Young Gerber

by Friedrich Torberg

  We have here five trace points and their co-ordinates. Construct, if you please.

  And they all gape at him, the way the guests up in the studio gaped now.

  An arrogant company. And rather dim-witted at that. Was it something to do with Lizzie? Those are all the problems they have: Lizzie and the lumber room.

  Did it occur to one of them, any single one, to ask me what I’m doing? What burdens I’m carrying about with me? What I drag around?

  And suppose I’d told them? Told them the way it is, without any sense of shame? Suppose I’d come out with it of my own accord?

  They’d shake their heads, baffled, and say: What are you so worked up about? We really thought you were over all this childish stuff. Do you think anyone’s interested? We’ve all been through it. Been through it and forgotten it. We are alive and well. Don’t shout like that.

  Why am I worked up? Why? I have to get worked up because you don’t. Because to you it’s something childish. You’ve all been through it, yes. You’ve seen yourselves being murdered. And now you have forgotten it. You’ve forgotten yourselves, your dead bodies, and you smile. Do you know that your smile is the worst, vilest, most appalling smile there can be? It violates corpses, your own corpses. What was that? Oh, you’re alive and well all the same? Alive? You? No, you stopped living long ago. What they have left of you, what their arrogance did not demand, that’s alive. Alive? A gruesome kind of life. The final moments of a vivisected rabbit in a lab. And look, the experiment always works. They trample over your minds, they bend your backs, they subdue your wills, they duck and dive and deceive you and tear your hearts out of your bodies so that you won’t notice—and you are alive. Alive and smiling. And wondering why someone is shouting in protest.

  Good God, it’s not me shouting! There are a thousand torture victims shouting out of me, with my voice. Please, Professor, may I shout? No, you may not. They’ve sent me all their cries, all of them. Black bats with huge fangs have flown into me. They are hacking at me, churning up my guts. So I have to scream and scream and scream—

  Kurt opens his mouth wide, but nothing comes out of his throat and nothing gets into it, no air, his face swells, he falls on the paving of the road and feels something warm running, in a narrow trickle, down his forehead and over his lips, it doesn’t hurt, he might have been able to stand up, but by now it is some time since he wanted to. He stays lying in the dark, empty alley, lying on the dirty paving in the soft horse droppings where he, the palfrey, lies.

  XII

  The Matura Examination

  IT IS NEARLY one o’clock in the afternoon. There is the sound of muted movement in the corridor of the third floor. Time has been passing too slowly for the students in their last year, and one after another they have gone out. Now only Ditta Reinhard is left, the last of her group to be taking the exam.

  The oral Matura had begun at State High School XVI.

  Downstairs, on the blackboard, a stamped sheet of paper had been hanging for some days. It was signed by the eighth year’s class teacher, the Headmaster of the school and the chairman of the examining board, Schools Inspector Marion. This sheet of paper informed twenty-eight of the students that they were admitted as candidates to take this final school examination. Of the thirty-two who had made up the class at the beginning of the year, then, four were now missing: as well as Benda they were Lewy, Mertens and Zasche. They had failed in Kupfer’s subjects and were not admitted as candidates. Severin, on the other hand, whose situation had seemed very precarious, was admitted. Probably Kupfer was cancelling him out with something similar in another class; and then again, to be admitted to the Matura as a candidate was not the same as passing it. However, it showed that Kupfer’s power was no longer quite so almighty.

  The sequence of exams was also given on the sheet of paper. The girls were given the first time slots of the day, irrespective of alphabetical order. It was not clear why, but as they always had the preference of the teachers no one said a word about it.

  Today the first group were being examined. It consisted of Halpern, Hergeth, Kohl and Edith Reinhard.

  The students had permission to attend the examinations, and they all made use of it. Even Lewy had turned up just before the examining began, when all was quiet, and had settled at his ease into one of the chairs set out for them, with the audible remark, “I want to see what I’m being spared!” Some of the professors wanted Lewy thrown out for that, but the chairman of the examining board dismissed the request, and the oral examinations began. The subjects, in order of testing, were: mathematics with descriptive geometry, Latin or French, German, geography and history. There was a long break before the German exam, and many of the students went home with their textbooks and exercise books for some final revision. It was the last chance.

  Ditta Reinhard came out into the corridor, carefully closed the door behind her and put her tongue out at it. “Yah boo!” she said. She was quickly surrounded and effusively congratulated, for there could be no doubt that she had passed. She thanked the others with a happy smile, and said with fervent relief, “Thank goodness that’s over and done with!” She was envied by all who still had to go in, all whose fate would not be discussed by the examiners until tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow, or even later, all who could not yet wait in suspense as the girls Halpern, Hergeth, Anny Kohl and Edith Reinhard were now waiting. Anny Kohl’s eyes were red-rimmed with tears, for her performance in German had been very moderate, and now she was afraid she would miss out on the Distinction they all hoped for. The others comforted her, telling her not to look on the dark side, she was sure to get Distinction, as she’d see in fifteen minutes or so at the latest—but Anny Kohl was not reassured, she called Mattusch names, complaining that he had always looked down on her, and her parents would never forgive her if she came home without a Distinction. The conversation went round in circles, opinions of the value or otherwise of a Distinction were exchanged, and it turned out that suddenly none of them minded whether or not they got a Distinction, just so long as they passed and it was all over.

  Kurt was leaning on the banister, a little way from the others. He knew what to think of the girls’ attitude. He hated the whole thing. All this funereal pomp as the process of examination, long familiar to them, took place for the last time! The stiff self-importance with which the characters in the comedy were acting! It was enough to make you sick. Kurt shook himself.

  The door of the examination room was opened, and Kupfer put his head out and called the four girls back into the room.

  After a little while, Borchert was the first to come out into the corridor. “Halpern, Hergeth and Edith Reinhard pass with Distinction, Anny Kohl passes with voting unanimous. Well, that’s the first four of you dealt with.”

  The first four could be seen through the open doorway, shaking hands with the chairman of the examining board and the professors, and thanking them; that was the custom. They came out again, the three who had a Distinction beaming happily, Anny Kohl in floods of tears.

  So the first four were dealt with.

  Kurt Gerber goes home. The air is warm, you can hear pigeons cooing on many of the rooftops.

  So this is it. This is the end. This is all it was for.

  Eight years. Have I been dreaming my life story, or is it true? Walther von der Vogelweide was born sometime between 1160 and 1170, they’re not sure whether it was in Bolzano in the Tyrol or Brüx in Bohemia; he praised German morals and customs and German women as the best in the world, and he died in 1228.

  Even Walther von der Vogelweide died.

  We all have to die. Too bad.

  He doesn’t want his father to die. Not yet. His mother sounded so happy about the good effects of his, Kurt’s, last letter. Really only the end of that letter had been important: “Oh, I almost forgot—I passed the written Matura and they’ve admitted me as a candidate for the oral part of the exam. And I suppose if they admit me they’re probably going to let me pass.”


  Of course. There can’t be any doubt about it. It has cost him a great deal of toil and sweat, unnecessary sweat, useless toil, superfluous torment, until that could be definite. Until he realized how ridiculous all his anxiety had been. It won’t go that far, God Almighty Kupfer. You saw that too, just at the right time. It would have been such a joke: Kurt Gerber not admitted as a candidate for the Matura. What a laugh! Why, I may even be passed unanimously.

  If you take a circle with a rectangle inscribed in it, with a tangent between each of its two consecutive sides, you get a new circle.

  I can at least say as much as… as much as… well, for instance, Blank. Let’s not presume too far. As much as Blank. Good.

  Will Blank fail? No, he won’t fail.

  Why would Blank fail? Why would anyone fail?

  But Lewy, Mertens and Zasche weren’t admitted as candidates.

  The bats hack and hack and hack.

  The hyena bows to the bloodhound.

  The palfrey lies in the mud.

  Kupfer is an ox.

  Is there a zoo in Paris? But I won’t be going to the zoo anyway. No, Lisa, I won’t be going there, I’ll be going to the Folies Bergère, and after that I’ll go and have supper, not on my own, and after that—yes, Lisa. I can do that.

  I can do so much. I can prove that the normal layouts of plane figures are related by perspective affinity. The ordinates are the affinities, and the intersection of the planes of the polygon with the upper plane is the axis of affinity. Sit down.

  Mertens’s mother spent a quarter of an hour with Kupfer, crying. She ran after him to the door of the classroom, still crying. Then she took her son’s hand and went away with him. Her son was crying as well.

  The Zasches are poor, and the private tutor was expensive. Zasche wanted a post in the civil service. Now he’ll never get one. The Zasches have no money left, said Klemm, who lives in the same building. Zasche has TB and needs mountain air. He’ll never get that either.

  The bats are churning, churning, churning up my guts.

  My father is as ill as you, Zasche. And he has as much right as you to live, Zasche. But if I fail—oh, nonsense! I won’t even think of it. My father must live. And I must pass the Matura. I’m not bothered about anything else. I must pass. I must.

  Oh no, oh no, go away, bats.

  It can be said of the geological structure of the Carpathians that the outer areas consist predominantly of impure sandstone or flysch. Good old Prochaska. You’re the only one we can rely on!

  The middle path. Yes. It’s not so difficult, not so easy, not so important or unimportant as I sometimes think—after all, it’s only the final examination after eight years of study at high school, isn’t it? All in order. Keep calm, keep calm, keep calm.

  Wednesday, when the group consisting of Brodetzky, Duffek, Gerald and Gerber was to be examined, had come.

  Kurt had not attended the exams on Tuesday. Although Professor Ruprecht had advised him not to revise, he had spent the whole day on revision, and went to sleep very late. Now he woke feeling a little dazed, and looked around his room in the dawn twilight. The clock said a few minutes after six. So he could go back to sleep for another half an hour… Then his eye fell on the dark suit he had put out the evening before—the Matura! He jumped out of bed and stared at his suit as if it were a ghost. For a second his heart stopped beating, his throat was constricted, he couldn’t believe that the time had come; that the idea of the “Matura”, after taking on an almost legendary aura in eight long years, surrounded by all kinds of complex connections, was now actually taking shape, and would soon face him in the form of programmed events.

  Then he reassured himself. Seen at close quarters, it wasn’t so bad. Just something planned, he’d often been here before.

  He dressed, without haste, and sat down for one last time with the exercise books that he had filled in his lessons with Professor Ruprecht. Many places had red lines through them; he read through those with particularly close attention. Professor Ruprecht had pointed them out with a fleeting twinkle in his eye, and said, “You may be asked about that. Take a good look at it.” In fact Professor Ruprecht had sounded much more confident recently than could have been hoped when Kurt first began private coaching with him. When Kurt asked outright after the last lesson what to think of his prospects, Professor Ruprecht had replied, with much veiled meaning in his voice, “Hmm, one never knows for certain. But it ought to be good enough for you to scrape a pass. Well, best of luck, then.”

  Kurt tested himself on formulae, taking them at random, and was pleased to realize that he remembered almost all of them. He wasn’t worried about Latin, he had learnt by heart what he needed to know on the two subjects set by Prochaska (“Geological Structure of the Carpathian Countries” and “The Age of Enlightened Despotism”), so he quickly skimmed a handbook of German literature and then stood up feeling reassured. It will be all right, he thought. It will be all right.

  A sudden ringing sound startled him. What was that? A caller, now, at this time of day? A crazy thought crossed his mind—Kupfer was sending him the problems in advance—such things were not unknown. Why doesn’t the maid go to open the door faster, he thought—faster, faster? There—the maid came in. Kurt saw, trembling, that she was carrying a folded piece of paper.

  “A telegram for the young gentleman!” she said, putting the paper down on the desk and leaving the room.

  Kurt sank into his chair, disappointed, furious with himself for his mistake. Reluctantly, he tore the flimsy form open.

  “KURT DEAR BOY FATHER AND I THINKING OF YOU DAY AND NIGHT WE WISH YOU ALL GOOD LUCK SEND NEWS AT ONCE YOUR MOTHER.” At the top was written: “Deliver before 7.30.”

  Kurt tried to feel pleased, or at least moved. To his shame, he realized that he felt nothing but morose. There they are sitting in the sanatorium, he thought, thinking of me and the stupid Matura. Believing they can do me some good with this telegram. I ought never to have written to tell them the date of the oral exam. Now my father will be on tenterhooks all day. Why did I? I’m an idiot. But that’s what they wanted.

  He crumpled up the telegram. Suddenly he stopped, smoothed it out again and put it in his pocket. All the love in those few words had struck him. “Your mother…” He imagined how it might have been. Maybe his father didn’t know anything. His mother might have kept it secret from him to spare him agitation, might have slipped off to the post office unnoticed to send the telegram; she would have wanted a breath of fresh air, a change from the oppressive anxiety now approaching its end as she hesitantly faced it: “Send news at once…”

  Yes, I’ll send news at once. I’ll come with it myself to enjoy your pleasure.

  As Kurt went in, some of the professors were already sitting at the long green table in the examination room. He went straight to the place reserved for candidates in the corner beside the lectern. Brodetzky greeted him coolly, Duffek was memorizing formulae; only Gerald, who looked pale and as if he hadn’t had enough sleep, smiled slightly and said, “And here is Scheri of the Eighth-Year Stables just coming up to the starting line.”

  “What do the odds look like?” asked Kurt.

  “Not bad. Quite a solid field. Brodetzky has Distinction in the bag, Duffek is tipped for unanimous pass marks, and the two of us to get through with a majority of pass marks.” (This was not entirely true; Gerald, too, was expected to get unanimous pass marks.)

  They could make an advance guess, suggested Kurt. Prochaska, Hussak, Seelig and Filip were sure to be for them, Kupfer, Niesset, Riedl and Waringer were sure to be against. That left Borchert, Mattusch and Marion, the outside examiner. Marion had two votes, didn’t he?

  Yes, and thank God he’s a linguist. He won’t interfere with God Almighty Kupfer’s marking in maths, but he might in Latin! Dangerous, that—cross-questioning! If he was in as bad a mood as yesterday…

  Only now did Kurt remember that he hadn’t been here yesterday. He asked about the results.

 
; Gerald’s eyes were wide with surprise. Didn’t Kurt know yet? The first fatality!

  Kurt felt weak at the knees. Who—who was it? All yesterday’s candidates had been sure to pass!

  Gerald too looked gloomily at the floor. “Poor Blank!” he murmured. “He was shattered afterwards, couldn’t say a word.”

  So it was Blank, Blank of whom Kurt had been thinking recently. Blank, a safe candidate whose breadth of knowledge seemed to say something about him—Blank had failed.

  “The other three got Distinctions,” said Gerald.

  Kurt spat. How was it possible that Blank had failed? “Who stabbed him in the back?” he asked.

  “Three guesses.”

  “And the others? Didn’t anyone—Blank was always—God Almighty Kupfer on his own isn’t enough to—on his own he can’t fail anyone, there must have been several of them—the others—”

  Gerald made a weary gesture. “The others! They all had their own favourites yesterday and were working to get them their Distinctions. The only one they didn’t care about was Blank, if you ask me. And then that idiot did something very silly. When it came to Prochaska’s questions he rattled the answers off at top speed. It was bound to attract attention. He was slow everywhere else, and then in geography and history it suddenly went like clockwork. Prochaska is afraid he’ll be found out, so he’s angry too, and agrees to everything Kupfer says. And once there are four votes against you, the rest isn’t difficult to guess.”

  No, thought Kurt, it certainly isn’t difficult. There you are. Blank has failed.

  Why did Blank fail? It was not at all what everyone had expected.

  Well, for that very reason. That was the thrill of it, the divine sensation. If God Almighty wills it, then Blank fails.

  But if God Almighty wills it, then Gerber, unlike Blank, can… Why not?

  As if Gerald had guessed Kurt’s line of thought, he said, “The outlook’s not so bad for us, you know. Kupfer may be feeling satiated today. I don’t think that on two consecutive days he—well, we’ll soon see. Here he comes.”