I held her tightly against me, stroked her hair and heard myself agreeing. It felt as if she were showing me a six-foot hole in the ground, opening the lid of a coffin and saying, 'Welcome to my home,' and I was tipping my hat politely and stepping in. There was no way around it. I couldn't be the one to deny her the fantasies we had mutually planted in our minds. I myself was taken in by her appetite for these false fruits.
Elsa worked on canvases of much smaller dimensions than those she used to work with. She didn't like to stand any more; it put too much weight on her legs. She preferred to lie on her back with the canvas resting against her thighs, or on her side with her arm supporting her head. She painted more or less what she used to — rootless flowers in the sky. I say more or less but there was a definite 'less' about them I couldn't put my finger on. They were cheery enough, friendly, but there was something decoratively pretty and assertively meaningless about each work, despite the prodigious variation, like a sample book of wallpapers.
I went to Stadtpark to try my luck. People walking by paused to look at them for the duration of two missed paces. About the grounds string instruments were being played by professionals in need of money. Some soloists played for hours for a handful of coins in their cases. Times were hard. Pedestrians could attend open-air concerts for free. Times were easier for them.
I sold two painting for seven Schillings each. To give one an idea of how much that represented, 1.75 Schillings could buy you a half-litre of Kreugel back then, and 1.8 Schillings a round-trip tram ride, if I remember correctly. I was in high spirits and couldn't wait to tell Elsa. The buyers were both British occupiers who had a taste for these flowery compositions, or at least some relative back home supposedly did. My cheer was short-lived. The next buyer put his hand on the back of my neck in an oddly sentimental way before leaving with my little painting under his arm. I watched him until he was almost out of sight and saw him toss something in the rubbish bin that could very well have been my painting. My suspicions were confirmed with the next sale. An old Viennese gentleman patted me on the back. 'Lots of luck, to you, J Betz. Lots of luck. Keep your head high.' It was then that I understood I wasn't selling paintings, I was receiving charity. I saw myself through their eyes. I wasn't a talented artist, I was an invalid, an outcast from another time and place, begging outdoors for a few scraps to eat!
It was unbearable; I felt myself turn into their image of me, and the sweet, sad melodies about the park lured me deeper into the role. As quickly as I could, I gathered up the unsold works. A couple strolled up the path towards me, arm in arm. Although I hadn't seen him since my childhood, I recognised him instantly. It was Andreas, one of the twins who had been at the birthday party my mother gave me when I was twelve. His pretty young Austrian girlfriend stopped in front of a canvas and remarked, 'Look, my favourite flowers, lilies. They smell so fine.' I felt around for something in the basket, to keep my face down, and luckily they kept walking. They must've been ten steps away when an old man on a nearby park bench blurted in my direction, 'Tell me, what's your name, son?'
I didn't want to answer, fearing Andreas might hear. The old man hobbled over, took a painting out and examined it with his one good eye, which was only good in comparison to the other, which was blind. I felt sorry for him and would have spoken to him, but I also wanted to be gone in case the others came back my way. In a moment of indecision I told him to keep the painting. He helped himself to two more without asking.
'You're a good kid.' He took a handkerchief out of his pocket and added fresh blood from his nose before holding one of my own paintings out to me. 'Fifty Schillings?' I was taken aback. 'You're a good kid,' he spattered between coughs and I got away.
I chose a little-used path that cut across the back of the park and headed off, head down. Shrubs were catching my cardigan. I was cross with myself: in a park so vast, what were the chances of bumping into the same people again on the main path? When I looked up I couldn't believe it: Andreas and his girlfriend were not ten metres in front of me. Mud was now sucking at my shoes, and Andreas was cursing as he walked on tiptoes in a futile attempt to keep his own clean. She was clutching his arm as she slipped from side to side.
Our eyes met and it was only then that I realised that it was a mutually bad surprise — Andreas had recognised me first time, and had gone to the same trouble I had to avoid me. The expression on his face remained uncertain. We were about to pass each other on the narrow path, and the closer we got to that distasteful point, the more we glanced at each other furtively. His reaction would depend on mine, and vice versa. I dreaded faking and the thought of my voice soaring too high.
'Let's go,' his girlfriend said as she guided him past me. When I checked over my shoulder to see if they were out of sight, I saw her flirtatiously overdoing it each time she slid into him.
How often did I wait for hours until Elsa was asleep. Only then was it safe to bring down a load of family souvenirs, a complicated manoeuvre at the best of times. The stone stairs down to the cellar were still clear, but the door wouldn't open much because of the solid block of Elsa's old paintings behind it. I had no other option but to remove a hundred or so and stock them on the stone steps, freeing the door but choking up the stairs. I entered the cellar from the outside hatch, pushed the paintings back to make room, and, in doing so, blocked the door for good. It was in this dim space that I deposited a new basket of miscellaneous things every forty-eight hours, more often than not at the oddest hours.
When Elsa's freshly painted little works were dry, she handed me a basket of them and I supposedly left for Stadtpark. In truth, I never went back to Stadtpark again. I returned to the cellar, swapped the basket of paintings for one of my family mementoes and lugged it to the flea market. One season it was leather volumes I sold; another, second-hand clothes; another, trinkets, figurines, chinoiseries, singeries, pill boxes, Meissen porcelain: in short, whatever souvenirs were left in the house. The flea market was not the gay, entertaining place it is today. It was a depressing gathering of hungry people doing whatever they could to survive. Old ladies sold cakes, and, if they couldn't sell them, that would be their food for the week. I saw one man sell the same set of silver candle-holders three times. An accomplice followed whoever had just bought them and the candle-holders reappeared on the man's stand by the end of the month. The flea market was known as the cheapest place you could buy back your stolen watch. Today, you can leave your umbrella by the fish stand the time it takes to eat. Back then, people came with umbrellas and left with umbrellas, but not necessarily the same ones. Thefts were a chain process even among the honest.
I sold my dear family's belongings cheaply, but at least I managed to sell. My reward was, in part, the ready cash. More immediately, though, it was walking back home with a basket lighter in weight. Pimmichen's flowing dress with huge polka dots, which had made us cover our mouths and widen our eyes at each other every summer she'd worn it, was snatched up by a stylish American negress. Vater's smoking pipes were, after a few months of patience, taken up by an exuberant Austrian from Linz searching for objects to open a museum specialising in anthropological artefacts. He said the objects had to have had contact with a man's body to qualify, upon which he noticed my stub and showered me with little smiles I hope to have misunderstood.
Every now and then I waited behind a tree on our front lawn for Madeleine to leave, entered the house mutely, and, in answer to Elsa's pestering, let banknote after banknote fall after me like a trail of dead leaves that she raked up with greedy fingers. She threw them up in the air with happy shrieks and watched them settle around her again. Unfortunately, I used most of them to buy her more paintbrushes or turpentine or oil paint. I convinced her to accept smaller canvases still, claiming they were easier to sell — no one had much wall space any more. The last batches I gave her were no bigger than postcards.
To confess all, I was afraid the illusion in which we were living would pop like a pin-pricked bubble if ever I failed
to keep up the act. I was happy to see her happy. Her happiness was like a drug to me, and, like any drug addict, I was willing to sell anything for it. After some troublesome reflection, I put aside my scruples about selling Ute's violin.
I expected it to go within an hour. I was still at the flea market when the crowd had thinned, the stands had dispatched, rubbish sullied the ground. All day long, children had sawed the strings, with startled giggles at the sour digestion-like sounds they produced. The parents handed me the instrument back, apologetic for having used it as a temporary amusement for their child. Some of the children wailed as they were escorted away. Remembering Ute, I felt sad, out of key with the world.
The next day two American soldiers looked it over before one played a folk tune two strings at a time, sliding his fingers from note to note, yet there was nothing of the Hungarian gypsy in the music he made. People started crowding around, a few started clapping and one called out, 'Yee haw!' The man's friend stepped back to distance himself from the spectacle. He gave his temple a few pokes, indicating that his friend was crazy. I gloated over a sure sale, but when the American was done, it became as plain as day no such notion had crossed his mind. He made deep bows. 'Thank you . . . thank you . . . Please, no autographs . . .'
The third day, to demonstrate the instrument's quality as well as to draw more attention, I ran the bow over the open strings myself. I attracted the curiosity of some browsers, who watched me for a short spell. Then a lady stepped forward and something clinked in the violin case. In no time she was followed by a man, who sprinkled all his foreign coins in. I was abashed by the misunderstanding — they thought I was a violinist whose war misfortunes no longer permitted him to play. Again, charity! I left the market in a stormy frame of mind.
I decided to take it to the old violin maker Elsa had said her father had purchased it from. I knew the area roughly. Maybe he was still alive and would remember it from its chip. I walked up and down every narrow street, scouring the neighbouring blocks, but his shop was gone. Many people from that area were gone. A shallow belt of water was flowing smooth and noiseless along the gutter until it reached a man face down, whereupon it bubbled and split in two. Thinking the man was drowning, I dropped the violin and rushed to help, but it was just an old black coat someone had discarded. I went back for the violin, looked around, once and again. Now it was gone too. I walked around for two hours, not wanting to believe it. The cobblestones proved bare of anything remotely resembling a black case — the gutter ran free. And that was the end of the violin story. Unless it has continued without me.
I forgot to mention an important detail. I safeguarded whatever money I made, which corresponded roughly to whatever money Elsa thought she'd made, inside Pimmichen's old leather chest. Often I went to bed at night sick with worry, only to find that a few days later more money had been added in. And not just any old way. If I left the money in a big messy heap of small notes, bigger notes were added in just as messily so it would trick me by looking the same. If mine had been arranged in neat stacks, the stacks were thickened evenly, the sum doubled, trebled, maybe more; I never really checked. Instead I pulled my hand back quickly before it was crushed by the heavy lid.
I asked no questions, but I knew very well that Madeleine had put it there. Despite what I had told Elsa about her continuing to blackmail me, the truth was that not only was she not blackmailing me any more, she was actually supporting us. The three of us held and kept each other up in this crazy way for a good period of time, Elsa and I rising above reality with the giddy earnestness of a totem pole, neither of us acknowledging who kept who up or looking down to see.
Part IV
xxiii
Dr Gregor crossed his arms on his desk and looked at his watch. Some old man in the waiting room had a coughing fit.
'It's not for me, it's for this unmarried friend of mine,' I explained, flapping my hand on his desk as my words accelerated uncontrollably. 'It's not really for him — more for this woman friend of his. You see, because of family circumstances, they've been meeting without a chaperone. Their relationship developed more rapidly than . . .'
Dr Gregor leaned his chair back and bent a ruler. 'He got the girl into trouble?'
'Well, that's what she's saying. He doesn't know what to think.'
'If she doesn't want her doctor to know about this, I can try to fit her into my schedule next week. Might be a long wait, though. I'm short on time these days.'
'But if it ends up not being true . . . you see, he's not sure, and really, neither is she, not a hundred per cent, she just thinks. What I'm saying is, if it ends up not being that, knowing him, he'd have preferred that no one knew.'
'Rabbit test.'
'Sorry?'
'A modern and reliable test. During pregnancy, a woman's urine contains a hormone, hCG. The laboratory injects her urine into a rabbit and if it's present, the rabbit's ovaries will show it in the next few days.'
'What happens to the rabbit?'
'It has to be killed in any case, so the ovaries can be examined.'
'Oh God. Is there any other way of knowing for sure? Something this friend of mine could check on his own?'
'How many cycles has she missed? Did she tell him?'
'A few days, I think.'
'I see, I see. Tell this friend of yours to give it a few more weeks. She could well be late. One out of four times a pregnancy doesn't make it past three months anyway. That could be the easiest way out of troubled waters.'
He stood up, signalling that it was time for me to go. He wouldn't accept remuneration, but did accept my hand.
'Thank you,' I said. 'I'll tell him that. You've been a great help. Once again.'
He led me out, to receive impatient and dirty looks from the growing number of patients in the waiting room. Then he stepped outside after me and his face turned stern. 'He should turn to me for help before she and he do anything drastic.'
'You mean abortion?'
'I mean marriage!' he burst out, shaking me like a lolly-smuggling schoolchild. If he hadn't helped my family so much in the past, I would never have taken it. 'Don't get hooked up, boy, with that woman. People around this neighbourhood talk. As a general rule, whoever you'd have to marry isn't worth marrying. Sex is one thing. Marriage another. I'm not talking to you as a medical man now, I'm talking to you plain man to man. Don't fall into that trap — it's as old as Mother Earth. You're a smart kid. Your face's nothing plastic surgery couldn't take care of. What that slut needs is a good kick in the arse, send her flying to the moon!'
The more I denied it, the more he retaliated with a thorough tongue-lashing. I trudged home, downcast and humiliated that he could actually think I meant Madeleine. Who did he take me for? Who did he think he was? It would be my right, my choice anyway, to be with whomever the heck I chose! Oh Lord, so that's what the whole neighbourhood thought . . .
On my way in, I checked the mail with an expression similar to a bloodhound left in a car on a hot summer day. What I least expected was good news. It turned out I'd been offered a job at Knopphart's, a company that specialised in mailings and opinion polls in the household goods sector. To the devil with Dr Gregor! To the devil with the neighbours, the whole wide world!
***
According to my new employer's secretary, Frau Schmitt, it was thanks to the civil servant I thought I'd displeased ages before. It took me a while to even remember her. Apparently she'd written on top of my application three words: 'Take this man!' Frau Schmitt had kept my application so she could hire me at the next vacancy, but because jobs were still scarce, and those lucky enough to have them held on to them tooth and nail, the next vacancy had only just come up.
Frau Schmitt was the right arm of Herr Demner, our boss, who never came to the office in person. He worked two floors above and used the telephone if he had a word to say. She spoke on his behalf: 'If Herr Demner sees your foot up on that chair, nein nein nein!' 'Herr Demner wouldn't be happy with such laxness.' 'No crack
ers during work time, Frau Farrenkoft; Herr Demner would have a fit!'
On my first day I discovered I was the only man ever to have been hired on that floor, which won me a shower of chauvinistic jokes. The two oldest — and, coincidentally, least attractive — women were the only ones who were married. Frau Rösler, nicknamed Godmum, and Frau Schmulka. Both had substantial bosoms resting upon their bellies, and varicose veins like mapped streams on their legs.
Camilla Hührdanz, a young, wavy-haired blonde known by her colleagues as Tussi, was, as her nickname hinted, a bimbo who, throughout the workday, leaned over her drawer where her mirror was hidden to touch up her makeup. That's what Frau Schmitt meant by laxness. Every other time Tussi was caught. We couldn't help but keep our eyes on her activities, to see whether she'd be caught anew, and it was our slowed typing pace that probably caused Frau Schmitt to come parading back through the room. Sometimes a man would come to pick Tussi up after work, which made her jittery all day beforehand. Godmum said Tussi and the fellow were getting serious when Tussi didn't mind Frau Schmitt's scolding — that meant Tussi was planning on quitting as soon as the knot was tied. When the man stopped showing up, Tussi threw droopy stares out the window for about a week, then the routine resumed until the next one came along.
The other two women, Astrid Farrenkopf and Petra Kunkel, had a streak of adolescence in their middle age, which was probably just past thirty. Both war widows, they shared their lunches, cigarettes, perfume, and, if their feet hurt, made a spectacle of themselves pulling off each other's boots, their legs up in the air. They didn't like anyone younger or prettier than themselves, which at least left Godmum and Frau Schmulka safe.
Caging Skies Page 26