The Glory of Life

by Michael Kumpfmüller

  Robert seems to have expected it for some time. He tries to comfort her over the telephone, advises her to go for a little walk, because she can’t let Franz see her in this condition. The walk does her good; she has never known how far you can walk in an hour, a long way into the vineyards, where she sits at the side of a meadow for some time thinking about life and her remaining time with Franz, furious and desperate, and then astonishingly calm, ready in a defiant way to adjust to the situation. Everything is terrible, but a certain peace spreads through her. She is crying and praying all the way back, almost falling on the way several times, and then again until morning, when she takes Franz his breakfast as usual. He will not learn about his condition from her. They will get married and live together here. Hasn’t she known from the first that she must be thankful for every day? Yesterday’s injection has helped a little, but all the same Franz looks depressed, as if he had some idea, and so she suffers various setbacks, in her room in the evening, when she thinks of the baroness, when she refuses to acknowledge that the example of the baroness does not apply to Franz. She has telephoned Robert and persuaded him, without having to plead too much, to come back and help her with the nursing. She has telephoned Max as well, telling him frankly that there is no hope left, something that she has kept so far from his mother and Elli, partly because they never ask the right questions out of old-established habit, as if the disease were a matter of never-ending ups and downs. Franz simply accepted the doctor’s visit, did not ask where he came from and why – they did not even discuss the tiresome subject of money. He is very weak, but smiles when she comes in, he is in pain, she can see it with every morsel that he eats, but he goes to great trouble to hide it from her. In the evening he drinks wine, asks whether there is any post and when they can expect Robert, what Max said on the telephone, he is going to come to visit them soon – good, if Max is coming then he doesn’t want anyone else with him.

  Now she is waiting for Robert. Perhaps Robert can do something, or Franz himself, because ultimately redemption comes from within yourself. The situation has not changed since Dr Beck’s visit. He can sleep, thanks to the injections, but she is afraid that perhaps the injections are a bad idea, robbing Franz of the last of his power to heal himself. She doesn’t know. Sometimes her only wish is for him not to suffer, and sometimes she comforts herself by praying for Franz to live, telling herself that a miracle is not out of the question. Just now on the telephone she promised Elli she would write every day, but the fact is that she can hardly manage the telephone calls, she feels dulled and empty, asks for understanding. Please, I won’t write every single day, she defends herself in writing, I can’t bear it, have pity on me. Yesterday they had a few happy hours. Franz wanted wine, which he drank with the curious pleasure that is his own, without pain. She writes to Elli of all people about it. In Müritz, when she thought Elli was his wife, she did not have a very favourable impression of her, but now she thinks of her almost as a close friend, ever since her cry for help from Vienna; it received a warm answer expressed in heartfelt words.

  She likes best to write in his room with him, a few lines to his parents while he lies in bed. It is the first letter since the doctor’s visit, but all she mentions is the weather, still cold, the good air, the nursing that she sometimes does herself. They have received the quilt, with covers and horsehair bolsters, but unfortunately not the pillow, it is probably at the post office in Vienna, and she will ask about it soon, when she is in Vienna. She expressly sends regards to his father, not so much because Franz has asked her to as because she is thinking a great deal of her own father, who still has not replied. Perhaps his answer is on the way, but she worries about what it will say, since he listens only to his miraculous rabbi. Franz too knew a miraculous rabbi years ago, and as he tells the story it sounds almost comical: a wild, bearded man in a silk kaftan with his underpants visible under it. The mere idea has them both laughing. Franz seems to be hopeful again; he wants her to wear the green dress, just in case, and then for a while she thinks it possible, even though she knows better, just as she dreams almost all her dreams, even though she knows better.

  With Robert’s arrival she finds new strength in herself, as if she were breathing better air, for she has been hurrying most of the time for weeks. She looks after the post, the telephone calls in which she must tell neither lies nor the truth, she goes shopping, makes Franz’s meals, something every few hours, something that she brings up for him and then has to take down to the kitchen again. In the last few days Franz has seldom been out of bed, so she has undertaken to wash him, which is both a joy and a terror, for he is nothing but bones and fevered skin that she cautiously covers with kisses, with the vague feeling she is doing something forbidden, as if she ought never to have seen him like that. He has begun whispering again, sometimes she can hardly make out what he is saying, that he is lying in an uncomfortable position or wants something to drink, or how tired he is, oh, so tired. Don’t be cross, he says, and she replies: Cross with you? How could I be cross with you? Ottla has written after a long time, and she has answered at once. Dear, beautiful Ottla, she has written, but she cannot think properly, she feels deaf and dumb, and is glad when Robert relieves her of one or another of her tasks.

  Yesterday evening in the reading-room they told each other how they came to know Franz. They talked for a long time about his family, the money that Ottla has asked for and that it is to be hoped will soon arrive. Robert has been away only a few days, but it is obvious that he doesn’t believe in the three months’ respite, for Franz is getting worse every day. Robert suggests taking over her correspondence with the family so that she will have more time for him, for herself, so that she can get a little peace now and then. You would hardly notice that Robert himself is ill; he is pale and rather thin, but not nearly as thin as Franz was in Müritz. When she talks about Müritz she still feels happy, but now she thinks she notices the images of it changing, they are less emotional, they retreat into the distance, without any real connection to the here and now. As if the first weeks with him were freezing rigid, like something you hold in your hand because it once meant a very great deal to you, a vase, a coloured stone, a seashell, that cannot even begin to tell you why. She sits on the balcony for a long time in the afternoon while he lies in the sun and sleeps. As a rule he wakes up when she is near, but not this time; he is fast and deeply asleep, with his mouth closed, like a king, she can’t help thinking, someone whose thoughts are not easy to guess, as if he were already far away from the rest of them, concerned with all kinds of ideas as he used to be when he sat at his desk.

  For days Franz has hardly spoken. Dr Hoffmann has prescribed silence for him, and he sticks to the prescription most of the time. He talks by using little pieces of paper on which he writes down questions or ideas, at first with a certain reluctance, as if he didn’t take the matter very seriously, as if it were only a passing game, something that as a former civil servant he understands only too well, and indeed the first few times he acts as if he were signing files or it was all to do with important documents. It takes Dora a little while to get used to it, but after a while she likes it: she has his handwriting, and the conversations do not necessarily become more significant, but perhaps are more precise, and at the same time it turns out that you can perfectly well converse without words; you can hold hands, you have eyes, you can nod, or frown, and most of the time you feel you are in contact. But sad to say, he has stopped eating. He goes to all imaginable trouble to eat, but he can’t, not because of his throat, which is hardly painful at all, but because he has lost his appetite. Dora tries to persuade him to eat, she urges him to try, but more and more often he shakes his head, feeling that he is unjustly praised and then unjustly blamed, he calls it useless trouble, and loses faith. The way I torment you is crazy, he writes. And another time: How many years will you bear it? How many years will I bear the way you bear it? Then she realises that he is thinking in terms of years, not the three months g
iven him by Dr Beck, who may not have understood the strength of his powers. He has an inner fire, she imagines, something that renews itself, perhaps not only from within but mainly so, because he loves and is loved in return, and has great affection for everything and everyone.

  9

  Since Robert has been at the sanatorium, Dora seems calmer. She is no longer so rushed, she sometimes reads a book, sews, or sits at the table telling anecdotes about the other patients, who can be met at all times of day in one of the common rooms, including the famous baroness whom the doctor takes as an example. Which does not change the fact that food repels him more and more often, even the smell of it when Dora comes into the room, and he knows that now he must force himself to eat for her sake. He has become reasonably well used to conversing in notes. There is a certain compulsion towards economy of expression, to which he is no stranger, but much remains unsaid: by night there is anxiety, and disappointment that no letter has yet come from Dora’s father. Perhaps, he thinks, the rabbi has, surprisingly, approved of the marriage, and her father doesn’t want to take his advice, or maybe it is the other way around: the rabbi is against it and Dora’s father, out of love for his daughter, is looking for an escape route. Proofs of his new collection of stories ought to arrive any day now from the publishers, and for that reason alone he feels a certain uneasiness. But as long as I wait, he thinks, not all hope is lost. If only he could recover a little of his strength, if only eating wasn’t so difficult, he could think of all sorts of things, like a life in the country near Ottla, if you could call that thinking, because for weeks his thinking has consisted mainly of repetitions. Visits from doctors are repeated as well. Professor Hajek has come from Vienna to administer an alcohol injection in order to counter inflammation of the epiglottis, but in vain; a Dr Glas has announced that there are new medicaments and new advice; he is prescribed a bath every other day, which at first seems downright impossible, but with Dora to help him it proves possible after all.

  Next day Ottla comes to visit him. She has wanted to come for a long time, has telephoned on several occasions, and his brother-in-law Karl has also insisted on coming. They arrive about midday. It is all a little sad in the circumstances, but they try hard, for who knows when they will meet again, and the wonderful sunlight raises their spirits a little. He is still not allowed to talk, so he is kept busy writing notes. They tell stories of the old days in Prague, the odd rooms where he lived, how their father reacted, years ago, to the story of the beetle, that terrible insect or whatever it was, a few episodes from Zürau. At about two o’clock Karl and Dora go to eat lunch. But Ottla can’t make up her mind. She stands in the doorway of the room, feeling strangely moved, and in the end stays where she is. She has been thinking about him a great deal, she says, she is so glad that he has Dora. It is clear that she would like to say something else, but it is difficult. She tries to broach the subject several times, but he knows what she means. Hasn’t Ottla always, in a way, reflected himself? She wants to know how he really is. You don’t have to put on a cheerful show for me, she says, and at that he thanks her at length for the months in Zürau, for everything she has done for him. They’re all afraid, he whispers. But as he himself is more afraid than anyone, of course that’s understandable. She nods. Like the others, she whispers, she too is afraid, and now he begins to feel almost uneasy with her. She watches him doing his best with the food, his incompetent attempts to get Dora’s soup down. There is not much to be said after that. They leave as quickly as they arrived. Karl just nods briefly as he says goodbye, while Ottla still can’t tear herself away. She stands there, hand in hand with Dora, and that may be the very best of it, he thinks, seeing them stand like that, side by side, as if they were sisters.

  His relationship with Robert has quickly relaxed. Previously, when a letter from him came he often felt he was under pressure; there would be something demanding in what it said, as if what he gave Robert was never enough, as if Robert had greater rights over him, like a lover, which was a very uncomfortable idea. But that is over now. Robert gives him not the slightest reason to feel ill at ease with him, on the contrary, he looks after him self-sacrificingly, is near when he is needed; at night, when Dora is asleep, he is often to be found standing in the doorway or beside the bed, with a fresh compress, some medicine, a friendly word. He will even let Robert wash him, which to be sure Dora does not like, but by this time it is an arduous task; he has to be lifted and turned, and she is not strong enough for that. She often washes his face with a damp cloth, so that he can catch the scent of her from time to time, while Robert performs the more embarrassing parts of the operation in a matter-of-fact way. He is glad that Ottla came by herself yesterday, because his uncle has also said he will be visiting today. As usual, he is noisy in a cheery manner, he talks at great length and with extensive details about his journey, the beauties of Venice that, as a city, he can’t recommend too highly to anyone interested. He hardly sits still for a minute. Addressing Robert, he says: Aren’t you something like a colleague of mine? As a simple country doctor, he says, of course he can’t assess the conditions here in detail, but at first glance it all seems very good, the room, the view, and then in addition there’s wonderful Dora whom he knows already, he met her in Berlin, when I fear I had to tell the two of you that you couldn’t stay on in Berlin. He asks about the doctors here, wants to be told exactly who made what diagnosis and when, and it makes no difference to him whether a medical man is a doctor or a professor. After two hours he prepares to leave, because Robert has indicated that it is about time to do so. Franz’s uncle shakes hands with the doctor, embraces Dora, says she must look after herself. Good heavens, my boy, he says, ah well, goodbye, children, and he is out of the room.

  Dora told Ottla at the last minute that they were going to get married. She tells him, not for the first time, how glad Ottla was; she beams, you just can’t imagine how glad. She also mentioned the letter, saying they had been waiting for an answer for ages, and as luck would have it just as they were talking about it the answer arrived. Dora thinks she knows that it is not going to be favourable, and sure enough the answer is a downright refusal from her father to give them his blessing. The doctor has given the reasons himself, her father writes, he comes from a family with lax religious connections, on his own admission he has only just begun studying the religion of his fathers, so such a marriage is impossible. His tone is not unfriendly, but when it comes to the point the man leaves it in no doubt. He does not omit to wish the doctor a speedy recovery at the end of his letter, he sends greetings to Dora from whom, he is afraid, he has heard nothing for a long time, and that is his verdict. Did Franz really think it could go any other way? Dora is almost more disappointed than he is, obviously she was hoping against her better judgement, and now they both sit there not knowing what to do. He has confided in Dora’s father, so he thinks he cannot simply ignore his No; it would be a bad omen, he fears, just as the letter itself is not a good omen. Dora tries to soothe him. After all, we have each other. Don’t we have each other? All the same, it is a heavy blow. He feels his strength draining away again, or is it the double visit that, like all visits, has taken it out of him? In this melancholy mood they meet Max. He is in Vienna on business for a few days, and he does his level best to think of something consoling to say. He asks about the proofs, still on their way to Franz, reads the letter, thinks it strange rather than bad, but its effects are bad, although the mistake was probably to have turned to Dora’s father in the first place. That, at least, is what he indicates, or perhaps that is what the doctor reads into it, because he is having difficulty in concentrating, and then again they hardly know what to say. Everything seems far away: the Emmy situation, on which Max is working, what exactly he is doing in Vienna, as if such things were nothing to do with him any more. He hasn’t written to Max for weeks, but Max doesn’t ask about that then, or on the next two occasions either. They part without having said much, certainly not that he will probably neve
r get better, or that they may never see each other again.

  For a few days he is afraid. In the night, when he lies awake, when there is only silence around him, he listens intently – is that a sound he hears, the comforting sound of flowing water in this thicket of silence, a few footsteps, whispering in the room next door? Then he would have something to hold on to, a tiny piece of evidence that life is not stopping, that it is only night, and he will wake up safe and well in the morning.

  Robert has brought a bag of cherries with him from Vienna, the first heralds of summer. It is the middle of May, and he has not been out of doors for an eternity; now and then he gets as far as the balcony, but even that happens less and less often. He is managing to swallow reasonably well, under the stern eye of Dora, who takes care that he goes to bed in good time, by nine at the latest – at nine-thirty it is lights out. She often looks in again around midnight and sits down with him if he is awake, because in the dark there are things that can be said: about his fears, his regrets, the letter – he couldn’t do anything else – and then again about his fears. When she kisses him it is better for a little while, then he forgets where and who he is, then it is almost like last summer. Isn’t it a miracle that she is here? That she is alive, independently of him, even now, at this minute? That she is breathing, and her heart is beating? That there are beating hearts in the world?