He had never got over that and had stopped going to confession, so the memory of subsequent Saturdays was unsullied—and he shuddered at the thought that the other day his dear child Sabine had actually come over here to have Kohlschröder—of all people!—hear her confession! Just his bath and the milk soup, Mother’s flushed face over the stove, Hans pushing his cocoa toward him—he would usually leave then and, somewhere else, get something better than cocoa!—Father, who fortunately was away, with bike and rucksack looking for cheap land, he had a pathological craving for property, to own pieces of this earth, even if only the swampy meadows, now useless, of bankrupt farmers. Father, who wanted to own land and was not gentle of spirit—a strict, a hated teacher, also a vegetarian—would ride around with bike and rucksack, collecting land, craving earth, collecting acres and square feet, eventually acquiring a few acres of useless soil, rummaging in his papers, collecting land-registry extracts, deeds, all notarized; consumption, death (and those few acres of land around Iffenhoven, Blückhoven, and Hetzigrath had certainly made life a bit easier for his mother after the war: she had exchanged land for food, converting acre after acre into milk, butter, and potatoes—later, when the bulldozing started in that area, the farmers got a hundred times what they had paid for it).
The village children, including Anna Pütz and Bertha Kelz, sighed with relief when his father died, especially the boys, who, now grandfathers, still tell their grandchildren about that dreadful teacher Mr. Tolm, of whom nobody even knew whether he was “at least a Catholic,” a “real” Catholic—granted he went to church and kept order, but he had never been seen in the confessional or at the Communion bench, not even in the neighboring villages where he spent some of his Sundays, with bike and rucksack, tempting the farmers with a bit of cash, offering a down payment over a glass of beer, preliminary deals sealed after mass with a handshake, among witnesses, ridiculed because he never drank, at most a glass of water or a mug of milk, a tall, bony, skinny fellow, joyless and friendless. His mother, to be sure, had not been without joy: her children and garden, her kitchen and church, she had been active in the Mothers’ Union, had gone on pilgrimages, never been flustered, and had even succeeded—rarely, oh so rarely—in conjuring a smile onto Father’s face when she reminded him of their youth in Blückhoven, of her parents, of his, who had lived there on top of the brown coal.
He really must go and inspect the graves again, Käthe’s floral arrangements, the crucifix-and-roses marble symbolism, the lighted candle in its copper housing. No doubt he would have visited the church and, in spite of all his reluctance, looked in on Kohlschröder, that was a man one could at least talk to about architecture and painting, and about music too; and he might even have gone to the Kommertz house, where the Schröters lived, the present parents-in-law, so to speak, of Rolf, Katharina’s parents. Although to this day, fifty years later, he still felt embarrassed at having sometimes done with Peter Kommertz and Konrad Wergen what he called “alone with others,” the two of them having enlightened him when he asked what old Nuppertz could have meant by “fiddling”—and he had preferred to wait for dreams and then very soon, while commuting to school, he had met Gerlind. Later he coached her in mathematics, right here in the manor house; what with her being a countess, he hadn’t dared make a pass at her legs or breasts, but he had looked deep, deep into her eyes too, and she into his, and one day she had “made short work of it,” saying in her flippant way: “Let’s take pity on ourselves,” adding: “No complexes, Fritz dear—you’re not the first, and you probably won’t be the last, and I know that for you I am the first.” That girl, regarded as a “brazen hussy,” had turned gentle, silent, and even breathless, and that wild rapture in her face, that happiness which might almost be called bliss—he would never forget that, never, nor her smile at his joy. In triumph, not in remorse, he had gone back once more to the confessional to get rid of that “with others,” to take final leave of confession, maybe of the Church that was trying to force him every week to confess remorsefully to something which an hour later he would do again without remorse. Never forgotten, Nuppertz’s blatant, more than indiscreet, blustering, the barefaced question spat out at him: “With whom?!” which had nothing to do with the secret of the confessional, and besides: he must have known, the whole village knew, and they all knew too that there would be a row, and there was. The usual, the inevitable, happened: strict boarding school for Gerlind, and to everyone’s surprise no banning from the manor house for him. There was even a rumor that the old countess might have not only foreseen it but desired it: the fact that she liked him, encouraged him, was too obvious, and now he coached Gerlind’s brother Holger, also in math. It felt good to be able to give his mother something from time to time, to be able to buy the odd thing for himself. Moreover, there were such things as bicycles, and not even the nuns in Cologne could keep the school hermetically sealed. Gerlind insisted on her right, “guaranteed by ecclesiastical law and theology,” to seek out a father confessor other than the priest attached to the school. And not only were there bicycles, there were also parks, apartments belonging to the parents of Gerlind’s friends: in particular, one near the South Station on the Moselstrasse, where when the windows were open they could hear the trains, and Gerlind always laughed when he insisted on looking into her eyes. He knew, she knew: what he found there was not what he had sought in Bertha’s and Anna’s eyes, and yet it was good: end of the confessional and milk soup.
He could, after all, have gloated when he sometimes sat in church, looking at the unchanged neo-Gothic confessional; gloated over the fact that they, Nuppertz’s successors—well, if not all, at least a great many of them—had been caught in the sex trap that for centuries they had been setting for others. Where did they confess that “with others,” not to mention that “alone”? Where indeed, and how, and with what penances? What was going on in their well-kept, spacious homes, in those fashionably furnished rooms which Rolf so bitingly and so mercilessly took to pieces? With their women and housekeepers and distant cousins and God knows what, and never a thought of explaining why matters were so arranged that male virility, joy, desire, and even lust were at their peak when you couldn’t—weren’t allowed to—didn’t have enough money to—get married, and were driven to whores or “loose women,” of which Gerlind was one, and forced to that joyless “alone” that he had never liked. Where, then, were the “others,” if a Gerlind didn’t happen along, a stroke of luck, of happiness—why on earth didn’t they make saints of the Gerlinds? Again and again, ever since he had entered the confessional after the last time with Gerlind, still that sense of gloating (although much restrained) when he invited himself for coffee at Kohlschröder’s—that mixture of triumph, disgust, and sorrow as it became increasingly obvious that Kohlschröder was shacked up with this Gerta, his housekeeper, with all that that entailed both physically and psychically. It was common knowledge, wasn’t it, never denied, it was plain to see, not merely to be sensed, when he brushed her dyed red hair with his hand in passing, or when she poured him his coffee, the way their hands met when she gave him a light—there was more intimacy and naturalness in that than if they had been caught in bed together; an understanding in look and gesture, a familiarity that was as embarrassing as it was touching, the buxom, blooming forty-year-old in the denim skirt and floppy blouse, which she allowed to reveal quite a bit—nothing was left of the magic of romantic love, it was all more indecent, whorelike. It never ceased to be a shock to him. It wouldn’t have been so bad if it had been open, if they hadn’t kept on inveighing against the moral turpitude of others and defending their lousy celibacy, and thundering about the immorality of youth and the world—Kohlschröder, anyway. This carefully cultivated disintegration, this tastefully, stylishly guarded chaos, pained him, and damn it, what did they do not to have children, surely they had to do something which they forbade others to do? Damn it, who confessed what to whom, and who absolved whom from what? After all, he had never, not for a second,
intended to become a priest, had never taken any vow of chastity and never lusted after another man’s wife; not even Edith had been married. This carefully cultivated decay, this chaos, in the very shadow of the church, but with all that there was one thing she was good at, making coffee, Gerta was, a person it was a real pleasure to look at, gentle, with a pleasant voice, dyed red hair—yet there was something bawdy about her that he resented precisely because she wasn’t living in a bawdy house. Sometimes he dropped in anyway, uninvited, and he no longer felt any desire to gloat, all that was left was sorrow and disgust; after all, at one time something had been there that meant a lot to many people—to Sabine and Käthe a great deal, even to him, even today, much more than could be dreamed of by those who were so gracefully skimming along a course on which they had allowed millions, if not billions, to lose their footing “alone or with others.” Chaos on all sides, disintegration behind carefully rouged, stylish façades.
He couldn’t discuss that with Käthe. She was naïve and credulous in a way that he had no wish to destroy. And anyway there was nothing to be proved. Herbert always just laughed, for him the Church was no subject for discussion, whereas for Rolf it was. Rolf was fully aware that it had molded him, one way or another, as well as Katharina and Sabine—he was more worried about her than about Käthe in this respect, how often he had wished for a lover for Sabine, a nice, uncomplicated fellow, even, if need be, a member of the Riding Club. He was pretty sure that she hadn’t found happiness with Erwin Fischer, or “with others” for that matter. He would never have mentioned this, never been able to prove it or discuss it with anyone, and yet: Sabine had deserved someone who really loved her, not that snooty bastard whom, when he was alone with Käthe, he called “that human repellent.”
Käthe had planned to be back from Sabine’s around six. It was only just four-thirty; the cars were all gone, goodbyes all said. There would have been time simply to walk to the village. But that wasn’t possible anymore, he could no longer just walk off like that, not even at his own risk. Bleibl had put it well in the overt sarcasm of his congratulatory address: “Now you will belong even less to yourself, and even less to your family.” And supposing he took a chance—surely they wouldn’t actually restrain him, or would they? He couldn’t saddle the tireless young guards with that; although it would have been his fault, they would have to take the blame, they would bear the responsibility, swallow the disgrace. Moreover, he had promised Holzpuke faithfully not to indulge in escapades or tolerate any on Käthe’s part, in fact to inform him if Käthe had any in mind. There had been a few occasions when she had succeeded in going beyond the park, through the strip of forest, and walking to Hetzigrath, and from there going by taxi, unescorted, into town. She had soon been tracked down—there were only her two old friends, whose addresses were known, of course, and only the two cafés, Getzloser’s and Kaint’s, or Zwirner’s shoe store or Holdkamp’s and Breslitzer’s dress shops, or the four churches she loved—she had soon been picked up, once even in the taxi on her way into town (by this time Holzpuke presumably had a system going with all the taxi companies), but still it was annoying, a nuisance, a waste of effort, and by now she had acknowledged herself to be “converted” and had “come to terms with Tolmshoven Prison.”
He did not doubt for a moment that all the measures, no matter how crazy and extreme they might seem, were justified. He wanted to be cooperative, indeed had to be; as it was, he sometimes worried about the mental stamina of the men, and his mind was not entirely set at ease by Holzpuke’s assurance that they were under the constant psychological observation of an outstanding specialist, a certain Dr. Kiernter. He knew only too well that there were many things he had never told his doctor, never told Grebnitzer. He had never yet mentioned the deadly boredom in the vast offices of his “little paper.” And to walk into the village with an escort, he wouldn’t want to do that. What would young Hendler think, for instance, if he went into the village church and sat down, then looked in on the priest? Everyone—certainly Holzpuke—knew that the priest was carrying on with Gerta and that, since Veronica had recently had the eccentric idea of phoning Käthe there—of all places—he had been drawn, perhaps unwittingly, into the entire safety net. The possible thoughts of the security guards killed all spontaneity in him. Holzpuke had introduced them to him: Hendler, Zurmack, Lühler, “a good team, a magnificently balanced group, which has proved its excellence in protecting your daughter, your son-in-law, and your granddaughter.” Needless to say, he had contacted Sabine by phone, although he knew the line must be bugged, and she had nothing but praise for all three, especially for that young Hendler, whom she described as “a very serious, considerate, and courteous person.”
His mind was always turning to Sabine, who was now more and more often asking for Käthe, calling her up, inviting her over, or coming over herself. Probably due to that idiot Fischer, who couldn’t resist letting the weekly illustrateds in on his erotic and sexual escapades.
It wasn’t only the security measures that deterred him from simply walking to the village: it was also his legs, which no longer behaved as well as they used to, and he couldn’t have said which deterred him more: his legs or that inescapable surveillance. His cheerfulness, that new sense of relief after the disappearance of his fear, had not yet communicated itself to his legs, they remained heavy, stiff, cold down to his feet. On Käthe’s arm he might have managed, alone he couldn’t risk suddenly giving way, perhaps having to support himself on that young Hendler, whose vigilance would thus be impaired, nor did he want to ask Blurtmehl to accompany him. What would Blurtmehl, what would any of them think, if he suddenly stopped outside the Pütz house or the Kelz house? Whatever they thought or imagined, it would stifle his memory, and he would never recapture the two girls’ faces; or if he sat down in the empty church, staring at the confessional, the neo-Gothic windows, thinking in sorrow and disgust of what he had never yet been able to come to terms with: that disgusting drivel of Nuppertz’s that had stifled all, all poetry, all beauty, even the sad enjoyment of the “alone.” The very idea of what they might think killed his memory, killed the memory of those two girls—once so nice, so sensible—of the blustering, indiscreet Nuppertz, of the “with others.” Probably it was better not to return to the places of memory. It wasn’t the men, the guards, but what they might think that pursued him, thoughts they probably never even had.
He took the stairs rather than the elevator in order to avoid yet another encounter with the faces of possible stragglers: Pottsieker and Herbtholer, and all those others he hadn’t been able to get away from during the four days of isolation: Bleibl, who might still be in the building; friends, enemies, waiters. Always that tension in the elevator; forced smile, awkwardness with cigar or cigarette ash (Kulgreve never remembered to have ashtrays installed in the elevator—he would have to mention that to Amplanger, who would see that it was done), and those brief ironic remarks about Tolmshoven, manor house and meeting place that they called his “castle of nostalgia”; some of them couldn’t resist dubbing him “Friedrich von Tolm zu Tolm,” whereas he was plain Fritz Tolm and happened to have been born in the village named after the manor and the local aristocracy. Yet everyone, including Bleibl, had been forced to admit that the purchase of the manor had turned out to be ideal. The remodeling and modernization had been worthwhile, even financially; two airports within thirty minutes’ drive, another within forty, and, in an emergency, landing permission could even be obtained from the British military airfield only twenty minutes away. It had been an excellent idea to get away from the hotels rented by the day or the week. After vain attempts to persuade the Association to make the purchase, he had eventually bought it himself, from Holger Count Tolm, the last of the name, who for many years now had been disporting himself with women and gambling somewhere in southern Spain, trying without success to be accepted by the international playboy set: the very image of an embarrassing type of decay which, in its unashamedness, was still more to h
is liking than the decay of the clergy behind carefully preserved façades. In Holger’s case, not even hair and teeth had held out. He had even become a bit lachrymose, dotty—Holger, with whom he could never be angry, much less resent, ever since his childhood, his youth, when Holger had covered up for his love affair with Gerlind, provided alibis, helped arrange trysts; Holger, driven by the war into an unsuccessful career in the air force and to drink, whose sole talent was that of golden boy of the officers’ mess, their maâitre de plaisir, hanging around staff headquarters, arranging dinners, obtaining caviar, champagne, and women, eventually making it to the rank of major and ending up wobblier in the knees than he would care to admit to himself. Even if Holger was becoming tiresome, that youthful credit would never be exhausted, in spite of his gradually becoming a genuine embarrassment, totally debauched as he described himself, by this time hardly respected by any of the cliques. Tolm, while creeping up the stairs, was still thinking of the nice boy with whom he used to cycle to Cologne, ostensibly to visit museums and churches or to buy additions to his electric railway, or simply “for no particular reason,” while Gerlind was waiting for him somewhere—usually in the Moselstrasse apartment—laughing and, as one would say today, “topless.”
He couldn’t help smiling now: it was true that he had paid too much for Tolmshoven, for Holger’s sake and also for Gerlind’s, who had turned up out of the blue: to his surprise quite sedate, already in her early sixties, married to a commoner, a lawyer by the name of Fottger who was on the staff of the Foreign Office; plumpish too, Gerlind, smiling, even blushing—something she never used to do—and saying: “We can really use the money, seeing that our children have to go to university while we traipse around the world, and I’m so glad you’re getting the place—and sometimes, you know, I feel I should have held on to you, should have tried—it was lovely with you, you were such a child.” Fortunately he didn’t try any tricks, which wouldn’t have done her much good in any case—no hand touching, no sighing, no eyelid fluttering, nothing—when they had gone on from the conveyancing office to Café Getzloser, where Fottger, who was apparently a Social Democrat, defended Germany’s Ostpolitik. She had never been actually pretty: attractive, yes—pretty, never, and her flighty ways had obviously long since left her. He was also thinking of the old countess, who had always gone out of her way to help him. She had stubbornly insisted that he study for a degree, and she had been exceptionally charming to Käthe.
The Safety Net Page 3