CHAPTER
16
At first it seemed that justice would prevail, and soon. Following Freddy’s lead, several of Karl’s friends decided to establish a compensation fund. Justice, in the words of a pamphlet they distributed, demanded that people who had been with us for generations were entitled to decent compensation. To confiscate without reparation was an injustice that would haunt us for years. But Hochhut’s insistence on destroying the eyesores ultimately won a greater response. In his distress, Karl sought out Martin, but Martin’s mood was very dark. At one point he said to Karl, “I have no feeling for that ugly market. If it’s destined to be destroyed, the sooner it happens, the better.
Hochhut was the man of the hour, sought after by every social and political group in town. Even the mayor, who was suspicious of recent converts to Christianity, praised Hochhut. A malicious smugness now shone in his eyes. In every bar and tavern he was toasted and cheered, and his “victory tour” took him to practically every corner of the city.
Meanwhile, the gloom within Karl grew more intense. He felt it in his chest. The collective hostility that had long been repressed in the city emerged from hiding and sank its venomous teeth into him. Everybody shunned Karl, even those who needed him, and his favorite refuges—the Green Eagle and Kirzl’s bar—were full of hatred. Everywhere he went, eyes were riveted on him. People spoke of the way “certain individuals” were taking control of key positions, of the spread of bad manners—and now the municipal secretary was even mentioned by name.
The entire city spoke against him. Only by Gloria’s side did he feel safe. Gloria had what he lacked, a religious sensibility that knows that not everything can be seen.
He loved her. He could no longer conceal this from himself, but he didn’t know how to tell her without humiliating her. His struggles in the office and his path to Gloria seemed to have become intertwined. Sometimes it seemed to him that his rivalry with Hochhut was merely an obstacle to his closeness with Gloria. Sometimes he had the strange feeling that he had converted only because of her. There he was mistaken, of course, for Gloria saw no point to his conversion. On the contrary, she would often say, “You don’t have to kneel.”
On his way home he stopped off at Kirzl’s bar. Despite the hostile looks, he sat with her and had a few drinks. Kirzl also was of the opinion that the center should be destroyed, but she felt that Hochhut should pay compensation. It was shameful to steal like that from old people. She was fond of Karl, though not of the Jews. They were too deceitful. Once she went so far as to say, “The murderers of the Messiah must be punished. How can they be defended?” Only in Gloria’s company would he sip one drink too many and say things he didn’t dare utter elsewhere.
One evening, when he was blurry with cognac, he said to Gloria, “They hate me. Everyone hates me!”
“You’re wrong.” She tried to console him.
“No, I’m not,” he insisted. Later he spoke angrily about Martin and two other gymnasium friends who had abandoned him. He spoke loudly and coarsely, cursing them both. Gloria was shocked, but instead of speaking she went to the kitchen to make him a hot meal. As he ate, he calmed down. Gloria sat by his side and told him about the events of the day. As always, they were trivial but full of emotion. For a long time they sat together in silence. Then she cleared the dishes and washed them. A youthful smile shimmered on her lips, reminding him of the days when she would bring a sack of salt to the store and unload it onto the shelf.
Karl got up and went to her. For a moment he stood at her side without uttering a word. Then he said, “Why not be together tonight?” She moved a few inches away, as if she was about to refuse him, but to his surprise she didn’t.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
She raised her eyes, and he tried to read their expression. A trace of fear flickered in her pupils.
“I love you,” he said, immediately regretting the way he spoke these words. Victoria insisted on her clients whispering endearments in her girls’ ears. That was part of the ritual,
“I’ll go get ready,” she said.
He sat in the dining room waiting for her, aware of the sweat that coated his neck and legs. As if to annoy him, visions of Victoria’s inn flitted through his mind. For years he had been going there, sometimes every week. The girls were fond of him and gave him more than his due. Still, he would leave depressed. His poor parents were proud of his climb up the ladder of the municipal administration, but they knew that he wasn’t really happy. They blamed themselves and their poverty. He had hoped to marry one day and give them pleasure. But time had worked against him.
It almost happened once: the daughter of the district attorney. She was the kind of girl that a Jewish boy from a poor home dreams of—tall, buxom, robust, and seemingly well educated. The romance lasted about six months, but the longer it went on, the wider yawned the chasm between them. At first that distance had a touch of the exotic, but soon he discovered that all the girl cared about was her horses. She kept several at her parents’ summer home, and when she spoke of them, her face took on a weird, sensual grin. Her mother was no different.
Their separation was inevitable, and in its wake he threw himself into his work. As for women, he would occasionally return to Victoria’s, if only to root from his heart any desire for a prolonged attachment. “A wife is but a tangle of misfortunes,” was one of Martin’s favorite sayings. Nor did Freddy appear to get any pleasure from his wife. She was ambitious, rude, and utterly without charm.
While lost in these reflections, the door opened to reveal Gloria, dressed in a long nightgown. With her hair still wet, she looked shorter. Her eyes were narrowed as if she had just stepped out of the darkness into bright light.
“Gloria,” he said, getting to his feet.
She lowered her head and did not move. All the familiar words were cut out of his mouth. He felt a choking in his throat, as if something shameful had been disclosed.
“Why don’t you sit down?” he said.
Surprised by the request, Gloria immediately sat down. From the way her head was bent, it was clear she would do whatever he told her to do, like a maid incapable of disobeying her master.
“You’re beautiful,” he said.
She raised her head.
“You’re very beautiful, Gloria. I’m sorry I never said that to you before. I’m sorry for all the years that have been lost.”
She looked as if she was about to turn her face and burst into tears. He went to her and took her head in his hands. There was no going back. For a moment they looked at each other. Finally, he held her close and brought her to bed.
CHAPTER
17
The struggle was lost: Hochhut received the approval of the Municipal Council—and its blessings. People celebrated everywhere, from Hochhut’s offices to every bar in the city. So great was the joy that a bonfire was lit outside the Green Eagle, presaging what would soon be the fate of the old market.
Karl did not sit idly by. From the corridors of city hall he proclaimed that justice was more important than the market. A modern commercial center built on a foundation of injustice would not endure. Some of his friends tried to dissuade him from making such bold pronouncements. But something within him, stronger than himself, spoke through his mouth.
After work he would go down to the center. He was glad that words like tsoris, parnosse, and reshoyim were no strangers to him. In truth, there wasn’t a Yiddish word that he didn’t understand, and if the merchants called Hochhut a meshumed, he knew it meant “apostate.” Being close to the old men moved him. He felt the freshness of youth returning. The sense of justice, that pure feeling that had once permeated his being, flowered again in him. He was prepared, as he had been then, to stand and prove that life without justice was twisted, and, worse, meaningless.
One evening he managed to convince Martin that the elderly should take precedence over orphans. Ultimately the church would take care of the orphans, but the old people would be
left without a roof over their heads. “You’re right,” Martin said to his surprise. “Why didn’t I think of that?” He was drunk that evening and went on about his business affairs. He spoke of them with bitterness, as of a disease that was spreading. Karl walked him home. Near his house Martin promised Karl that he would immediately give the money he always set aside for orphans to the dispossessed elderly merchants. The next morning Karl felt guilty and wrote Martin a long letter apologizing for being so manipulative.
As for Freddy, he immediately announced: “I’ll double my contribution. I’m not poor.” Freddy’s face constantly changed. Every time Karl met him, he saw something different in it. Recently he had seen in Freddy an inexplicable willingness to go wherever life was in danger.
From Freddy he went to Erwin, another old gymnasium friend. Erwin had made a spectacle out of his conversion ceremony years ago when he had declared that the old faith had passed away and the new one would be sanctified and shine its light upon the world. Some said he was acting completely cynically, but others claimed that he had been drawn to the church since childhood. The truth was not so simple. It seems that Father Merser had thought it would be lovely if a mother and son converted together. At first Erwin’s mother had agreed, but the day before the conversion, she changed her mind. In a dream she saw her mother, who made her swear not to go through with it. Both Father Merser and Erwin tried to change her mind but could not. Then Erwin angrily issued his declaration in the church. The next day his mother said, “Forgive me for not helping you, but what could I do? I couldn’t fight against Heaven.” Later she became obsessed with fixing up the house. She painted the rooms and the fence outside, she bought a kitchen cabinet and new appliances. She also put the garden in order. Her behavior was a bit strange, but Erwin didn’t think much of it. She had always been subject to fits of orderliness. In his blindness he believed that this was merely another of those attacks. One night she took her life with a kitchen knife.
After his mother’s death, Erwin shut himself up in the house. He stopped going to church, and those who needed his professional services—he was an accountant—now came to his house.
Erwin approached Karl and embraced him. Erwin’s face had changed: his hair had fallen out and his head gleamed from baldness. He resembled not so much his late father but rather his uncle, his mother’s brother, who had once had a store in the center and who had died quite young. He and Karl hadn’t seen each other for years. Karl never visited him, for reasons he could not explain; and Erwin led a secluded life.
“I’ve come to ask you something,” Karl began rather awkwardly.
“Anything.”
“I’ve come to ask you to agree to help the old people of the market district whom Hochhut is about to evict.”
“Gladly,” said Erwin. “Just tell me how much.”
For a moment they sat in silence. Karl, who wanted to tell him about all the parties conspiring to destroy the center, and about the old people’s distress, said nothing. The sight of the familiar house silenced him. Everything was in its place, as if twenty years had not passed. Only Erwin had grown older. Forgotten names arose almost by themselves: Siegfried, Ernst, and Taucher. They too had been baptized by Father Merser, but they hadn’t remained in Neufeld. One had gone to the Tyrol, another to distant Leipzig. Erwin spoke, as if for the first time in years. The sentences left his mouth with great emotion.
Finally, he said, “I want to give you two thousand.”
“That’s too much.”
“Relocation costs a fortune. Believe me, it’s nothing.”
“Others are also contributing.”
“But that’s what I want to give. That’s what I have, and that’s what I want to give,” he said, pushing the bills into Karl’s hand with the same stubborn gesture his mother used to make. Karl now remembered Erwin’s mother, who would say, “Do what you want, but I suggest you don’t go out now. That’s my suggestion, nothing more.” This quiet clash of wills would sometimes take place in the winter when Karl and Erwin were about to go skiing.
Erwin walked Karl part of the way home. Outside, his tone turned practical. Speaking of his daily life he said, “My clients aren’t many, but they’re loyal. I don’t need much. I stick to a regular schedule, rising at seven and going to bed early.” It seemed to Karl that he was describing the life of a monk in a monastery.
In those days, Karl would return home as if to a secret den. It was a frightening happiness, but happiness nevertheless. Gloria changed. Sometimes she seemed lost in thought. Then a sudden storm would gust into her eyes. The years of celibacy hidden within her had now been turned inside out. Upon his return home he would sometimes find her sitting at the table, doing nothing, sunk in upon herself. “What’s the matter, Gloria?” He would rush over to her. The few words she had seemed to have become even fewer. It was hard for her to finish a sentence.
“I’m afraid,” she said.
“Of what?”
“What people will say.”
“What does that matter?”
“They know everything.”
“How do you know?”
“I don’t know.”
“It just seems that way to you.”
He saw that she had covered the bedroom windows with blankets, and that she was about to cover the front windows too.
“That will attract attention,” he said.
“What?” she asked, like a person caught doing something foolish.
Her entire life, which had been anchored in the day-to-day, in the order she had created, and in her private dreams, was suddenly overturned. Every noise woke her at night. The self-assurance that had been her charm was gone. It was as if her shame were publicly known. He tried to persuade her that no one knew, that no one could know, and that all that had been and would be was a secret between them. But words didn’t help. Still, as she wept, Karl didn’t say, “If it distresses you, let’s separate.” The battles he had fought outside the house had toughened him. He sought to conquer Gloria the way he sought compensation for the elderly. On both fronts he showed the same stubbornness and determination.
CHAPTER
18
It was the height of winter, and rumors deafened the city. The great Hochhut, the all-powerful Hochhut, was in trouble. His enormous project, the sawmills on the banks of the Danube, the pride of Austrian industry, had collapsed under the burden of debt. At first the rumors were dismissed as mad hallucinations, but soon the facts emerged. One after another, the machines fell silent, and the highway that had been choked with trucks was finally empty, without traffic. It was said that Hochhut was trying everything to save his business. Others said that he had fled and that the police were closing in on him.
The merchants in the town center didn’t dare rejoice. A few old men remembered old words—words pulled up from the depths, words of their fathers. Others wrung their hands and refused to believe their eyes. On Saturday many of them gathered in the synagogue. The entire old people’s home, borne on canes and wheelchairs, came to pray. Karl stood at the side and watched the procession intently. “It’s a miracle, it’s a miracle,” called out one of the merchants in a loud, vulgar voice, but this was not enough to stop the silent march toward the synagogue. Near the stairs stood two young men who helped the old people climb the steps. And these, it turned out, were Merser’s boys, knights of the Order of Saint Gregory, who were sent to help the elderly. They did their work politely and efficiently. Karl stared at them and then turned his back, as he had once done as a boy in biology class when frogs were being dissected.
He could have rejoiced, but he did not. Before his eyes the procession of old people passed, straining their arms to push their wheelchairs. The blind rabbi’s face expressed a deep spirituality. When Karl was in the first year of gymnasium, the rabbi had stopped him and asked, “Where are you studying, son?”
“In the gymnasium,” Karl had answered arrogantly.
“No teacher for Judaism?” he asked, leanin
g toward Karl.
“No.”
“Too bad,” said the rabbi, turning away sharply, as if he had been struck.
The rabbi’s two sons, physicians in Berlin, had tried to bring their father there, but he had refused. The rabbi’s house, where only a few years before people took lessons in Bible and Talmud, now stood neglected to the point of ruin. Some drunken thugs who had broken into the rear wing threatened that if the rabbi didn’t give them the money he received from his sons, they would set the house on fire. The old rabbi now lived like a prisoner.
Karl remembered the rabbi from the days when he could still see. He would walk through the streets proudly, commanding the Jews not to convert. His injunctions were ignored. Everybody ran after Merser as if he were their savior.
Over the years, the rabbi’s eyes had grown dim but not his pride. Often he was seen washing the floor of the synagogue like a janitor. Karl now felt close to that tormented old man, who bore within him an ancient culture that no one wanted. He wanted to approach him and say something consoling. But in the end he realized that words could not diminish his grief. The old man was liable to take it for flattery, or even mockery. It would be better to enter the back door of his house one night, grab the bullies, beat them, and throw them out. That thought breathed new power into his limbs, and he promised himself that one day he would do it.
Later, he headed north and walked along the river for hours. Images of recent days, his childhood friends, and the old people of the center fused into a single vision. It was clear to him that many years earlier a bitter quarrel, perhaps a secret quarrel, had flared up here, leaving its mark on everyone, including himself. But what the quarrel was about, and who it involved, this he didn’t know.
The Conversion Page 10