Traveler of the Century

by Andres Neuman

  The discussion went on as before. Only now Hans was smirking, and the snuff spilt out of Rudi’s snuffbox.

  Yes indeed, my friends, Frau Pietzine was saying, for me there is no better entertainment than reading. Is there anything more amusing and absorbing than a novel? (I see you are much entertained by reading, dear Madame, Professor Mietter said, sarcastically.) Just so, Professor, just so! Culture has always been a great solace to me. I am forever telling my children, as I did their deceased father, may God keep him in His glory—nothing is equal to a book, nothing will teach you as much, it doesn’t matter what you read, just read! But you know how young people are these days, they are only interested in their friends, their games, their dances. (But are we sure? Herr Levin said. Ahem, are we sure it does not matter what we read?) Well, books cannot be bad, can they? (With all due respect, Álvaro said, I think the idea is an ingenuous one, of course there are mediocre, futile, even harmful books, in the same way there are atrocious plays and worthless paintings.) Well, I don’t know, viewed in that light … I agree with Monsieur Urquiho’s appraisal, said Professor Mietter. Readers should be educated to reject inferior books. There is nothing terrible about that. I ask myself why we revere anything in print, however nonsensical. (But who decides? protested Hans. Who decides which books are nonsensical? The critics? The press? The universities?) Oh, please don’t start telling us that all opinions are relative, let’s show some nerve, someone has to have the courage to (I am not suggesting, interrupted Hans, that all opinions are equally worthy, yours, for instance, Professor, are far more authoritative than mine, what I am wondering is who is responsible for deciding where a work sits in the literary hierarchy, the existence of which I do not deny), very well, Herr Hans, if you do not consider it an impertinence on my part, I suggest a rather simple equation—the responsibility should lie with the philologist rather than the grocer, and the literary critic rather than the goatherd. Does that seem to you like a good place to start? Or should we discuss the matter first with the craftsmen’s guild? (Professor, said Sophie, isn’t your tea growing cold?) Thank you, my dear, in a moment. (We needn’t consult them, retorted Hans, but I assure you if a philologist were to spend even half-an-hour examining the life of a craftsman, it would transform his literary opinions.) Yes, my dear, a little more please, it has gone cold.

  One contemporary novelist, Professor Mietter went on, has suggested that the novel, yes, with sugar, please, the modern novel mirrors our customs, that ideas are irrelevant and only observation matters, and everything that happens in life is worth writing about. An interesting notion, and one that accounts for the prevailing bad taste, wouldn’t you agree? Any arrant nonsense or folly is worth relating simply because it happened. This idea, said Sophie, of the modern novel as a mirror is much bandied about these days, but what if we ourselves were the mirrors? I mean, what if we, the readers, were a reflection of the customs and events narrated in the novel? This, Hans concurred, seems to me a far more attractive idea, it means each reader becomes a kind of book. My dear, said Rudi, hastening to show his appreciation and seizing her hand, it’s brilliant, I completely agree. The idea, Álvaro remarked, was already invented by Cervantes.

  When the salon-goers began discussing Spain, Rudi glanced at the clock, stood up and said: If you will excuse me … Herr Gottlieb rose to his feet, and the other guests immediately followed suit. Elsa started towards the hallway, but Sophie restrained her with a gesture and went to fetch Rudi’s hat and cape herself. Rudi took the opportunity to say: This confounded dinner I have to attend is quite untimely. Believe me, I have found these discussions absolutely captivating. It has been a pleasure, meine Damen und Herren, a veritable pleasure. We shall meet again soon, perhaps this coming Friday. And now, with your kind permission …

  Hans had to admit that the moment Rudi moved from the realm of debate into that of gestures, manners and pleasantries, he exuded an extraordinary self-assurance. Waiting there, solid, radiant, statuesque, Rudi Wilderhaus gave the impression of being able to stand still for an hour without feeling the slightest discomfort. When Sophie came back with his hat and cape, Herr Gottlieb walked over and whispered a few words to them which made his whiskers soften, and the three of them disappeared into the corridor. Hans stared after them until all that remained were wisps of pipe smoke drifting up in the air, the squeak of patent-leather shoes and the rustle of fabric. The guests glanced at one another, suddenly self-conscious, and the Indeeds, Anyways, Do-you-sees and What-an-agreeable-evenings ricocheted around the room. Then they fell silent, helping themselves from the trays Elsa was passing around. Professor Mietter began leafing through a book next to one of the candelabras. Álvaro winked at Hans, as if to say “We’ll talk later”. Amid all this silence, Hans was surprised by the sudden fit of loquaciousness that overcame the usually taciturn Frau Levin—she was talking rapidly into her husband’s ear without pausing for breath, gesticulating furiously, while he nodded, gazing down at the floor. Hans strained to hear what Frau Levin was saying, but only managed to make out the odd word here and there. One of them drew his attention and made him a little uneasy—he thought it was his name.

  When Sophie re-entered the room, the guests came to life and once more the place was filled with laughter and voices. Sophie asked Bertold to light extra candles and Elsa to tell Petra, the cook, to serve some bowls of chicken broth. Then she went to sit down and the salon-goers gathered around the low table. Hans thought to himself that without a doubt Sophie possessed the sublime gift of movement—nothing around her remained still or unresponsive. Just then, Herr Gottlieb also came back, flopped into his armchair and sat twirling his whiskers round a plump finger. Although the conversation went on as before, Hans noticed that Sophie was avoiding his gaze in the round mirror. Far from unsettling him, Hans interpreted this sudden reticence as a good sign—this was the first time her fiancé and he had been together with her.

  So you also know Spain, Monsieur Hans? Frau Pietzine said excitedly. I can’t imagine how you have found the time to visit so many different countries! There’s really nothing to it, my dear Madame Pietzine, Hans replied, it is simply a question of sitting in coaches and on boats. Judging from the numerous voyages you have described to us, Professor Mietter said sardonically, I suppose you must have spent your entire life traveling. Yes, in a way, I have, replied Hans, refusing to rise to the bait, and burying his nose in his teacup. In an attempt to ease the tension, Sophie turned to Álvaro and said: My dear friend, perhaps you would like to tell us a few things about today’s literature in your own country. I am not sure there is much literature of today, Álvaro grinned. We are still catching up with the Enlightenment. Take Moratín, for example, does the name ring a bell? I am not surprised, he crossed the Alps and half of Germany without learning anything about Sturm und Drang. To be fair, Frau Pietzine chipped in, being à la page is not everything, is it? You cannot deny the allure of the Spanish villages, the charm of the common people, their festive spirit, their. Madame, Álvaro cut in, do not remind me! I have heard, said Herr Gottlieb, plucking his pipe from between his teeth, that religious fervour is purer than it is here, more heartfelt (father, sighed Sophie). And the music, Professor Mietter added, the music emanates from a different source, from the people themselves, from the very heart of their traditions and …

  Álvaro listened to his Germanic fellow salon-goers with a sad smile on his lips.

  My friends, my dear friends, Álvaro said, taking a deep breath, I can assure you I have never in all my life come across as many Gypsies, guitars and pretty maids as I have in the paintings of English artists or the journals of German adventurers. As you see, my country is so extraordinary that half the poets in Europe, or Romantics as they are now known, write about Spain, while we Spaniards learn about ourselves from reading them. We write little. We prefer to be written about. And what horrors! The young men of Madrid seducing women with song! Young lasses killing each other or themselves because they are hot-headed Mediterraneans!
Workmen idling on balconies, preferably in Andalusia! Religious bigots, working-class women from Lavapiés built like Amazons, enchanted inns, antiquated carriages! Well, the latter are real enough. I understand the appeal of such folklore, provided it relates to a foreign country.

  A silence descended over the room, as though they had all been watching a soap bubble float to the floor.

  At ten o’clock sharp, Herr Gottlieb heaved himself out of his chair. He went to wind up the clock and said goodnight to his guests.

  In view of the rather gloomy atmosphere hanging over the gathering, Sophie suggested they devote the rest of the evening to music and performance, an idea warmly received by everyone, in particular Professor Mietter, who would occasionally accompany her in a Mozart or Haydn duet, and even the odd sonata by Boccherini (the even was Professor Mietter’s word). Sophie sat at the piano and Elsa fetched the professor’s cello case. Before the music began, Elsa was able to sit down for the first time since the beginning of the soirée, and for the first time, too, she appeared completely attentive. She ground a few crumbs into the carpet with the toe of her shoe—the crumbs turned to dust with the first stroke of Professor Mietter’s bow. Hans could not take his eyes off Sophie’s supple, tapping fingers.

  The duet proceeded peacefully, disrupted only by abrupt nods from Professor Mietter, to which Sophie responded with discreet half smiles. When they had finished and been applauded by their fellow salon-goers, Sophie insisted Frau Pietzine come to the piano. Flattered by her entreaties, Frau Pietzine duly resisted, and then, just as Sophie appeared to back down, agreed, blushing theatrically. There was further applause—Frau Pietzine’s necklace came away from her bosom and swung in mid-air for a moment. Then she turned to the piano, and with a clatter of rings and bracelets began to sing excruciatingly.

  What did you think? asked the flushed Frau Pietzine. With great astuteness, Sophie answered: Your playing was excellent. In an attempt to rouse Frau Levin from her stupor, Sophie suggested she and Frau Pietzine play a piece for four hands. Everyone declared this an excellent idea, and their implorings ended in a burst of applause when the flustered Frau Levin rose from her seat, glancing around her as though surprised to find herself on her feet. She made her timorous way towards the piano. Frau Pietzine’s generous hips slid along the stool. Backs straight, shoulders tensed, the two women tackled Beethoven with more ardour than was seemly. Contrary to Hans’s expectations, Frau Levin was an excellent pianist, disguising her companion’s mistakes and compensating for her missed notes. During the recital, Herr Levin’s eyes remained fixed on the piano stool, not quite on his wife’s skirts.

  The soirée ended just before midnight with a selection of the classics. Frau Pietzine requested Molière, Álvaro suggested Calderón and Professor Mietter demanded Shakespeare. Herr Levin came up with Confucius, but there was no book by Confucius in the house. Hans asked for nothing and was content to study the down on Sophie’s arms, which changed shape, colour and (he assumed) taste according to the candlelight. Sophie was unanimously elected to recite the chosen passages. Hans was very curious to listen to her, because not only did it enable him to gaze at her with impunity, but he also had the idea that from listening to someone read aloud it was possible to read their erotic inflections. What Hans did not know was that Sophie shared his opinion. This was why Hans’s looks, digressions, slips of the tongue and hesitations made her uneasy, but more than that, if she were honest, they disturbed her.

  Hans felt that, although Sophie’s voice was not beautiful, she modulated it perfectly, achieving a convincing tone without being strained, avoiding sounding on the one hand bland and on the other affected, maintaining a controlled delivery, her lips slightly pursed, deliberately threading together the inflections, lingering on the more emphatic ones and skimming over the softer ones, alternating between the long and the short sounds with a rocking movement, modifying the punctuation to suit her breathing rather than any grammatical requirements, savouring each pause without drawing it out. In short, being sensual, not in order to please her audience, but for her own enjoyment. Hans thought: This is terrible. He half-closed his eyes and in his imagination tried to enter Sophie’s throat, to float inside it, to be part of her air. The air undulating in her neck like warm liquid. She recites as though she were drinking tea, thought Hans. The comparison struck him as ludicrous, and his mouth felt suddenly dry. Moistening his lips with his tongue he realised he had become distracted from the texts again. Sophie must have partly been able to read Hans’s thoughts, for when she had finished the last but one paragraph, she fell silent, closed the book on her forefinger marking the page, passed it to Hans and said: My dear Monsieur, pray give us the pleasure of hearing you recite the final passage. With that, she smoothed the creases in her dress, daintily crossed her leg and settled back in her chair, gazing at Hans and smiling provocatively. Suddenly she fixed her eyes on the succulent bulge of Hans’s throat, a nest of words. Go ahead, said Sophie, savouring the thought, we’re listening.

  Standing beside the door, neither was able to utter the last word. All the other guests had gone and both Sophie and Hans had bade them farewell one by one without moving, behaving as though they had already taken leave of one another yet postponing their goodbye indefinitely. A gentle breeze seemed to be blowing between them, making them quiver. For want of kissing her violently and putting a stop to the unbearable tension, Hans vented his frustration by being aggressive and referring to her at every opportunity as Frau. Fräulein, corrected Sophie, I am still Fräulein. But you’ll soon be married, protested Hans. Yes, she retorted, as you say, soon, but not yet.

  They remained silent, almost touching, dismayed by their own aggressiveness, until Sophie added: Don’t be impatient, I will invite you to the wedding.

  As the days slipped by, they continued to observe the same courtesies when addressing one another, each echoing the other’s formal tone, yet imbuing these identical utterances with a note of impatience that was increasingly playful and ambiguous. On the surface nothing was happening. Both kept their composure in their own particular way: Sophie disguised her hot flushes with displays of aloofness, while Hans repressed his desire with theoretical expositions and literary quotations. Sophie derived strength from the heat of the debates themselves, from the analytical distance she forced herself to assume when communicating with him. Hans succeeded in appearing calm when he focused on a theme, losing himself in his argument. On Fridays at midnight when the salon was over, the two of them would talk for a while in the corridor as though on the point of parting, without really parting. They sought to do this in full view of Elsa or Bertold, as if making it clear they had no need to hide everything they needed to hide. After the arrival of Sophie’s first letter, they began taking tea together at her house. On those afternoons, Herr Gottlieb would emerge from his study to sit with them and the three would converse amicably. Herr Gottlieb welcomed Hans as warmly as ever, although less effusively. Hans was his daughter’s friend now, and he was obliged to withdraw a little in order not to seem like an interfering father, and above all so as to be able to watch over her from a distance. Herr Gottlieb was only too aware of his daughter’s tempestuous nature. He knew that any opposition or outright prohibition was enough to make her persist in disobeying him with an obstinacy he sometimes found alarming. And so the most sensible thing to do was to let her have her own way and to stay alert.

  Had Hans been capable of thinking about it objectively, he would have understood why Sophie’s behaviour towards him was so erratic. When they were face to face, gazing excitedly into each other’s eyes, she was confrontational. Yet when another guest criticised his point of view she would discreetly leap to his defence. But these signs remained relatively invisible to anyone else. In part because the language of gestures is not transparent like a piece of glass but reflective like a mirror. And in part because each had their own reasons for interpreting them in their own way.

  Besides his habit of not taking part in any o
f the discussions, with the result that he didn’t feel they concerned him in the slightest, Rudi Wilderhaus felt too certain of his position, his status, his betrothal, to be at all concerned. Or rather he was obliged not to be concerned, for if he had been that would have meant lowering himself to the level of an unknown stranger with no social standing. Professor Mietter appeared to find nothing odd either in Sophie’s discreet and constant solidarity towards Hans, since (as he himself could testify from his first months at the salon) she was an attentive hostess, whose rule it was to indulge new members in order to make certain they stayed. For this reason the salon had begun with three or four regular members, and now boasted double that number. Moreover, in the professor’s view, Fräulein Gottlieb’s passionate and somewhat stormy nature was behind her tendency to enliven their debates by siding with whoever was in a minority. And it so happened that the outrageous Hans frequently found himself in a minority. In any event (the professor ended by reassuring himself) Sophie had continued to grant him preferential, even honorific treatment, confirming him as the incontestable authority in the salon and the starting point for any debate. Frau Pietzine might have suspected something amid her giggles and embroidery, yes. But she was far too enthralled by the arrival of this young guest, too amused by the novelty, to go against the tide. As for Herr Levin, who respected and feared Professor Mietter in almost equal measure, in some inadmissible part of his prudent self he was glad of Hans’s presence. Not because he agreed with his opinions, but because of the destabilising effect they had on the unshakeable self-assurance of the professor, who was so partial to criticising Herr Levin’s own contributions. Álvaro had sided with Hans from the start, and delayed the discussion of any differences they might have for the privacy of the Central Tavern. He did so not only out of loyalty but out of convenience—he had never met anyone as like-minded in Wandernburg, and had felt less lonely since Hans arrived. And Frau Levin? Frau Levin was silent, although she wrinkled her brow thinking who knew what.