Young Gerber

by Friedrich Torberg

  Kupfer had entered the room, wished all his colleagues good day and then turned his attention to his folder.

  Kurt stared fixedly at him. He was painfully aware that he was looking for some good sign rather than expressing his own hatred and dislike. But not a muscle moved in Kupfer’s face.

  The other eighth-year students, who had been waiting around in the corridor until now, came in, waved and nodded to the candidates for examination, sat down and then stood up again; Marion, a thin, dry, stiff man in a frock coat of old-fashioned cut, came into the examination room in creaking shoes. The professors also rose for him.

  At a slight inclination of his head everyone sat down again except for the four candidates, who remained on their feet. It was perfectly quiet in the room; by the third day the procedure had still lost very little of its alarming solemnity.

  Kurt stood there looking pale, his heart thudding wildly. The Matura! Here it was, now, really and truly! A thousand thoughts flashed through his mind. Formulae, his parents, what would happen now, Ruprecht, Blank, Paris, more formulae, what do I look like, my father… hush, hush. But his headlong terror of what was to come didn’t leave him. He felt like running away, far away, knowing nothing more about all this, it was all the same to him, just get away, quick—and then Kupfer’s voice held him spellbound.

  “Mr Chairman, may I introduce you to today’s candidates?”

  He had risen to his feet and was pointing to the four. They obeyed his gesture, walking in single file, and went up to the chairman of the examining board, who shook hands with them and nodded slightly as their names were given: Brodetzky—Duffek—Gerald—Gerber. Then they went back to their places.

  “Brodetzky!” called Kupfer, and as Brodetzky hastily came up he handed him a sheet of paper. It contained the mathematical questions. You had to sit down with them in a place entirely separate from all the rest, known as “the electric chair”, where you had a few minutes to study them.

  Brodetzky had propped his head on one hand and was moving his lips quietly; anyone could see that he was preparing to answer. The room was still very quiet. Some of the professors exchanged remarks sotto voce.

  Even before the time officially allowed to study the questions came to an end, Brodetzky stood up and signed to Kupfer that he was ready. Duffek took his place.

  The oral examination began.

  Kupfer took the sheet of paper from Brodetzky, who was already standing by the blackboard, and read out loud the first question as if it were entirely new to him:

  “The radius of a sphere inscribed in a dodecahedron is fifty-seven centimetres.” (RGD = 57 cm, wrote Brodetzky). “What does side a of the dodecahedron measure?”

  Kupfer put the piece of paper down on the lectern, clasped his hands behind his back and began pacing up and down.

  Brodetzky cleared his throat. Then he picked up the triangle, sketched the figure as described without a word, and only when he had done that did he begin speaking in a knowing tone of voice. He confidently described things of which Kurt knew so little that he soon gave up following.

  Thank God, as it was Brodetzky’s examination and not his he did not have to attend to it and keep up with it all.

  All the same, it confused him that he had no idea what Brodetzky was talking about. Suppose… no, Brodetzky was a student destined for Distinction, so he’d have to solve particularly difficult problems. Kupfer was doing him justice.

  Kurt nudged Gerald. “What’s this all about?”

  “Spherical trigonometry,” Gerald whispered back. “Bloody difficult. I haven’t the foggiest. Could turn out all right.”

  Kurt was about to ask something else when he sensed a glance directed at him. He turned round. Professor Seelig had a finger to his lips, telling him to keep quiet.

  Kurt quickly nodded, and looked with interest at the board, where Brodetzky was just neatly underlining the solution of the first exercise. “a = 40,675 cm”, read Kurt, without understanding it. Of course, I must keep quiet, he thought. How careless of me. If Marion had seen me, or Kupfer—I don’t want to start by making myself unpopular. Modest and unobtrusive, that’s the best way.

  It reassured him slightly that he knew one professor was on his side. For a brief while he felt a surge of hope and strength.

  They disappeared at once when Duffek was called up to the board, and wrote out an exercise in progressive calculation. And Professor Ruprecht had specially indicated that as a field of interest! That would be it for today, then. What was going to happen to him?

  Looking round, Kurt saw that he was on his own. Gerald was sitting in the electric chair, bent over his piece of paper, busily making notes.

  It would soon be Kurt’s turn.

  Sweat stood out on his brow, and his hand was trembling so badly that when Kupfer handed him his paper, he twice failed to take hold of it.

  Then he was sitting in the lonely electric chair, with the paper lying folded in front of him, just as he had received it. He dared not open it.

  But, after all, he must—Gerald was now in the middle of his first question.

  Kurt skimmed his own questions. It was almost uncanny that realizing he didn’t understand them left him indifferent.

  “No idea,” he whispered to himself. “Not the faintest idea.”

  He scanned the paper again. Of course, this was bound to happen. Not a trace of progressions or of surfaces of the second order, the other field he had hoped for. A calculation of interest on a sum of money, and a construction exercise which looked as if you were meant to answer it algebraically. Useless to think about it now. He was lost.

  Kurt looked at the board. Gerald had just faltered slightly, and Kupfer had to prompt him. Gerald was stammering, the examining board noticed, Marion made a remark, Kupfer responded: yes, quite right, the candidate ought to have mastered such a simple thing, hmm, hmm—the situation looked bad for Gerald now that he had begun to waver… but all of a sudden (you could almost see the idea that would rescue him dawn on his mind) he gritted his teeth, put his hand in front of his eyes and then recited a formula that Kupfer acknowledged with a lofty, “At last!” Gerald was safe, for now anyway, and he wrote out the answer to his second problem.

  The examiners were overcome by tedium again. Some of the professors were whispering; Mattusch once even uttered a short bark of asthmatic laughter. Kurt cast him a glance of blazing fury. That self-satisfied bastard! Laughing. Laughing now, while there’s a candidate sweating with effort—and Mattusch laughs. Well, that’s nothing new in him. Like a professional layer-out of the dead who feels nothing at the sight of a corpse. It’s just his business, he’s used to it. And we’re at the mercy of insensitive brutes like that.

  Oh God, there’s no point in thinking like this. I must prepare. Gerald will soon be finished, and I’ll be sitting there… unable to help myself. And you… (Kurt glanced at the row of other eighth-year students listening)… you, my fellow students, sit there and you can’t help me either. So close, so close, within touching distance—and there’s nothing you can do for me, nothing at all, you’ll have to watch me go to the slaughter, you’re helpless, my friends, isn’t that dreadful for you, aren’t you shedding tears, friends, comrades, here I sit, look at me, why don’t you look at me, my good friends, I love you all… They don’t want to look at me, their hearts would break, they can’t help me… Why are there tears in your eyes, Kaulich, your glasses are steaming up, Kaulich, look this way, do, Kaulich… Kaulich!

  Feverishly, Kurt wills Kaulich to look at him. He passes his hand over his own eyes—a brief attack of derangement, he supposes—Kaulich wasn’t shedding any tears—of course not—and he can help me, he can—

  Silently, convulsively, Kurt moves his lips: “What is the tangential equation of the hyperbola?” he is trying to convey, and he repeats it three times: “Tan-gent-ial-equation-of-the-hyperbola!”

  Kaulich indicates by signs that he doesn’t understand, winks hard at Kurt, narrowing his eyes, cups his ear in hi
s hand—it’s no use. In addition, Niesset suddenly turns and sees what is going on, darts a venomous glance first at Kurt, then at Kaulich, and Kurt quickly looks down at his paper. “And now, finally…” he hears Kupfer saying, finally, finally, Gerald will be finished in a minute and I still have no idea, none at all…

  A formula suddenly flutters into his mind and clings there, humming:

  It is the formula summing up the geometric series. Armed with this formula alone, and knowing that it is useless to him, Kurt goes up to the lectern.

  Kupfer looks at him, his lower lip drooping slightly in his otherwise expressionless face. And Kurt—what’s come over him?—Kurt does not look down at the floor, Kurt looks at Kupfer standing there expectantly in the same way, lower lip drooping slightly. Suddenly he is perfectly calm; he feels so light-hearted, free, almost cheerful, he would like to indulge in some schoolboy prank, only what—ah, he knows what. Isn’t it the candidate’s right to answer the questions in whatever order he likes? Of course it is, yes. Obviously no one makes use of that right, who’s going to make use of it when he’s at the examiners’ mercy—but it says so in the rules for the Matura examination, yes, and he also remembers that other silly sentence: “Any candidate who tries overtly or covertly cribbing—” ha, ha, of course cribbing is always covert, you’re not going to show anyone what you’re doing, are you? Those idiots don’t even understand their own language, and they sit in judgement on our Matura exam—right, I’ll tackle the second question first, here we go!

  And Kurt lets Kupfer hold out his hand, goes up to the board with the paper and reads out the first question:

  “Show the equations of the asymptotes of the hyperbola 4x–9y2 = 36, tracing them large and clear, and calculate their angle with the abscissal axis.”

  Kurt has written out that 4x–9y2 = 36 large and clear. There it is, 4x–9y2 = 36 on the blackboard. Large and clear.

  4x–9y2 = 36.

  What does it mean? Who wrote that out?

  What does what you have written out there mean, Kurt Gerber? What is x, what is y, what is the question, Kurt Gerber? Why are you staring at those signs that you wrote out yourself, Kurt Gerber?

  That sense of freedom is gone, his mischievous wish for a prank is gone, all gone. What you wrote down says: 4x–9y2 = 36. Gone, all gone.

  You’re done for, Kurt Gerber. You wanted to do the second problem first, and you don’t know how to do either the second or the first. There you stand, Kurt Gerber, helpless, broken, destroyed by your own lunacy.

  And a professor is standing beside you, it’s Kupfer, he stands there looking very surprised; now he says very calmly:

  “If I remember it correctly, that is not how your first question runs. Give me your paper.”

  And you will give him the paper, too, Kurt Gerber. Oh yes, you will. Here.

  Kupfer turns to the examiners, to Marion, annoyance in his eyes and at the same time amusement at such brazen conduct on the part of a candidate in danger. Marion makes a gesture that Kurt does not understand, but it looks to him like an exchange of the mutual confirmation of something discussed in advance. Maybe they think I’m crazy, thinks Kurt, they expected something like this so they won’t hold it against me. Or maybe—I wish he’d say something!

  “The first problem runs—?” says Kupfer, handing him the paper back.

  Now everything in Kurt and around him seems unsteady. The people and objects in the room look to him blurred, and then clear again: Kupfer is staring into space with indifference, the other professors sit bending forward, here and there he sees a sarcastic smile. The class itself is frozen rigid.

  Kurt turns his face to look at Kupfer. It is not his mouth speaking. A pair of lips which happens to be available to him by chance opens, and words come out:

  “Professor Kupfer, sir, I have a right to answer the questions in any order I like. It says so in the examination rules.”

  Kurt began speaking quietly, his voice became steadily faster and louder and finally, although it is shaking, there is unconcealed defiance in it, a strange mixture of savagery and resignation.

  He looks at the examination room again, seeking support, some recognition that, for once, a student is standing up for his rights—a weak student at that, and furthermore in such a situation—but there is no sign of approval. Seelig, Hussak and Filip are regretfully shaking their heads, Riedl lets out an indignant laugh, some of the class sitting at the back are tapping their foreheads.

  Inspector Marion, confronted by something entirely unexpected, looks at Kupfer, and as Kupfer says nothing he himself says very casually, “Why, as a matter of interest, don’t you want to work out the answer to the first question?”

  It was put in such a way that you couldn’t have given any answer, even if you knew one. But Kurt doesn’t know one. He stares at his shoes.

  “Please do not hold us up, then, and work out the answer to the first question!” says Marion, irritated. “The candidate before you has cost us a good deal of time already.”

  Kurt wipes the numbers off the board. The blackboard sponge has already dried up, is dusty, it leaves only a few damp streaks on the board, which is smeared with chalk—that will damage my prospects, too, thinks Kurt; and he reads out, in an expressionless voice: “A man pays a sum of 2,000 dollars at the beginning of every year for twelve years, so that from the 20th year on he can obtain a pension at the end of every year for a period of ten years. First calculate how large this pension will be, at 4% interest.”

  “It’s a compound interest sum,” says Kurt.

  “Yes.”

  “A compound interest sum…”

  Silence. An icy silence. It eats its way into Kurt, fills the void in him, brings him out in a cold sweat; he clearly feels the beads of sweat form on his forehead one by one, trickling over his cheeks, but he doesn’t wipe them away; maybe they’ll see me sweating with fear and take pity on me:

  “Well? Work it out!”

  Someone has cleared his throat, someone has closed a book. Time is hot on my heels. Quick!

  Kurt begins writing on the board, slowly, carefully, to gain time. He wants time back, not pressing him on. Eight years—it doesn’t all depend on a few minutes more or less, or so you might think. The board of examiners thinks otherwise.

  “A little faster, perhaps!” says Marion sharply.

  Yes. I’ve done it. There it is.

  Kupfer looks up in surprise. “What does that mean?”

  Oh, Kurt knows exactly what that means, it is the only thing he does know, and he’s not going to toss out the information just like that. He wants them to know that he understands what he’s talking about. He begins, in a strong voice: “The sum of a geometric series Sn, the sum of the first n-terms in the series—”. Then he stops short.

  Why am I telling them this stuff? What do I think I’m doing with the formula summing up the geometric series? I’m supposed to be calculating the amount of a pension—

  “We don’t want to hear about that,” says Kupfer. “That doesn’t belong in this paper. We are not interested in it.”

  Why aren’t you interested in it? How can you say a thing like that, Professor Kupfer? You ought to be interested in it. Just look, Sn consists of the way you add up the terms, really interesting, a1 + a1q + a1q2 plus, and so on, and then a couple of dots, like this…

  “Very well,” says Kupfer suddenly, “you’re right.” He comes closer to the board. “So this is the formula for the sum of a geometric series, correct. And now, think hard, Gerber: how do you relate this formula to the calculation of compound interest?”

  Kurt thinks he is dreaming. Is this possible? Is it true? Kupfer spoke without any hatred in his voice, benevolently, almost kindly, he wants to help me, and idiot that I am, I’m making it so difficult for him… I’ve not done you justice, Professor Kupfer, sir. I ask you, I humbly ask you to forgive me!…

  “Please think: in what relation do they stand?” asks Kupfer in the same tone of voice.

&n
bsp; Dear heaven, in what relation? Relation… nothing going on here relates to anything… Lisa… Kupfer… in what relation do you stand to Lisa Berwald… no, no. Quiet. Think.

  Kurt looks at the board, his eyes narrowed, his fingers clutching the chalk so hard that it breaks—he can’t think of anything.

  “But Gerber!” says Kupfer, coming closer. “Think about it. The capital assets E are made up of the final values of the individually paid contributions. And what are those contributions but—well, what?”

  Jerkily, Kurt lowers his head, as if to make the answer come out. Kurt stands there with his mouth open; if he could only read something from Kupfer’s lips, a little hint, then, he feels, it would all come back to him… what are they but… but… there, yes, he has found it:

  “But the terms in a geometric progression,” says Kupfer—yes, Kupfer says it just as Kurt was remembering it, and Kurt says it at almost the same time, slapping his brow angrily but with a smile: how could I forget something so simple, of course, the terms in a geometric progression, and then…

  “Right,” says Kupfer. “And now it’s not so difficult.”

  Kurt feels he is in safe hands, he nods, shamefaced; no, now it’s not so difficult, now—

  “Now the final assets are the sum of those terms,” says Kupfer again, with an encouraging nod. Kurt repeats it; it was just what he had been going to say, exactly that, you didn’t really have to tell me, Professor Kupfer, I can manage by myself, it’s so nice of you to help me out, but—

  But Kupfer goes on helping him out, stands beside Kurt with a friendly smile, he has already written just what Kurt was about to write, chalk ready in his hand:

  And he continues in the same kindly tone, urging Kurt to think, it’s not so difficult, he’ll soon find the answer… and Kurt always does, and just as he is about to say so Kupfer has done it a fraction of a second ahead of him, and then he turns helpfully to Kurt, with that friendly smile; well, how does it go on—like this, right? Yes… but I was going to say so, Professor Kupfer, sir, why won’t you let me speak? I know it all, sir, yes, that’s it,