When he discovered that for moral reasons he had to resign from his post, he went to the toilet and threw up.
He was made to wait half an hour, then was led into his boss’s room. Three men whom he did not know and who were not introduced to him demanded he give them the names of his friends. Wagner did not understand. Was he being threatened? Was this a joke? He was married, after all. He had married the most beautiful woman in the Reich. Agitated, he got up, and walked back and forth in the room. Did they not believe, then, that that chapter of his life was definitely over? Was he to fall from grace for the sake of an old long-forgotten story? Wagner started to explain. The men brushed his words aside, they wanted names, only names. The calm, even polite way they reprimanded him showed they were serious.
A week later Wagner traveled to his sister in Bavaria. It had been recommended that he stay in the country. There, as in days gone by, he gave piano lessons. He could live fairly well from the interest on his savings and the income from his lessons. His wife, who in the meantime had divorced him, came to visit once. As she was in the midst of rehearsals, she did not stay long. She told him that the play in which Kernig played the lead folded after just two weeks, and had some other juicy anecdotes from the theater world. She also brought him records she had purchased for him. He felt like a convalescent, but did not know which illness he had been diagnosed as having.
Later that month, just as he was helping his sister get the comforters from the linen chest, two men entered the house. They ordered him to go with them. Wagner pulled on a jacket and off he went.
There was another interrogation. They questioned him about famous actors and musicians. Four hours later, he was dismissed and went for a walk in the park. The leaves had turned red and yellow.
The priest persuaded Wagner to give concerts in the church during the week. During one of these concerts he noticed a man among the sparse audience whom he had never seen before, dressed in the clothes of a city man. Although there was no proof, and although he believed the ministry had no farther interest in him, Wagner felt eyes on him from that day forth. Now, even during the music lessons, which he otherwise gave with his heart and soul for he loved children, his thoughts were occupied by the interrogation with the men.
One Tuesday he was picked up and taken to the local police headquarters. He had been on his way to the church, as he had a concert that evening. The head of the police who had received his file, told him that his piano lessons were suspended as of that moment.
Wagner understood that this was meant as a further insult, and decided to accept it without a word. When he was dismissed, he went to the church and till evening practiced the piece he was going to perform.
Dusk fell. Slowly the room filled up. Wagner recognized the local community leader and nodded to him. His sister and some neighbors sat on a wooden pew. After the brief time he always took to pull himself together, Wagner mounted the three steps, twisted down the stool, and took his place at the organ. A short smothered cough pierced the stillness. Wagner raised his arms and touched the white keys with his fingertips.
After the concert he stayed at the organ for a long time, fulfilled and pleasantly drowsy. His reverie was broken by one of the neighbors, who had taken her daughter to church, asking a question. He looked around. His sister, his coat over her arm, gave a sign of impatience. The neighbor’s daughter tapped him on the shoulder. She was a stolid ten-year-old girl, with breasts beginning to jut out already, and her open moist mouth betrayed a sensuality that would be the cause of many a headache for the parents before too long. The neighbor drew nearer.
“But you are …” she said, and pulled at the collar of her daughter, who wanted to be free of her mother’s grasp. She had seen his wedding with the actress in the magazines and asked him whether he still saw the actress in spite of the divorce.
“It’s really for Anna, my daughter, she admires her so much.”
Wagner shook his head. He had not seen his wife for months, nor spoken with her. She was in the movies now, and accompanied in public by the minister.
He got up and went over to his sister. She held out his coat. The neighbor followed. She asked him whether what he had just played was Schumann. She remembered from the magazines that he was a Schumann expert.
“Schubert,” said Wagner, “Schubert.” He had once been seen as a expert interpreter of his songs.
“Ach, Schubert,” said the neighbor.
“No, no,” answered Wagner, holding the door open for the lady, “this composition is by a contemporary musician.”
He switched off the light, and was the last one into the yard. They went along the little path together.
“Did you like it?”
“Yes,” replied the lady, “It’s rather strange, but beautiful all the same.”
“Schoenberg,” said Wagner. “Master of twelve-tone music, Arnold is his first name.”
“Like my brother-in-law,” said the lady, and told him how her Arnold had just suffered a hernia while carrying a crate of beer. “That will teach him a lesson.”
“You are right.” Wagner nodded. “Pain is a good teacher.”
When they got to the front door, he patted the child on the head. Then he took his leave and hurried into the kitchen. As always, his sister followed, out of breath. Wagner unbuttoned his coat, took off his gloves, washed his hands, and sat down at the set table.
Smiling, he unfolded his napkin. He had told the lady the name of the composer, but had failed to mention that he had tumbled from grace and ought not to be played anymore. He had tried to explain this work to her, its greatness, and the freedom that swelled with every note. He was sure that it was this that really led to the ban on the Jew Schoenberg.
“What do you think?” asked Wagner, smiling over at his sister as she placed two steaming plates on the checked tablecloth. “Freedom is something truly beautiful, wouldn’t you agree?”
With a relieved sigh she sat down next to him and reached for her fork. Wagner shook out his napkin. Yes, he thought to himself, beautiful and vast are the paths of freedom.
Lea, or How One Learns to Doubt
When a child learns language, at the same time it
learns what is to be investigated and what is not.
When it learns that there is a cupboard in the room, it
is not taught to doubt whether what it sees later on is
still a cupboard or only a kind of stage set.
— Ludwig Wittgenstein, On Certainty
Something was different today. Lea opened her eyes and looked at the chair next to her bed where yesterday’s clothes lay folded. Daylight penetrated the room through the slits of the blinds, making a geometrical pattern on the wall. She rubbed her eyes with her fists, then scratched her back.
Why was it so quiet? She sat up and listened for footsteps. She knew her mother’s hesitant tread: it sounded as if she had forgotten where she wanted to go after the first step. Lea turned to the wall and felt for the corner of her blanket, sucking her thumb. Any moment now her mother would come through the door and sing, “Wake Up, Sleepyhead.” Then she would tickle her toes.
Lea liked her mother’s smell, and breathed it in deeply with delight when she was allowed in her parents’ bed. Of course! Mother had told her yesterday before bedtime. Today Granny, Grandpa, Aunt Dora, and Uncle Reinhard were coming for dinner.
She got out of bed and stretched. Granny would have a present for her, perhaps the little wooden horse she had asked for, and Uncle Reinhard would forget his Haggadah as he did every year. They would get one from the library. Father would give her the key, and she would get a penny from Uncle Rein-hard for helping him out of a tight spot.
She went into her brother’s room, which was also now the new girl’s bedroom. She had only been with them for a week, and her name was Claudine. The room was empty. Lea opened the door that led into the corridor.
It was always the same. No one helped with the housework. Not even Erika was a help, a
nd now, to top it all off, they had delivered gladiolas. Yellow gladiolas. Cemetery flowers. She had ordered a longish low bouquet for the center of the table and two small round ones for the ends, but certainly no gladiolas, and definitely not yellow ones. She could have put up with white, red, even shades of pink, she was not petty, but not yellow, for God’s sake. Now Erika would have to put out the yellow napkins. Did she have enough? Mrs. Lewinter made her way impatiently through the newly decorated kitchen, letting her gaze rest briefly on the wall cupboard, the spice rack, the sink, and the tap.
A prime example of carelessness. She would have to change shops. It certainly wasn’t the first time that they had tried to sell her the dregs. With a green dishtowel, Mrs. Lewinter opened the oven door and jabbed at the cake. She was too good-natured. Or was she simply not cautious enough? The assistant had taken her order. A strange young man; he had a bitter smell about him. Not unpleasant, just unfamiliar.
Another half hour or so, thought Mrs. Lewinter, then I can take the cake out of the oven. She sank down onto the kitchen chair and drank her second cup of tea.
Why didn’t Mother come? Erika should have called for her, too. Breakfast was probably over long ago. Lea was not in a bad mood. No, she was not. She gave the door a slight push and went into the corridor, which she hated because it was dark, had various turnoffs and blind stretches; she especially hated it when she wanted to get into her parents’ bed at night. She halted in front of the electric meter and turned back. She had forgotten to put on her slippers. Mother had forbidden her to go barefoot through the apartment, lest she catch cold.
She liked being sick. Mother brought her pieces of cut-up apple and made her favorite food: tomato soup with boiled white rice that floated on the surface of the soup bowl, like a fleet of white sailboats in a red sea. With her tongue she pressed each grain against the roof of her mouth.
Lea pushed open the kitchen door. Maybe Mother would let her have a bit of chocolate cake. Erika had baked it the night before. If I could have a glass of milk with it, thought Lea … but she knew she would not even be allowed to lick the extra chocolate icing off the side of the plate. The cake was to remain intact throughout the day, then in the evening Mother would cut it, with all eyes trained on it. Lea stretched, went up to Mother, and was taken in her arms.
Since the birth of her son, Mrs. Lewinter had worried about Lea’s behavior. When she came home with the newborn child in her arms, her daughter had greeted her by biting her hand. Hours later she could still feel the pain. Astonished, she looked at those little red indentations again and again. Her daughter’s violent reaction had taken her aback. The first weeks had been difficult. Too much to take in, she thought, drinking down the last of the bitter coffee. She would have liked to sweeten it, but restrained herself in the face of the sumptuous dinner that evening.
Worst of all was the thumb-sucking. How many tears, how many promises and presents had it cost to wean her off that habit.
She did not delude herself. She saw the chubby legs and the frizzy hair, but that could still change, and of course the nose Lea inherited from her father: it sat enthroned, big and awkward, on the little one’s face.
Mrs. Lewinter pushed the salt shaker to the middle of the table and looked at her daughter. She pushed back her chair.
“Sit up straight, and stop swinging your legs.”
She went to the cupboard next to the oven, opened the baking drawer, cut a large triangular slice of cake, and took it to her daughter at the table.
Thank you, dear God, thank you for making Erica burn the cake. Lea pulled the plate to the edge of the table. She wanted to eat the slice very slowly. First the icing, then the top layer of sponge, then the cream, and then the base. She liked the spicy taste. It made her think of the time she and Father went on a picnic together in the vacation. They had baked potatoes in the camp-fire. She would go into his study soon, for he usually took a break around now. With the help of her fingers, she counted the time on the kitchen clock. Ten minutes, she thought, and probed her front tooth with her tongue. It was loose and soon would fall out.
“Can I go and see Father now?” Lea put her plate in the sink.
She looked questioningly at her mother, who was making little balls out of yellow mush. In the evening they would float next to the flecks of fat she hadn’t been able to spoon out of the chicken soup.
“First of all this little chocolaty monkey is going to get washed.”
Her mother held her hands under the cold stream of water and sprayed Lea. She loved the expression on her daughter’s face when she was disappointed.
“My little messy monkey. My sweet little monkey. Mama’s little angel is going to get washed now.”
Lea buried her face in her mother’s dark-blue dressing gown and fiddled with its belt.
Somehow everything had sorted itself out. Lea had calmed down after a few weeks. Her birthday party had certainly helped. She could still picture the magician’s furious face, coming into the living room where she and the other mothers were sipping coffee. In whining tones he had complained that her daughter had encouraged the other children into taking apart his case and props to see whether or not he was a real magician.
Mrs. Lewinter smiled. She gave him twice the normal rate so as to avoid haggling with him in front of the other ladies. Although she didn’t feel he deserved it.
It had been a stressful day. With a corner of her dressing gown she wiped the steam from the mirror above the sink. She tried to remember what little Beatrice’s mother had told her about that man. A careless, slovenly woman. Gossip, gossip, gossip, thought Mrs. Lewinter, and all that from the mouth of such a tart. She soaped her daughter’s back.
“Behind the ears too, my angel. Mother sees everything, hears everything, and smells everything, just like the three monkeys.”
“No, not smell, the third monkey holds his mouth shut, not his nose, so that he doesn’t have to speak.”
Lea got out of the bathtub, leaving a puddle on the white tiled floor. Her mother wrapped her in a towel and rubbed her body dry.
“Quickly into your room and put on your undershirt for me so you don’t catch cold again.”
Lea hated undershirts. Nor did she like tights, hats with ribbons that tickled her neck, or shoes with buckles. But there was no getting around her mother today. She could tell by the way her lips were pressed together. She would really have to watch out. She put on her bathrobe, took a deep breath, and ran into her room.
That child hadn’t an ounce of grace. Other girls of Lea’s age were already young ladies. She herself had been coquettish, too. As long as she could remember, she had always wanted to please boys, and later men.
A woman has to take care of how she looks. Her appearance is her weapon. Cunning was part of it, too, of course. Plenty of cunning, diplomacy, and a willingness to compromise.
Mrs. Lewinter put her hands in the pockets of her dressing gown and left the bathroom. Yes, you had to compromise. What dreams she had had. But that’s natural when you’re young. Then her husband had come along. No handsome prince on a white steed, but with a car at least. What was Erika up to now? Mrs. Lewinter opened the door to the new nanny with her son. He waved his arms in the air when his mother looked at him. How helpless these little creatures are, how affectionate. She would feed him lunch today herself.
At least three hours had gone by, and her father had still not come out of his study. And the new nanny was busy with her brother, Erika was not there, and her mother was in the kitchen. Lea was hungry. If Erika at least would come to play with her …
Lea plumped up her pillow, shook out the heavy down quilt, smoothed the sheet, and placed her folded nightgown under her pillow, as her mother had taught her a week ago.
With a sweeping movement she threw the stripy daytime cover over the bed, took two steps back, and contemplated her handiwork.
Something was off-kilter. She tugged at the right hand corner of the quilt: she wanted the blue and yellow st
ripes to run parallel to the line of the bed frame. Now there was too much material on one side, and not enough on the other. The cover was difficult.
Laboriously, Lea heaved the bed from the wall to get in at the left side, and her eyes fell on a blue book cover. Using two fingers she fished out the volume, which she had been looking for all week, from the narrow gap between the bed and the wall, and threw herself on the bed.
Now Erika could take command. Mrs. Lewinter gave up the helm. She left the ship. Not a sinking ship: up to this point everything had worked out better than expected. No dirty underwear on the bathroom floor, no leftover food on forgotten plates that she would discover at the very moment the guests were arriving. And with a bit of luck, nothing would be eaten ahead of time.
There had been that incident with the cucumber…. She had planned to decorate the fish with it and Erika had painstakingly cut it into wafer-thin slices, then twirled them into little spirals. And her husband had simply picked at them on the tray while reading the newspaper.
He could not understand her fury at all. He found the whole thing ridiculous. Of course, he never understood why she got worked up. A couple of friends are dropping in. We don’t need a cold buffet. It’s just the family. Just the family! It was laughable. Particularly the family! But if everything weren’t so clean and tidy, if there wasn’t always something to eat… where did he suppose all the meals came from, and the freshly ironed and starched shirts?
She kneaded her neck with her left hand. She had that headache again. It always came on when she was anxious. I could do with a hot bath, she thought, and decided to take a nap.
Mrs. Lewinter massaged cream into her neck with large circling motions, and energetically stretched her chin upward. Five minutes of facial gymnastics a day were enough, the beautician had said. A, O, I, E, Mrs. Lewinter articulated the vowels loudly and clearly. This was meant to keep wrinkles at bay.
The Inventory: A Novel Page 8
