by Hans Keilson
“We’ll feel it, you and me,” he said to Herr Seldersen. “How bad will it be for us, do you think? Or do you have plans to build a building like that any time soon?”
Father was thinking that now he was going to have to move to the new place on the corner, where everything was smaller and more cramped. But he answered in a relaxed voice that everything had always worked out until then, why wouldn’t it work out in the future. “And Herr Dalke must have incurred incredible expenses,” he continued, “he’s outpaced all of us there too. He has to bring in a lot more per day than I do, for example, if he wants to break even, that’s for sure.”
Herr Dalke came by and invited Herr Seldersen to have a look at his new building. They were on good terms, even if they were competitors; they would drop in on each other’s stores several times a day, and take day trips together with their families on Sundays. Herr Seldersen accepted the invitation and one evening, after closing time, Herr Dalke proudly led him through the lit rooms and showed him everything he had done. Herr Seldersen complimented and praised, didn’t tire of expressing his admiration out loud, shook Herr Dalke’s hand and thanked him for the friendly invitation, and went back home without a trace of envy.
In the fall, the Seldersens moved into their new store on the corner, three steps down. They had no other choice. The landlord kept his promise and redid everything—the walls, the floors. Everything was much smaller and more cramped and it smelled of paint. Mother and Father knew that they would never feel at home there, but they no longer said anything about it. At first Frau Seldersen followed through on her threat and never set foot in the new store, but eventually she could no longer avoid it. Everyone they knew came to visit, Herr Wiesel too. He looked very closely and carefully at everything and discussed the advantages and disadvantages with Herr Seldersen; things were going well with him, he owned a big store on Eisenstrasse and had nothing to worry about. Frau Seldersen said that he had come only out of curiosity, to see whether the shelves were fully stocked, but Father said she shouldn’t be so suspicious. “We’ve all done fine up to now,” he said, “and Herr Wiesel means well.”
In the early days, the landlord often dropped in too. “So, now you’ve almost gotten all settled in, I told you it wouldn’t be so hard.” He sounded like he was consoling them.
Herr Seldersen didn’t answer, only making a hand gesture that the landlord could interpret however he wanted. Then the landlord said that next spring the street was going to be torn up and repaved. Everyone in the city council was eagerly making preparations. “There’ll be work,” he added, “people will have money and will be able to go shopping again.”
“In spring,” Father answered. “Who knows what’ll happen between now and spring? It’s not even winter yet. And where will the city get the money for it? A loan, new taxes, who knows?” Anyway, they’re only making preparations for now, that doesn’t mean anything.
That winter was the first one when all the poverty and misery was out in the open. Unemployment was rampant, sometimes affecting both father and son in the same family, and people came by and told stories, complained about all sorts of things, and were all so discouraged. There were no signs of new hope anywhere.
The Seldersens stood in their new store just like they had stood in the old one, worrying about the immediate future without any wider desires or ambitions. The times had brought such changes already, you had to accept them without fighting it, with an almost pious calm, as though a god had had his hand in it. This too was only another link in the immeasurable chain; it would not be the last.
Seldersen the shopkeeper had never in his life wanted anything to do with people whose heads seemed to be bursting with big, boundless ideas. What he needed was right there next to him, in arm’s reach at all times; his type is absorbed in everyday life, and he always kept his air of calm mastery, not without a certain restraint and reserve. He was a whole man, and behind him stood a whole age. He was past fifty by that time and his life up until then had been nothing but one long struggle. In retrospect, everything looked certain and firmly established, like the accounts in his books: it traveled a straight path, at the end of which stood old age, rest, and an end to work. He had survived the war on the front lines unharmed, even if those four years seemed like ten; he seemed blessed with enormous good luck and his strength was unbroken. His wife had run the business during those four years, while raising two children. Despite how hard she had tried, Herr Seldersen had found nothing but ruins when he came back: shelves empty, customers gone, a distressing outlook all in all. Father suppressed any unpleasant memories and pointless brooding. His credit was still good and he got down to work along with everyone else, rebuilding. At first things improved, everything looked promising. The city was growing, spreading out in all directions, with marvelous factories, companies doing good business; everyone had work, prosperity, and contentment, Herr Seldersen too. He had his views and his principles and he lived his life accordingly. If he had been more decisive and ruthless back then, a lot would be different today.
He lost all his money in the inflation and this time had to struggle hard to barely get back on his feet. He used to employ three salesgirls at busy times, with Mother helping out too. Now it was him and one apprentice. But he made enough to get by and was satisfied. So times were tough and there were signs of even more serious problems ahead—you just had to be a man and shoulder whatever burden there was. But there was no getting around old age.
* * *
On the night of Easter Sunday, the factory out by the alum mines burned down to the foundation. It was an awe-inspiring fire, filling large sections of the sky with blood-red light and bringing fire departments with old-fashioned fire hoses from far away, up from the villages of the marshes around the Oder River and down from the peaks of the Brandenburg hill country. They thought half the city was burning—but it was only a single factory.
The city, on the edge of the vast plains stretching out beneath the mountain range, was visible from a great distance. Untold years ago, in times of myth and legend, powerful glaciers had carried rubble, boulders and masses of earth, and deposited them there, squeezing the plain like a vise. Today there were rolling, gentle hills, covered with somber firs, slender birches, and severe beeches; healing waters flowed up from the ground and the earth offered itself up as a gift.
Where the hills gradually fell off into the flatlands, brickworks had sprung up all around, and occasionally you would run into one on the plains too, in the middle of the fields and meadows, near a half-silted, dried-out lake. Agriculture and industry existed alongside each other: the factories were big business, attracting a lot of people whom the farmers had to feed. This stretch of country was not prosperous—the soil grew potatoes, rye, barley, and turnips, just as it had for many years, just enough to eke out a modest daily life.
The factory workers were better off: they did their prescribed hours of work and were not dependent on wind and weather, only on the goodwill of their masters and the state of the labor market. But no one had to worry about those things until later, when everything started to go more and more downhill.
The night was cold, with good conditions for a fire. When the alarms sounded and the first firemen, still half asleep, were stomping through the streets in their heavy boots, the fire broke through to a second area, a storage shed packed to the roof with finished bricks. The sky overhead glowed like a fireplace.
The night’s peace and quiet vanished from the city in an instant. Since the last period of fires, two years ago, when for several weeks a barn, or a stack of hay bales, or a stall would go up in flames every day, no one had seen such a mighty fire. Now the flames burst in on the sleepy security of the night. The night, the burning factory, the ghostly light on the forest behind it, the reflected glow in the sky: it all awakened fearful thoughts in the groggy men and women, thoughts directed at the future and seeming to sense here a first dark sign of it. The people who didn’t run out to the site of the fire
climbed up onto their roofs and looked out over a great lake of fire inset in the deep, dark woods that themselves gave off a beguiling red glow, as though the forest were on fire too.
That night, Seldersen the shopkeeper stood at the window for only a little while; the shrill alarm at the beginning, and the louder and louder street noise, had lured him out of bed. He leaned out, saw the firemen’s preparations on the little square behind City Hall, and heard the excited cries of the people hurrying by.
“It’s burning in the alum pits,” he said to his wife. She was lying in bed, somewhere between sleep and waking. A steady stream of images passed through her mind.
“It’s cold, shut the window,” she asked in a soft voice.
Father lay back down and entrusted himself to the warmth of his bed. But sleep never came. He lay awake the whole night; the feverish excitement outside also forced its way inside. All sorts of thoughts tormented him. Nothing that ever happened had consequences limited to the event itself—everything was linked by fate, one way or another, and in the end no one could escape their share of responsibility for the whole.
In the alum pits, the fire kept burning. Many of the men who worked there were his customers. Every Thursday, when they were paid—either that day or the following day—they came into the city and shopped. When they came this week, they would have quite a story to tell, but what about their money and their shopping…?
That night, around two hundred workers lost their jobs and would stay unemployed for a long time. The owner took the insurance money and moved on. People said that the fire had not come at an inconvenient time for him; he was going to have to cut back the size of his business in the foreseeable future anyway, it wasn’t making enough of a profit. The burned-down factory was bought by another corporation and stayed empty for two years.
* * *
The fire had long since been forgotten, the sulfurous smoke that had hung in the air for a long time had dispersed, and the burned-out factory stood there, a sad image of abandonment, with children playing in the ruins. When the workers walked by, they averted their eyes.
Then, one afternoon, a man appeared downstairs in Seldersen’s store. He was short, and still young, with a firm, decisive air—he curtly asked to speak to Father and did not seem shy about anything else either. His outward appearance was strange in certain ways: he wore a particularly high collar that looked almost like a neck brace or socket for his head, and when he talked his face twisted into a grimace in regular intervals. At each grimace, countless tiny wrinkles appeared on his smooth skin and he looked like he was grinning.
Herr Seldersen seemed to be expecting him. He picked up his account books, whispered something in his wife’s ear, and went upstairs to the apartment with the stranger. He struggled a bit under the weight of the books, but the other man did not offer to help. Mother stayed downstairs alone, sat down behind the counter, and folded her hands in her lap. She was anxious and kept control of herself only with difficulty. That was how Albrecht found her when he walked into the store.
“Where’s Father?”
“Upstairs,” Mother answered. She was doodling interlocking circles on a sheet of paper and didn’t stop. After a while: “Go upstairs, the man from the tax office is here. Listen to what they’re saying.”
Albrecht was shocked. “A man from the tax office? What does he want here? And he didn’t even give any warning?”
“He made an appointment this morning, I didn’t know, Father only just told me now. He wants to take a look at the books.”
“At the books? Damn,” Albrecht gasped. He had no great experience in business matters—his parents kept everything to do with all that from him. When he was down in the store during business hours, they usually sent him upstairs; he was no good at sales, he just stood around in everyone’s way; it was better when he stayed up in the apartment.
Father, as a businessman, was obliged to keep his accounts in order. He could be asked to show the authorities his books and receipts at any time. Every night, after counting up the day’s earnings, he made his entries, and at the end of every month, then every quarter, then every year, he added up the grand totals from which his taxes were calculated. Bookkeeping was an art and if you were good at it there was a lot you could do to pretty things up, trim a little here, add a little there. Albrecht didn’t know for sure whether his father ever did such things. At the moment, he even felt a little doubt.
“I hope everything’s in order,” he said, worried.
“Of course it is,” said Mother, who seemed very sure of what she was saying, “but that doesn’t mean an audit is any fun.” Albrecht went up to the apartment and settled into the side room to listen.
The stranger, the man from the tax office, picked up a large book and, before he opened it, said a few general, introductory words.
“As you know, Herr Seldersen, we are not convinced by your declarations. It seems to us that you are trying to evade a significant sum in taxes. The difference between this year and the previous year seems especially striking. Lots of people are trying to finagle things with the state nowadays”—he actually used the word “finagle,” then and a few times later as well; “cheat” seemed to be too strong a word for him—he didn’t have any actual proof, after all. “It’s only natural,” he went on. “So our agents are out every day, and they’re bringing quite a few things to light.”
Father leaned his whole upper body all the way across the table to be quicker with the passing of books back and forth. He calmly listened to the accusations. What could he say? Compared to the previous year? The books here would give the man all the information he needed. Albrecht, behind the door, strained to hear. But before the man started, Albrecht heard Father ask:
“How long have you been working for the tax office?”
“Nine months.”
“I see, I see.”
And why was he asking, the man wanted to know.
“Oh, only because I’ve known your colleagues for many years, but I’ve never seen you before.”
Pause.
It was a harmless question, almost meaningless and out of nowhere, but Herr Seldersen had his reasons. He was crafty. Ask your coworkers about me, he was trying to say—ask them who you’re dealing with here, a crook or an honest businessman.
The tax official was not stupid. He understood the purpose of this question, but he had only just started looking things over. How he trembled, this old man!
“You mustn’t misunderstand me, Herr Seldersen,” he said. “As an officer of the state I am required to protect it from any finagling, and if I am here to see you today, that is in no way meant to cast aspersions on your honor. We merely need to ascertain that all the information you have given us is in order. I understand that it’s a difficult time for you these days, as it is for businesses everywhere, for all of us. We hope that things will improve soon.”
Father nodded.
Yes, it certainly was difficult, it couldn’t go on like this for long. There wasn’t much more to say, was there? He had worked and made money, then lost it and worked some more, even though he was past fifty and often longed for rest and relaxation. Everything here in the books was strictly correct and absolutely honest. His memories gained the upper hand and he picked up a book: “Here are the balances from the years before the war. Take a look, now those are numbers, don’t you think? We’ll never see those again, never. But of course that’s not what we’re asking for, things just need to get a little bit better. We want to know that things will slowly, eventually improve.”
The man started paging back and forth through the account books, checking a sum here, comparing entries there, tracking an individual account, checking sample numbers everywhere. As he did so, he occasionally asked Father a question:
“You have two children, Herr Seldersen?”
“Yes, a girl and a boy.”
“And your daughter is in Berlin?”
Father nodded. “She’s found a job there, and is
continuing with her studies on the side.”
“I see. How much a month do you give her?”
“Nothing at all, nothing at all. She earns it all herself.”
“She lives on her income and pays for her education too? That’s not easy,” the man pressed him.
Father explained how it was possible. The school bills were low, she got student discounts and other benefits, and “I can get her her clothes very cheap.”
“And you don’t give her a thing?”
Father shifted from side to side. “Do you consider it support if I slip five marks into her pocket or send her a care package?”
“Where do you log the sums?”
“They’re just little expenses on the side, I don’t enter them into the books,” Father answered. He was getting embarrassed; his voice grew less and less sure of itself—a sign that Albrecht knew well. He kept listening, anxious to hear what came next.
“And your son’s violin classes?”
Father hesitated. As it went on, this interrogation was starting to feel uncomfortable. What did this man want from him? He must have seen the violin in the corner, next to the piano. But still, this was turning into an interrogation, a real interrogation.
“Right here,” he answered, picking up a little book where such expenses were recorded.
The man had more questions; for example, why Herr Seldersen didn’t own a house in a city where he had lived for such a long time. Surely he must have had opportunities to buy a place?
“Thank God I didn’t, something else to worry about,” Father said.
Worry? On the contrary, it would have been a good place to put his money, he wouldn’t have lost it all.
“Yes, I missed my chance,” Herr Seldersen admitted, as though confessing to a sin. “But how could I know everything in advance?”
