The World as I Found It

by Bruce Duffy

  Now everyone was waiting, standing poised against the storm. A white flash. Jagged summer lightning leapt up the sky, crazing and cracking in hot green stitches. They all jumped at the boom, and Russell said loudly, as much for himself as for the others, I’m sure they’re just late.

  Thunder was pounding and the wind was whipping, plangent with the first hot fusillades of rain. Standing beside Dora, Russell felt himself trembling. First the flash, then the crack — first the dread, then the mounting panic, cleaving and clawing the sky. In the rising panic, one could feel the approaching pain as one could smell the rips of electric rain. Russell was wringing Dora’s hand. In the panic they were parents. Against the rain, they were all gazing up in wonderment, all suddenly as backward and small as their forebears who had dwelt in huts. A distant tree went up in a bone-white blast. Puddles were forming. The ground was drenched and sizzling. It was looking bad, but then, just as swiftly, it changed, changed so resoundingly that Russell could hardly believe it as Dorothy, peering through her binoculars, said, Here they are! and then they all saw the old red bus come barreling up the drive and splash to a stop. And then the door opened and the sunburned children jumped down and everybody hurried inside laughing and talking all at once as the rumbling sky flashed white with an awful crack, then broke black again with the wonderful heavy warm rain.

  Confession

  THE CHILDREN had a dog named Daisy, a long-eared, white and liver-spotted mutt that lived at the school with three other dogs and four cats. Old and fat from under-the-table feedings, Daisy was a favorite who waddled in at meals and lay the rest of the day like a beached seal in the sun. She could lie for hours on her back with a look of utter, insensible pleasure — smiling, the children said, as they rubbed her big spotted belly. Digging her nose in the grass, Daisy would grandly sneeze and the children would say, God bless you! as if their old grandmother had learned a trick. (The dog knew nothing but her name.)

  So it was sad when, after the rain, the children found Daisy lying dead and stiff in the grass.

  Max was playing with the children when they discovered the dead dog. Barefoot, bellowing, Max was chasing them around the house, racing after them impossibly fast with his arms stretched wide. The children screamed in joyful fright as he snatched them up and carried them off, a raving robber-god raising them like offerings to the sky.

  Max! they cried. Me, Max! Me next!

  With raised arms, the children vied and cried for their turn to be swept aloft by him. But then a girl found the dog, and the children quickly gathered, repulsed but curious, then crying for Max, since the teacher watching them had momentarily stepped inside. Max knew a poisoned dog when he saw one, and he knew justice. Examining the dog’s muzzle, he said, She is by poison killed. The old man’s poison for the flowers, she was fed, I think.

  The children immediately knew, or thought they knew, the culprit. Rabe did it, they cried, and they pointed at him, screaming, Slug! Fat wee-wee-face! Come see what you did to Daisy!

  Knock-kneed, cowed, Rabe was standing by the spigot, his mouth gaping as Max turned with one stabbing finger, shouting, You! Boy! Come here!

  Max didn’t wait. He hurtled toward the boy at full speed, running with his arms pumping and his eyes bugging out. Instinctively, Rabe grasped his crotch. At the last second he tried to run, but collapsed in a puddle as Max seized him by the neck and hauled him aloft by the seat of his pants. It was just like the game they had been playing, only this time it seemed that Max would dash the boy’s brains out on a tree. In the war, Max had had a particularly deep response to the shrieks of the wounded horses. On balance, a fat, twisted boy like Rabe was probably worth much less to him than a good horse or a dog. The children had never seen violence — not like this. The older children squinted and screwed up their faces, and the smaller ones started to squeal. In his rage, Max didn’t know what he was doing. He had Rabe by a hank of hair, snarling as he repeatedly mashed the boy’s scream into the dead dog’s slobbery muzzle, the better to see his crime.

  Russell was outraged when Max dragged the hysterical boy in to him and demanded that he be punished. How dare you discipline this child! he roared, pulling the boy from his grasp. He is my charge, not yours, and I will handle him as I see fit. Now, out! Out, do you hear! Out and not another word!

  When Wittgenstein heard what had happened, he ran upstairs and found Max throwing things in his rucksack. There was no reasoning with him. Max insisted that Russell had ordered him to leave, and that suited him fine, he said. He would not stand another minute in this place with godless people who let such wickedness go unpunished.

  But what makes you think Russell won’t punish him? asked Wittgenstein in German. Russell’s quite upset about what the boy did. But can you blame him for being angry with you? You don’t discipline other people’s children.

  Right! said Max pointedly, lunging for the door. You, if anyone, should know that.

  Wittgenstein moved to block the door. What are you doing? Must you insult me, too?

  But Max wouldn’t listen. Pushing him aside, he trooped down the stairs, out the door and down the road, not caring that he was miles from anywhere, with more rain in store. Wittgenstein practically had to run to keep up with him. Why are you doing this? he was asking. Come back to the house, will you? Just for the night. Then if you like we can both leave in the morning and go somewhere. I have some money.

  But Max still wouldn’t listen, so Wittgenstein stopped talking. They walked a while in silence, then Wittgenstein tried once more:

  Max, why are you doing this? The other night, when you were drunk, you said you would follow me to the ends of the earth. Now you’re running away.

  Max stopped. I’m leaving, not running. Russell can go to hell with his whorehouse!

  Max started walking again, fitful, fugitive looking, but then he stopped short, saying: Ludwig! Stop here. I will confess to you now.

  Wittgenstein didn’t want this. Who am I that you should confess to me? he asked evasively. Confess to God.

  Darkness was falling. They were standing in the open road, with the land rising away in long rolls. Every now and then a drop of cold rain would fall.

  Max said, Do you remember in Trattenbach? Do you remember when we would criticize each other with Father Haft?

  Criticize, yes. We did not confess.

  Max wasn’t listening. He said, To confess is manly and cleansing. It is also a sign of trust and respect. This much I owe you. I will confess to you, and then I will mend my ways. Listen — do you think I am sorry for that boy? No, I am not sorry, not at all. I’d as soon have killed him, had he been mine. It’s that girl I’m talking about, that little bitch you warned me to keep away from.

  Wittgenstein could barely look at him, he was so disgusted.

  Well? Max insisted. Are you hearing me or not? I’m not talking to the wind.

  I hear you, replied Wittgenstein grudgingly, and then he bent into himself like a crag, saying, Go on, then. Confess if you must.

  I lay, said Max with a sigh, I lay with her. Today. I tried to ignore her — oh, I know you don’t believe that, Ludwig, but it’s true! I did try, but she kept hovering around me — you know how they do.

  Wittgenstein scowled. Don’t blame her. Last night I warned you. Twice I warned you.

  But she was the first spark —

  Oh, stop it! Better never to confess than to half confess. That’s vile!

  Max accepted this. All right, he said. You are right. I should have had better control — Max let out a snort — since she obviously couldn’t, a woman. Sin is over quickly.

  Yes, and so are confessions.

  Listen to me, said Max. I say this before you and God. I know I asked to come here with you, but I wish I had never come to this place. Don’t sneer — it’s hard not to think filth in such a whorehouse. Among atheists. And I don’t care what you say — Russell is not a good man.

  Wittgenstein was repulsed by Max’s self-righteous air. He wanted to sa
y again that Max was not being consistent, that he made no sense. But he saw there was no decent or understandable way to say this, not in the dark, in the middle of nowhere. Max, in any case, was in no mood for a sermon, and Wittgenstein was in no mood to fight with him or beg him back, seeing that it wouldn’t have worked anyway. But the hardest thing, Wittgenstein realized, was that he was not sorry to see him go, though he felt guilty about leaving him in such a sorry state. Wittgenstein told himself that he would see Max later, at a better time. He told himself that they would meet in a better time and place. But there was nothing left to be said, not then. Max grasped Wittgenstein hard by the shoulders, then started walking with big pumping strokes into the darkness, that black beauty he would lay with that night before waking with the first birds into the amnesia of dawn.

  Regret

  RABE was a good icebreaker: thanks to him, there was suddenly plenty to talk about at dinner that night. The mood was almost convivial, even remotely festive, the Russells and their guests being thrown together like semiestranged neighbors meeting at a house fire. Uncoiling from the strain, Russell uncorked three bottles of wine and offered a toast to Wittgenstein, Philosophiae Doctor. Here, here! said Moore, who made a second toast, which Wittgenstein shyly acknowledged with a sip of his nearly untouched glass.

  Conspicuously, there was no mention of Max, and Wittgenstein shortly excused himself and went up to his room, thinking, as he had been thinking all night, of Max’s confession. Wittgenstein remembered the wartime confessions — long, winding lines of men standing under the open sky, waiting to kneel before a black-frocked priest seated on a camp stool with a scarlet stole draped around his neck. Here were no screens or buffers, no cloaking anonymity. Here was just a man with bowed head kneeling before seated justice, just another sinner whispering his crimes into the impassive ear of God. To Wittgenstein, there was something manly and incongruous and innocent in the sight of fighting men on their knees, frankly unburdening themselves before a big battle. Many times he watched this scene, wishing that he were good and simple and brave enough to get in that line, if only to feel, for once, the ease of speaking his soul into another human face. But he couldn’t do it, not even at the price of salvation could he do it. Dying would have been easier than confessing before so many eyes. The Russian lines were closer to him than the face of that priest.

  Outside, a steady breeze was lifting the branches, the rain having purged the sky of its heat. Resting his feet on the bed rail, letting the air sweep under his legs, Wittgenstein could hear the children idly peeping in the darkness, resisting sleep. Humans, he thought, are the only animals that fear the dark. But where the child sees the darkness as being without, the adult sees it as more a cumulative seepage. With each year, he feels his mind accumulating not just fears but pains and regrets, groaning like an old thatch roof under ages of snow.

  Wittgenstein was thinking of something he had regretted for a long time, something that had happened once in Trattenbach. In a flash of temper one day, he had struck a girl — struck her without thinking, and then much too hard. She was, by his book, a stupid, indolent girl. Age ten and prematurely developed, she was from bad stock and lazy, given to the most idiotic lies and snitching from the other children’s lunches. He couldn’t remember what she did that caused him to strike her, but he remembered being particularly annoyed because he had been so patient and reasonable with her, assuming she would naturally follow his reasonable example. It infuriated him for her to spurn even his kind forbearance — children are so self-centered and ungrateful. He had given the girl every chance to redeem herself. Knowing that she would certainly lie if he confronted her before the other children, he spoke to her privately, after school. Just tell me the truth, he said, and not at all unkindly. But she lied.

  Liar! he barked, and with the heel of his hand, he gave her a chop across the face — a blow so hard that he heard her neck snap as she fell back into a desk, badly banging her elbow. Seeing him go white, the girl knew instinctively that he had overstepped his bounds. Like a baby who has taken a bad tumble, she hesitated, half from surprise, half to judge his reaction, then started howling and holding her limp arm, squealing, You broke my arm! You broke it, you broke it!

  Shut up! he said, so frightened that he nearly clapped his hand over her mouth. It was a matter of survival. To apologize or show concern would have been tantamount to admitting his guilt, so he steeled himself, telling her, as if to make it so, that she was not hurt, that she must get up, stop crying and never lie to him again.

  The girl wasn’t lying when she promised to tell her parents. The next day while the children were eating lunch, the district school inspector arrived and asked for a word with him. Wittgenstein knew immediately why the man had come, and he was nervous. At the same time, he knew that with his unblemished record there was no real need to lie about the incident. The girl’s arm, though bruised, was not broken. A slight reprimand, perhaps a formal apology to the girl and her parents, and the matter would be over. But he couldn’t do it. To apologize to these people, to admit that he wasn’t always in full control and completely effective as a teacher — it was intolerable to his already bruised pride. Besides, no incident was too trivial anymore. Here, he thought, was just the ammunition the villagers wanted. With this, they’d pull him down like a wounded stag and destroy him. Wittgenstein told the inspector that the girl was lying.

  The girl was a better liar than he was. Wittgenstein could see from the inspector’s eyes that he knew he was lying, but because it was his word against the girl’s, and because it was his first such incident, the inspector let it pass with a warning. But that was not the end of it. Inevitably, the story got out, and Wittgenstein, the cooker of cats and buyer of boys, got an undeserved reputation for brutalizing his pupils. This hurt him. In remorse, he tried to turn away from corporal punishments, but that proved even worse: having established discipline with the rod, so to speak, he couldn’t adopt milder methods in midstream. Almost immediately, the children sensed his reluctance to discipline them and started testing him at every turn. Even Franz Kluck began acting up.

  It was around this time that the fainting started. One unusually hot day, a rather anemic boy named Glöckel fainted. Wittgenstein quickly revived the boy, gave him water and some cookies, then sent him home with a letter to his father recommending that he not be put to work that evening. But hardly had Glöckel gone than the other children began to complain of the heat, insisting that they, too, should be sent home. Drink water if you are hot, said Wittgenstein, pointing to the water jug. Ordinarily, that would have been the end of it, but then a boy named Frank, one of his worst clowns, wilted onto the floor, obviously faking. Get up! ordered Wittgenstein. There was a great uproar as he yanked him up, moaning and rolling his head, then sat him in his desk. But where two weeks before, he would have boxed the boy’s ears, Wittgenstein gave him a stern warning — a joke.

  There was one more fainter that day, and three more the next. By the fourth day, Wittgenstein was desperate. Hardly had he hauled the first fainter off the floor than the second slumped in his desk. And even as he sent them to the corner, a fourth fainter fell out — Franz Kluck, grinning like Judas as Wittgenstein thrust him back in his seat.

  This was too much. I’m fed up with all of you! he roared, smacking his rod on the side of his elevated desk. For the next ten minutes you can all wallow with the pigs, for all I care. But when I return, I promise you that any other fakers will be severely punished!

  Yet here, he saw, he had boxed himself in again, promising what he was afraid to deliver. He was trapped, and they knew it. Even as he left, there were delighted squeals and taunting pig grunts. But when he returned, they all raced to their seats, biting their lips to suppress giggles. Wittgenstein resumed the lesson. For almost an hour they were quiet, but then he detected the same telltale restlessness and whispering. It was Frank and his cohorts again, averting their faces to hide their smirks.

  I’m warning you, he said o
minously, and then there came a hush — broken by a loud groan as Frank slumped to the floor.

  Wittgenstein saw that his authority was at stake. He had no choice but make good his threat. This time there was no heat. He was thoroughly businesslike about it. Hauling Frank up by the arm, he thrust him back in his chair, then drew himself up and resolutely slapped him. It was a thoroughly regulation slap, not at all hard, but Frank played it up. Like a cowboy in the pictures, he splashed out of his seat and sprawled ignominiously on his face. Quit your playing, Frank, or I’ll give you another! Over the next few months, Wittgenstein would hear these words again and again, because when he turned Frank over, the boy was bleeding profusely through the nose.

  That ended Wittgenstein’s career as a schoolteacher. This time there were charges of brutality, which Wittgenstein resolutely denied. Serious as they were, the charges were administrative, not criminal. He could have left Trattenbach then, but in an effort to clear his name, Wittgenstein fought the charges. In his desperation, he even agreed to submit to a psychiatric examination, meeting four times with a psychiatrist who finally pronounced him withdrawn and depressed but otherwise normal — not, in any case, brutal and sadistic. Ultimately, Wittgenstein was cleared of the charges, but in the meantime, Max didn’t help his cause by beating up those three men, including Frank’s father. In court later, Max refused to repeat to the judge the things the men had said. Herr Frank and his sneering cohorts should have known better than to taunt Max as he was being led off to jail. The judge and Wittgenstein both warned Max to forget the matter. It did no good. When he was released, Max went on a second rampage, then lit out, never to be seen in the village again.

  To the end, Wittgenstein was genuinely perplexed about how he could have bloodied the boy’s nose. It wasn’t until several years later, when he was back in Vienna building the house for Gretl, that he received a letter from Franz Kluck explaining how Frank had jabbed a sharpened pencil in his nose as he lay on the floor. Franz’s letter was a typical schoolboy confession, hurried, brief, incomplete. Franz said he was sorry for not telling the truth about what had happened that day, adding that he had wanted to but had been ashamed — but ashamed of what, or of whom, he did not say.