Child of All Nations

by Michael Hofmann

‘Uncle Pius is dead,’ says my mother. ‘Just a minute, I’ll be right back.’ She’s crying, and she runs off with the newspaper tucked under her arm. She has given herself a round curl only on one side of her face.

  It is very quiet in the room. I pick up the curling tongs and blow out the little blue spirit flame. I wonder why Uncle Pius’s death makes my mother cry? My father has said many times: ‘The dead are happy. Nothing can happen to them any more.’

  If Uncle Pius has died, then he’ll be happy and can float around me. Maybe the reason my mother’s crying is because she can’t ever see him again now. But there are lots of living people we can’t see too, because they live in countries with those sorts of governments, or because of the borders, or because they’ve been locked up.

  I have a friend in Frankfurt who’s older than me but who still used to play with me. We used to go and ride on our scooters down the Bockenheimer Landstrasse. Once we were in a meadow where there were lots of big rocks. We managed to move some of them by combining all our strength. Underneath the rocks were various little insects and pale-looking grass. We sat there perfectly still and didn’t touch anything. We felt like big giants or knights who had liberated whole worlds.

  Once a man came along and said to me: ‘What are you doing playing with Jewboy?’ Then we both felt terribly afraid and ran off together, even though we hadn’t done anything wrong.

  In the palm house once we ran away from one of the wardens, but that time it was because we had picked some azaleas. That was prohibited, as we knew perfectly well. But this time we hadn’t done anything that was prohibited. That’s why I told my father all about it that evening. At first he ground his teeth together, and then he said: ‘We’re not staying here much longer, Kully – you can play with anyone you like.’

  I wrote letters to my friend, and he wrote letters back. But then my father said: it’s not good for people in Germany if we write letters to them, and I wasn’t to do it any more. And after that I didn’t do it any more. When it was time for us to leave, I sat and wept with him and his mother. We won’t be able to see each other again. All we can do is die and then float around one another.

  I want to play with my little grocery store, but sometimes it’s no fun on my own. Plus all I have to sell is a couple of grains of rice and some used matches. It’s so horribly grey in my room; even if I turn on the light it doesn’t seem to get any brighter. I’m not allowed to play near the window in case I fall out – I promised my mother that. Otherwise I could watch the trams going by outside, and the bright fiery sparks they make on the rails. Usually my mother takes me with her wherever she goes. But today she left me on my own. Perhaps she won’t come back.

  If I cut open our pillows, I could see if they’re full of colourful feathers or not. But I mustn’t do anything like that. My doll’s kitchen isn’t any fun any more. I can’t cook in it properly with real fire and so on. My mother said: ‘Now, Kully, when we have our own stove again, or our own room with a spirit cooker, then I’ll teach you how to light a fire and how to cook.’ But I know how to light a fire already. It’s not at all hard; all you need is a box of matches and something flammable.

  My mother told me I was to wait for her. But I might still pop over to see Madame Rostand anyway. I like her a lot, only she lives a long way away, and I might get lost, and then my mother would have to cry even more. Madame Rostand is my piano teacher and my French teacher. That is, I know how to speak French, of course; Madame Rostand just teaches me how to write it.

  Madame Rostand is small and gaudy. Her face is gaudy, and her dress is gaudy. She talks terriblyquickly and she moves terriblyquickly and she laughs terriblyquickly. I wonder what it would be like to play spinning tops with Madame Rostand. If I were the size of a big house, then Madame Rostand would be my little tiny spinning top.

  I used to have some lovely spinning tops that I would play with with my friend in Frankfurt. We would make them dance and skip over the ground. We had to whip them so that they would jump and dance over the smooth paving stones and never get tired and fall over.

  Madame Rostand is married to an old waiter in our hotel, who is a friend of my father’s. Sometimes my mother and I go to call on her of an afternoon. Then she shows me how to write in French, and I play around on her piano, and we laugh together. She once said to my mother: ‘Oh, ma petite, ma chère petite, ma belle petite – il ne faut jamais pleurer. Qu’est-ce que c’est – un homme? Il faut rire, ma petite.’

  And she went on to say: ‘A good husband always has a bad wife – and a bad husband always has a good wife. It has to be that way. I think it’s better to be a good wife and to have a bad husband, because a good husband won’t make you happy either, but at least with a bad husband you won’t be bored.’

  My mother couldn’t understand that, so I had to translate it. Then I said: ‘But my father’s not a bad man.’

  Then Madame Rostand laughed and said: ‘No, he’s a good man – only bad husbands are good men. Monsieur is lighthearted and charming; it’s only such men who can be loving and faithful. There are husbands who are faithful because they don’t love any woman, not even their own wife. I, Madame, prefer a man who is capable of loving and of being loved – even if I’m not the only woman he loves.’

  The room has become very quiet. The air outside is thick and woolly. It would be nice if it snowed here like it snowed in Poland. Perhaps my father went to Poland because he wanted to see snow again. Snow is a lovely thing.

  My tortoises are rubbing at the wallpaper; I think maybe they’re hungry. Wallpaper isn’t edible, not even for tortoises. I’m going to go down to the hotel kitchen and ask for some food for my pets.

  In the hotel kitchen it’s always steamy and frantic. I get in lots of people’s way. The day before yesterday a waiter tripped over me with some mulled wine, but no one was hurt. A cook threatened to put me in a saucepan if I ever went down there again. But the others quickly gave me some things for my tortoises to eat, to be rid of me.

  I don’t think it’s allowed to cook people – the cook won’t really do anything like that. But the cauldrons in the kitchen are so big, and once I got into a bathtub where the water was very hot. That was terribly painful. I’m not frightened to go to the kitchen, but my father once said: ‘Nowadays any sort of atrocity is possible.’

  I’m in the room again, my mother isn’t back yet. I haven’t been boiled and I have some food for my tortoises. It is a difficult and dangerous thing, looking after one’s animals.

  I sit in front of my grocer’s shop; I can’t be tired because I can feel my heart pounding. Why do I have my grocer’s shop if I don’t even have enough to feed my tortoises? I plonk them down at my side. The lady with the bird’s nest asked me once: ‘What are they called?’

  I said: ‘Tortoises.’

  ‘Didn’t you give them a name, Kully?’

  ‘They’ve got a name, they’re called tortoises.’

  ‘Do you give them numbers then, Kully? Are they Tortoise One and Two?’

  ‘No, they’re both tortoises.’

  The lady with the bird’s nest just wouldn’t understand.

  She said: ‘You haven’t inherited your father’s imagination, you lack that wonderful childish imagination. When I was a girl I called my canaries Johannes and Charlotte.’*

  ‘Why should my tortoises be called Johannes and Charlotte?’

  Then she said: ‘But surely you have to call them sometimes, and talk to them. How do you address them then?’

  I didn’t say anything after that, there’s no point in talking to people as stupid as that. Tortoises aren’t dogs, for Lord’s sake, that you can call; they can’t hear. Tortoises need food, and in return they stay alive, crawl around and rub at the wallpaper when I’m alone with them in a room.

  ‘Dearest Annie –’ I didn’t want to open the letter, but then I did anyway because it was an express letter. The bellboy brought it up to the room. I laid the letter on the table and kept staring at it. Expres
s letters always look so excited and can’t bear not to be opened right away. You’re not supposed to open other people’s letters, though; my mother wouldn’t like it. The letter is from my father. I always recognize his writing.

  I tried to wait for my mother; she didn’t come. I waited for her and I counted up to thirty – when she still wasn’t there, I opened the letter. I think it’s better than getting silly ideas. The lady with the bird’s nest says: ‘Unoccupied children are always apt to have silly ideas.’

  ‘Dearest Annie,’ writes my father:

  Dearest Annie,

  I am so worried about you both. How are you, how is Kully? Send me a wire right away, to set my mind at rest. I won’t be able to work until I hear from you. And I really need to work. I’ve heard nothing from you for weeks.

  I couldn’t let you have an address for me; I didn’t have one. Wherever I ended up, I had to leave or wanted to leave right away. In Prague I couldn’t do any deals, beyond selling a couple of newspaper articles. And you know what sort of money the Prague papers pay.

  By chance I ran into an old acquaintance. He has a theatre publishing firm in Switzerland now and is looking for plays. I spent an evening with him, and had a marvellous idea for a comedy. Allowed myself to be talked into writing it by my friend. The advance paid for me to get as far as Budapest. I must deliver a script in eight weeks. It would be pretty shoddy of me if I didn’t, he’s really a decent fellow. Never written a comedy before, mind, and I’ve forgotten what my idea was. But I’ll think of something.

  In Budapest, I was paid some money by my Hungarian publishers, the Giganten-Verlag. Of course they should have paid me ages ago, and of course they pleaded the restrictions on exporting currency.

  I feel rotten and ill. I don’t know what to do. I miss you horribly, and must talk to you. I hate writing letters – a bigger strain than writing three chapters of a novel. You’re going to have to grit your teeth and fend for yourself, Annie, till we’re back together.

  In Budapest, I got a letter from Genek, who invites us. Manya wants a divorce from him finally. But he can’t stand to be on his own. A business associate of his gave me money for the fare to Warsaw. I’d got everything I could out of the Budapest publishers. By the end, those people were as tough as granite.

  By the way, I sent you and Kully a Hungarian national costume apiece on your birthdays. I’m sure you must look charming in them. My Hungarian translator got hold of them for me. She has the most beautiful small hands, and her life is hard, believe me. It’s rare for small hands to be beautiful. Either they’re like sad little bundles of bones – chilly skeleton hands – or else they’re silly pink pudgy pillows. Oh Christ, Annie. See, I’m starting to address an epistolary novel to you. A sure sign of my disintegration. A novelist shouldn’t go all literary in his letters.

  From Warsaw I travelled to Lvov with Genek. Here I’m staying at the Hotel Europejski. Genek’s affection for me has cooled somewhat since paying my last hotel bill. I appealed to his sense of family, even though I have really not the least idea whether he and I are actually related. He now expects me seriously to live in his horrible house, surrounded by more old mothers and aunts and sisters than ever, interspersed with small children – I never manage to learn whose.

  The entire household boasts just two liqueur glasses, neither of them larger than a hazelnut, and one bottle of home-distilled pear brandy, which is expected to furnish several more generations. And every day I have to spend hours there! Genek and the rest of them treat me like the Salvation Army treats a fallen woman. Kamelia of her kindness gave me a glass of raspberry syrup with lemon in it, which I promptly puked up in the bath.

  And they’re not proud of me any more either, the way they were last year. Seeing my picture in the papers, and my books in the windows of bookshops, doesn’t impress them at all any more. To his intimates, a famous writer with no money is like an old con artist. He’s like a duke with no castle and no servants.

  Last year they seemed to see the fame more than the poverty. Our poverty had something theatrical for them, the poverty of a young millionaire, forced by his wise father to make the discovery (over a week or two) that life is a serious business. Now they understand that my penury is permanent and genuine. People don’t like to be disappointed like that. As a result, what I get from them is no longer hospitality but charity. My God, what can one expect from a family that trades in non-ferrous metals? People like that are incorrigible romantics, with imaginations like quick-drying cement. An unknown poet belongs in a garret, a famous one in a castle in Hollywood.

  Genek’s cousin Rosi, who looks sour and greenish and is interested in literature, has borrowed books of mine from the lending library three times in succession now. It’s her way of supporting me, and she now gads about like a benefactress.

  The day before yesterday Kamelia took me up to a windy promontory in Stilitzky Park. There I was to sit down on a bench and write an ode to the beautiful view. She is one of those people who are incapable of seeing a writer without pressing pencil and paper upon him, and sticking him in a rose-grown gazebo or a belvedere or a bench in a leafy forest glade. Normally such creatures are at their deadliest in spring and summer. Kamelia, I’m sorry to say, has the condition so badly that she is oblivious to the weather. She wanders around, seeking out benches for me. The fresh air is supposed to be intellectually stimulating, head-clearing and health-bringing all at the same time. I have had to tell her I am not a plein air poet! Since then, I’m afraid she’s lost her faith in me.

  That’s a pity, because I think she has some influence over Genek in money matters; she helps him with the non-ferrous metals, and is staggeringly efficient in such matters as share ownership and foreign bank accounts. With business partners she is deft and sure-footed. She wouldn’t dream of telling such a man to sit down on a damp park bench with the instruction to stay there till the cool evening breeze blew by, with the tintinnabulations of the local church.

  Genek also requires that I eat lunch at their house. When lunch is over, the family drives me out on to the balcony to order me to take deep breaths. And after that I am to take a nap. So concerned are they that I lead a healthy life that I feel I’m going to hell in a handcart.

  Annie, it’s really high time something were done. I have got Genek to the point where he will transfer travelling funds for you and Kully from his London account. He thinks we will then all move in with him. Kamelia is very keen to give Kully lessons. I no longer impress this branch of my family, but they don’t yet want to be shot of me – they want to save me. Of course I won’t hear of you coming. You should use the travelling money for Poland to pay the hotel bill, and then go to Amsterdam with Kully. Once you’re there, nothing can happen to you. Go to the Palace Hotel; it’s expensive but at least the manager owes me sixty guilders. It’s a start. The man’s name is Flens, and he’s a very good friend of mine – you can trust him.

  Once in Amsterdam, head straight to my publishers. You must tell Krabbe that you’ve got the completed manuscript of the new novel in your possession. Of course you won’t be able to give it to him, as it doesn’t exist. But you must do all in your power to make him think it’s finished. When I’m back in Amsterdam, I’ll knock off the last two hundred pages in a week. I’ll work day and night. As you know, Annie, I’ve worked a lot harder than that. Somehow, things have always panned out so far.

  Krabbe won’t give much for your literary views, so you have to tell him this new novel is a real page-turner. Let him think he’ll have a popular success on his hands. You have to get Krabbe so primed that he’ll wire me some travel money.

  He used to be a nice tender-hearted fellow, a man who was capable of warm feeling and friendship. Unfortunately, his character has recently suffered a change for the worse. I remember a time when I could get advances out of him by the simple expedient of writing letters. And today? If you read my epistolary cries for help to the moon, it would fall weeping from the heavens. But Krabbe is as tough
as old boots. Of course times are hard – not least for a publisher bringing out German-language books abroad – but Krabbe takes things too far.

  Take Kully with you when you go to Krabbe’s office. Don’t write to let him know you’re coming; don’t even let his secretary announce you, in case he runs away. I can’t believe he will be as inhuman when confronted with women and children. Kully should put on her white dress that she looks so sweet in. Don’t leave before he’s wired me the money. Chain yourselves to his desk, if necessary.

  Now pull yourself together, Annie. Do everything right – I’m relying on you. Before long we’ll be back together! Then we’ll go to Paris. France is a marvellous country, nowhere is as cheap.

  Have you kept our three tickets for the Belgian Colonial Lottery? They’ll be making the prize draw in the next few days. For God’s sake, get a copy of the list of winners in good time. I’m sorry, but sometimes you’re a bit absent-minded in these business affairs, and I really have to think of everything. The numbers gave me a good feeling. Maybe we’ll be lucky this time.

  Please don’t forget to telephone Popp once before you leave Brussels. In Ostende I gave him some really wonderful advertising concepts for his department stores. Could it be that Popp has already been successful with one or other of them? My head is so full I can’t follow through on everything myself, and it’s easily possible that we thereby might miss out on some huge sums. Perhaps you can get Popp to give you an advance on some of the ideas. But that won’t be easy. It takes incredible virtuosity to separate someone like Popp from even a little bit of his money.

  I’ve written a postcard to Fräulein Brouwer – remember, the one with the bird’s nest? In case the Polish travel money isn’t enough to get you to Amsterdam, let her help you out. In return, I’ll cut her into the royalties for my comedy.

  I must go now. Manya’s just come to collect me. She says to say hello to you, she’s as charming as ever. I don’t know whether I really should tell her to stay with Genek, in that muddle of old and ageing women, none of whom like her, never mind understand her.