Now it’s like this: The one hand knows that a man’s member doesn’t hurt when you squeeze it, even applying a fair bit of pressure, it’s just a muscle. Another hand has known for a long time that caution is required when pouring water over the kasha in the pot, because the water can splash up and possibly scald you. One hand grasps the handle of a drill in a factory eight hundred times a day. One hand washes the other, another gets slipped through a person’s hair, another drops a quarter into a gas meter. One hand pulls a sheet taut, another wipes crumbs from the table, a third flips a light switch. One pair of eyes sees dust motes rising in a beam of light, another peers into men’s wide-open mouths, another notices a little can of oil. Ears hear a door being slammed, sirens, someone coughing; feet slide into silk stockings, elbows are massaged, toenails are cut, filed, and polished, feet are so blistered they won’t fit in the shoes; gray, black, brown hair; rings under eyes; calluses; two weary breasts; almost a proper bald spot; toothache; tongue; a voice like silk. What under other circumstances might have been or become a family has now been torn so far asunder that being drawn and quartered by horses would be nothing in comparison. Nonetheless, one or the other of them — here, there or yonder — sometimes thinks the very same thought: Why was the baby so quiet all of a sudden?
INTERMEZZO
But if, for example, the child’s mother or father had thrust open the window in the middle of the night, had scooped a handful of snow from the sill, and put it under the baby’s shirt, perhaps the child would suddenly have started breathing again, possibly cried again as well, in any case its heart might have gone back to beating, its skin would have grown warm and the snow melted on its chest. Possibly something like divine inspiration was required, although where such inspiration might come from was something neither mother nor father knew. One glance out the night-dark window at the shimmering snow, or even just the creaking of the window frame contracting in the cold, a sound made by the cold window at precisely the moment the child fell silent, might have sufficed for inspiration, instead of the same sound occurring just half an hour afterward when it was too late. In secondary school, the child’s mother had learned that the Pythia had answered the question posed by Croesus, king of Lydia, with If you cross the Halys, you will destroy a great empire. But what the Pythia did with all the answers no one requested is something the infant’s mother wouldn’t have been able to say, nor the father either. Probably the eternal oracle sat eternally above the pneuma rising from the earth’s interior and watched as her own silence grew in size, attaining inhuman proportions. If an inspiration had come to these parents, the child’s survival would have become just that. The weave of life in its entirety — containing all knowledge of snow, all glances out the window, all listening to sounds made by the cold or damp wood — would have severed one truth from the other for all time. Only the blue tinge of the girl’s skin — above all around her mouth and chin — would have stayed with the parents, an uncomfortable memory. A memory that would have returned to them uninvited now and then, and neither would have mentioned it to the other, for fear of tempting fate. And so fate would have kept quiet, and this first moment when the child might have died would have passed without further ado.
The little girl would have learned to walk holding her mother’s hand, her first steps taking her from the wardrobe to the chest; her great-grandmother would have braided her hair, singing a little song about a man who makes a coat out of an old piece of cloth, then when it’s gotten tattered he makes a vest out of the coat, then makes a scarf from the tattered vest, a cap from the tattered scarf, a button from the tattered cap, a nothing at all from the button, and in the end he makes this song out of the nothing at all, but by then the braids would have been finished; and the girl’s grandmother would have brought her store-bought sweets or homemade challah. Four years later, her little sister would have been born, but her father would still have remained in the eleventh pay-grade, by now he would have known every last one of the larger trees along his section of rail that had ever dropped a branch on the tracks, and her mother, since they were unable to afford a maid or laundress, would have run the household all on her own, washing their laundry herself in a big pot in her kitchen so that no one would see. In the evenings, she would have fallen asleep over a book she was trying to read, still holding it in her hand. The girl’s grandmother, seeing her daughter struggle, would sometimes have slipped her a little money, and on the occasion of her daughter’s seventh wedding anniversary in 1908, she’d have given the young family a trip to Vienna for the Corpus Christi procession, where, with a little luck, one might catch a glimpse of the old Kaiser walking as an ordinary sinner behind his canopy Heaven. Her daughter would have hesitated to accept the gift, but in the end, the father would have applied for a certificate of domicile for himself, his wife, and his two girls. Proudly they would have traveled together for the first time over the rails for which the father was responsible, passing all the large trees that had dropped branches during storms over the last several years, this leg of the journey took an hour and twenty minutes, but the trip as a whole was seventeen hours.
In Vienna then, in the middle of the crowd lining the streets all the way from St. Stephen’s to the Hofburg, the child’s father would have run into a former classmate, who was meanwhile employed at the Viennese Imperial and Royal Central Institution for Meteorology; the men would have embraced and launched into tales of how their lives had unfolded since they last parted; her father would have said all sorts of things, but not this one: Just imagine, my wife took a handful of snow and saved our daughter’s life. He would have kept silent on this score, not wanting to challenge fate. The two men would have reminisced about what a wonderful time they’d had studying in Vienna, how they’d been “bed lodgers” for a while, actually sharing the bed of a shift worker who was never there at night: one of them would sleep in the bed for four hours, from ten at night until two in the morning, then the other one would sleep from two until six, and when one of them fell asleep during the morning lecture, the other would prop a few books under his head to keep him comfortable. They would have also remembered how on winter weekends they often went for walks along the snowy trails of the Vienna Woods and on one occasion they noticed the difference in the prints they were leaving behind. Deep in conversation, they stopped walking and happened to turn around, and there was the serpentine track left by his companion, while his own prints formed a perfectly straight line. At the time they’d been surprised and asked themselves what this could mean. Even today they don’t know the answer. Each of them would have assured the other how extraordinary it was that they still felt so close, even though more than eight years had passed since they’d last seen each other and they hadn’t even kept in touch by letter, indeed they’d practically forgotten one another, if truth be told. A friendship sealed up like a jar of preserves, her father would have said, and his former classmate would have laughed and, when he was done laughing, he would have remarked how long it had been since he had laughed like that. Then they would have spoken of their jobs, of the envious colleagues, the resentments, the vagaries of the Confidential Qualification, and his friend would have said how different things used to be — as a student, he would never have believed how closely one had to watch what one said, making it almost impossible to find true friends later in life. Her father would have nodded, saying that he, too, had been lonely these past eight years, excepting of course his relationship with his wife — and here he would have tightened his grip on his wife’s arm, without mentioning, to be sure, her religious affiliation. His university friend would now have looked at the woman more closely and then remarked that the joys of family life had unfortunately not yet been granted him, but, well, at least he was lucky at cards, by which he meant to say: in his career, of course, well, you can’t have it all, then he said “well” again, not following it with any further observation. The father would have been unsure what to say next, but his former classmate would have gone on t
o inform him that at the moment the Institution for Meteorology was looking for someone who could perform various writing tasks, and probably it wasn’t any better a job than the one he already had, as it was also an eleventh pay-grade position, but there were bonuses, and at least it was in Vienna — Vienna! — and he could certainly try to be of service to his friend, assuming of course that he really did want to live in Vienna — Vienna! — though to be sure the city did not come cheap, especially for a family, there would have to be some tightening of belts, alas: Vienna! So think it over . . . my goodness, I’d be truly . . . don’t mention it . . . if you could, I don’t know how I, etc. The younger daughter would have been showing signs of impatience all this time, finally tugging more firmly on her father’s hand, asking him to lift her up on his shoulders. He would have lifted her up and then several times warmly thanked his rediscovered friend, who wouldn’t have wanted to accept the thanks, after all he had no idea whether he could really, but he’d make an effort, and possibly. . . . Right after this, the Kaiser would have appeared, walking behind his heavenly canopy, an ordinary sinner, and the family from the provinces would have cheered like all the rest, and already no one would have been able to distinguish them from actual Viennese. As soon as they arrived back at the rooming house where they were staying, her father would have written an official letter of application and mailed it off that very evening.
His colleagues in Brody — above all his immediate superior, Chief Inspector First Class of the Eighth Rank Vinzenz Knorr — would have been quite astonished to hear of his transfer several weeks later. The grandmother would have accompanied the family to the station for their second and now final departure for Vienna, and waving goodbye, she would have been fully conscious of the fact that, along with her daughter, all her questions about her missing father were now traveling away, and that this was no doubt for the best.
BOOK II
1
In January 1919, the gold buttons on the father’s coat still display the double-headed eagle and the Kaiser’s crown, but the Kaiser has been dead two years now, and the eagle’s Hungarian half has long since flown away. But the coat still keeps him warm, so he remains wrapped in Imperial and Royal finery, sitting day after day in his underheated, now-democratic office in the Meteorological Institution in Vienna; and after work he goes from there to the under-heated coffeehouse Vindobona for two games of chess with his friend and colleague, sitting in his coat there as well. Even at home in the evenings he doesn’t take off this coat, for the wood that mother and daughter gather in the Vienna Woods twice a week is damp, and when it’s stuffed into the kitchen stove it hisses more than it burns. The heating stoves in the parlor, the bedroom and the room shared by the two girls have remained cold for a long time. The father sits down at the table in his coat with the gold buttons, there are boiled potatoes for dinner, one each, for father, mother, and the younger daughter.
Where’s the big one?
She’s not home.
Do you remember when you were her age? That’s when things started between us.
That’s enough now.
2
You look like a whore, the mother had said to her older daughter the previous summer when she shortened her skirt to above the knee and wanted to leave the house like that.
What do you know about whores? her daughter had shouted and slammed the door so hard on her way out, the panes of glass in the upper half rattled. After her daughter left, the mother sat there weeping for half an hour, but then she hiked her own skirt up to above her knees and looked at her legs in the mirror. After four years of war, Vienna had gone to seed, and so had she. She’d been so filled with hope when she had traveled here all alone. Once her husband’s transfer was certain, she’d come to look for an apartment. She still remembers the first time she walked into this building smelling of limestone and dust, a limestone and dust smell that only the buildings of a metropolis can have. It was shadowy and cool in the building’s entryway, while outside, the heat was so thick you could cut it with a knife. If her husband had come with her, he would have quickly slipped his hand into her armpit when no one was looking, and she would have said, cut it out, and laughed. Before she climbed the two flights of stairs to inspect the apartment, she had run her hand over the head of the eagle at the bottom of the banister, perhaps it would bring her luck. Two bedrooms with a view of the public baths across the way, the kitchen and one bedroom facing the courtyard — the girls could play down there — a shared water tap and a separate toilet in the stairwell. The apartment was affordable, one month’s rent in advance. Then she went home again to pack for the move. The last thing she packed was the footstool her grandmother had given her for her household; the first thing she would do when she arrived would be to place this footstool in the vestibule of the new apartment, and from then on Vienna would be her home. When her mother wrote her two or three years later that for the maneuvers taking place on the border they were now using live ammunition, perhaps a war was coming, she hadn’t worried. They had fled from the provinces to Vienna as if taking refuge on an enormous ship, but it would never have occurred to them to suspect that this ship was already beginning to sink. Fire, locusts, leeches, plague, bears, foxes, snakes, insects, lice were names that had often been given to Jews here in Vienna, but she hadn’t known that. God our Father whom we love, you gave us teeth, now give us food. Perhaps the eagle at the bottom of the banister was really a vulture that had been waiting all these years for her demise; in any case she’s been fighting back for years now, refusing to let her family be turned into fodder, but this requires all her strength — strength she has, and also strength she hasn’t had for a long time now. She’s stopped plucking the hairs on her legs, her toenails are hard, her calves full of blue veins. In the parks of Vienna, the grass grows knee-high in summer, open squares are used to grow carrots, potatoes, and turnips, the countryside is sweeping its way across Vienna, wiping away the city, and no one much cares as long as he himself survives, there isn’t enough life left to spend correcting and clipping away at life. And try your arm, as a boy beheads thistles, against oak-trees and mountain heights. In summer, Arenberg Park is barely distinguishable from the meadows surrounding Brody near the Russian border, but now she’s grown up and has other things to do than breaking off a hazel switch and scything the grass with it as she crosses a field (as she used to so as not to overlook the edge of the palatschinke). They didn’t escape to Vienna to starve there. But no one can predict when it will be revealed that a wish is going to be left unfulfilled.
I’ve got just a few more things to copy out, he tells his wife.
That’s all right, she says, and leaves the kitchen.
As the following chronicle documents, the Styrian ground shook for thirty days. The most extensive of these shocks were recorded on days when disturbances that originated in the area around Laibach were felt in our region as well.
The little one — she’s still called this by her parents even though she’s over thirteen now and nearly five foot seven — is out in the vestibule preparing for her nighttime shift standing in line; she clamps a blanket under her arm, and her mother straps the folding chair to her back. A lange loksh. After she leaves, her mother goes to sleep for a few hours before midnight when it’s her turn to take her daughter’s place in line. With any luck, after standing in line all night long, they’ll be given cow udder at seven in the morning. Udder is edible if you boil it in milk.
The big one’s bed is empty.
3
Most definitely she was not a whore. Already the year before last she’d have been able to sell herself for two pairs of shoes, and recently also for one liter of cream, fifteen potatoes, or a half pound of fat. Again and again she’d had her price whispered in her ear by one or the other black marketeer, a price that — like all prices — was constantly in flux according to the prevailing rates of exchange, a flux that invariably maintained a downward trend. She could have sold herself long ago to keep her f
amily from freezing at home, or for her sister, who was growing faster than she should. Perhaps in the end her mother was angry with her for doing exactly the opposite of what she reproached her daughter for: still trying to be young without selling herself. On the banks of the Danube one night the previous summer, she’d let someone unbutton her blouse for the first time, a younger schoolmate had slipped his hand under the fabric and touched her breasts, but that’s all she’d permitted, after all, he was practically a child. Another night the previous summer, her father’s friend had met her once in secret and said he found her red hair more alluring than anything he’d seen in all his life, and then he’d kissed her hair and finally her shoulder, but that’s all she’d permitted, after all, he was too old. Possibly the man destined for her was just falling in battle on the banks of the Marne or the Soca, bleeding to death in the barbed wire outside Verdun, or losing his legs. This war was shooting her youth to pieces as she was still marching through it. Her best friend had gotten engaged to a university student who had been called up; for two years he had fought battle after battle and now he lay in a field hospital with gas poisoning. Someone should declare war on war, but how that was supposed to work, she didn’t know, and neither did her friend. In the food lines she’d seen mothers hold up their starving children in front of the soldiers on duty, threatening to hang them from the window frame and themselves as well, or to take care of the entire family at once by drowning everyone in the Danube; one of them had even laid her infant down in the street, refusing to pick the baby up again because she didn’t know how she could go on feeding it. Once, when the daughter was to return home empty-handed after hours of waiting, she felt such fury that she called on the other women to march on the Rathaus with her to complain, she’d waved her handkerchief in the air above her head like a flag, and sure enough, hundreds of desperate women fell into step behind her — a girl of only fourteen. But for several hours, no one came out of the Rathaus to negotiate with them, and the women — who still had to find something to feed their families that day — gradually scattered and dispersed. She, on the other hand, had sat down right where she was and wept, using the handkerchief that had served as her flag to blow her nose and dry her tears. She hadn’t told her mother of this defeat, but instead had resolved that very day to make herself independent of hunger, to stop letting her own body blackmail her into failure, and the less she ate — this is something she’d already noticed — the clearer her thoughts became. In the end her perceptions were so heightened that during the nights of that last summer, lying with her best friend on the banks of the Danube pretending to be young, she heard not only the river’s current but even the fish and snakes gliding beneath the water’s surface, clairvoyant with hunger she knew how the creatures in the river’s depths coiled around each other, snapping and hissing.
The End of Days Page 6