The Castle in the Forest

by Norman Mailer

  10

  Going back to Leonding on the last trolley car, Alois was no happier than his son. Now that he had given Adolf the gift of Lohengrin, he must find a way to present the bill. Would the boy feel ready to accompany him on a visit to the Customs House? For months he had been contemplating each and every reasonable occupation for Adolf to pursue and had come to the conclusion that Customs remained the best choice. It would, at least, be comparable to entering an esteemed profession from a good family.

  Whenever conversation moved in that direction, however, Adolf would speak of becoming an artist. Alois would then suggest, “You can do both. Without question, you can do both. Have I not done more than one thing in my life?”

  Well, there was the boy nodding in gloomy resignation, as if it was obligatory to keep paying homage to a father’s repetitions. In time, Alois had ceased speaking of the Customs service. The meager results left him feeling liverish.

  Yet the slight improvement in Adolf’s marks did remind Alois that a father must not fail to pick up any hint of a positive change in an adolescent son. Another effort must be made, therefore, to give the boy a worthy life. He would get him to come along on a visit to the Customs House.

  On a given night, therefore, Alois gave one of his monologues at the family table and felt that the spirit of the Buergerabends now enabled him to display more rhetorical gifts than ever. “There is one fellow in our club who keeps saying, and I must agree it is an interesting opinion, that the gap between the wealthy and the poor is being diminished.”

  “Is that so?” asked Klara, wishing to come into the conversation.

  “Absolutely. We’ve had fine discussions on this matter. It is due to our railway system. You can be rich or you can be poor—no matter! You travel at the same high speed. Oh, I tell you, and you, children, pay attention to this, you, Angela, and you, Adolf. Remember this prediction: The cities are going to expand, and there will be money everywhere. I’ve heard talk in these evenings at the Buergerabends of peasants, people so poor that—I will use an expression you are now old enough to understand. There are people so poor that”—he had to whisper the next—“they use their hands to wipe themselves.”

  “Oh, Daddy!” screamed Angela.

  Alois could not resist. “And then they scrape their fingers in the dirt.”

  To which Angela could only scream again, “Oh, Daddy! Oh, Daddy!” but she was laughing at how ready he was to be disgusting, and yet how well he knew her. It was true. He knew how to make her laugh.

  “Oh,” said Alois, “that was the way it used to be. But now some of these once-impoverished people are smart enough to know what is coming. I even hear of peasants who are sharp enough to sell their holdings to the men who are planning to build factories in those places just so soon as the roads come in. And the roads will come. Yes,” he said, “everything is racing forward, and even the peasants are in this race. But you, Adolf, with your intelligence, well, I’ve come to the conclusion that you are potentially a very intelligent young man, and will yet be cultured. So I would look to warn you. These changes in society are going to alter the nature of the work we do. Education is coming, and it will take over everything. Even fools will be able to read and write. Of course, it is also important that not everybody become so well educated that we lose all distinction of what it means to be called Herr Doktor. Adolf, if you study hard at your school, yes, it is only the Realschule not the Gymnasium, nonetheless, you will be able to go on and become an engineer, may it be, and they will call you, once you get your Ph.D., yes, that will be the day for you and for all of us, for then you, too, will be called Herr Doktor. I can tell you I would have liked to have been addressed in such a way and thereby enjoy even a higher level of respect in the community than I do now.” He held up his hand. “Although I certainly do not complain. Not at all. But if I had been Herr Doktor, your mother would have been called Frau Doktor even though she has never seen the entrance gates to a university.” At this point Alois laughed and Klara turned red. “Yes,” said Alois, “it is possible that your interests may turn to business. In my day that was not possible for someone with my origins. But now is not like it was when I was young. Now maybe your gift will be for commerce or technology. And yet, I do not really see you as an engineer or a businessman because there is one fault with all such success—you have no time to yourself. A businessman has no peace. He takes his work home with him. So does an engineer. What if his bridge collapses?” Alois paused, took a deep breath, and remarked: “If you should ever decide to work in Customs, your evenings and your weekends will always be there, open to your choice. You will be able to work at your art.”

  Despite all, Alois was having his effect. Such talk left Adolf with a nervous stomach. But that was because he was no longer certain whether his father was absolutely a fool or might have to be listened to. If the latter, then there could be some most miserable choices ahead and nothing but awful people to live and work among. What if he was not destined to be a great artist or a great architect? What if he was no Wagner? There was one thing that could be said for Customs, and his father had made the point—he could have a separate life after work.

  So they went to the Customs House. Despite all of Alois’ locutions, the visit did not succeed. The worst of it was that they entered into the main accounting house, where the clerks were at work. An unhappy smell came up from the general collection of middle-aged bodies gathered together under gas lamps with eyeshades on their foreheads. Naturally, his father would not mind such aromas. When young, he had made boots and had to sniff officers’ toes during the fitting. No, he, Adolf, would not spend his life in a mausoleum full of the old smells of old men sitting on top of each other like monkeys in their cubicles.

  After the visit, Alois made another attempt. “So many of my colleagues,” he said, “are now fine friends. Should I choose to, I can visit good people all over Upper Austria, men still in Breslau and Passau, yes.” Adolf was wondering where they all might be. He had rarely seen anyone come to visit, not even Karl Wesseley, often mentioned as his father’s best friend. But Alois went on: “There are so many benefits, yes. The pensions, the time that is there for yourself. I can tell you, security plus a good pension enables a man to avoid all misery after he retires. He does not have to worry then about not having enough funds. Nothing, I warn you, Adolf, creates more discord in a family than lack of money. That is why our family does not have ugly arguments. There is no need for that.”

  Since this speech was at the dinner table, Angela could not help herself. She was thinking of the sudden departure of Alois Junior. No ugly arguments! How could her father speak that way? Passing behind his back, she stuck out her tongue. Klara saw this, but said nothing. It would be bad enough when Alois came to realize that his fine talk would go for nothing. Indeed, she was correct. As the months went by, Alois gave up the idea of the Customs House. His son was not going to follow decent advice. But it did spoil many a mood.

  His spirits picked up, however, on hearing of a fine bargain in the neighborhood. A small coal merchant who lived nearby needed to sell a load to pay off some debts. Since customers were all too few in summer, Alois was able to make a very good deal for the coal.

  He chose, however, to ignore Klara’s advice. She told him to hire an assistant to help with the task of getting all that coal down to the cellar bins. He also ignored her second suggestion that he use Adolf. He did not wish to share labor with the boy—they were bound to have a dispute.

  Still, Klara’s suggestions did bear some weight. Having succeeded in purchasing the coal at half price, he tried to bargain with the seller. “I expect you,” he told him, “to bring it down to the bin,” at which point the dealer replied, “Oh, you rich fellows. You are always ready to keep us poor. No, sir, I cannot carry your coal down for you. Not at the price you reduced me to.” So Alois decided to do it himself. “I may not be as rich as you think I am,” he told the man, “but I am certainly stronger than I look.”
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br />   Ergo, he toted a half ton of coal down to the bin. It took two hours up in the sun and down in the dust of the cellar. Once the job was completed, he keeled over with a hemorrhage.

  11

  For the weeks following Alois’ recovery, Adolf would hear wonder in his mother’s voice at how much blood had issued from Alois’ mouth, and if he could not quite admit it to himself, he regretted that he had not been present on that occasion.

  For that matter, following a suggestion from the Maestro, I encouraged Adolf to brood upon the matter, and he was soon illuminated by a concept. Blood possessed magic. It could be shared by a people. When he looked at the strongest and most handsome boys in his class, he tingled in those places his groin usually reserved for the forest. When blood charged to his penis, it was blood that he possessed in common with fellow students.

  I, of course, was free of attitude on this matter. I was ready to work with Austrian clients who, like Adolf, believed in German blood, but I could be just as effective with Orthodox Jewish clients who believed in the supremacy of their blood. I could also work, and very well indeed, with Jewish clients who were Socialists, or with German Socialists, although that called for being comfortable with intellects whose emphasis was on the air and the spirit—all of those invisible currents and gases where enlightenment and the security of un-bloody worldviews might be found. And, of course, I also worked with clients who were Communist and would not have called themselves Reds if they did not, in their fashion, believe in blood. We were always able to improve on the beliefs which our clients held. Once established in their prejudices, we could move to alter their certainties. Often we would intensify the hatred such clients felt for all that was opposite to them in other humans.

  12

  After recuperating from the hemorrhage, Alois gave Adolf no more beatings. Sometimes when Alois thought the boy was becoming too sure of himself, he would threaten a whipping, but the warning had lost all drama.

  At the Buergerabend on the night before New Year’s Eve of 1903, the members allowed themselves a bit more to drink, and Alois could feel how disturbed was the mood. In the last few weeks, a Capuchin Monk named Jurichek had been invited to preach in St. Martin’s Church, where he would deliver his sermon in the Czech language as a means of collecting money for a proposed Czech school. Some members at the Buergerabends began to complain (most incorrectly as it turned out) that before long there would be a Czech invasion of Linz.

  Alois was uneasy. “If a Czech uprising takes place,” he did say, “it could mean the end of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. Yet,” as he would also murmur, “my best friend is a Czech.”

  He almost recounted a discussion with Karl Wesseley, who had passed by on a business trip from Prague to Salzburg. “We Czechs,” Wesseley had argued, “offer more loyalty to the Emperor than you Austrian-Germans who would dissolve the Empire in a moment if you could just link up with the Prussians.”

  His brief visit left Alois in a state of confusion. Contradictory remarks were now being voiced by him at the Buergerabends. It was as if the loss of blood had also loosened his tongue. First he would find himself on one side of an argument, then the other. Finally, he was attacked by one of the oldest gentlemen in the club.

  Unfortunately, this fine elder also proved to be a hint unbalanced. “Herr Alois,” he said, “you have been so totally opposed to our poor little local priest, who wants to invite poor Czechoslovakian workers to come to free food kitchens when they are hungry. That does make you sound like you are a pro-German. ‘Get rid of these dirty Czechs,’ it seems you are saying. But I cannot follow you. Your best friend, you tell us, is a Czech. Dear Herr Hitler, I hesitate to say this, but I must attribute your confusions to the one affliction we are all in danger of approaching these days. That is premature old age. You are not an old man, not as old as I am, but, my esteemed fellow Buergerabender, I must warn you that confusions, if not promptly cleared up, can swallow good intentions.” And abruptly he sat down, as if to apologize for having gone too far.

  Unhappily for Alois, the old man had not been inaccurate. Since the lung hemorrhage, Alois had lost exactly that clarity of which he had been so proud. Now many of Alois’ thoughts seemed to come into his head for no better purpose than to proclaim the opposite of his previous remarks. Indeed, Alois had confessed as much to Wesseley on the last visit, after which he sighed and said, “I like talking to you. In my opinion, you are as deep as the sea.”

  “Alois, tell the truth. Have you ever seen a large body of water?” asked Wesseley.

  “Beautiful lakes I have seen, and plenty. That is enough.” He paused. “I feel as if I am living in the desert.”

  A couple of nights after the old member’s tirade, Alois kept remembering how some of the Buergerabenders had been nodding their heads in agreement. And Alois did keep hearing the old man’s voice: “You say that we give too much to the Czechs, but then I hear you tell us that to be against the Jews and the Hungarians is antagonistic to good culture. Where is the focus of your thoughts?”

  In the course of that upbraiding, Alois had felt so weak that he could not summon enough vigor to stand up and leave the room. Then he found the strength. Not often did members walk out of the Buergerabends in such an abrupt manner, but on this occasion it became imperative. Be damned to how weak he felt.

  He was furious. It seemed undeniably clear to him that he had only been tolerated at the Buergerabends. Did they laugh among themselves at remarks he had made? Was it like that? Had he been their resident fool?

  It gave him a fearful headache. Four days later, on January 3, he was dead before noon.

  BOOK XIV

  ADOLF AND KLARA

  1

  On the morning of January 3, 1903, Alois was not feeling too well, and so on his daily walk through Leonding he decided to stop at the Gasthaus Steifer for a glass of wine. To cheer his mood, he called upon an old memory.

  Once, in Customs, many years ago, he had come across a box of cigars whose seal had been carefully removed, then repasted. He could discern as much by a thin welt of cement at the edge of the stamp. Thereupon, the box was opened for examination and revealed a diamond hidden under the cigars. He was even tempted to pocket it. The smuggler—a well-dressed traveler—was ready to make any arrangement if he was not charged. Alois, however, was afraid of a trap. Moreover, he was proud of his honesty. He had never indulged in such chicanery. If, on this occasion, he was tempted—the gem did look to be valuable—still, he turned it over to the authorities. That certainly helped to advance his promotions.

  He had used this recollection more than once as a tonic to his spirits, but now, at the Gasthaus Steifer, he did not capture the pleasure he expected on the first sip of the wine. Instead, to the consternation of the few Saturday-morning drinkers present, he collapsed. His last thought was in Latin: Acta est fabula. He said it aloud and passed out, proud to have remembered Caesar’s last words: “The play is over!”

  Now the innkeeper and his assistant carried him to an empty side room. The waiter was ready to run for a priest, but the tavern owner said, “I don’t think Herr Alois would want one!”

  “Sir,” asked the waiter, “can one be certain in matters like this?”

  The innkeeper shook his head. “All right, get him.”

  But it developed that their patron was dead before the priest came in, dead from a pleural hemorrhage, which a doctor declared soon after.

  Klara ran up with the children a few minutes later, and Angela began to sob. She was the first to see her father’s body. Laid out on the table, he looked made of wax. Adolf burst into tears. He was terrified. He had dreamed of his father’s death for so long that when the waiter came rushing to their house, Adolf did not believe the news. He was certain his father was merely pretending to be dead. That would be his father’s way to rouse a little sympathy from the family. Indeed, even as they hurried through the streets to the Gasthaus, Adolf remained convinced. Only when he saw the body was he overcome. He w
ept loudly and without cease. His immediate necessity was to conceal every last wish he had had for the demise of his father. It was as if the more he wept, the more might God believe he did mourn the loss. (That he was certain of God’s interest in him was now a keystone of his vanity—one of my major contributions.)

  On January 5, the day of the funeral, he wept in church. By now, however, it had become a labor to force these tears forth sufficiently to impress the men and women who might be staring at him. I, in my turn, had to convince him that God was not angry at him. In consequence, I was presenting myself once again as his guardian angel. While we can, on occasion, alleviate fear of the Lord by increasing our client’s sense that the Power Above does love him, it is a tricky task, since the better we are at it, the greater grows the risk that the client will react with sufficient piety to attract the attention of the Cudgels, and they in turn will be particularly vindictive toward us because we dared to imitate them.

  Indeed, on one occasion when I played at being a guardian angel for another client, one of the Cudgels threw me down a flight of stone stairs. It may be hard to conceive, but spirits can also take a damaging fall. Since I was not corporeal at the time, there was no flesh to bruise but, oh, what a pummeling to my inner presence! Steel and stone are harsh materials when they come in contact with the Spirit. That is why prisons are built of steel and stone.

  Let me not digress, however, from the funeral. I had to prepare Adolf to deliver a good many facsimiles of grief. We were certainly facing a demand altogether different from that first burst of tears when he saw his father dead. Now, in order to come forth with a few sobs, he had to uproot bits and pieces of memory from the few good conversations he had had with Alois. It helped that he had used to admire (if grudgingly) the way his father could speak. But that might not be enough to prime the dry well of so impoverished a sorrow. At last, he chose to think of the day when they went to Der Alte’s house for the first time. He was able to bring forth tears at this recollection, but it was for Der Alte’s death.