The Glory of Life

by Michael Kumpfmüller

  It’s a comfort to him that she believes in the room. He must have a bed, a table or desk to write at, but beyond that he doesn’t need anything. A sofa would be nice, a radiator when it is cold, light and water. For a moment he believes in it. It is possible. He has met her. So it is possible.

  Ottla has come back from her summer holiday for a day. Just because of him, it turns out. Elli and their mother did not mince words in their letters. She took one quick look at him and decided at once that he must get away from here, into the countryside and the fresh air. At first he needed some coaxing, although he is grateful and relieved, and ashamed because she has her two little girls and thinks of him all the same.

  There is not much to discuss. Ottla is in his room, helping him to pack, feeling his forehead, talking about the place where she is staying in the shopkeeper Schöbl’s house, saying he had better take warmer clothes too in case the weather changes. It turns out that he may be there longer than just a couple of days. They can stay until the end of September. He is alarmed, because that is more than four weeks, but he feels tired, he has a temperature, so he does not resist Ottla.

  8

  Sometimes she wakes in the night full of doubts: will he come? Why has she been so confident all these days, even now – when everything suddenly seems questionable – as if he might not change his mind? For instance if he falls seriously ill, or if he no longer believes in their love, or if he begins to forget her.

  In the first few days she thought she had enough confidence to last forever, but now, unexpectedly, her stock of it is running out. Her hair, seen in the mirror, is losing its lustre; so are her eyes, and anxiety leaves traces on her skin, which feels wretched and sensitive. She didn’t know that her body would remember – eyes, nose, mouth, her lips that don’t meet his, the place just under her navel where she always used to feel that pulling sensation. She misses his voice, the way he looks at her – the way he looked at her that day on the beach when, at a glance, he acknowledged who she was: a silly little girl from the east, but at the same time something else as well, at least to him, for he sees something else in her that no one has ever seen before. She doesn’t think herself particularly pretty, but there before his eyes on the beach she wanted to be pretty, and so she did later on the landing-stage when she felt how he longed for her, and how he accepted his longing for her and wanted no one else.

  At the police department dealing with aliens staying in the country, she has been told that her residence permit will not be extended; she has no new job in view, so she must go back to Berlin. She talks to Paul about it, although only hinting at her reasons for not wanting to leave Müritz. She has promised someone she will wait for him here, she says, maybe she can find temporary work in a hotel. They have not held out much hope to her at the employment agency; many of the visitors leave when the summer holidays are over, so there is almost no demand for more workers.

  Paul immediately suspects who it is she is waiting for. She doesn’t say no and doesn’t say yes, which ultimately amounts to an answer in itself, and at last confesses that yes, it is the doctor. In retrospect, Paul thinks he noticed something between them from the first, a kind of flickering in her eyes at meals, when the doctor was talking to her, the way he looked at her, not in the ordinary way one person looks at another. Isn’t he a little old for you? Paul himself is in his early twenties, and considers a man in his thirties old. Now, however, he speaks of him in glowing terms; the doctor, he says, is a remarkable man, with delicate and courteous manners, and a writer – well, yes, half the colony was in love with him, after all.

  He said he would go to Berlin with her, she tells Paul.

  The doctor? And that’s why you are waiting for him? But you’d do much better to wait for him in Berlin. When will he be here?

  She is afraid she doesn’t know, but if she has to leave Müritz she definitely doesn’t want to go to Berlin on her own, she will go to Berlin only with him.

  He went to visit his sister during the summer holiday. Yesterday, after her conversation with Paul, there was a postcard for her, and for now she doesn’t know any more. The sister was not particularly pleased with the state he was in, so he had gone out into the country to see her for a few days. The place is called Schelesen; the name means nothing to her. Ottla had been very energetic and in practice left him no choice. She said I looked like a ghost, he writes to Dora, do you want to live with a ghost in Berlin? Yesterday in the kitchen all she could think was: no, please don’t say that, darling, you’ve gone the wrong way, turn back or what’s to become of me?

  Paul immediately asked, in the morning, what was the matter with her, for heaven’s sake? Bad news? She doesn’t know whether the news is bad or simply news; she has read the postcard over and over again, that passage about the ghost, and now, gradually, she begins to feel calmer. If this is the only possibility then, fundamentally, it’s all right. She just has to know where to stay for the immediate future. She could go to her friend Judith, who is spending the summer in a village near Rathenau. Perhaps she can stay there for the time being.

  Paul says: anyone can tell you’re not in a good way, but anyone can see how happy you are. He helps her in the kitchen, sits in the garden with her, fetches coffee and pastries, pays her compliments but always nicely, as if he were speaking for the doctor, who can’t pay her compliments at the moment. He’ll come here, he says. He’d be really stupid not to come and leave you for someone else, who knows who that would be? And then she believes in it again. She feels a little weary, but cheerful, and if it were only these few days, the landing-stage, the forest, that first visit to his room and then, later, her second visit. But even without the second visit, if she only knew that he was there for her, if she only had letters, telegrams, some kind of sign to let her know that it was her he meant to be with.

  The next day she finds accommodation. Hans has sent a telegram, not exactly in a good humour, but he does seem to have accommodation, a large room with a bay window in Steglitz, in a street that she has never heard of, with a bathroom and kitchen. At first she can hardly believe it, but then she does, she jumps for joy almost up to the ceiling, and tells Paul so later. For your doctor, writes Hans. It must be settled quickly, it must all be decided by the end of the week. He also sends a phone number, and the name of the landlady (Frau Hermann), who wants the rent backdated for half of August if Dora is interested. No salutation to the letter, only his name so that she will realise he isn’t stupid, or why would she go to such lengths for a mere seaside acquaintance?

  He doesn’t yet know anything about his room. His last letter came the day before yesterday, but all the same it is strange that he hasn’t the faintest idea about it, or surely he would be glad, but he sounds fretful, as if his days were a battle and he doesn’t know whether he will win it. He sits on the balcony in the sun, he says, reading the newspaper accounts of how everything is going from bad to worse in Berlin, decides to give up all newspapers but then reads them again every morning, only to take fright at what they say again.

  I’ve told Ottla about you, he writes, I’ve told her that you exist and what you’ve made of me. She looked at me wide-eyed and then said that she knew that already, from her husband Pepo, and it was the same for her. Won’t you come to us in Schelesen? There’ll be enough room. You’d like the country here, the weather has been good so far, and my two nieces are delightful. They are staying in a little boarding house above a grocery shop, on the first floor with a view of the village street. It’s not a very large village; he describes a kind of valley surrounded by tree-grown hills where he sometimes goes for walks. He mentions a swimming pool, but he hasn’t been to it yet. She thinks of him mainly in his room, which she imagines as similar to the room in Müritz, sitting on the balcony and reading, with an indistinct view of the landscape, wooded and hilly but without the sea, not like here, where you always have sand between your toes.

  Dearest, look, she writes. Can you see me? I’m sitting at the long table i
n the garden, trembling at the thought of Berlin. I’m half sitting here at the table, and half in your new room, which I think of as bright and large, with the sun shining in nearly all the time. I don’t know where to go, she writes. It’s windy, everything is fluttering and flying, nothing will stay put, even this letter wants to be on its way in a hurry. With a thousand kisses, love from your Dora.

  The village was called Döberitz, she remembers now. She can board the train tomorrow, Judith tells her, you have to change several times, but you’ll always be welcome. Judith herself has been there only since last week and is staying until the end of September, because she finally has to study for her examinations, what else is there to do this rainy summer? I look forward to seeing you. I’m afraid there aren’t any men here, or at least I haven’t seen anyone of that kind, only adolescent rustics who gape at me all the time, as you’ll find out.

  Paul seems rather disappointed when she tells him about Judith’s invitation. He may have hoped, secretly, that she would go to Berlin with him, but now she is going to Döberitz. She begins saying goodbye down on the beach, as if she must not on any account forget anything, although this is only Thursday. Paul seems genuinely sorry, but in the evening, when they are singing and dancing with the children, all that is forgotten. She hasn’t danced for ages, and Paul lets her persuade him to be her partner – now they are dancing. They don’t dance very well together, but they are dancing.

  9

  Since renting the room, the doctor has been more optimistic again. The landlady was interested only in the money, and didn’t even want to know exactly when he was moving in. The fact that he is a doctor seemed to impress her; she kept addressing him by that title, and agreed at once to payment of the rent in a foreign currency, what with the topsy-turvy state of things in Berlin just now. So he has a room in Berlin. He thinks he remembers roughly where it is, and sends Dora a telegram, saying it’s all settled. For a moment he is almost happy and contented, now that his new life is coming close enough to touch.

  She writes to say that she can’t stay in Müritz any longer, and is going to visit a woman friend for the time being. Perhaps that’s a good idea, perhaps it isn’t. The miracle is escaping him; he has a feeling that he still senses it only in her letters. He has never heard of this place Döberitz. He knows there is an old atlas in the little library of the boarding house; he doesn’t have to search for long. Döberitz is less than a hundred kilometres west of Berlin.

  His first few days in Schelesen are not easy for him. Schelesen is the past; it is all painfully familiar to him, the pleasant landscape, the houses and villas, half rustic, half designed for tourism, the footpaths and forests. It was here, in this little place, that his ill-fated relationship with Julie began years ago, in the villa where Max and Felix were also staying, near the road into the village. There were no rooms available in the villa. He is glad not to have to stay there, but then when he goes over one afternoon and stands on the steps up to the front door he no longer understands why, since he can hardly remember what he was like at that time. The stories cancel each other out, he thinks, the letters, blissful kisses and embraces all following hard on each other’s heels, no longer present, not even as shadows.

  He wrote to his father from this villa.

  Ottla is sensitive enough not to hurt his feelings. She moves round this landscape as if she has lived here half her life, reminding him only of scenes involving the two of them: for instance, how she once climbed the fence of the swimming pool after midnight and jumped into the moonlit water, or mentioning some comical scene or other over a meal, or the amusing stone faces over which they climbed that first summer. Do you remember, she asks, pointing to a house on the slope of the little valley where they found a cat with her kittens in the meadow one day. The memory is very vague. A cat with her kittens, yes, but no details, not the colours of the animals or what they meant to Ottla at that moment.

  Half joking, he told her years ago: If I marry some day, I’ll marry a girl like you. That will be difficult, she replied, you won’t find a girl like me in a hurry. Was it here in Schelesen, or in Zürau or somewhere else that they exchanged those remarks?

  There have been disappointments for Ottla, too. Now that she has children she sometimes sees him as if from a great distance. Her nights are disturbed, for little Helene is only four months old, but it is pretty to watch her breast-feeding the baby and see how they are wordlessly linked together.

  Now and then he learns something else. For instance, he no longer treasures the significance of letters so much, and does not wait impatiently for replies. If a letter comes he is delighted, but puts it aside, saying: Look, a letter from Müritz, didn’t one arrive only yesterday? But if the postman brings nothing, he can accept that without disappointment and does not blame the postal service, as he often used to in the past, nor does he have to go straight to his room and rewrite his letter all over again. Instead, he can lie on the grass round the swimming pool with Ottla and the children until the afternoon.

  He hasn’t put on any weight yet. He is trying as hard as he can – he goes for little walks, he keeps an eye on himself. Ottla says: At least do it for her. Not that he has told Ottla anything about his plans yet. He makes up his mind to do so every day, but then his courage deserts him, or he has had a bad night, or Ottla has had a bad night because the baby kept crying, wanting the breast at any time of the day or night.

  He has asked her to go for a walk with him. Ottla is wearing a light summer dress, it is hot, the last summer flowers are blooming in the gardens, and here and there wood is being chopped while people sit lazily in the sun, greeting one another. They are not walking particularly fast, going eastwards, and they are just passing the last houses. Now for his plan. He doesn’t have to make any specific mention of the difficulties. But he feels cheerful about it, he says, his mind is firmly made up. Ottla nods. She has questions about the details, but otherwise she does not say much. It’s a good plan, she says again and again. I’m glad, she says. Yes, indeed, why not? Of course I’ll help you too. And you were always a little crazy, probably not crazy enough or why would you have stayed around all these years? Like Max, she wants to meet Dora as soon as possible. Ottla is pleased to hear that Dora is a good cook, and that she accepts her brother as he is.

  Döbertz is a sleepy little backwater, writes Dora, there’s a church, summer visitors on holiday like Judith and herself, farmers, cattle in the meadows, low-built houses, a few roads, and you can bathe in the River Havel a little way off. She sounds happy; the weather is nothing wonderful, but they have plenty to talk about, of course she has told Judith about Müritz and her great good luck. Judith was really envious, most of all because you’re a writer – she has heard your name, but she hasn’t read anything by you yet. You’d like her, she reads all day long. Is Ottla looking after you well? She asks him to give Ottla her regards. After hearing him talk about her, she herself has liked the sound of Ottla from the first. Did you tell her about Berlin? Will you be good to me? I dreamed of you just now when I dropped off to sleep for a few minutes on the sofa; you’ve done such lovely things to me, sad to say I can only whisper what they are, but lovely things, all of them.

  In Germany, the exchange rate of the dollar has risen almost tenfold in the last three days, reaching thirty million marks. A loaf of bread costs a million. Max has written to say he is coming to Berlin; obviously his relationship with Emmy is at crisis point, but the doctor knows that already and it bores him. He is almost inclined to think it irksome, and he is about to write and tell Max so before they see each other a week tomorrow. It will soon be his father’s birthday, so the doctor ventures to leave Schelesen for two days and go a little closer to Dora, persuading himself that where his father is concerned he has always had reasons that were difficult to fathom. His father probably wouldn’t even notice that he has come specially to see him. Ottla laughs at him. Weren’t you going to Berlin? Do you think he’ll agree to your plans if you wish him a happ
y birthday first, like a good boy?

  10

  He writes to her almost every day. Judith, who doesn’t feel like studying any more, says that the only person doing any work here is Dora; she can hardly keep up with answering his letters. He always has questions, wants to know what she is wearing, which dress, which blouse, what kind of a night she had, how is the room where she sleeps furnished, what are they eating, what are they talking about, perhaps about the drops of moisture on her skin, her wet hair when she comes back from one of her walks to the Havel. Usually his letters are calm and clear. She likes it when he writes about her eyes, her figure, when he seems to linger on her, kissing her. At night he doubts whether he will get well again, he worries about the tense situation in Berlin, and sometimes that is too much for her; then she needs a little distance between them so as to feel she is in charge of herself again.

  Only this morning she tried a little experiment. Two letters arrived in the post, but she hasn’t opened them. She has put them to one side and said to herself, or Judith, not now, later, it’s too much, dearest, I feel intoxicated – if you only knew what your letters do to me. She hasn’t taken the letters with her on her daily walk either. She isn’t really happy about it, but that’s exactly why she left them behind, and on her way back two hours later, half-way home, she begins to run. She runs, she flies back to her two letters, tears open one of the envelopes and begins reading: she hears his voice again as if for the first time, the first time in a hundred years.