Young Gerber

by Friedrich Torberg

  “Well? What are you doing out and about in the street at this time of day? To the best of my knowledge, there are lessons in progress at school.”

  Now Kurt understands the position he is in. He makes a plan at lightning speed. Only imperturbable impudence can save him. It must be audible even in his voice. A note of self-confidence.

  “Professor Kupfer, sir, I—”

  “Would you kindly stop smoking when you speak to me?” Kupfer interrupted him tartly.

  Dear God, the cigarette! Kurt drops it to the ground and treads it out, his mind elsewhere. He has been thrown off balance.

  “S-sorry,” he stammers. “I entirely forgot—”

  Kupfer is master of the situation. “I see. So you’re also still smoking?” He nods, satisfied. “You can expect repercussions after this, Gerber. And now you’d better get back to school. The rest will follow in due course.”

  Kurt flares up. He hastily tries to make good his mistake.

  “Please listen to me, Professor Kupfer, I fell on the stairs, my knee is bleeding, don’t you understand? Professor Hussak sent me to see the doctor—”

  But Kupfer isn’t listening to him. He has already walked away, paying no attention to Kurt’s stammered explanation. Kurt is left standing there, his head bent, watching Kupfer go, his left trouser leg turned up. He just stands there, looking totally ridiculous, until at last (when someone jostles him roughly, saying, “Adjust your sock suspender somewhere else, can’t you?”), at last he begins staggering away. He can’t even guess what the consequences of this encounter will be. He drags himself wearily on, his eyes cast down, a conman unmasked. His leg really is beginning to hurt now.

  The clock on the wall on the first floor said a quarter to twelve. There wasn’t much point in going back to the physics lesson now.

  Kurt limped to the washbasins in the toilets; his injury looked nasty, with clotted blood on his shin.

  The pain did him good, however. He closed his eyes. For you, Lisa. I’d suffer even more for you, Lisa. And you don’t even know it.

  The bell rang. Kurt tied his handkerchief round the injured place on his leg. Then he went into the physics lab to collect his things.

  The lesson was just over. The students were noisily making their way to the door.

  Hussak was standing behind the tall desk. Kurt wanted to avoid him, but the teacher had already seen him, and beckoned him into the lab. Kurt followed; there was nothing to fear here.

  Hussak was hanging the black lab coat he wore for lessons on a hook, putting on his ordinary jacket, and seemed to be looking for something. Then he locked the door, pointed to a chair, and sat down astride the lab bench himself.

  Under the profound, long look from his blue eyes that Hussak gave him, the last remnants of Kurt’s belief in his own cause melted away. He was ready to agree with whatever Hussak said.

  They went on looking at each other, until first Hussak and then Kurt smiled. But Hussak immediately looked grave again.

  “I’m afraid this is no laughing matter, my friend,” he said with concern. “I only wish it were.”

  “Has something happened?” asked Kurt with ready sympathy, as if it were for him to lift a burden of anxiety from the physics master’s shoulders.

  “What would have happened? At the most an inspection by the Headmaster. There’s been no disaster either. No, no. The way you ran away from my lesson today is not so bad.”

  Kurt said nothing. He was full of vague forebodings.

  “Naturally, I would rather have been able to test you today. You know, of course, that we have a staff meeting next week, to discuss marks for the next set of reports—”

  “No, I didn’t know that.”

  “Well, we do, and that leaves another three lessons, no more. Then you can be sure that Zeisig will carry out an inspection. What the verdict on your own progress will be I don’t know. But that’s not so important either.” Hussak’s brief gesture dismissed all minor fears. “There’s something else that is more important. I’ve been meaning to say this to you for some time, and today I have a clear reason to do so. You mustn’t be so thoughtless, my dear Gerber, not so thoughtless. Or you may come a cropper over the Matura.”

  Kurt looked at him enquiringly.

  “No, no, you have nothing to fear from me. And I don’t mind at all if you stay away for once. Only,” and here Hussak’s tone of voice changed, “and I say this purely in passing: only not for such a childish reason!”

  Kurt went red, actually blushed with embarrassment. In front of this man, he felt very much a schoolboy, or rather, he felt that Hussak was very much a teacher. And almost a friend to whom, now, he can say, “It isn’t childish, sir. Please believe me, it isn’t childish.”

  “Oh—then you must forgive me; I wasn’t to know that.” The subtlety of this remark makes Kurt doubt that it is meant seriously. “But that’s not the point of our conversation. I wanted to tell you that you had better pay more attention to what you do, Gerber. There are those who don’t wish you well.”

  “I’m aware of that, sir.”

  “Then why don’t you act accordingly? Why are you always laying yourself open to attack from certain quarters?”

  Kurt has no answer to that. He looks at the floor. Hussak is working himself up.

  “That little pretence today doesn’t matter. And I can understand it. But for that very reason it shows me, yet again, how careless you are. If things go on like this, Gerber, I don’t see how it can end well. Stop and think: this is your final year! The fact that your colleagues are already laughing at you—”

  “I couldn’t care less.”

  “And I’ve no objection to your saying so. But do you think it will stop at that? Everything gets around. In the staffroom, we hear about everything, and you know yourself that anything can be exploited to your disadvantage.”

  “Yes—but why—”

  “Why? Why? Take your maths master, for instance, might it not enter his head to do a little spying? Please don’t take this amiss, but think—suppose he had seen you out in the street just now? Think of the consequences—”

  Kurt, who has been slowly straightening up, raises his pale face to the startled face of Hussak: “Sir, he—he did see me.”

  “What?” Hussak jumps up, clasps his hands behind his back and paces hastily back and forth. Suddenly he stops short, close to Kurt, puts both hands on his shoulders and shakes him.

  “Gerber, you idiot! My poor, poor Gerber!”

  And then he goes on pacing about the room, stopping now and then to fidget nervously with the pieces of apparatus, then stamps his foot, turns round, and says, calmly, “This isn’t a promising situation—and if I may give you my advice, I think you’d do well to change this school for another one as soon as possible.”

  Kurt wearily waves this away. “That’s what my father said.” and quietly but very firmly, he adds, “It’s out of the question.”

  At that moment the bell rings for the next lesson. It goes on for a long time. When it stops, the two of them are looking at each other almost like a pair of lovers lost to the world after their first embrace.

  “You’d better go back to your classroom,” says Hussak, his tone matter-of-fact.

  Kurt goes up to him.

  “Thank you, Professor Hussak, sir!” He holds out his hand.

  “There’s nothing to thank me for. Understand?”

  Kurt understands. He bows briefly and turns to leave.

  “Nothing at all!” Professor Hussak’s voice follows him. It sounds like a voice from the grave.

  IV

  Meditations on x

  STAY AT HOME!

  That was Kurt’s first thought when the throbbing pain all down his leg woke him next morning. Stay away from school. For a few days. How stupid Kupfer would look! Although he didn’t like the thought of skipping Hussak’s lessons. However, it would all turn out all right in the end. At worst some of his marks would be left an open question. Including for maths
and descriptive geometry. Kupfer hadn’t really tested him yet. There were to be written tests on Saturday and Monday. If he missed those—and it seemed very likely that he would—then they’d have to grant him a supplementary test; after all, he’d been away sick.

  His over-anxious mother wanted to call the doctor at once. Kurt protested; he was afraid his injury wasn’t so bad that he couldn’t be sent to school. However, when the glands in his groin swelled, and his temperature rose to thirty-nine degrees, Dr Kron was summoned.

  Dr Kron, a jovial elderly gentleman with a grey Vandyke beard and pince-nez, a medic who talked about operations the way other people speak of coffee parties and who loved to strike a note of earthy humour, had been the Gerbers’ family doctor for years. He addressed Kurt like someone he’d known all his life, and after a cursory examination of the leg waxed indignant. Why hadn’t they sent for him before? It was blood poisoning, and how, might he enquire, had that idiot Kurt come by it?

  “I was clumsy and fell on the stairs at school, doctor.”

  He’d fallen, had he? Running after the little girls again in too much of a hurry, the doctor supposed. Lord knows what gets into these snotty-nosed lads!

  Kurt scented an allusion to Lisa behind all this, forgetting that good Dr Kron didn’t even know of her existence, and though he usually liked the doctor he snapped at him, “I don’t go running after little girls!”

  “Not now, you don’t, Herr Gerber. Or not for the time being, anyway. That’ll be all the running you do for a while.” Then Dr Kron gave his orders, and threatened to splint the leg if Kurt didn’t keep it still. He’d call again tomorrow, he said.

  The next day Kurt woke up feeling strong and full of well-being. Forgetting that there was anything the matter with him, he tried drawing his legs up. It hurt so much that he fell back on the pillows with a muffled cry.

  Later in the day, Weinberg came to see him. He was greatly surprised to find Kurt actually in bed.

  “Very clever of you.” he said appreciatively. “Even God Almighty Kupfer couldn’t send the caretaker to check up on you just like that.” Kurt put the covers back and pointed to his knee. Weinberg looked bewildered: fancy someone not coming to school because he was sick!

  “My word! If I’d known, I’d have come yesterday. We all thought you were bunking off today to spend time with Lisa.”

  Kurt said nothing, thinking of Monday. Maths versus Lisa… In the end he thought it best to see this as a classic conflict between duty and inclination, which amused him. He laughed out loud. Weinberg looked at him, baffled.

  “So that’s what you all thought? What put such an idea into your heads?”

  “Excuse me, but you needn’t think we’re stupid! All that with Hussak made it clear enough.”

  “I see. And now the Matura candidates have nothing else to talk about.”

  “Of course not. You know how they seize on news like that.”

  “Are they making a big fuss about it?”

  “Well, quite a fuss—I mean, no, it’s not really so bad.” At this point Weinberg notices what way the conversation is going. He would like to spare his friend annoyance.

  “What are they talking about, then?”

  “Nothing of any importance. I don’t think it need bother you.”

  “It certainly doesn’t bother me.” Kurt tries to act unconcerned, but the opportunity is too tempting. Furthermore, he has something else in mind, a revolutionary idea. “I’d like to hear what they’re saying, though.”

  “Oh, go on, you’re being childish.”

  “Call it what you like. But tell me what they’re talking about, all the same. I’m interested.”

  Weinberg’s jaws are working as if he were chewing the cud; it is distinctly visible, and he always does it when he’s at a loss. Suddenly he says briefly, firmly. “No. What good would it do you, you cretin?” Then he stands up, sits down again, takes out his comb and gets busy with it on his rather unruly hair.

  Kurt sits up. “Fritz!”

  “Yes?”

  “You mustn’t think I’m asking out of silly curiosity. Listen, will you? I’m in love with Lisa.”

  Weinberg gasps. This is too much for him. What, his friend, his good, clever friend in love with that silly, affected doll, throwing himself away on her? That’s incredible! And Weinberg bursts out:

  “Oh yes? Well, if you really must know, you’re a figure of fun to the whole class. I wouldn’t have told you, but you make me. I always thought you’d realize that for yourself, or you already had realized and were secretly laughing at it. But you’re out of your mind. In love with her! Say it again.”

  Kurt lies on his back again, looks up at the ceiling and says slowly, smiling, “I—am—in—love with her.”

  In his agitation, Weinberg doesn’t notice how far away and happy that sounded. If he had, he would probably have stopped at that point instead of going on with his diatribe: They were all heartily amused, he says, specially the girls, because Lisa took no notice of Kurt, and left the lab early yesterday just so that she wouldn’t have to talk to him; that was clear enough, you fool, but you go running after her like a dachshund; the class fell about laughing, they all think it’s such a joke, and she thinks so most of all; of course, girls like that, you want to put them over the edge of the bed and make love to them, but that’s all, people don’t fall in love with them, least of all you, you’re showing your inadequacy to everyone… and so on in the same tone, but it goes right past Kurt, whose mind is elsewhere.

  “Kurt, are you listening to me?”

  “Of course. Carry on.”

  “I’ve finished. You say something now.”

  And Kurt says something. Quiet things, in a quiet voice. Still looking up at the ceiling, and after a few words forgetting that there is anyone in the room listening to him. But he isn’t talking to Weinberg, he is talking to Lisa… Weinberg’s feelings and thoughts, good as well as bad, are always perfectly obvious. You only had to look at him when he was angry—and you felt you could sue him for impugning your honour. He is one of those people (a breed rapidly dying out in a climate that does not suit it) who resemble modern book advertisements, where the book stands on a rotating plinth in the shop window, showing the public page after page… Now, for example, when Kurt had finished, Fritz Weinberg hung his head like a scolded child. Then his thoughts took a couple of sudden leaps and landed suddenly on a simple reflection. “Why are you telling me all this?” he asked, and there was a touch of longing in his voice.

  “Not for my own sake, Fritz. I want you to do Lisa justice.”

  “Well, I’ll do my best,” was all that Weinberg said. And then he abruptly began talking about school. Not much has happened, he said, since the day before yesterday. Mattusch gave back the German tests written in school and read Kurt’s aloud as the best, then there was another of Filip’s chaotic lessons, and then, yes, then today God Almighty Kupfer announced the names of those who hadn’t done enough to be assessed yet, and Kurt’s name was listed for both his subjects. Would it be absolutely impossible, Weinberg wondered, for him to get to school to take the maths test tomorrow?

  “I’m not well,” said Kurt reluctantly. He had not considered this possibility, nor indeed had he been thinking of school at all, and now he found himself abruptly faced with it. He could have borne having these stupid things said to him, but to be asked to take them seriously, to make objections, take up a position one way or the other—oh, it was too much! And now, at that! Couldn’t Weinberg come and say all this another day?

  Hardly possible, when time was too short for that. And if Kurt could possibly do it, said Weinberg, he ought to try. God Almighty Kupfer could easily make a rope to hang him out of a few questions unanswered in a school test, might also assume that his sickness was malingering; and even the best-case scenario, the idea that he could be tested later, either orally or in writing, was bad enough. It would be relatively easier tomorrow or Monday.

  “And you might make Go
d Almighty Kupfer look more kindly on you if you come limping to school to please him and—”

  “I don’t care about that!” Kurt interrupted in annoyance. But looking at him, Weinberg could see that he was feeling small and embarrassed. This was all very uncomfortable. Kurt was gnawing his lower lip. Anyone could see that he was really unwell at any time, he said sharply, even God Almighty Kupfer would have to see that no one could go to school with a knee oozing pus, could he? And when Weinberg said nothing, Kurt worked himself into more and more of a state of artificial indignation. What an idea! He had no intention of endangering his health and maybe his straight limbs for the sake of a silly school test, it would be different if he had to improve on several downright Unsatisfactory marks; however, you couldn’t be graded, couldn’t, on the strength of a few questions asked orally as you sat at your desk, so he had no reason at all to go to school next day.

  “That’s what you think,” said Weinberg, unperturbed. “Let’s hope you’re right.” He looked at the time, and got to his feet. “I’m off to get some sleep. Riedl will be testing us in geology. Good night.” And Kurt was left alone, with his thoughts in turmoil.

  Now they whirr restlessly around in his head, mocking all his efforts to chase them away, they startle him out of his light sleep in the middle of the night, they torment him so that he cannot bear to stay in bed any longer; in his helpless bafflement, he gets out of bed—stands up—walks about—what’s this stuff surrounding his leg?

  Slowly, he remembers. But how is it possible that he’s reached this point? He leans gingerly against the wall, raises his foot, tries to bend his knee—it works. Without any special pain. The bandage doesn’t bother him, it has come loose, his knee is bare: red and blue and yellow, with swellings and inflamed skin and pus. It is not a pretty sight, but he can walk on that leg.

  And now—is he to be glad that he is better and can walk again? Because that means… yes, it means he can take the maths test at school tomorrow. He has felt that at once, and he knows there’s no escaping it now.