‘Good evening,’ he said. ‘Please take off your boots.’
There was something terribly feudal about everything. Up to that point nothing would have come to my mind if I considered the concept of a ‘hunting lodge’, but I recognised an inkling of this term in this building. An entrance with a huge staircase, decorative mouldings on the coats of arms — but on the wall between them were deer antlers and carved wood panelling, which reverted the overall effect from pompous to provincial. Portraits of countless ancestors, all of whom had put on their jackets to show their connection to the countryside — but in among them, marble busts of the most popular poets and thinkers adorned the knobs of the bannisters.
I was, of course, repulsed.
‘Lovely,’ I said. ‘Where should I go?’
‘The Countess is waiting for you upstairs in the orange salon. Go left ‘till the end of the corridor, then second door on the right you’re stopping,’ the servant answered, with faulty grammar. I climbed the impressive stairs and came to a corridor that led deep into the building. Everything was soundproofed: thick carpets were rolled down the two-hundred-metre-long corridor, and swallowed so utterly every sound in its shag fabric it was as if it wanted to oppose the laws of acoustics. I snapped my fingers several times and struggled to hear the sound at all. Every few steps along the corridor there was a door to the left and right; the entire flock-wallpapered passage was windowless and weakly lit. I was briefly surprised that after my escort to the castle I had now been left completely unsupervised. I looked around and ran my fingers over the wallcovering to uncover the secret of its light absorption, but nothing: it was normal paper. At the end of the corridor a door was open on the right. I knocked for decency’s sake, even though I had been standing under the huge, carved door frame for a long time already. When no one said anything, I entered the room.
As the name had quite rightly suggested, it was a room of massive proportions, painted orange, furnished like a cross between a library and a study. In front of the farthest wall of books was a large desk that seemed to be overflowing with documents; behind it, an imperial armchair capped off with two lion heads on the backrest. But before that, on the other side, was the most fragile of folding chairs I’d ever seen. I walked over and looked at the bundles of papers that were hanging over the edge of the table — looked around furtively and picked up a piece of paper: they were all begging letters. The first one read, for instance: ‘To your excellency, the Countess von Greater Einland, gracious Ulrike Knapp-Korb-Weidenheim: I humbly request that the tax payments for the calendar year 2006 be deferred for reasons of a personal nature. A hospital bed needed to be purchased for the in-home care of my mother for 1300 EUR, which is why we ask your Countship for your tolerance for a few months.’ Other requests concerned the harvest of the fruit fields or planning permission for the building of a window ledge. In short: every official matter that one could imagine converged here on a bureaucratic rummage table. To have people pay court this way seemed absurd to me, a farce, but I couldn’t stop reading.
‘Good afternoon,’ I heard a voice say from the corner of the room, after I’d been standing in front of the table for a few minutes. I turned around. It was only at this moment that I noticed the Countess, who had been sitting up in a recess above the library wall that was barely visible from the other side of the room, wordlessly observing my grubbing around in the shallows of her paperwork.
‘Do not nose around in confidential papers. I was already irritated that you pawed my wallpaper. Do you always do that?’ she said, and climbed down from her strange gallery. ‘But let’s put this aside for now. I have more important matters that I have to discuss with you. Since you’re already standing at my desk, we can take a seat right away.’
My mind raced with the question of how she could have seen my assault on the wall, and I felt ashamed. We sat down on the available chairs — she on the regal armchair, I on the folding chair — so that, now I could see her for the first time from the front, she seemed to float half a metre above me. I had to tilt my head back in order to look her in the eye. It became clear to me that up to this moment I had believed that whoever had thought up this ludicrous request for me had to themselves be a laughing stock; yet as I was sitting opposite her, we found ourselves in a realm of absolute seriousness.
The Countess, though she was significantly shorter than me, radiated something innately domineering. She had to be in her mid-sixties and wore a bun that was pulled tightly behind her head, which forged her grey hair against her delicate scalp like nylon thread. She was wearing a floor-length blue skirt and a matching jacket, which was stretched tightly across her chest like canvas. Now that she leaned over the endlessly wide table, I saw that her delicate fingers were covered with rings, at least three of which bore different coats of arms.
‘Knapp-Korb von Weidenheim is my name. You have probably heard of me,’ she said.
‘Ruth Schwarz,’ I said.
‘Yes, I’ve known that for a long time.’ The Countess kept a serious face, as if I had broken into her house at this hour and now had to answer for it. An unbearable tension arose around us as we fell silent.
‘Well.’ I urged myself to speak. ‘What a beautiful building.’
‘This castle has belonged to my family for over five hundred years, you know. Castle Weidenheim, seat of the margraviate, formerly used as an organ of high jurisdiction.’
There was really nothing to say about that. We fell once more into thirty horrific seconds of silence. The Countess was above me at such an unfortunate angle that my neck ached from keeping her in view.
‘May I ask why you wanted to speak to me?’ I finally dared to ask.
‘Well, may I not?’ she said snappily. ‘I know everyone in this town and it ought to remain that way. We ought to get to know one another?’
‘Absolutely,’ I said, intimidated by her vehemence. ‘I’m actually very pleased to meet you.’
‘Well, if you don’t want to, you can always just leave!’ she shouted, as if she hadn’t heard what I’d said.
‘Of course I want to stay. Are you really a Countess?’ I asked mollifyingly, pointing at the stucco moulded ceiling, as if proof of her nobility might be found there. For a moment I thought I had gone too far with this question, because the Countess stood up, frozen and with a far-off gaze like the Statue of Liberty, only to then, with her hand behind her back, step out from behind the desk as if it concerned a subject of utmost depth.
‘There is a certain type of character in our town that has persisted over the last few hundred years. You’ll notice it soon enough. In any case, in the first instance I was the mayor, elected and re-elected in four legislative periods, democratically and according to protocol, until the office became too much trouble for me. Secondly, as you have probably already heard, my husband and I are the owners of the town.’
She sat back down again, fastidiously positioning her lower back into a ramrod straight position. ‘Now, most people would take that to be a contradiction,’ she said curtly, and as if to test my reaction. ‘That someone can be elected and own the land. Do you also find it grotesque?’
I tried to be diplomatic. ‘I don’t altogether understand how someone can own a town. When I was looking for Greater Einland, it wasn’t even in the municipal directory; it’s extremely troublesome to find.’ My words were drowned by loud, disjointed piano chords that could be heard from below.
‘I beg your pardon — my husband is a great art lover. We’re not in the directory. Most of us haven’t been registered for our entire lives. Of course, that has to do with Austria as a whole, but also with the fact that certain structures have remained that one cannot remove as such. Do you understand? As if one were trying to pull a skeleton out of a body, something gets forced asunder.’
The non-answer to my question had thus been supplemented by further ambiguities. The Countess had long since got up again
and had gone to a shelf on the back wall of the drawing room, from which she took out a large book. It was an ostentatious atlas, on which I read ‘Franziscean Cadastre’, and which she dropped onto the table with dust-swirling force.
‘Please don’t touch the horse. I am highly sensitive and pick up colds very easily,’ she said with a flare of temper. She pointed to a marble statue of a horse that protruded from the paper in the middle of the desk, which I hadn’t shown even the slightest intention of touching.
‘I’ll tell you how it is — I have a job for you. Look, this is the Franziscean Cadastre, which our dear Emperor commissioned in 1810 in order to survey all Austrian real estate. Here is Greater Einland.’
‘What sort of job?’ I asked over the book.
‘Well, it concerns all sorts of things: calculations, fundamental physical work on the subject of deterioration and erosion, especially of the natural landscape. You must in any case be present at my salons, and then always be working on small tasks in between, maybe also giving presentations to my guests to brief them. Do you understand?’ The Countess had sprung up again. She rummaged through a drawer for a moment, but then gave up and switched on a golden desk lamp.
‘I don’t quite understand. Briefings on what topic?’
‘Oh, quite distinct things. You may have heard that we have certain problems with erosion. But if I have to keep explaining it to you, I can just do it myself.’ Only now, in the electric light, did I see that, under the violent parting, her high forehead was wet with sweat. ‘Someone has to take a look at it in a concrete sense, but above all I have some structural tasks for you, that must be addressed with some urgency. The amount of remuneration is immaterial. You can also pick out a little house, we would take care of that. Come now, I’m proposing something to you.’
‘I don’t plan to stay very long,’ I said.
‘Very well, you’ve persuaded me. We’ll do it like this: you work half the day for me, the other half you can use for your postdoctoral thesis. I would make sure that you get all the materials you need, get all the literature that you require, and not only pay you a full salary but double for all I care. Do with it what you like.’
When she mentioned my thesis, panic shot through me. There was no way for her to have known about it. Had she called the university?
‘Regarding the salons — of course, you don’t even know my salons — one could say that you would act as my right hand, so to speak. The second obligation would be, however, that you would always work here, next to my study, where I conduct my administrative work. In other words, to put it briefly, I would like to regularly look over your shoulder while you work. You can —’
‘Sorry, I have to decline,’ I interrupted her finally. ‘First, because I will be leaving after my parents’ funeral, and second, because I’m unable to help you with geological problems. I’m a theoretical physicist, not a practical one.’
‘But that won’t be a problem. We have some very fundamental questions to clarify first.’
‘No, it’s not going to work, completely impossible,’ I said again. For a moment, however, doubt entered my mind: finishing my thesis, I thought, briefly infatuated, but then rejected the idea.
‘We have a lot of important people here locally who would help you with every eventuality. We all have something on our minds from time to time.’
No, it was absurd: having to lecture at a Countess’s salon on issues I had no interest in, and tolerating people who belonged to so-called higher society. (This displeasure against pearl necklaces and golf trousers, against honourable titles and cufflinks, however, only floated on the surface like a stubborn oil spill above a much vaster shoal. Only much later would I comprehend that something conflicting also lay beneath it: fear. A fear of the Countess, which I tried to mitigate with contempt, a fear of becoming condemned and expelled by her, a vague fear of the discipline that expressed itself in her tense demeanour, but especially a fear of not being liked by her, in spite of the fact I didn’t especially like her myself.)
‘I would reconsider if I were you. You want to be untethered, I understand that. You remind me a lot of myself at your age, I see a lot of me in you,’ said the Countess. ‘We’ve heard a lot about you. One again, my condolences on the unexpected death of Elisabeth and Erich. Two very wonderful people.’
‘Yes, sadly,’ I said, irritated at how casually she had mixed her condolences among the rest of her agenda, and all the more so because she pretended to have known my parents.
‘We were well acquainted with each other. I don’t know if your father told you, but we were in the same class, eight years of secondary school. He was an unruly boy — already at seventeen he was a true proto-’68er, if you know what I mean.’
The Countess had a way of looking at me between sentences that made me forget to be quick on the comeback. But now she was silent for a moment, as if she really had to think.
‘Tell me, did your parents ever say anything about me? Or anything about Greater Einland?’ It was the first question she asked as if she actually wanted to know something from me. I almost could have sworn she looked concerned.
‘No, I didn’t even know if Greater Einland really existed, to tell the truth. I didn’t know that you existed.’
‘Yes, your parents and I were intimately acquainted. Anyway,’ she said tersely, and brushed the topic away with the wave of her hand. ‘Very well, you don’t want to work for me just yet,’ she changed the subject again. ‘You will change your mind at the right time, I can feel it, but very well, you want to make it exciting. Now tell me a little more about yourself. You’re a physicist? Where did you study?’
‘In Vienna and Zurich, semesters abroad in Shanghai and Dublin,’ I recited mechanically.
‘Fine. And you’ve been working on a postdoctoral thesis on the philosophy of time for the last six years. An interesting subject. But why is it taking so long to complete it? You made such quick progress at first.’
‘Personal events,’ I said, feeling as if I’d been caught out.
‘You are unmarried, why? Oh, I see!’ Her attempt at smiling was even more unnerving than her austerity, as if she had practised it for a long time, but still hadn’t mastered it. ‘Of course, you are new and don’t know who informs me of all these things. Come over here.’ We went to the rear window, and the Countess pulled a kitschy golden tassel, which made the curtains move to the side, revealing a view of the town far below.
‘The town is a sensitive nervous system, on whose pathways information is constantly being transported back and forth. The castle is the centre from which corridors, streets, and hidden paths lead into all the cells of the town. Everything that comes out of the town passes through the castle and vice versa, as if we were metaphors for one another, you understand? A kind of spiritual feudal law, from which each of the two parties can benefit.’
The idea disgusted me. So she had been told everything. But who could I accuse? At least there was nothing to hide; it couldn’t be said that the people with whom I’d spoken in the town had breached my trust.
‘I’d like to go home now,’ I said.
‘Soon,’ said the Countess, as if it were a matter of her own discretion. ‘First of all, I’d like to know a few more things from you. If you really want to leave so soon, how long do you intend on staying in Greater Einland, and what form will your contribution to our community take?’
Now I was angry. ‘Only until after my parents’ funeral. I’m waiting for a grave plot to be assigned. I have no intention of settling here for a long time, and therefore I see no reason to actively contribute to the community. I don’t see why a cross-examination such as this is suitable — after all, I’m on public property.’
‘You see, that’s where you’re wrong. We just discussed that Greater Einland is on my private property. You ought to listen better. And that’s why I’m requesting information. Well, if y
ou don’t have any ideas, I’ll offer it to you again: you will come to one of my Tuesday salons without obligation. It would be a shame if I didn’t at least introduce you to some of my acquaintances.’
‘I’ll think about it,’ I said, despite the fact that I wouldn’t consider it for even a second. I just wanted to get away from this castle. It was Thursday, and surely I would be given the go-ahead for the grave before there even was a salon.
‘You can go now, I have to be in bed by 10pm. Do you need someone to accompany you back to the guesthouse?’
‘I’ll find my own way back, thank you,’ I said.
She sat back down at her desk and watched me put on my coat. ‘Oh yes, one more thing,’ the Countess said. ‘You can, of course, consider the grave plot approved.’
‘And a tap water on the house.’ Frau Erna placed a glass of whitish liquid next to my dinner. I thanked her and took the bottle of mineral water I’d brought with me out of my rucksack.
After more than a week I was still not used to it: every time I turned on the tap in Greater Einland, sly, turbid liquid, which only bore a passing resemblance to water, flowed from the pipes. Heavy with lime, it passed, via a glass, directly into the digestive tract of whoever drank it, and in doing so, it was reassured, one wouldn’t come to any harm, because it was from an organic origin. This lime, which turned the water in the ground white like fresh milk running from a cow’s udder, seeped into the organs and lime washed — I imagined — a body’s fluids until they forfeited their deep red in favour of the white colour of the Greater Einland soil. To cleanse yourself of it was an illusion: one sat in opaque baths, drank naturally cloudy tap water, and washed the lime into your hair until the pale dulling of the tips became the norm, because everyone boasted them. One cleaned their room with thick, viscous rags, and cooked pasta stiffer than it was when it came out of the packet.
The Liquid Land Page 8