Young Gerber

by Friedrich Torberg

  His voice had an entirely different sound—and once again Kurt jumped, just as he had when the door handle was pressed down, although both times he had known what was coming next.

  “Well, so here we all are.” Kupfer fell silent, as if thinking hard. He wanted to give what he said the appearance of improvisation, as if he were voluntarily exposing his own little human weaknesses. (Hoping to appear “jovial”, he often adopted a stilted manner.)

  “Let’s see who’s here.” His glance swept around the room. Kurt sat there in fevered expectation. What would happen when God Almighty Kupfer noticed him?

  “Lewy,” said Kupfer, with his mouth hardly open, “we’ve already had the pleasure—Lengsfeld, yes, all old acquaintances—and I see Gerber is also here—you liked the summer holidays better than this, eh?” he asked as Kurt, who had risen to his feet, red in the face and unsure of himself, silently bowed.

  “Yes.” Kurt said this barely audibly, and quickly sat down again.

  “Good. We’ll start with a roll-call of the register.”

  He opened it and began reading out the names; each time a student said, “Here,” he made a note in the book without looking up.

  “Altschul!”

  “Here!”

  “Benda!”

  “Here!”

  Kurt, listening carefully as he waited for his own name to be called, expected to hear “Berwald” at this point, and he looked at Lisa’s place. It was still empty. In his surprise, he didn’t hear Kupfer murmuring, “Berwald has left the school,” nor did he hear him reading on, calling the names of Blank, Brodetzky and Duffek, he didn’t hear Gerald’s name or his own. His thoughts had abruptly taken another direction, and in the same way as they had previously been circling around “Kupfer”, they were now circling in mindless haste around “Lisa”… Lisa, Lisa, he thought, where’s Lisa? And now, when Hobbelmann turns and urgently whispers “Scheri”, he jumps, and his carefully prepared “Here” comes out in such a strange tone that no one can help laughing, and even Kupfer, who has called “Gerber!” three times with increasing impatience, only shakes his head and, without castigating him for inattention, reads on through the register. Halpern, Hergeth, Hobbelmann. Once again, Kurt hears nothing, but stares at the green-painted wood of the desk in front of him and thinks: Lisa… He was planning to invite her out to a cake shop for the last free morning when she might not be surrounded by twenty others; he’d meant to work out a plan with her for the school term ahead, one last moment of free time, entirely free—you’re back from Italy, Lisa, where no one knew you were still at school, and you and I and everyone know that I’m almost past my schooldays, we’re much older than we used to be, and we’ll behave accordingly, no one must notice anything, we won’t talk on our own in break, those childish idiots mustn’t have anything to see and gossip about, Lisa—but Lisa wasn’t here…

  Professor Kupfer had closed the register and stepped forward to deliver his opening address to the class, with the same smile on his lips as he had assumed earlier. It really did suggest a touch of goodwill, even a kind of modesty. He was trying to come down, as far as possible, to an earthly level. But the obvious care he took to do so made his intentions clear: they were to notice how far he had to descend from those heights where he usually sat enthroned in order to appear to the students a member of the human race like themselves. Look, his tone of voice and the tenor of his address implied, I am taking a great deal of trouble to make myself understood. But thank heavens, I can only regret that it doesn’t work. I am steeped too far in knowledge that is denied to you, in experience that you could not understand—yet something of it must come through to you in my words, and for your sake I did intend to keep them as easy as I possibly could. However, no one can stay far below his own level for long. So, as I proceed further in my address, I must give more meaning and richness to my words, seemingly at the expense of the subject. You will not be able to follow me, but I can’t help myself. I trust you will not take offence at my considering you stupid. But should anyone dare not to hide his inferiority under a cloak of humble shame, and instead try to express it in any way whatsoever, thus making me aware that I am, after all, among hopeless idiots, it will be the worse for him! And I shall be careful that not the slightest expression of your stupidity escapes me!

  What he said, out loud, was: “Captain Kupfer—for I held the rank of captain in the Great War—sees everything, takes note of everything, knows everything.” Kupfer uttered these words perfectly seriously, and Kurt’s astonishment (for the time being he was still incapable of any other feeling) increased immeasurably. He had listened intently to what Kupfer said as, after beginning in the traditional way, he moved more and more into the first person, punctuating his remarks with instances of self-glorification, at first in parenthesis but then coming thicker and thicker, climbing higher and higher up artificial hills of pomposity, and now the inflated address had reached the peak of the vanity of the man delivering it, to no one’s pleasure but his own. Kurt had listened to all this. Now he was waiting for whatever outrageous comment would follow what the speaker had been at such pains to express.

  “You see, you must know that it is impossible to deceive me, and it will be in your own interests not even to try. Do not think you might succeed after all, and don’t listen to anyone else’s whispered suggestions. It is inadvisable to lend an ear to such advice. I have never done so. Nor do I ever follow the crowd. The crowd always does something stupid and regrets it later. That is life. The stupid shed tears afterwards, it is the clever who laugh. I am in the habit of laughing.”

  “Ha, ha,” said someone in the artificial pause that followed this.

  Kurt had not actually laughed; he said, “Ha, ha,” aloud and slowly, as he contemplated this shallow admirer of his own reflection, thinking himself undisturbed in the cloudy fields of his divinity, and was possessed by an uncontrollable wish to take him down a peg or two and return him to his rightful place at the teacher’s desk.

  Undisturbed, Kupfer looked at the desk where Kurt was sitting, and raised his eyebrows. Everyone turned to him. Kurt sat leaning forward, smiling right into the Professor’s face, as if he shared his opinion that the clever are in the habit of laughing. He was glad, he found, that the moment of showdown between him and Kupfer had come so soon.

  “Gerber!” said Kupfer slowly. “You may be one of those who shed tears afterwards.”

  With that, so far as Kupfer was concerned and much to the regret of Kurt and the class, the subject was closed. Soon he concluded his address with the words: “I don’t need you to show mathematical genius, and I won’t demand the impossible of you. What I do want, you can all easily achieve by dint of hard work and goodwill. Anyone who cannot or will not achieve that is immature, and only the genuinely mature will pass the final examination, the Matura. I give you my assurance today that in this crucial year there will be no acts of mercy. Anyone who happens to have reached the eighth year as the result of an act of mercy will have a very hard time with me. I would prefer weak students to leave the school at once. I will not have the Matura degraded to a mere formality, not I. In particular, I advise those who hope to make up for their laziness by impudence to be on their guard. You will do best not to take me on. Now you know more or less how you must behave in my class. Regular lessons begin at eight a.m. tomorrow.”

  Professor Kupfer turned round and picked up his coat. Suddenly he remembered something.

  “And as to the seating plan—is that how you were sitting last year?”

  A few students were bold enough to answer with a loud “Yes”.

  “Very well. It can stay the same for now. Only someone will have to move into Berwald’s place now that it’s vacant… let’s see… Lengsfeld, all right? Oh, and who is missing there, in the same row as Gerber. That’s right, Weinberg. He can stay. I want a seating plan of the whole class tomorrow. Who has good handwriting?”

  “Reinhard… Kaulich… Not me… Severin.”

 
“Oh, agree among yourselves who does it!” said Kupfer in sudden annoyance, turning to leave. The class immediately rose to their feet and stood without a sound, but once Kupfer had closed the door behind him, hubbub broke out.

  The eighth-year students milled around in agitation, unable to make up their minds about Kupfer. For neither the “He’s not so bad” group nor the larger “He’s an absolute bastard” group could cite any evidence for their opinions except that they had just expressed them. Volubility had to make do for the absence of logic.

  Kurt Gerber took no part in this debate. He sat there thinking of Lisa and only Lisa. He was indignant that Kupfer had even spoken her name. And the fact that he would have no further occasion to do so made him very anxious. Lisa Berwald had left the school. Why? And why hadn’t she told him?

  Someone clapped him on the shoulder with a heavy hand; it was the bearlike Kaulich, with a satisfied grin on his broad face.

  “Well done, Scheri, you let him have it!”

  Meanwhile some of the others had joined them. Nowak said, “That wasn’t a great idea of yours. Why do you have to get across everyone right away? What do you get out of it?” A number of students agreed with him, others didn’t. “It’s a good thing for God Almighty Kupfer to find he can’t go too far.”

  Kurt, thinking things over, asked as casually as possible, “Does anyone know what all this about Lisa Berwald is?”

  Several answers came in. “Left school.—I heard she’s going to get married soon.—Not a bit of it, she’s simply sick and tired of this place.—Can’t say I blame her.”

  “If you ask me, young Lisa’s no fool—she’s fed to the teeth with swanning round school,” versified Pollak, bowing to his laughing audience. Most of the students were in good humour now, and they decided to go to the morning concert at the bandstand in the municipal park. Kurt was in no mood for it. He unobtrusively slipped away and went home.

  Full of dissatisfaction in general, he turned his back on the day’s events, dragging his feet.

  At home, he flung himself on the sofa. Might as well sleep off a foul day like this. If you didn’t have to go to school. And today he didn’t.

  Professor Artur Kupfer, on the other hand, was extremely satisfied with the day, as indeed he was with almost all days in the school year. After two empty summer months—empty because he had gone around like one human being among others and not a god among school students, because there was no one he could cause to tremble before his omnipotence, because the many people he saw could not be forced into what his need for domination required—after this period of exile he flung himself body and soul into the empire now restored to him. He had felt warm enjoyment of that first “Sit down”, he had caressed it in advance with his palate and tongue and lips, like a man sucking the last fibres of fruit off a peach stone before spitting it out. But Kupfer hadn’t spat anything out. It had passed his lips lovingly (and therefore gently), not a peach stone to be thrown away, more like a little diamond of incalculable value, successfully brought over the border by a jewel-smuggler who now lets it slip out of his mouth with care and trembling delight. Kupfer felt a similar tremor of delight. During the annual summer exile he was always tormented by the same sombre fear: that while he was away everything could have changed, that after his return to the throne, suddenly, for some unfathomable reason, “Sit down” would no longer mean “Sit down”, and when he commanded his subjects to sit down they might stay on their feet, or walk around the room. It was an agonizing fear, and he couldn’t understand it; he felt it was pointless, and yet it brought him terrible visions on many a sleepless night. When, on holiday in mountainous country, he came to a peak whose height failed to meet his imperious expectations after one such night, he had wanted to tell it, “Unsatisfactory, sit down!” but next moment had felt ridiculous in the fact of that great, silent entity standing there in icy immobility, letting it be known that it was not about to move, and even before the command was given announcing that it was not minded to carry it out—rather like a defiant school student. And he, Kupfer, had therefore been obliged to refrain from giving the order at the last moment, so he hated that mountain and hated the entire landscape and hated all the people he encountered. Most of all he hated Kurt Gerber, whom he happened to meet there and who could not yet be told to “Sit down!” But soon, soon—oh, soon he would be telling students to sit down, sit down, sit down…

  And now his hour came. He said, “Sit down” and many human beings, a whole room full of them, sat down. He spoke the names of those human beings, and each of them stood up and announced, “Here”. As a whole and as individuals they were at his disposal again. Nothing had gone wrong while he was away, it all worked. He gave orders, and his orders were obeyed. He called, and he was answered. He said, “I want peace and quiet!” and there was peace and quiet. He spoke—and was surrounded by the bright light of authority and radiant perfection. God Almighty Kupfer.

  He knew that was the students’ nickname for him. He also knew that nothing can be done about nicknames. So he was determined to live up to his, and since he succeeded in that, he had no objection to hearing it. Yes, he was God Almighty Kupfer, and he was a jealous god, avenging the sins of the students even unto the third and the fourth semester that he forced them to spend in the same class… He was also a slave to his vanity, and would not tolerate the slightest offence to it. And he was anxiously intent on issuing commandments to avert anything that might impair his omnipotence. He was well disposed only to students who looked up at him in obsequious humility, who pitifully begged him for mercy when all was not well with them, and thanked him, bowing low, when it was. Moreover, his splendour hung only from a thread, depending on a single, tiny decision: were they going to believe in him or were they not?

  Since the students did believe in him, he was God Almighty to them. He was considered a great authority on mathematics, particularly descriptive geometry. His textbook of descriptive geometry with exercises, in four parts (to him, “in four parts” meant as good as twice the usual number of fists to hit with) was set for study in almost all high schools, so that his name as an expert was accepted without question by the students. He consolidated his position in every lesson. There was no way anyone could contend with him. Kupfer was Kismet. He had built up a reputation for invincibility, and now it went before him into every new classroom, opened the door to him, sat at the teacher’s desk and spread universal fear. When Kupfer entered the room he had only to take over from his reputation by replacing it with himself. He was, in a way, a body cast by his own shadow instead of vice versa, he was the justification of what was expected of him, and he had no difficulty in proving his point. He did it convincingly. Anyone who dared to make a fuss was inexorably struck by one of his thunderbolts, and there was no lightning conductor. Kupfer himself seldom uttered threats. Usually a glance, a gesture, a tone of voice, the course of a test gave warning of what lay ahead, and it was like a doctor’s final diagnosis of an incurable sickness. You were doomed. Any flicker of the flame of life—a good word put in for you, a test passed—was only a flash in the pan, a delusion. The adder never relaxed its bite, never let you go. And slowly the deadly venom spread through its victim, who felt that his legs were getting weaker and weaker, and that he was sure to sink to the ground at exactly the appointed time.

  Some made desperate attempts to save themselves at the last minute, lowering themselves to grovel mindlessly, doglike, licking up the saliva dripping from the victor’s slavering jaws, or tried to resist the inevitable with hands raised in pleading, writhing and whimpering beneath the knee weighing down on their chests, immersing themselves in their books, crazily hammering facts into their hot heads with fevered haste—only to find out, standing before the examiner with cheeks that did not owe their pallor to fear, and eyes red but not from weeping, that unfortunately it had all been too late. Yes, there were some like that. Others gave up the race and fell by the wayside. Resigned, they let themselves drift towards the end w
ith a weary smile and received the verdict with a nod of the head. “I knew that ages ago.” But as for a student who in answer to Kupfer’s nasal, “Well, let’s see who’s going to draw the short straw here!” would reply, “I only want to try it out, I’m ready to have a go!”, a student who would fight to the end and emerge from the battle the same as he had been at the start of it—no such student existed.

  So far Kupfer had always won just as he wanted. He had come to take that for granted, and coolly took note of his success. When he had carefully crushed his victim between the millstones of his intentions he felt no triumph, either noisily vaunted or relished with hidden malice. He did not rejoice. Quietly, with gentle regret, he established the fact that it must necessarily turn out like this. That meant that in a way he was apologizing to the victim, to the spectators watching the victim’s sacrifice, and also, if very seldom, to himself.

  The manner of his victory also determined the style of his attack. Kupfer did not come up from behind. He did not need to lull the chosen victim into a sense of security and then strike unexpectedly—after all, his victory was certain from the start. He was also careful not to use flagrantly obvious methods, not to do anything that could be shown to be more incorrect than was tacitly admitted to be his due as the more powerful party in the contest. What he needed came his way as if by chance, and he made use of it to the utmost extent that the rules allowed. Nothing was too slight to arouse his ire and bring it into action. Seizing the most inconspicuous opportunities and using them for his own ends sometimes allowed him to dispense with the more conspicuous kind, thus suddenly giving himself the appearance of generous objectivity.