Young Gerber

by Friedrich Torberg

  “Ah, my dear Gerber. May I ask you to stay in exactly your present position?”

  Without haste, Kupfer puts down the newspaper, gets to his feet and comes very slowly towards Kurt, eyes fixed on him.

  Kurt sits there motionless, as if hypnotized, the note with the answers that will save him lying on the bench with the two fully completed exercises on it, needing only to be written out, he is still holding the note between his thumb and forefinger—and makes a pitiful attempt to push the blotting paper over it with his other hand, but of course Kupfer notices. “Don’t move!” he shouts, and without quickening his pace he comes closer, and now he is there ordering, “Hold up your hands!”

  Kurt obeys, still as if he were in a dream. Kupfer takes the note between two fingers, holds it up and says, in a tone of friendly reproof, “To think you consider me so stupid! I told you that I see everything.”

  Then he shakes his head as if in astonishment, tears the note into many little pieces, and lets them flutter to the floor right in front of Kurt’s face.

  None of the eighth-year students turn to watch this. (To show sympathy would make you guilty too.) Heads bowed, they have only listened, and now they are busily writing again, unmoved. And when Kupfer warns them to hurry—“Mind you finish the test, the bell will be going in ten minutes’ time!”—they make sounds of alarm to confirm that his information has had the intended effect.

  Kurt sits there, apathetically tracing meaningless figures in his exercise book. He can do no more. It’s over.

  When Hobbelmann pushes a note towards him, he revives slightly, feels a last weary hope—but then his fountain pen won’t work, and the bell goes before he can refill it. Kupfer in person collects the exercise books without waiting a second; he doesn’t look to see if anyone is finishing writing a solution, just takes the exercise books, as coldly from those who hand them to him with satisfaction as from those who sit in pale horror, unable to take in the fact that matters have reached this point. Then, without a word, he leaves the classroom.

  Is it by accident or design that he has left the newspaper lying on his desk? Hobbelmann suddenly pushes his way through the circle of sympathetic students around Kurt, waving the newspaper in the air.

  “What a bastard!” he cries breathlessly. “What a bastard!”

  They knew that anyway, say the eighth-year students.

  “Here—there—look at that! What a cunning bastard!”

  Three small, circular holes have been cut across the middle fold of the newspaper with scissors…

  Weinberg went home with Kurt. They did not talk. His friend was feeling guilty, reproaching himself for not having sent the note sooner. He had wanted to make quite sure it was safe—and then it ended like that.

  But it wasn’t all over yet.

  “This is only October,” he said outside the gate of Kurt’s building. And when Kurt did not reply, “We’ve hardly started yet.”

  V

  The Palfrey Stumbles

  THAT WAS TRUE. It was October, and work for the school year was only just beginning.

  But then came November, and it was still only just beginning.

  And that was the terrible part of it, impeding your breathing, constricting your throat, casting hopelessness over everything: this eternal beginning. Always accumulating more and more days behind you and saying: it’s not all over yet. Now the real part is beginning. Always pretending that this time, yet again, you were only making a trial attempt, it wouldn’t be real until next time—and then it would be real in earnest. Accepting everything happening at the moment with the excuse that it could safely be forgotten in the light of the more significant future. There was still so much time before the important reports came halfway through the school year! And then there would be another staff meeting about the marks. And then there would be the final report at the end of the year. Only then the Matura. And by that time!…

  So what did it matter that a week later Kurt (whose knee was almost entirely healed after that first setback, but who was not able to go out yet) found in the post one of the notorious “blue letters”, an official communication to “parents or responsible guardians”, for which no postage had to be paid, informing them that the school student concerned had not done well in this or that subject during the period for which marks were now allotted? Was it so terrible if such a letter came into the house?

  Dear Herr and Frau Gerber,

  In the staff meeting allotting marks held on 29 October this year, Kurt Gerber, student in Class VIII at High School XVI, is reprimanded for extremely Unsatisfactory work in mathematics, Unsatisfactory work in descriptive geometry, and is warned to show more industry after inadequate results in Latin and Natural History. Moreover, the said Gerber, Kurt, is reprimanded for late attendance at the test and receives a stern rebuke for various activities contrary to the school rules. Accordingly, we are sure that you will…

  Kurt was shocked. He had not expected it to be as bad as this. The two warnings in particular were entirely unexpected. He remembered a few poor marks given by Niesset and Riedl, but surely they couldn’t have had such a dire effect. Or was it because he hadn’t been at school for the last few days before the marking period ended? So that they couldn’t test him any more? In which case that precious pair had exploited their rights on paper, clinging to Kupfer’s coat-tails, and struck a blow at a helpless student, that was it. Well, you weren’t examined in Natural History for the Matura. And Kurt felt confident about his knowledge of Latin. We’ll be having a word about that, Carrot-Top. (Niesset had red hair.)

  But the reprimands from Kupfer… the maths result might be fair enough. The other was scandalous. And then that reprimand for late attendance! That was the end! They were looking on the worst side of everything! Late for the test, instead of praising him for turning up at all. Imagine hanging on, for days, to such an artificially constructed account of the facts! As if Kupfer’s double triumph in the test hadn’t been enough for him! But no. Kupfer let nothing escape him. A major success did not confuse his mind. No sooner had he struck a devastating blow than he turned with equal determination to the next. “Reprimanded for late attendance at the test!” It was as if a man condemned to death were given an additional sentence of twenty years’ loss of his honour.

  Kurt came to the conclusion that this report on his marks was the most outrageously underhand trick ever to be played on an innocently absent student.

  Of course, his parents would never understand that, they would probably think the teachers were right. “Educational method”, people called it.

  And what was that worth? More agitation on his part, more annoyance—all to no effect. He could spare his sick father anything so useless. There was good morality behind his little fraud.

  After a few trial attempts, Kurt felt sufficiently sure of himself to sign “Albert Gerber” on the dotted line left for “Signature of student’s father (or responsible guardian)”.

  Weinberg had not visited him during these last days, perhaps for one reason out of a lingering sense of guilt. So it was not until Kurt was back at school that he learnt what had happened about Lisa.

  Monday, when Kurt had been going to phone her at work, was when he had been at his worst; his temperature rose to nearly forty degrees, and the next day he couldn’t bring himself to call her. After all, she had expected him to phone on Monday, and it wasn’t good for her to get calls at work… He finally sent the parlourmaid to school with a note for Weinberg, asking him to make his apologies to Lisa. It might work in his favour, he speculated.

  Now he drew his friend aside. What had happened with Lisa, had he done as Kurt asked?

  Yes, of course he’d done it. Or rather he meant to do it, he was going to give her Kurt’s apologies, but—

  But?

  This time Weinberg was much more thoughtful, apparently glad of something, beating about the bush, but not in the same way as before.

  “Well, with the best will in the world, I couldn’t,”
he said. “Couldn’t deliver your apologies, I mean.”

  “Oh. Why not?”

  “You see, it was like this: Lisa got in first.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You will in a minute. So I phoned on Tuesday: Dr Berwald speaking, may I speak to my sister? Thank you. Hello, Lisa…”

  “For God’s sake, get a move on.”

  Weinberg did not get a move on, but finally it all came out. Lisa hadn’t given him a chance to say his piece; she thought it was Kurt on the phone, and apologized profusely for not being there yesterday, but she hadn’t had any time, no time at all, and so on. “Yours, Lisa. That was all,” concluded Weinberg, not expecting Kurt to ask, “Did you say who you were?”

  “Yes. She didn’t even seem very embarrassed about it.”

  “Why should she?”

  “Why should she?” Weinberg mimicked him, unable to understand that Kurt was not furious with Lisa for such behaviour. “Why should she? Because it can’t have been too nice for her to have a third person know about her lie.”

  “What lie? She didn’t have time, full stop.”

  Weinberg was stunned to find his own healthy suspicion come up against such credulity. He made one last attempt. “I suppose you wouldn’t like to tell me why she didn’t call you first?”

  “Of course.” Kurt was in command of the situation again. “For one thing, she doesn’t know my phone number—”

  “It’s in the telephone book!”

  “—and for another she guesses that it would be awkward for me to get phone calls like that at home. It might lead to unfortunate developments, now of all times when my parents are keeping a sharp eye on me because of school.”

  “She’s as considerate as that?”

  “Yes, she is as considerate as that.”

  “A wonderful girl!”

  “A wonderful girl.”

  Weinberg turned away angrily. But after a while he came back, and said in a more conciliatory tone, “She said she hoped you’d be better soon.”

  Along with his parents’ written explanation of why he had been off school sick, Kurt placed the signed letter of reprimand on the lectern. Kupfer didn’t notice the forgery. That at least had worked.

  Moreover, Kupfer was able to observe, with satisfaction, that young Gerber was paying particularly close attention in this lesson. So when the bell had gone, and the class was standing to attention, he began his address to them by saying—with a regretful expression, and without leading up to it in any way—that he was very sorry…

  “I am very sorry to have to inform you, Gerber, that the account you gave has turned out to be inaccurate.”

  Kurt stood there, turning pale. He didn’t know what Kupfer was talking about. It was some time since he, Kurt, had been in school. Surely anything he’d done was long forgotten.

  Oh no. Almighty God Kupfer never forgot anything.

  “I have found out that Professor Hussak did not give you permission to go and see the doctor, but that you left his lesson on the pretext of having a headache.”

  Only now did Kurt remember. So that’s what he meant, he thought, he keeps track of all my failings. I wish he’d get to the end of this.

  “You not only left the school building without permission and deceptively, you not only smoked in the vicinity of the school, which is also forbidden, but above all—” and here Kupfer was no longer pretending to be sorry, he raised his voice, he was thundering from on high—“above all you lied in the most shameless way to two members of staff. If Professor Hussak lets you persuade him that you have a headache, that’s his business. I am not interested in that, any more than I am interested to know what the connection was between your sudden indisposition and the presence of the former student Berwald here.”

  What I ought to do, thought Kurt, is go up to him and slap his face. But he was too tired for that, and preferred counting the grooves in the wood of his desk.

  “Only objective facts matter to me, and they weigh heavy enough. I was obliged to call a staff meeting to decide on the appropriate disciplinary measures to be taken against you. The meeting decided on four hours’ detention. Let that be a lesson to you, and in future let the thought of it rule your conduct. You know what the consequences of a second detention would be, particularly for a student in such a precarious position as yours has been since the last time marks were given. You are to inform your parents of the detention, and have the fact that you have done so confirmed by your father’s signature. You will be told the day and hour of your detention later. Sit down.”

  And in an icy silence, Kupfer left the classroom.

  After some time, it turned out that, for once, the whole class was united in feeling the amount of malice brought to bear had been unusual. The eighth-year students crowded round Kurt with expressions and cries of impotent regret, of the baffled sympathy with which one looks, for instance, at a horse that has fallen in the street.

  The palfrey had been broken in. It lay there with its flanks trembling. It felt dirt on its white coat, muddy droppings soiling it, a sensation even worse than the lash of the whip laying the palfrey low on the ground.

  Then the dirt suddenly seemed pleasantly soft, forcing the palfrey to stretch out and wallow in it, feeling apathetic and indifferent to its own fate.

  “When were you thinking of phoning the emergency services?” asked Kurt, forcing a thin smile to his lips.

  The students around him grinned, not sure what he meant. But when his glance moved slowly from one to another, many of them turned away. It was more than they could take.

  At that moment there was hardly one of them who would not have been ready to mount an attack on their maths teacher Artur Kupfer at a nod from Kurt Gerber. At that moment something of significance might have happened. But it didn’t.

  All that did happen was that Kurt Gerber got to his feet and said, imitating the voice and gestures of Well-Then, their German teacher, “Well then, Kaulich, give me a cigarette, would you? As you may notice, that’s what they call Romantic irony, right?”

  But the irony did him less and less good. His talent for mockery began to fail him. Incidents that only recently might have amused him became major problems. The whims and fads of the teachers—each had his speciality, for instance Riedl had recently taken to testing students only where they sat at their desks, spending half an hour calling names, asking the student addressed a question and then saying, still in the same tone of voice, “Sit down,” so that you never knew whether the answer had been right; Borchert would suddenly demand repetition of something learnt long ago; Niesset held written tests unannounced—all that used to make Kurt smile, as the comic intoxication with power of the bourgeois let loose; but now it seemed to him intentional tyranny, aimed principally at his own downfall.

  At this time Kupfer’s first formal examination up in front of the class was hurrying towards him (so far tests had been done at the students’ desks), and Kurt thought it perfectly normal that he could not answer the question he was asked, and was marked Unsatisfactory. It was an unemotional affair, with nothing to show that this was really the first battle in the open field, in which two people who hated one another fervently clashed for the first time—it was an ordinary exam, and those who were no good at the subject would not be up to passing it.

  School was closing in more and more on Kurt’s mind. Here and there enemy patrols were already making their way into his last sanctuaries. It sometimes happened that he closed a book in the middle of reading it, left the theatre in the middle of an act, because he had suddenly remembered an exam tomorrow. Fear had a hold over him, sheer fear of inevitable events. It so entirely paralysed him that whether or not he might escape those events was something he left to chance. Doing anything by dint of his own powers seemed impossible. If he did try, however, with his brain reeling, he soon felt such disgust that he gave up. Not knowing whether it was the disgust or his fear that shook him, he took refuge in a book again. A
nd closed it again in the middle of reading. There was a void in him that he had so far thought was entirely physical, a feature of an empty stomach. But now his mind was losing its appetite.

  The void was worse when he thought of Lisa. By this time his self-confidence was badly undermined. Sometimes it seemed absurd for him to approach Lisa, who was living in very different circumstances, offering her what he thought of as love at all. He had assumed rights that were not his from the mere fact that they had been at school together. Lisa, a woman like any other—or no, not like any other, a thousand times better than any other—Lisa could be worshipped from afar, that was all. And any time he spent with her, however short, was like an unexpected mercy for which he had to spend a long, hard time waiting. It was not just chance that she had left the school. Lisa had nothing at all to do with school and the trouble brewing for him there. She must be kept apart from it for ever.

  Weinberg would have to be kept out of it, too. He hadn’t come up to Kurt’s standards. He had thought Lisa was lying. Even if she had been, he wouldn’t have Weinberg thinking so.

  Kurt had nothing to cheer him up. The achievement of fooling Kupfer twice running (for the signature he faked on the confirmation of his detentions had also escaped notice) was not a triumph. What harm had it done Kupfer? None, none at all. Well, if Kupfer had noticed the fake, had recognized it for what it was and phoned his father, and his father had said in surprise, “I don’t understand, Professor Kupfer. That looks like my signature!” it would certainly have been awkward. But as things stood?

  Nor did Kurt take much satisfaction in the fact that since his treacherous “warning”, Niesset had been avoiding him, that he no longer asked young Gerber questions, even when he was the only one volunteering to answer them, and if Kurt did simply call out an answer he fingered his tie nervously, and that was all. Clearly that red-headed crocodile had taken fright once his malice was activated. But Niesset was denying him the satisfaction of actual capitulation, and preferred to wait in ambush. By ignoring Kurt’s attentive participation in Latin lessons, he positively forced him to turn his attention to something else. And Kurt felt almost ashamed of the eager interest he had been showing, and immersed himself bitterly in the opposite, ostentatiously reading large books in class, doing homework, without even trying to keep these activities secret for the look of the thing. But nothing happened. Niesset, whose conscience pricked him, feared that young Gerber, if given another warning, might return his attention to the lessons and make his mark by giving the teacher some unfortunate reason to remember him.