by Colm Toibin
On the first day, when the weather was blustery and no one could use the beach, Thomas sat on his balcony watching the white clouds racing across the sky. He tried to read, but, whatever heaviness was in the air, he felt too sleepy. Katia, having bought some rainwear, had rented bicycles and gone cycling with the children.
Thomas walked down to the lobby, noticing how scarce the light had grown, even though it was still the afternoon. How different it would be now, he thought, if they had gone to Sicily or even Venice. Or how much emotion it might stir in him had they gone to Travemünde.
From the front porch of the hotel, he saw an elderly woman battling against the wind. With one hand she carried a heavy shopping bag, and in her other hand she had a walking stick. When a sudden gust came, her hat blew off. As he was about to go out to retrieve it, he saw a boy, tall, slim, with blond hair, who had been walking behind the woman, quickly turn and run to get the hat.
He could not hear what the boy said to the woman, but it was good-humored enough to cause her to laugh and shout words of thanks. The boy responded by offering to carry her shopping bag for her, but the woman refused. His dress and his confident air suggested that he was not from the island. As he passed Thomas to go into the lobby, he smiled.
On the first evening, as supper came to an end, their table was approached by a man who said that he was an art professor from Lübeck; he told the family how much he admired Buddenbrooks, a novel that he felt lifted his city from its provinciality. His name was Hallen. Since he was in the habit each evening of having a drink with his friend Professor Heuser, who was also an artist, from Düsseldorf, he wondered if they could be joined by the author this evening or some other evening. He pointed to a table, where a man raised his hand to them in greeting. He was, Thomas presumed, Professor Heuser. Beside him, watching the proceedings with interest, was the boy he had seen earlier, obviously the man’s son. Thomas nodded to the professor and then moved his attention to the boy, who was staring back at him. As they all stood up, he thought the boy must be seventeen or eighteen. The boy spoke to his father for a moment before leading his mother, who was a tall, fine-boned woman, from the room.
As they sat over drinks that evening in the hotel lounge, it was clear to Thomas that the two art professors had decided not to question him about his books. Instead, they discussed artists they knew and admired, names that were new to Thomas. They spoke with relish of nightclubs and scenes from the German side streets becoming worthy topics for painters.
“A millionaire’s face in a time of inflation,” Professor Heuser said. “That makes a great portrait.”
“Or a philosopher who has not yet begun his book,” the Lübeck professor suggested.
“Perhaps he has written ‘I am’ and is now unsure how he might proceed.”
Since Thomas had his back to the door, he did not see Heuser’s son entering. What he noticed first was the father’s fond smile. He introduced his son Klaus to Thomas.
“My son has read Buddenbrooks, The Magic Mountain and Death in Venice. Can you imagine how he feels on finding his favorite author staying in the same hotel?”
“I’m sure the writer has other things to do than imagine my feelings,” Klaus said. He curled his lip in amusement and then smiled broadly.
“Are they telling you about paintings?” he asked Thomas.
“That is what we normally do at night,” his father said. “We are tremendously boring.”
* * *
By lunchtime the next day, Elisabeth had made friends with Klaus Heuser.
“He told me,” she whispered, “that there is a man on the island who always knows when the weather is about to change. And the man says that it will soon be sweltering.”
“How does this Klaus know the man?” Katia asked.
“He was on his bicycle,” Elisabeth said, “and he met the man.”
“And where did you meet Klaus?” Thomas asked.
“When the chain fell off my bicycle, he came and fixed it.”
“He is obviously very obliging,” Thomas said.
“And he knows all our names,” Monika added.
“How?” Katia asked.
“He is friends with the man at the desk and he checked our names on the register,” Monika said.
In the afternoon, when the others had once more ventured out on bicycles and as the weather worsened, Thomas stood on his balcony and looked at the high waves breaking, the rushing whiteness of the foam. When a knock came to the door, he thought it was one of the staff and shouted “Come in,” but no one entered. The knocking resumed, so he went to the door and opened it to find Klaus Heuser standing there.
“I am sorry if I am disturbing you. Your daughter told me that you work only in the mornings, so I hoped you would not be writing now.”
He managed to seem polite without being timid. There was an ironic edge to his tone that reminded Thomas of how his own son Klaus often dealt with his mother. Thomas invited him into the room, and when Klaus went directly to the window, Thomas did not know whether he should leave the door open or close it. As Klaus, without turning, began to admire the view, Thomas quietly closed the door.
“I came because my father, in his enthusiasm last night, told you that I have read The Magic Mountain. I was very embarrassed, as I have read only the opening. But I have read Buddenbrooks and Death in Venice and I admire them greatly.”
He sounded confident, but, once he had finished, he was blushing.
“The Magic Mountain is very long,” Thomas said. “I often wonder if anyone at all has read it.”
“I love the opening, the part when Hans meets his cousin.”
When a gust of wind rattled the window frames, Thomas joined him to look out.
“The weather is going to change,” Klaus said. “I met a man who is considered the island expert. He has arthritis and he can judge what is coming by the quality of his pain.”
“Do you study art?” Thomas asked.
“No, I study commerce. I have no talent for art.”
The boy looked around the room.
“Is this where you write?”
“In the mornings, as you say.”
“And in the afternoons?”
“I read, and, if the weather improves, I will go to the beach.”
“I must get going now. I must not disturb you. Tomorrow will be the first sunny day. Perhaps I will see you at the beach.”
Soon Klaus Heuser’s arthritic informant was proved right. The days became warm and there was no wind. In the mornings, there were hints of gray among the white clouds over the sea, but by noon the sky was completely blue. As soon as he went to the beach, Thomas needed the shade of a beach umbrella. While he read, or looked out at the water, Katia was forced to help Michael make sandcastles or accompany him to the water. Monika and Elisabeth had been shown a beach farther down the coast by Klaus Heuser.
“We promise to be careful,” Klaus said when he appeared.
Elisabeth demanded that Klaus sit with them at lunch. When he told her that his mother would miss him, she tried to arrange for her family to start lunch later than the other guests so that Klaus could eat first with his parents and then join the Manns.
Klaus Heuser began to visit Thomas at noon, as he finished his morning’s work.
“My father and Professor Hallen were talking about your books. They say that you wrote a story about a professor and his family.”
Thomas was amused by the earnestness of Klaus’s tone.
“It is called Disorder and Early Sorrow,” he said. “And yes, the father is a professor.”
“Like my father. But it would be hard to put my father into a story.”
“Why?”
“Because he sees himself too clearly as a man in a story. It would be too obvious. He is like an artist in a story about an artist. That is why he does self-portraits.”
“Has he ever painted you?”
“He did drawings of me when I was a baby. But I don’t want him to paint
me now. Anyway, when he is not painting himself, he prefers to paint circus performers and people who stay out too late.”
Klaus emphasized each day that he would not outstay his welcome, often going to the window to look at the pathway that led to the beach. He liked to examine Thomas’s handwriting in a notebook on the desk, following a paragraph or a long sentence, reading it aloud. If he joined the Manns for lunch, or came to their table when the meal was over, he never alluded to the conversations that he and Thomas had had, nor indeed did he refer in any way to his visit to Thomas’s room. Instead, he paid attention exclusively to Monika and Elisabeth.
“I see that Klaus has made a conquest,” Thomas said.
“The boy has made many conquests,” Katia said. “He has won over the entire dining room, perhaps even much of the island, with the exception of poor Michael, who doesn’t pay him any attention at all, and perhaps myself.”
“You don’t like him?”
“I like anyone that can make Monika happy.”
One evening, when Professor Hallen had gone to bed early, Thomas had a late-night drink with Professor Heuser.
“I see you have made a conquest of my son,” he said.
Thomas was surprised to hear the same phrase as he himself had used earlier in the day.
“He is very clever and quite grown-up for his age,” Thomas said. “And then he plays so well with our daughters.”
“Everyone has always liked Klaus,” the professor said, “and wanted him in their game.”
He looked at Thomas, smiling. Thomas saw no mockery or disapproval. The professor seemed relaxed, like a man enjoying his evening.
“Isn’t it strange,” he asked, “that no matter how well we paint the face, we struggle to paint hands. If the Devil came here now and asked me what I would want in exchange for eternity under his reign I would ask him to let me paint hands, hands that no one would even notice, perfect hands. Do novelists have a problem like our problem with hands?”
“It is sometimes hard to write about love,” Thomas said.
“Ah yes, that is why I cannot paint my wife or my son. What colors would you use?”
One afternoon on the beach, when Michael had fallen asleep under the shade of the umbrella, Katia interrupted Thomas as he read.
“Elisabeth is insisting that we invite Klaus Heuser to Munich. This morning, after breakfast, she went to speak to his mother. She had Monika in tow. Did she consult you about this?”
“Not at all,” he said.
“Nor me. She is headstrong. Monika, I could see, was worried that they had not checked with us first. But not your darling Elisabeth. She is not worried at all.”
“Did the boy accept?”
“He stood close by, as he often does, in full control.”
That evening, after dinner, they were approached by Klaus Heuser’s mother.
“Your daughters are the two most charming girls,” she said.
“Your son has been a delightful companion,” Katia replied.
“All three have appealed to me to allow Klaus to visit you in Munich, but I have told him that what happens on holidays does not last into the winter.”
Thomas saw the expression on Katia’s face darken at the suggestion that her daughters might somehow be fickle.
“Your son would be very welcome in Munich,” she said.
“I had best discuss the matter with my husband,” Klaus’s mother said. “Klaus does have free time, but I would hate to feel that he was imposing himself on you.”
“But he is not,” Katia said.
Monika and Elisabeth promised that they would look after Klaus Heuser if he came to stay.
“There is plenty of room in the house,” Elisabeth said.
“It will all be perfect,” Monika said. “Please let him come!”
“But it is unusual,” Katia said, “for a boy to stay with two girls.”
“I am seventeen,” Monika said. “When Erika and Klaus were this age, you let them go to Berlin. And all we want is to have someone nice staying with us.”
Soon it was agreed that Klaus Heuser would come in the autumn. Although Thomas listened carefully to see how long Klaus planned to be with them, he noticed that it was not mentioned.
* * *
At the end of lunch one day he heard Monika and Elisabeth in low voices appealing to Katia on some matter, with Katia shaking her head as Monika insisted.
“Why the whispering?” he asked.
“They want Klaus to stay on when his parents leave in two days’ time.”
“Surely that is for his parents to decide? Or Klaus himself?”
“Klaus wants to stay. His parents have agreed. But they say that since he will be our responsibility, then we must agree too.”
“I agree,” Monika said, “and so does Elisabeth.”
“Is that not settled, then?” Thomas asked.
“If you all say so,” Katia said.
Thomas found that he benefited from the routine that had been established. His work each morning was progressing to his satisfaction. At meals, he enjoyed watching his daughters respond to Klaus, and on the beach in the afternoon Michael, now eight, once left alone with his parents, was much calmer and more amenable than normal. He had become used to the water and wanted his father and mother on each side of him to hold his hands as they lifted him above the breaking waves. While Thomas had given Klaus and Golo piggybacks, he had never played like he did with Michael, who squealed with pleasure each day when he saw his father appearing on the beach after lunch.
On the day his parents left, having accompanied them to the ferry, Klaus returned to the hotel and knocked on Thomas’s door. It must be strange, Thomas thought, to be seventeen and left behind in a hotel by your parents. He and Katia would now have to stand in for the departed professor and his wife. When his own son Klaus was seventeen, he remembered, he lived unsupervised and made no secret of the advantage he took from the lack of parental supervision. But this boy, this other Klaus, had none of Klaus Mann’s interest in ideas or current affairs. He did not want to write novels or go on the stage. He could speak to Thomas, and question him, as if they were equals. Thomas supposed he dealt with Monika and Elisabeth in the same way. He would merely adjust his tone.
“I don’t feel any different now that my parents are gone,” he said. “I was just as free when they were here. Because my father was in the war, he hates orders. So he never gives any. My parents have never in my life told me what to do.”
“I try to tell my children what to do, but they ignore me, especially the two eldest,” Thomas said.
“Klaus and Erika,” Klaus replied.
“How do you know their names?”
“My parents saw them on the stage in Düsseldorf, in that play about four young people, and they told me about them. But everyone knows who they are.”
Klaus looked at a paragraph Thomas had been writing. As he traced his fingers along the lines of handwriting, Thomas stood beside him. When Thomas pointed to a word that had been crossed out, Klaus, in frustration, put his hand on Thomas’s and brushed it away from the line so that he himself could see the erased word.
Instantly, Thomas could feel the heat of Klaus’s hand against his own knuckles. He remained still and said nothing, allowing Klaus to leave his hand in place for a few seconds more than was necessary.
Neither of them spoke. Thomas saw that it was open to him to seek to turn and embrace Klaus. But he also understood how unlikely it was that such an approach would be welcomed. Klaus had come to his room, he supposed, in all innocence. He was used to being with adults and being treated as their equal. But he, who recently had been playing and cavorting on the beach with Monika and Elisabeth, hardly expected to be embraced by their father, a man three times his age.
Thomas tried to think of something to say that would lessen the tension in the room, a tension that Klaus, he thought, must also sense. Klaus glanced at him and then looked at the floor. He was blushing and seemed younger t
han his years. Thomas would have given anything now to get this boy out of the room. He was sure that Katia or the children would arrive or someone from the hotel would suddenly knock at the door. Even if Klaus left, he thought, he would be bound to meet Katia in the corridor.
“Do you mind me coming to Munich?” Klaus asked.
“No, and my daughters are especially excited that you will be coming.”
“I hope I will not interrupt your routine. Monika says that no one can even speak when they are anywhere near your study.”
“She exaggerates,” Thomas said.
“I hope to read all of your work,” Klaus said. “But I must leave you in peace.”
He put a finger to his lips, suggesting that he was involved in some furtive action. And then he made his way across the room and slipped out, closing the door quietly behind him.
* * *
When Klaus Heuser came to Munich in the autumn, he managed never to be in the way. If no one required his company, he was to be found alone in one of the reception rooms reading a book. If Monika were free, then he would spend time with her. So too with Elisabeth. Soon Golo began to pay attention to him; the two were often to be seen in deep discussion.
Klaus Mann, when he came, made no secret of his admiration for the younger Klaus, flirting with him openly and asserting that he believed the two had a great deal in common. Thomas watched as Klaus Heuser kept his distance from Klaus Mann.
Once Thomas had returned from his afternoon walk with Katia and had had his nap, he was usually visited in his study by Klaus Heuser, who listened carefully as Thomas told him what he had been writing that morning. Always, Klaus would want to see the handwriting and he became fascinated by the erasures. Each time Thomas pointed out a word to him, he would repeat what he had first done in the hotel room, he would place his hand over Thomas’s and let it linger there before moving Thomas’s hand out of the way so that he himself could see the erased word.
