“That’s all it is. The three of us are just too caught up in the world, too superficial, somehow. What we lack is inwardness, a belief in ourselves.”
Berta could hear the wrathful voice of Wilhelmine: “Berta! What’s to become of your children? They’ll end up losing their heads just like your doomed Rudolf!”
Berta looked thoughtfully at the clothesline that was stretched from the window frame to a hook that Wilhelm had nailed in over the stove, where their wet clothes were now hanging.
“Wilhelmine. Yes. Yes,” Berta said, and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. For Berta, Wilhelmine was the embodiment of life as such, the way it spoke to her, the way it prophesied a dismal end for her, for her and her children.
“Somehow we just do everything wrong. Somehow we just don’t fit,” Berta had thought, crouched down with one arm around Little Berta, the other around Rudolf, sitting between the children in the new car, while Wilhelm, the chauffeur, said nothing, his eyes fixed rigidly on the road.
“He knows it. Yes. Of course. Everyone knows it.”
Later, Berta felt the need to verify the intuitions that had struck her on the drive home.
She’d crept into the bedroom, knelt down by Little Berta’s bed, and in the soft half-light of the lamp compared Little Berta to the Madonna from the painting. She hadn’t been wrong; even scrutinizing the girl so closely, even with such careful consideration, the resemblance was still there.
“When Berta sleeps, she looks just like our Madonna. Not just outwardly, not just superficially. It is the inward gaze of sleep. It’s what silence does for her,” she murmured to herself.
Around midnight Berta was sitting on her bed; upright; a rigid pillar; with a strange gaze fixed rigidly on her daughter’s face.
“If only Little Berta could always sleep this way, she would look like our Madonna forever. If only she could always sleep this way—if.” In her mind, Berta worked and reworked this thought, which sprang from the basic resemblance she had noticed in her child, but she neither spoke of it aloud nor even murmured it to herself. It was just a thought; nothing more and nothing less.
She waited up for the chauffeur Wilhelm until four in the morning; sitting upright in bed; rigid and with that same strange gaze fixed on her daughter’s face.
At around four-thirty in the morning, Berta finally fell asleep, only to be jolted awake by Wilhelm: “Stop that screaming! You’ll wake the children! Berta! Stop that screaming!”
It was too late. Rudolf and Little Berta sat straight up in their beds, terrified, then shot sinister glances at their mother, who said to them, finally shaken out of her sleep, “It’s nothing. Everything’s fine. I was just dreaming.”
Wilhelm shook his head, more dumbfounded than annoyed, lay back down, said, “What were you dreaming about, then?” and immediately turned away from her onto his side: “I’m tired. Wake me around eleven. We’re driving to Felsenstein.”
“To Felsenstein?”
Wilhelm mumbled something not even he could understand, and soon afterward the regular course of his breathing made clear that he had fallen asleep once more.
“So. So,” Berta Schrei said, “to Felsenstein,” then looked perplexed from Wilhelm to Little Berta, from Little Berta to Rudolf, and from Rudolf to Little Berta once more.
“The resemblance really is astonishing. I need to think about it more,” Berta said to herself, then bent over Wilhelm, and with a push of the button on the lamp on the night table, draped the room in darkness.
“This is no coincidence. And the dream I had is also no coincidence.”
A CHARMINGLY UNASSUMING CREATURE INDEED
Berta Schrei, who saw in her dreams allusions to life as such, and therefore found them worth taking to heart, lay on her back in bed, her eyes turned toward the window, and decided it would be better to stay awake. She looked at the blinds, remembered how Wilhelm had carved the wooden slats himself in the workshop of his colleague Ferdinand Wolf, and how Wilhelmine had sewn the fabric holding them together.
When the work was over, Berta had offered a shot of schnapps to her laborers, and they all stood in the bedroom to marvel at this masterpiece: Ferdinand Wolf, Wilhelmine and Wilhelm, Rudolf and Little Berta.
“Really. It’s beyond belief. How did you ever do it?” Berta asked, and stared at Wilhelmine, astonished. Wilhelmine responded to her astonishment with pity, saying, “Well, it’s nothing. You take some old fabric out of your dresser, you reuse it, andsoonandsoforth. Anyone can do it.”
At that Wilhelm nodded, stroked Berta’s cheek, and said, “Don’t rack your brains over it. The important thing is we have our blinds now. What do you say, Ferdinand?”
Ferdinand held out his shot glass to Berta a fourth time, let it be filled with good schnapps, drained it in one go, and declared with admiration, “I never knew a chauffeur to understand anything other than motors, speedometers, and the joy of steering passengers around the countryside—but I can’t say I’m surprised. Yes, I have long suspected there was more to you than that! And now I know for certain.”
After delivering this little speech, Ferdinand felt a most urgent need for a fifth shot, and Berta was amazed how quickly Wilhelmine noticed this. With a jerk, the schnapps bottle was wrenched from Berta’s hands, then passed back, and the glass was emptied straightaway once more.
“Berta. Keep your eyes open,” said Wilhelmine in a slightly reproachful tone, shaking her head. “You’re always off somewhere lost in your thoughts.”
Berta clapped her hand over her mouth; she cried out, “Oh, forgive me, Mr. Wolf! I was just stunned at the sight of so much made from so little.”
Ferdinand Wolf nodded knowingly and said, “So it is, Mrs. Schrei my dear, so it is. If you keep your eyes open and have a bit of common sense, the improbable becomes probable.” Rudolf yanked at his mother’s skirt, she bent down to him, and he whispered in her ear, “Help me, Mama, help me!” He pointed to the floor where a small puddle was forming. Berta took the boy by the hand, excused herself, and tried to cover up Rudolf’s shameful mishap insofar as was possible. She said, “Our able craftsmen will have to excuse us for a moment. I imagine they may enjoy a bit of time to themselves anyhow, and now they don’t have to worry about our meddling.”
The able craftsmen Ferdinand and Wilhelm broke out into hearty laughter. Wilhelm clapped his Berta good-naturedly on the shoulder and Ferdinand Wolf said, “What a charmingly unassuming creature.”
But Wilhelmine threw her hands up in horror, pointed toward the puddle, and cried out, “Berta! What an absolute mess! When will you finally teach your boy how to use the toilet?”
Little Berta wrinkled her nose and said, “It wasn’t me, Uncle Wolf, that doesn’t happen to me anymore!” Uncle Wolf cleared his throat, stroked Little Berta’s cheek, and Wilhelmine said, “Rudolf! Take your little sister as an example!”
Berta fled to the bedroom with Rudolf, and Wilhelmine waddled into the kitchen, returning with a rag to wipe up the calamity. “It’s repulsive! Repulsive! He really is a bit old for this sort of thing!”
Ferdinand Wolf nodded knowingly and declared, “Yes. Yes. Raising children. Hard work. It’s not so easy. I know. You have to be resourceful. You really do. It’s hard work indeed.”
Wilhelm looked at his colleague Ferdinand Wolf, bursting with gratitude, and Wilhelmine said irately, “That doesn’t change the fact that it is something she has to deal with!” And with a stern, sideways glance at Ferdinand Wolf: “The hard work, that is.”
“I WAS JUST DREAMING …”
Rudolf hung on the cross. Around him stood scattered groups of people, all of whom pinned him in their withering gaze. “Where’s my mother?” Rudolf cried from the cross.
“Your mother is in her grave,” a faceless voice answered him from the multitude, and Berta became conscious of herself lying under the earth, a few meters from the cross. She tried to shift her coffin lid and to cry out with all the force of her love:
“Rudolf! I
’m still alive! I’m coming! Wait for me! Be patient! I’ll get you down from there! Rudolf!” The dreaming Berta observed this other Berta, as powerless and voiceless as a corpse in her fruitless struggle.
“Where’s my mother?” Rudolf cried a second time and looked down onto the nearby hillock where there was no cross and no flowers, only shoveled up dirt, as on a molehill. A figure without a face, a torso on two legs, pulled away from the group and said, “There she lies. Let her rest. It’ll be over soon. You’ll understand when the sun has reached its zenith.”
After the headless figure had spoken, the scattered groups merged into a single human mass. All of them had their heads at their sides, holding them in their hands and resting them on their hips. Each head was the same as the others. And all the heads resembled helmets.
“What did I ever do to you?” Rudolf cried. And since no one answered him: “Why am I hanging here on this cross? Why?”
One headless creature after another stepped forward out of the mass of people. The voices of women, girls, men, and boys drowned out one another in turn:
“You can’t catch a ball.”
“You can’t play an instrument.”
“You can’t even sing.”
“You always fall down.”
“Your nose bleeds.”
“You have two left hands.”
“You can’t do your sums.”
“You can’t even remember the Ten Commandments.”
“You can’t write on your own.”
“You can’t even copy things down.”
“All you can draw are animals, and houses, just barely—you can’t draw people with two hands, ten fingers, two feet, and a head. Your people have five eyes and monstrous mouths. Your people have seven heads or no head, twenty-three fingers or none at all.”
“You can’t catch frogs.”
“You can’t even make it to the bathroom when you need to go.”
“You’re a bed-wetter.”
“You can’t throw a punch.”
“You don’t know how to fight.”
“You’re a weakling.”
“You always have diarrhea.”
“You bite your nails.”
“You stutter when the teacher asks where you’re from.”
“You’re an idiot.”
“You can’t swim.”
“You’re a crybaby.”
“You grind your teeth at night.”
Rudolf yelled down from the cross, “But I’m not a bad person!”
And the headless ones answered him in a chorus, “You are good for nothing.”
The people put on their helmets, now they had heads again, only one still stood there headless, then stepped forward and pointed at the sun, saying, “It is done. The sun is at its zenith,” and then it threw its helmet on Berta’s grave, and a tremor bore through Rudolf’s body like a bark beetle through wood. But the scream that Berta always waited for in the leafless season, that one definitive scream, never came.
And Berta Schrei shouted for her son, and a ghastly thousandfold echo rang out of the earth, and the mass of people, already dissolving, scattered in all directions, with each person running for dear life. Voiceless Berta shouted down the hurricane-like storm that seemed to have driven, in a matter of seconds, grayish black banks of clouds from all four corners of the earth to gather above the cross where Rudolf was hanging.
When the clouds burst and the rain began to lash down, everyone had already fled into their homes and hovels, and Berta’s cry told them that Rudolf’s life had slipped away. His head hung down, and the hard rain battered shut the lid of Berta’s coffin, which had finally, momentarily, come open. Berta knew she had died before she’d been able to shelter Rudolf from the terrible weight of things.
HUNTING SEASON IS HUNTING SEASON
The chauffeur and Come-hither-boy Wilhelm Schrei telephoned to Donaublau from Felsenstein. In one of the apartments behind the filth-gray façades, which gave the narrow alley the aspect of a ravine, Berta Schrei, mother of two children, housewife, and helpmeet, grabbed the receiver.
“So. So. As you say. Hunting season is hunting season. I understand. Of course, Wilhelm. I’ve always understood that. Wilhelm, are you unhappy with me?”
And.
“Yes. As you say. Everything’s in order here. That’s right.”
And.
“If four weeks have already passed, then two weeks will certainly pass too.”
And.
“So. So. But there’s no need for that. Everything here is exactly the same. Why should you worry? All that’s changed is Berta and Rudolf are back in school. As you say. That’s right.”
And.
“No. Nothing new, it’s just that I’ve gotten a letter asking me to go to the school. On account of our little girl.”
And.
“Why shouldn’t the letter mean something good? Isn’t Berta a quick learner?”
And.
“But of course I’m going. Why should I get worked up about it?”
And.
“I wanted to tell you something else. The resemblance, Wilhelm, the resemblance. What’s that? You have to go? So. So. No. It’s nothing special. Of course. You shouldn’t keep him waiting. If they have orders for you, then they have orders for you. Of course. As you say.”
And.
“I know. Yes. Yes.”
And Berta laid the receiver back down in the cradle as tears ran down her face.
Wilhelm’s three days in Felsenstein had turned into five days, five days into seven, and one week into two, then three, then four, and now six.
Five hundred kilometers away, the chauffeur and Come-hither-boy Wilhelm Schrei was being kept exceedingly busy. Naturally, hunting season began much earlier for his employer than it did for all the other dignitaries summoned to the Mueller-Rickenberg hunting lodge, many of whom Wilhelm transported there himself. Moreover, hunting season imposed a number of supplementary duties. And, of course, Wilhelm Schrei was thoroughly devoted to his profession.
THE DRAGGING OF THE SCHOOLBAGS
Berta, who slept badly whenever Wilhelm was off being a chauffeur and Come-hither-boy, had grown used to Rudolf shuffling off glumly each day on his walk to school, and then returning home disheartened. She saw no point in sharing this information with Wilhelm, in treating it like news, since the truth was that every year, as soon as the summer holidays were over, Rudolf started back up with his skulking.
What did seem worthy of attention, at least at first, was Little Berta’s dragging her schoolbag behind her by its strap. She seemed more and more like Rudolf every day. The children’s mother always knew exactly when they were headed home from school: she could hear their bags being dragged along the street, a peculiar noise that bore into her ears like some sort of grim portent. Whenever she heard it, she would have to clutch the table tight and hold her breath to keep from losing her composure. Little Berta would then open the apartment door, skulk past her mother into the bedroom, and sit down in a corner to stare off into space.
Berta Schrei would wipe away the trail the schoolbag had left behind on the floor.
Once it had been only Rudolf who dragged his schoolbag, now it was Little Berta too, and so inevitably the floor would be soiled anew each day, the rug pushed out of place. No sooner had Berta wiped away her daughter’s mess than Rudolf would drag himself in, skulk past, just as glum and silent, and sit in a corner of the bedroom staring into space, unruffled by his sister’s presence there.
But now even Little Berta’s retreat into the bedroom was no longer news.
Once Berta had wiped away the traces left behind by Rudolf’s schoolbag, she went into the bedroom herself.
“So. So,” she said. “That rain just won’t let up.”
Nothing.
“Papa called.”
Nothing.
“He’s doing well.”
Nothing.
“He’s very busy.”
Nothing.
�
��Would you like to come to the table for lunch?”
Nothing.
“Surely you’re hungry?”
Nothing.
“Well now. I just mean. It’s time to eat.”
Little Berta raised her head, glared past her mother toward Rudolf, and said, “She just means. She always just means. I mean, I mean. She really isn’t right in the head.”
Rudolf shrugged and kept quiet.
“But a person has to eat, no? I mean, isn’t that so?”
Rudolf glared past his mother to Little Berta and said, “You’re right.”
Little Berta shrugged and kept quiet.
Berta said, “So. So.” And after a long pause for thought: “Even if I’m not right in the head,” and she tapped her left temple, “am I not still your mother? Am I not always your mother?”
Little Berta replied drily, without changing her expression, “Unfortunately.”
Rudolf shrugged.
“I got a letter,” Berta said.
Rudolf looked up at his mother for a moment and then went back to staring blankly ahead; he droned, “You can save yourself the trip. The teacher’ll just tell you she’s dumb,” and he pointed at Little Berta. “That’s the whole story.”
“What?” asked Berta. “Who’s supposed to be dumb?”
“That one there! Who else?” And Rudolf pointed at Little Berta, who, like him, was glowering straight ahead.
The Weight of Things Page 5
