being drunk, he manages not to mention Agnes. He has Brehm’s predicament to distract him. The captain is distraught. His wife came down with shingles during his last return home, suffered terribly for weeks. Then, just before he was scheduled to set sail, a further complication developed. She began going blind. “How is that possible?” he asks repeatedly. “I don’t understand.”

  Mohr tries to console by saying not much is known about the disease, that sometimes it can lead to neurological complications.

  “But to blindness? Permanent blindness?”

  It’s already six o’clock in the evening. They are in the captain’s Norddeutsche Lloyd company car, being driven to an address in the French Concession where Brehm has some sort of gathering to attend. “I’m away for half the year, already feel like a guest in my own house. And now my wife can’t take care of herself, let alone the children.”

  “You’ll have to hire a housekeeper.”

  The captain’s eyes grow dark. He shakes his head. “What I would rather do is…”

  “What would you rather do?”

  The captain seems to think better of what he is about to say. “I don’t know. In fact, there aren’t very many options.”

  “Do you love her?”

  Brehm is startled by the question, and turns away without answering.

  “Oh, come now, Brehm, don’t be offended.” Mohr smiles extravagantly. “When spring is lovely, it’s lovely, lovely, lovely. The organ grinder stands on the street corner, dragonflies swoop over the pond. Birds sing and dogs bark and everywhere the songs of love, love, love. Don’t make yourself sick over it. You’ll figure out what to do in time.”

  Brehm doesn’t find the attempt to humor him very amusing. A short silence ensues. Mohr turns to look out the window at a passing chaos that seems already to have woven their private miseries into its sprawling web.

  “Well,” Brehm sighs after a while. “For now they’re staying at her brother’s. The children don’t seem to mind living with Uncle Jürgen while Papa is away at sea.”

  “See. Already you’ve managed. Life is long, my friend.”

  Brehm mutters something unintelligible under his breath.

  “Cheer up, Brehm. You’re halfway around the world. Try not to be so glum.”

  “Would you stop trying to humor me? What am I supposed to do? Pretend there’s nothing wrong? I’m not like you.”

  “Oh? How is that?”

  Brehm flushes, half in anger, half in embarrassment. “With your head in the clouds.”

  Mohr grins at the captain. “Sometimes it’s good to have your head in the clouds. Especially when you don’t know where you’re going and your ass is stuck in third class.”

  Brehm turns away again to look out the window. Mohr feels close to him in a way he never has before. Partly, it’s the idea that the man has not a clue how drastically different their misfortunes are. On a private, complicated level, Mohr is amused by the thought that Brehm’s wife symbolizes all Germany. A slow, painful descent into permanent blindness. “At least you can go home,” he says finally, and leaves it at that.

  Brehm snorts, picks the lint from his trousers.

  “And still, there are people who want to live a hundred years!”

  A dubious look from Brehm.

  Mohr chatters on drunkenly, trying to change the mood. “People think they can cheat nature, find lasting happiness. They
go on diets, don’t drink, don’t smoke, avoid coffee and tea, become vegetarian, wear special underwear, eat vitamins. And if they’re lucky and don’t get hit by a bus, maybe they will live a hundred years.”

  “What in God’s name are you talking about, Mohr?” Brehm glowers.

  “Medical science is dedicated to tricking the body. Someday it will succeed and we’ll all get to live one, two, three hundred years. Can you imagine anything more miserable?” He takes a last, deep drag from his cigarette. “Have you ever been seasick?”

  “Never.”

  “Not once?”

  Brehm shakes his head and grabs the leather strap as the driver swerves around an overloaded cart. “What about you?”

  “Also never.”

  “You’re lying, Doctor. I’ve seen you puking over the rail.”

  “It wasn’t over the railing. It was all over the deck. Where are we going, anyway?”

  “To a cocktail party.” Brehm is now holding the strap with both hands, face turned to catch the warm breeze coming through the window. “You’re a goddamned hypocrite, Mohr. You know that? You talk as if you’re somehow above and beyond banal little problems.”

  “Do I?”

  “Life is long. Cheer up. You talk as if nothing could be simpler. Don’t be glum. And look at you! Have you followed your own advice?”

  “No. But there’s an important difference.”

  “There is? You think your unhappiness is different from mine?” Brehm shoots back.

  “Oh my, Captain. Your face is swelling up. You’re turning red!”

  “Shut up, Mohr,” Brehm snaps, turning away in disgust.

  Mohr becomes serious. “Yes. It is different, Captain. Fundamentally and completely different. I left my family behind. They’re the ones who must cheer up, try and forget me.”

  Brehm keeps his gaze fixed out the window.

  “My biggest fear is that they will,” Mohr adds quietly, feeling suddenly light-headed. “Where did you say we’re going? A cocktail party?”

  Brehm nods.

  “We can’t do that!”

  “Why not?”

  “Look at you! At me! We’re drunk! Wearing dirty clothes.”

  “You look just fine.”

  Brehm reassures him again as they enter the sixth-floor flat of a Mr. K. De Sailes, a Shanghai Municipal Council board member. Mohr remains at the captain’s side, casting glances around the large room—brightly lit and expensively furnished in mahogany and chrome and thick slabs of architectural glass. Nobody seems to notice or to mind their disheveled appearance. Attentive Chinese waiters in starched gowns ply the room with trays of hors d’oeuvres and drinks. Brehm helps himself to champagne, passes a glass to Mohr. “Once a sailor, always a sailor.” He winks. “To the cocktailing class.”

  Mohr’s instinct is not to mingle but to stand apart. But isn’t everyone in the room standing apart? Confident and singular and self-assured; each an elite unto himself. He glances about, imagining the remarks that will be made later this evening as ties are unknotted, shoes kicked off, stockings rolled down—How ghastly boring. My God, could you stand it? I nearly died. Each vacuous moment swept away, of no concern. An elephant storming into the room would hardly break the surface. Maybe if he fell asleep on a chair in the corner, and began snoring.

  A German voice attracts his attention. A few paces away, a small group pays court to a young man who looks like a bank cashier recently promoted to manager. A Nazi. Mohr taps Brehm on the shoulder. “Let’s go.”

  “We only just arrived!” Brehm says, and ambles into the crowd, clutching his glass in his fist.

  Mohr can’t help but admire him—the most charmless, unaffected person in the room. He steps over to the corner, exchanges a few pleasantries. A gray-haired and very alert French lady protests the public executions of opium addicts. “I’ve read they are given opium to calm them down beforehand,” Mohr can’t help observing dryly. “They are?” the woman gasps, moves on. An American businessman sidles up and asks, “So, how you do you like Shanghai?” All the while, Mohr’s attention is drawn to the German, the way he is attended to and openly admired by certain of the guests, the way he listens with one ear, eyes roving. “Why should it matter if the Japanese quarrel with the Chinese?” The man flourishes his cigarette. His glance skims the room, alights momentarily. Mohr averts his eyes, wishing he could tuck his head in like a turtle, peer out at all the peach and pear shapes gaily mingling.

  “You can buy hundreds of them on Foochow Road. Any time you like!”

  “Best of luck!”

  “Thank god, my children are in England.”

  “Rather hot, isn’t it?”

  “We had lunch in Bernard’s swimming pool yesterday. Oh, there wasn’t any water in it.”

  Mohr holds his glass in his fist. The conversation is light, the odors slightly stronger: whiskey, eau de cologne, cigarettes.

  The hostess suddenly materializes at his elbow. “Oh, Herr Fuchs!” She beckons the German over. “Allow me to introduce you to Max Mohr, the German writer.”

  Her dowdy pomp is immediately overshadowed by the Nazi’s suave prominence. Up close, Mohr recognizes a midlevel functionary, Party pin neatly attached to the lapel of his suit. The man steps forward, inclines his head. “Fuchs,” he says. “Ministerialrat, Deutscher Botschaft.”

  The woman smiles nervously as Mohr steps back, out of handshake range. The man parries with a sidelong glance at the hostess. “A German writer, you say?” He sniffs. “Mohr? I don’t believe I recognize the name.”

  The woman is caught off guard, then recovers. A shadow of a smile. “Oh, well, I’m sure,” she flutters.

  All at once, Mohr’s stomach unknots. “There’s no reason why he would know it,” he says, taking a step forward. “Even if he could read, his government has burned all my books.”

  The words linger. Then, in one smooth, unwilled motion, Mohr tosses his champagne into the man’s face, turns to the stunned hostess, places his empty glass in her hand. “Please, excuse me, Madam.”

  Fuchs sputters. Guests part as Mohr walks away. At the door, a welter of protests, Fuchs’s outraged voice. Mohr’s pulse pounds, ears ring. Down the corridor to the lift. He jabs the button, surging with pleasure—one, two, three times. Then Brehm has him by the elbow, is pulling him toward the stairway. “You idiot,” he repeats all the way down the stairs. “Idiot, idiot, idiot!” All traces of alcohol evaporate as they descend the six flights. By the time they reach the bottom Mohr feels gloriously sober and clear-headed. “I’m hungry. Let’s go to Delmonico’s for eggs and onion soup!”

  “I don’t know what to say to you, Mohr,” Brehm says, shaking his head. “That was an idiotic prank.”

  Mohr laughs. “What’s he going to do? Revoke my citizenship?”

  The captain doesn’t share Mohr’s high spirits, isn’t feeling well at all. He wants to be taken directly to the pier. In the car, he leans his head against the window, closes his eyes. “Heine said a country that burns books ends up burning people.” Mohr glances over but the captain doesn’t respond. “I wish I had thought of it back there.”

  They drive in silence, all the way down Avenue Joffre to the Bund. The Saarbrücken isn’t the largest passenger liner at anchor in the river, but its single stack and twelve tall funnels rising in threes from the foredeck and amidships give it a sturdy appearance. Mohr can’t help feeling awed by the sight, even as a silhouette of twinkling lights in the distance, moored to buoys in the middle of the Whangpoo. He feels a twinge of nostalgia for the idle hours he spent walking its decks, gazing up at kilometers of rope and cable suspended from its towering masts. On the open ocean, seabirds would perch up there for days at a time. A slight breeze blows off the water, sounds of boat traffic, smells of diesel and garbage.

  “When do you sail?”

  “In two days.”

  They shake hands. Brehm is smiling again; all is forgotten. “Can you come aboard tomorrow? For breakfast? I’ll send a boat t
o fetch you.”

  “I have no time.”

  Brehm looks Mohr directly in the eye. “I’m sorry for calling you a hypocrite.”

  “And I’m sorry about your wife,” Mohr answers. “I hope she recovers quickly.”

  Brehm nods, stops short of saying anything else.

  “May I give you a package to take back? I can send Wong with it tomorrow.”

  “Have him leave it at the Nanking Road office. My steward will bring it to the ship.”

  “When do you return?”

  “In November.” They shake hands again. “Enjoy your visit to Japan, Mohr. I wish I could go with you.”

  Mohr laughs. “As it happens, I have an extra ticket.”

  The jetty is guarded by Settlement harbor police. Brehm shows his identification. One of the Saarbrücken crew salutes, opens the gate for the captain to pass through. Two sailors are waiting, ropes in hand. The captain waves a final good-bye, then steps aboard the tender. Mohr watches the little boat churn away, remembering the day he walked up the long gangplank in Hamburg, to board the ship that separated him from his past and stranded him in the future.

  Wolfsgrub

  Look, Mama. It’s Hartl!” Eva points to the rear door of the bus, where passengers are struggling with their packages and bags. Käthe is seated on a bench under an awning just outside the post office. The driver steps from the front door of the dusty old omnibus, pushes his cap back, lights a cigarette.

  “I don’t see him.”

  “There!” Eva points to a young man struggling with a rucksack. He slips his arms through the straps, ambles over. He is wearing an armband with a swastika. “Grüss Gott, Frau Mohr. Hello Eva,” he says, smiling.