Heineweg raised a point of order. There was a vicious, hairsplitting debate on it, before, as might have been predicted, it was voted down.
On the platform, the newsreel lights went up, the camera tele-lenses pointed at the big star of the house, now climbing onto the rostrum in casual, practiced fashion. The Chancellor set out his policy. He was in a rather listless mood, and there were no fireworks. He wasn't a dictator, but he was the boss who had set everything in motion, taken all the steps, and he despised the rhetorical drama in which he was obliged to participate. He sounded tired and confident, like an actor having to do a run-through of an often performed play in the repertoire, because of changes to the cast. The actor/Chancellor was also the director of the piece. He told the other actors where to stand. He was a commanding figure. Keetenheuve thought of him as a cold and gifted arithmetician, who, unexpectedly, after years of irritable retirement, had been given the chance to enter the history books as a great man, the savior of his Fatherland, but Keetenheuve also admired the performance, the implacable and euphoric tenacity with which an old man stuck to his guns. Didn't he see that his entire plan would come to grief, not through his opponents, but through his supporters? Keetenheuve accepted that the Chancellor was acting in good faith. It truly was his view of the world that he was unfolding, it was a world that was burning, and he was calling for fire brigades, and establishing fire brigades to control and fight the blaze. But the Chancellor, thought Keetenheuve, was losing track of the situation, he suffered, thought Keetenheuve, from a characteristically German rigidity of outlook, and thereby he failed to notice, thought Keetenheuve, that other statesmen in other parts of the world also thought the world was ablaze, and that they too had called in their fire brigades and had equipped teams of men to go out and fight the fire. So that there was now the prospect of the variously instructed firemen getting in each other's way as they went about their tasks and, ultimately, of coming to blows. Keetenheuve thought: Let's not set up any more global fire brigades, let's all just say "the world isn't burning," and let's come together and tell each other about our nightmares, let's admit that we're given to seeing conflagrations, and we will learn from the fears of the others that our own fears are delusory, and we will have better dreams in the future. He wanted to dream of a paradise of earthly contentment, a world of abundance, a planet where toil was no longer necessary, a Utopia without war and without want, and for a time, he forgot that this world too had been cast out of heaven, condemned to whirl ignorantly and mutely through black space, where behind the twinkling familiar stars there might be great monsters.
No one but Korodin seemed to be paying any attention to the Chancellor, and Korodin was listening for signs that God was using the statesman as his mouthpiece; but Korodin couldn't hear the voice of the Almighty, instead he had the somewhat irritating sensation of listening to his banker. Heineweg and Bierbohm risked the occasional heckle. Now they were calling out: "You put him up to it!" Keetenheuve was startled, because that didn't seem to make any sense to him. Only then did he notice that the Chancellor was quoting from Mergentheim's piece about the generals on the Conseil Supérieur, calling it treacherous. Poor Mergentheim! Still, he could take it. The statements of support were probably safely on the dispatch box, and there they were being read out, the denials from Paris and London, the assurances of loyalty, the words of friendship, the pledges of brotherhood, soon to become brotherhood-in-arms. The appointment was as good as in the bag, one could proceed to arm, and put on the helmet, the helmet adored by the burgher, the helmet that shows who's in charge, the helmet that gives a face to the faceless state, and only in the bosoms of the far right was there still the lurking and envious thought of the old enemy, and they thought of Landsberg, of the fortresses of Werl and Spandau, they cried out "give us our generals back" (and the great flounder came up out of the water and replied: Go home, they're already there); and the bullet burned in Knurrewahn's breast, and Knurrewahn was full of suspicion and worry.
Keetenheuve spoke. He too stood in the lights of the camera teams, he too would appear on the newsreels. Keetenheuve matinee idol. He began worried and pensive, as Knurrewahn would have him. He referred to the doubts and fears of his party, he warned of inherently unpredictable obligations, he turned the gaze of the world on the divided Germany, on the two diseased zones, to reassemble which was the first duty of any German, and even as he spoke, he felt: This is pointless, who is listening to me, who can be expected to listen to me, they know I have to say this and will go on to say that, they know my arguments, and they know I don't have a miracle cure that will have the patient up and about tomorrow, and so they continue to put their faith in the therapy that promises to save the one-half that they think is healthy and capable of life, where the Rhine happens to flow, and the Ruhr happens to flow, and where the chimneys of the Ruhrgebiet happen to rise.
The Chancellor held his head propped in his hands. He was impassive. Was he listening to Keetenheuve? It was impossible to tell. Was anyone listening to him? Hard to tell. Frau Pierhelm was hurling her advertising slogan, Security for all women, at the dispatch box; but Frau Pierhelm hadn't been paying attention either. Knurrewahn was leaning his head back, with his brush cut he looked like Hindenburg, or an actor playing some aging general; the century was reduced to imitating its own movie actors, even a miner looked like a film star playing a miner, and Keetenheuve couldn't see whether Knurrewahn was asleep, or lost in thought, or whether he was flattered at hearing his own thoughts coming from Keetenheuve's mouth. Only one person was truly listening to Keetenheuve, and that was Korodin; but Keetenheuve didn't see Korodin, who, in spite of himself, was enthralled and once more of the opinion that the delegate Keetenheuve was at a crossroads that must bring him to God.
Keetenheuve wanted to stop. He wanted to stand down. There was no point in continuing to speak if no one was listening to him; it was senseless to give out words without the belief that they could point the way. Keetenheuve wanted to leave the way of the beast of prey and go the way of the lamb. He wanted to lead the meek. But who was meek, and prepared to follow him? And beyond that, even if they all meekly grouped themselves around Keetenheuve, they might not wind up on a battlefield, but it was doubtful whether they would manage to avoid Gomorrah, the skull hill. Unquestionably, it was morally better to be murdered than to fall in battle, and the determination not to die in battle was the only possibility of changing the face of the earth. But was anyone prepared to climb onto the dizzying, perilous, ethical high-wire? They preferred to keep their feet on the ground, allowed a damned weapon to be pressed into their hands, and died cursing with their guts ripped open, just as stupidly as the enemy. And if, so thought Keetenheuve, such an appalling death in battle was the will of God, then a cruel God shouldn't be afforded the support and the disguise of warfare, instead man should walk out onto the field, unarmed, and cry: Show us your terrible face, show it to us naked, kill and slaughter as you please, and don't give mankind the blame for it. And, as Keetenheuve looked around the inattentive, unmoved, bored faces all around, his eye lit on the Chancellor again, rigid, bored, his head in his hands, and he called out to him: "You want to have an army, Chancellor, you want to be included in the alliance, but what alliances will your general want to enter into? What treaties will your general break? Which way will your general march? Under which flag will your general fight? Can you tell us the colors, Chancellor, can you tell us the direction? You want an army Your ministers want parades. Your ministers want to walk tall, want to look their men in the eye again. Fine. Forget about those fools, whom you secretly despise anyway, but, Chancellor, what about your dream of being buried on a gun carriage? Fine, be buried on a gun carriage, but your cortege will consist of millions of corpses, who won't even be buried in the cheapest pine coffin, who will burn wherever they happen to stand, who will be buried wherever the earth happens to fall on their bodies. May you grow old, Chancellor, may you live to a ripe old age, become honorary professor and honorary se
nator and honorary doctor at all kinds of universities. May you be transported on a rose-covered hearse, with all possible honors, to your final resting place, but forget the gun carriage—that's no distinction for a man as wise and important and inspired as yourself!" Had Keetenheuve really called out the words, or had he once again merely thought them? The Chancellor continued to prop his head in his hands. He looked drained. He looked not unpensive. The chamber was whispering. The President stared dully down at his paunch. The stenographers, looking bored, twiddled their pens. Keetenheuve got down. He was bathed in sweat. His party applauded perfunctorily. From the left there issued a shrill whistle.
Frau Pierhelm mounted the rostrum: security, security, security. Sedesaum hopped up to the stand, he could hardly be seen: God and Fatherland, God and Fatherland, God and Fatherland. God and world? Dörflich took possession of the parliament and the microphone: Fundamental opposition, loyalty to German principles, the enemy remains the enemy, honor remains honor, war crimes committed only by the enemy, declaration of honor urgently required. Was Dörflich really called Dörflich? One might have thought his name was Bormann; no wonder his milk soured on him. For a time Keetenheuve even felt sorry for the Chancellor. He was still sitting in the same attitude, with his head propped on his hands. Maurice stepped forward with doubts founded on international law. Korodin was still due to speak. He would lead Christianity and Western civilization into battle, stand by long-established cultural values, and rave about Europe. And Knurrewahn would speak shortly before the vote. Keetenheuve went out into the restaurant. The chamber must have emptied a lot. There were many more deputies in the restaurant than in the chamber. Keetenheuve spotted Frost-Forestier, but he avoided him. He avoided Guatemala. He didn't want a bone. Keetenheuve saw Mergentheim. Mergentheim was drinking a coffee, recovering from a radio appearance. He was holding court. People congratulated him for having attracted the notice of the Chancellor. Keetenheuve avoided him. He didn't want any memories. He desired no explanations. He went out onto the terrace. He sat down under one of the colorful parasols. He sat as though under a mushroom. Ein Männlein steht im Walde ganz still und stumm. He ordered a glass of wine. The wine was thin and sugary. Keetenheuve ordered a bottle instead. He ordered it on ice. People would notice. People would say: The big cheese is drinking wine. Okay, he was drinking openly. He didn't care. Heineweg and Bierbohm would be horrified by the sight. Keetenheuve didn't care. The ice bucket would offend Knurrewahn. That Keetenheuve did care about, but he poured himself a glass anyway. He drank the cold dry wine in greedy gulps. In front of him there were flower beds. In front of him there were gravel paths. In front of him was a fire hose attached to a hydrant. On the corner were policemen with dogs. The dogs looked like nervous policemen. A police van was parked in the stench next to the cesspit. Keetenheuve drank. He thought: I'm well guarded. He thought: I've come a long way.
He thought about Musaeus. Musaeus, the butler of the President, who thought he was the President, stood on the rose-grown terrace of the presidential palace, and he too saw the policemen, who had thrown their barriers around him too, he saw the police cars driving, he saw the dog handlers walking about under his nose, and he saw police boats fizzing across the river. Then Musaeus thought that he, the President, had been captured, and that the police were planting impenetrably thick rose hedges around the palace, to grow up around the palace, spiked with thorns, with suicide machines, trip wires and police dogs, the President couldn't get away, he couldn't take refuge with the people, and the people couldn't come to the President. The people asked themselves, What is our President doing? The people inquired, What is the President saying? And they informed the people: The President is old, the President is asleep, the President is signing the treaties that the Chancellor has put before him. And they told the people that the President was very pleased, and they showed the people pictures of the President, in which a pleased-looking President sat in a presidential chair, with a thick black cigar turning luxuriously to ash between his fingers. But Musaeus knew that he, the President, was uneasy, that his heart beat uneasily, that he was sad, that something was wrong, maybe the treaties were wrong, or maybe the rose hedges, or the police with their cars and their dogs, and then Musaeus, the President, became ill-humored, all at once he took against the landscape, which lay in front of him like a beautiful old painting, no, Musaeus, the good President, he was too sad to enjoy the scenery any more, he went down to the kitchen, he ate a little chop, he drank a little claret, he had to do it—out of melancholy, out of gloom, out of sadness and heaviness of heart.
Keetenheuve went back into the plenary session. The chamber was filling up again. They were about to do again what they had come here to do, to give their votes and earn their democratic corn. Knurrewahn was speaking. He was speaking out of genuine concern, a patriot, someone whom Dörflich would string up if he could. But Knurrewahn wanted his army too, and he too wanted to join alliances, only not yet. Knurrewahn was a man from the East, and it was dear to his heart to have East and West joined together again, in his dreams he was the great Unifier, he hoped to achieve a majority at the next election, to enter government, and then he wanted to do the work of Unification, and after that he aspired to an army and membership of the alliances. It was striking how ready the old were at all times of history to sacrifice the young to Moloch. Parliament hadn't come up with anything new. They were voting by roll call. The votes were collected in. Keetenheuve voted against the government, and he wondered if that had been right, and if it had been politic of him. But he didn't want to be politic any more. Who would succeed the present government? A better government? Knurrewahn? Keetenheuve didn't believe
Knurrewahn's party would achieve an overall majority. Maybe one day there would be a great coalition of malcontents, with Dörflich at the head of it, and then the devil would be let loose. There they all were, at their wits' ends, the apologists of universal suffrage, the disciples of Montesquieu, and they didn't even realize they were arranging games for simpletons, that the separation of powers that Montesquieu had prescribed did not apply any more. The majority ruled. The majority ruled absolutely What they had was a dictatorship of the majority. All the citizens had to do was choose under whose dictatorship they preferred to live. The politics of the lesser evil, that was the be-all and end-all of politics, the alpha and the omega of all voting and decision making. The dangers of politics, the dangers of love, you bought leaflets and you bought prophylactics, and suddenly you were saddled with children and responsibilities, or with syphilis. Keetenheuve looked about him. They all looked stunned. No one congratulated the Chancellor. The Chancellor stood there all alone. The Greeks deported their great men. Crosses marked on potsherds condemned Themistocles and Thucydides. Thucydides became a great man only in exile. Knurrewahn stood there all alone as well. He was folding up pieces of paper. His hands were shaking. Heineweg and Bierbohm looked reproachfully at Keetenheuve. They looked reproachfully, as if it were his fault that Knurrewahn's hands were shaking. Keetenheuve stood there in utter isolation. Everyone avoided him, and he kept out of their way. He thought: If we have a sprinkler system in the chamber, someone should switch it on, we need a downpour, we need a storm of gray rain to come and drench us all. Keetenheuve the great parliamentary downpour
It was all over. That was it. It had just been a bit of theater; now they could all go and take off their makeup. Keetenheuve left the chamber. He didn't flee. He walked slowly. No Furies were chasing him. Step by step, he detached himself from a bewitched existence. Once more he wandered along the corridors of the Bundeshaus, up the steps of the Pedagogic Academy, back through the labyrinth, Theseus having failed to kill the Minotaur, he encountered apathetic guards, apathetic cleaning ladies with buckets and mops set about the dirt, apathetic officials set off for home, their greaseproof sandwich paper carefully folded up in their briefcases, to be used again on the morrow, they had a tomorrow, they were durable characters, and Keetenheuve was not one of their ilk. He seemed t
o himself like a ghost. He got to his office. He switched the neon light on again. Twilit, two-faced, and pallid the delegate stood in the disorder of his life as a representative of the people. He knew it was all over. He had lost the battle. It was circumstances that had got the better of him, not the other side. The other side had barely listened to him. It was the circumstances that were unchanging. They were the trend. They were doom. What was left for Keetenheuve? He could knuckle under, go back to his party, run with the pack. Everyone ran with some kind of pack, bowed to necessity, conceded that it was necessary, perhaps even accepted it as the ananke of the Greeks, but it was nothing more than the daily trot of the herd, the push of fear, and a dusty way to the grave. Take up your cross, called the Christians. Serve the state, shouted the Prussians. Divide et impera, taught the poorly paid schoolmasters at boys' schools. A new batch of correspondence lay on Keetenheuve's desk. He swept it away. It had become completely pointless to write to him. He didn't want to play any more. He couldn't play any more. He was spent. He swatted his political life aside along with his letters. The letters fell to the floor, and Keetenheuve thought he could hear them groaning and wailing there, they cursed and abused him, there were petitions, there was bitterness, threats of suicide and threats of assassination, there was friction, bruising, and inflammation, a desire to live, a desire for pensions, for support, a roof, claims for jobs, exemptions, benefices, assistance, remission of penalties, a different age and a different spouse, the urge to work off their rage, to confess their disappointment, admit to being at a loss, or press their advice. Finished. Keetenheuve had no advice. He needed no advice. He picked up Elke's picture and the beginning of his translation of "Le beau navire." The folder with files, with new poetry, with the works of E. E. Cummings he left behind in his office (kiss me) you will go.
The Hothouse Page 17
