“Your Excellency, we’ve reserved Room 212 for you and your wife, pardon, for your wife and you. Any luggage at the station? No? Anything to be brought from your house? Nothing. Oh, only for two hours while the fireworks are on, and to watch the Veterans’ parade. Of course there are seats for six people in the room, there’s a large balcony, and if you wish we can have the beds pushed together. Not necessary? Hugo, Hugo, show the ladies and gentlemen to Room 212, and take a wine list with you. I’ll send the young people up to your room. Of course, Doctor, the billiard room has been reserved for yourself and Mr. Schrella, and I’ll see that Hugo is free for you. Yes, he’s a good boy, he’s spent half the afternoon hanging onto the telephone, dialing again and again; I don’t think he’ll ever forget your phone number or the Pension Moderne’s as long as he lives. Why is the Fighting Veterans’ League parading today? Some field marshal’s birthday—the hero of Husenwald, I think; we’ll get to hear that wonderful song, ‘Fatherland, the ship of state groans in every timber.’ Well, we’ll let her groan, Doctor. What? Always has groaned? If you’ll allow me to express a personal political opinion here, I’d say, ‘Watch out if she ever groans again. Watch out!’ ”
“I’ve stood right here once before,” she said quietly, “and watched you as you went marching by below, during the Emperor’s Parade in January, 1908. It was imperial weather, dearest, a crackling frost, as they say in poems, I believe. And I was all aquiver to see if you’d stand up to the last and hardest of the tests: of how you would look to me in your uniform. The General stood on the next balcony and toasted Father, Mother and me. You made out all right, old man—don’t look at me so suspiciously, yes, suspiciously, you’ve never looked at me like that before—put your head in my lap, smoke your cigar and forgive me if I’m shaky. I’m scared. Did you see that boy’s face? He might have been Edith’s brother, mightn’t he? I’m scared, and you must understand that I cannot go back into our apartment as yet, perhaps never again. I can’t step back into the circle, I’m scared, much more than I was then. Obviously, you’re all quite used to the faces. But I’m beginning to wish I were back among my poor old harmless lunatics. Are you all blind, then? So easily fooled? Don’t you see they’d kill you all for less than a gesture, for less than a sandwich? You needn’t even be dark-haired or blond any more, or show your grandmother’s birth certificate. They’d kill you if they just didn’t like your faces. Didn’t you see the posters on the walls? Are you all blind? You just don’t know any more where you are. I tell you, dearest, the whole pack of them have partaken of the Host of the Beast. Dumb as earth, deaf as a tree, and as terribly harmless as the Beast in his last incarnation. Respectable, respectable. I’m scared, old man—I’ve never felt such a stranger among people, not even in 1935 and not in 1942. Maybe I do need time, but even centuries wouldn’t be enough to get me used to their faces. Respectable, respectable, without a trace of grief. What’s a human being without grief? Give me another glass of wine and don’t stare at my handbag so suspiciously. You all knew about the medicine but it’s me who has to use it. You have a pure heart, with no idea how bad the world is, and today I want to ask you to make another great sacrifice: cancel the party in the Cafe Kroner, destroy that legend, don’t ask your grandchildren to spit on your statue, simply make sure you never get one. You really never liked paprika cheese—let the waiters and kitchenmaids sit down at the banquet table and eat up your birthday dinner. We’ll stay here on this balcony and enjoy the summer evening in the family circle, drinking wine and looking at the fireworks and watching the Fighting Veterans march past. What are they fighting against, anyway? Shall I go and telephone the Kroner to cancel the dinner?”
Blue-uniformed men were already gathering at the big doors of St. Severin’s, standing around in groups, smoking, carrying blue and red flags with great, black F.V.’s on them. The brass band began to rehearse “Fatherland, the ship of state groans in every timber.” On the balconies, wine glasses clinked softly, champagne buckets echoed metallically, corks popped into the dark blue evening sky. The bells of St. Severin’s chimed a quarter to seven, and three dark-suited men stepped onto the balcony of Room 211.
“Do you really believe they might be some use to us?” asked M.
“I’m certain,” said the one.
“No doubt about it,” said the other.
“But won’t we antagonize more voters than we’ll win by such a show of sympathy?” asked Mr. M.
“The Fighting Veterans’ League is known as non-radical,” said the one.
“You can’t lose anything,” said the other, “and you’re bound to win something.”
“How many votes are involved? At best and at worst?”
“At best, around eighty thousand, at worst around fifty thousand. Make up your mind.”
“I haven’t made up my mind yet,” said M. “I’m still waiting for K.’s instructions. Do you think up till now we’ve managed to escape the attention of the Press?”
“We have, Mr. M.,” said the one.
“And the hotel personnel?”
“Absolutely discreet, Mr. M.,” said the other. “Mr. K.’s instructions should come in soon.”
“I don’t like those guys,” said Mr. M., “they believe in something.”
“Eighty thousand votes ought to believe in something, Mr. M.,” said the one.
Laughter. Clink of glasses. The phone.
“Yes, M. speaking. Have I got you right? Show sympathy? Right.”
“Mr. K. has decided in the affirmative, gentlemen. Let’s move our chairs and the table out onto the balcony.”
“What will they think abroad?”
“They’ll have the wrong ideas in any case.”
Laughter, the clink of glasses.
“I’ll go down to the leader of the parade and draw his attention to your balcony,” said the one.
“No, no,” said the old man, “I don’t want to lie on your lap and I don’t want to look up into the sky. Did you tell them in the Cafe Kroner to send Leonore here? She’ll be disappointed. You don’t know her, she’s Robert’s secretary, a dear child, she mustn’t be done out of her party. I don’t have a pure heart, and I know exactly how bad the world is; I feel like a stranger, more strange than when we used to go to The Anchor in the upper harbor and take the money to the waiter called Groll. They’re getting into marching formation down there—it’s a warm summer’s evening, the laughter’s echoing up here in the dusk—shall I help you, dearest? I suppose you don’t know that you laid your handbag on my lap in the taxi. It’s heavy, but not heavy enough—what do you intend to do, precisely, with that thing?”
“I want to shoot that fat man there on his white horse. Can you see him, do you still remember him?”
“Do you think I could ever forget him? He killed the laughter in me, and broke the hidden springs within the hidden wheels. He had that little blond fellow executed, Edith’s father taken away, and Groll too, and the boy whose name we never learned. He taught me how lifting your hand could cost you your life. He made Otto into someone who was only Otto’s husk—and in spite of all that, I wouldn’t shoot him. I’ve often asked myself why I came to this city. To get rich? No, you know that. Because I loved you? No—since I hadn’t yet met you and couldn’t yet love you. Ambition? No. I think I just wanted to laugh at them and tell them at the end: it wasn’t really serious. Did I want children? Yes. I had them. Two died young and one fell in battle, and he was a stranger to me, stranger even than those young men picking up their flags down there. And the other son? How are you, Father? Well, and you? Well, thank you, Father. Can I do anything for you? No, thank you, I don’t need anything. St. Anthony’s Abbey? Forgive me if I laugh, dearest. Dust. It doesn’t even arouse my sentimentality, much less my feelings. Would you like some more wine?”
“Yes, please.”
I’ll take my stand on Paragraph 51, dearest husband. The law is flexible—look down there, there’s our old friend Nettlinger, clever enough not to appear in unifor
m, but just the same here to shake hands and slap people on the back and finger the flags. I’d rather shoot Nettlinger, if anyone—but perhaps I’ll think it over and not shoot into that menagerie down there. My grandson’s murderer is sitting nearby on the balcony, can you see him, in his dark suit, respectable, oh so respectable. That one thinks differently now, acts differently, plans differently; he’s learned a little, speaks fluent French and English and understands Latin and Greek, and he’s already put the bookmark in his prayer book for tomorrow. Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost. He’s just hollered ‘What’s the Introit?’ into his wife’s bedroom. I won’t shoot fat-guts there on his white horse. I won’t shoot into the menagerie—just a bit of a turn, and, at a range of six yards at the most, I can’t miss. At seventy-one what else good can I accomplish? No tyrannicide for me, it’ll be murder of respectability. Death will bring the great wonder back into his face; come, don’t tremble, dearest, I want to pay the ransom money. And it gives me pleasure, to breathe deep, aim and fire—you needn’t hold your ears, dearest, it doesn’t bang louder than a balloon bursting. Vigil of the fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost.…
13
One was blonde, the other brunette, both were slender, both smiling, and both were wearing becoming costumes of red-brown tweed, and both their pretty necks grew out of snow-white collars like flower stems. They spoke French and English, Flemish and Danish fluently, without a trace of accent, and fluently, without a trace of accent their German mother tongue. They knew some Latin, too, these pretty nuns of No-Order-at-All waiting in the employees’ powder room behind the ticket office for visitors to gather in groups of twelve at the barrier. They ground out their cigarette butts with spike heels, and touched up their lipstick with a practiced sweep before they stepped outside, to ascertain the nationalities of the guided-tour addicts. Smilingly they asked after languages and countries of origin, and the tourists made their responses by solemnly raising their hands; seven spoke English, two Flemish, three German. Then the gay question as to who knew Latin. Hesitantly Ruth raised her hand. Only one? A trace of sadness appeared on the pretty face at such a scanty haul of humanists. Only one to appreciate her metrical exactitude when she quoted the epitaphs? Smiling and holding the long flashlight pointed downward like a sword, she walked ahead of them down the steps. It smelled of concrete and mortar, like a tomb, although a faint hum testified to the presence of an air-conditioning apparatus. Out came the English, Flemish and German, without a trace of accent, recounting the proportions of gray stone blocks and the width of Roman streets—and notice the second-century staircase—the fourth-century thermal baths—look, that’s where some bored sentry scratched a kind of checkerboard on a sandstone block (What had the instructor said? ‘Always emphasize the human element.’)—here’s where the Roman children played marbles—notice how perfectly the paving stones were fitted—that’s a drain, Roman dishwater and Roman slops were emptied into that gray conduit—and the remains of a small, private Temple of Venus built for the Governor. The visitors’ grins were lit up by the neon light. English grins and Flemish grins. Were the three young Germans really not grinning? How do you explain why the foundation was built so deep? Well, at the time when it was built the ground almost certainly was swampy, underground water leaked in from the river, went greenly gurgling about gray stones. Can you hear the curses of the German slaves? The sweat poured down over blond eyebrows, across fair faces, into the blond beards, and barbarian mouths swore an alliterative oath: ‘From wounds Wotan will wage revenge on ruthless Romans, woe, woe, woe.’ “Patience, ladies and gentlemen, just a few steps more. Here the remains of a law court, and now there they are, The Roman children’s graves.”
(‘At this point,’ the instructor had said, ‘you should go ahead of the others into the vault and wait for the first wave of emotion to die down before you begin your explanations. It’s purely a matter of instinct, girls, just how long you should keep the silence, it depends of course on what kind of a group it is. But whatever you do, don’t let yourself be drawn into discussing the fact that actually they aren’t Roman children’s graves at all, merely tombstones which weren’t even found on this particular spot.’)
The tombstones were propped against the gray walls in a semicircle. Their first emotion having duly faded away, the visitors looked up in surprise. The deep blue night sky could be seen above the neon lights. And was that not an early star, or was it only the glitter of a golden or a silver button on the banister, winding smoothly upward through the light shaft in five spirals?
“There, at the first spiral—can you see the white cross-line in the concrete?—was the approximate level of the street in Roman times. At the second spiral—you can see the white cross-line in the concrete there too, can’t you?—was the medieval level, and there, at the beginning of the third spiral, the level of the street today—no need to point out the white cross-line in the concrete—the present-day street level—and now, ladies and gentlemen, we’ll proceed to the inscriptions.”
Her face became stony, like a goddess’s, and raising her arm a little she held the long flashlight aloft like a torch:
DURA QUIDEM FRANGIT PARVORUM MORTE PARENTES CONDICIO RAPIDO PRAECIPITATA GRADU SPES AETERNA TAMEN TRIBUET SOLACIA LUCTUS…
A quick smile at Ruth, the only one who could appreciate the original Latin; a tiny tug at the collar of her tweed jacket, to straighten it; and lowering the flashlight a little, she recited the translation:
“Hard is fate, indeed, for parents
When precipitously advening
Death strikes down their little ones.
But in grief for those of tender age
Eternal hope gives balm.
Six years, nine months thou wert,
When this grave enfolded thee, Desideratus.”
Grief seventeen centuries old came upon all the faces, seeped into all hearts, and even paralyzed the jaw muscles of the middle-aged Flemish gentleman, who let his lower mandible hang while his tongue swiftly thrust his chewing gum into a quiet pocket of his cheek. Marianne began sobbing and Joseph pressed her arm. Ruth put her hand on her shoulder as the ever-stony face of the guide went on quoting in Flemish:
“Hard is fate, indeed, for parents …”
A dangerous moment when one left the gloomy vaults to climb up again into light, air, the summer evening. When the age-old pain of death buried deep in the heart was mingled with the mysteries of Venus, and when lonely tourists spat out their chewing gum in front of the ticket office and tried to arrange a date in broken German: Tanz im Hotel Prinz Heinrich; Spaziergang, Abendessen—a lonely feeling, Fräulein. At this juncture the vestal virgin routine was indicated, no flirtatious openings permitted, all invitations refused. For display purposes only, please do not touch. No, sir, no, no—yet feeling the breath of corruption too, feeling sympathy for the sad foreigners who, shaking their heads, bore away, taking love’s hunger with them toward precincts where Venus reigned to this very day, and was not ashamed to name her price, being up on all exchange rates, in dollars, pounds, in guilders, francs and marks.
The cashier was tearing the tickets off the roll as if the little entrance led into a cinema; it hardly gave you time for a couple of drags in the powder room, a bite of sandwich, a gulp at the thermos flask. And then as always the difficult decision as to whether it was worth saving the cigarette butt or whether it would be better to kill it off with the spike heel. One more drag, yet another as the left hand began to fish in the handbag for the lipstick, while the heart defiantly resolved to break its vestal vows, while the cashier stuck his head in the doorway and said, “Come on, kid, there are two groups waiting already, make it snappy—the Roman children’s graves are practically a box-office hit!” And she smiled and stepped out to the barrier to inquire about nationalities and mother tongues: four spoke English, one French, one Dutch and, this time, six Germans. Pointing the long flashlight downward like a sword she descended into the gloomy vaults, to describe the age-old cult of love and
decipher the age-old pain of death.
Marianne was still crying when they went outside past the line of waiting people. The Germans, English and Dutch waiting there looked away from the girl’s face, embarrassed. What were these painful secrets hidden down there in gloomy cellars? Who had ever heard of historical monuments eliciting tears? Such deep emotion for sixty pfennigs, seen on faces only very occasionally, after very bad or very good movies. Could stones actually move some people to tears, while others coldbloodedly shoved fresh chewing gum into their mouths, greedily lit cigarettes and wound their flashlight cameras round ready for the next shot, eyes already on the lookout for the next target: gable-end of a fifteenth-century bourgeois dwelling, just opposite the entrance. Click, and the gable was immortalized on a chemical basis.
“Easy, easy, ladies and gentlemen,” the cashier called out from his box. “In view of the extraordinary attendance we have decided to allow fifteen instead of twelve visitors to participate in each tour. Would the next three ladies and gentlemen please pass through—tickets sixty, catalogues one-twenty.”
They were still walking past the waiting line, which had arranged itself all the way along the wall of the building to the corner of the street. Tears still showed on Marianne’s face as she smiled at Joseph in response to the insistent pressure of his arm, and then at Ruth in gratitude for the hand on her shoulder.
“We’ll have to hurry,” said Ruth, “we’ve only ten minutes to go before seven o’clock and we oughtn’t to keep them waiting.”
“We’ll be there in two minutes,” said Joseph, “we’re going to be on time. Mortar—even today I had to smell it—and concrete. By the way, did you know that they owe those discoveries down there to Father’s zeal for demolition? When they were blowing up the old guardhouse, one of the vaults below collapsed and opened the way into those ruins and relics. Long live dynamite. Tell me, Ruth, what do you think of your new uncle? Do you feel it in your blood when you look at him?”
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