Mohr

by Frederick Reuss

  “But there’s a difference between daydreaming and the dreams you have when you’re asleep, don’t you think?”

  Eva considers this for a moment, then nods in agreement. “Tell me another story about Papa.”

  Käthe leans against the wall and gazes out the open window. The sky often becomes slightly cloudy around sunset, the air more humid. If it rains overnight she will have to wait another day to finish mowing the top meadow. At supper it occurred to her that she didn’t have any luggage, at least not the sort for a trip halfway around the world. What does she need? Hiasl and his wife have agreed to care for the house while they’re gone. Käthe has no idea how long that could be. The old woodcutter and his wife aren’t concerned. They’re more than happy to come and live in Wolfsgrub—forever if necessary. But luggage. You need luggage.

  “How long was it before he could walk?” Eva asks.

  Käthe isn’t listening. Her thoughts have a way of wandering off in all directions at bedtime.

  “How long was it?” Eva asks again.

  “How long was what?”

  “Before Papa could walk.”

  Käthe smooths her skirt, tries to gather her thoughts. “Well. The pain lingered for a long time,” she begins. At bedtime Eva’s eyes always seem bigger, browner, wonder-filled. “Then a great big help arrived. Improvisationen im Juni was accepted by the Residenztheater in Munich.”

  “Papa’s play.” Eva pulls up the covers.

  “That little six-pfennig postcard with the signature of the director scrawled at the bottom—I can’t tell you how much it meant. It was an indescribable feeling for both of us, but especially for Papa, because it meant that at last he would be able to provide for us. I think that was even more important to him than having his work accepted.”

  “Mama?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m thirsty.”

  Eva dashes to the bathroom. A wedge of yellow light from the hallway falls across the floor. Käthe slides forward, lies flat on her back, hands folded across her stomach, looking up at the ceiling. She can hear the tap running as Eva fills a glass with water and drinks in little sighing gulps, wipes her mouth on her sleeve, sets the glass down on the porcelain with a click, switches off the light. When she returns, the silence in the house seems denser. She slips back underneath the covers and they lie quietly in the dark for a time before Käthe resumes the story.

  “Soon everything began to take shape. Stieler, the director, came down to discuss production. The premiere date was set. Papa was so filled with joy that his pain became more bearable—even though his feet remained black and blue, and hard.”

  Wutzi, asleep underneath the desk, lets out a little yelp that causes looks to pass between mother and daughter. Eva’s questions about sleep and dreams seem funny now, pertinent as they are to dog life. They watch for further signs, propped up on elbows, tired out from a full day of work and play. There was a time when Käthe avoided going to bed too early, and enjoyed the quiet late-night hours. Now she looks forward to sleep, is wary of the night, avoids it the way, as a child, she avoided strangers. Eva sinks back onto her pillow and waits for the story to resume.

  “In February the cold broke and the snow began to melt. Stieler came again. Papa got himself all worked up about the direction, was worried that the pace would be too slow, not enough tempo. ‘It’s too slow,’ he told Stieler, ‘too drawn out! The audience will get restless.’ And Stieler would say ‘Mensch! Don’t worry, I’ll give you tempo!’

  “Our excitement grew and grew, and one day Papa said to me, ‘You go to the premiere.’ ‘I can’t leave you here alone,’ I told him. ‘Of course you can!’ he said. ‘No. I won’t go without you. We always talked about how when your first play was performed, we would sit together in the theater! I can’t go.’ ‘You must.’” She clasps her hands, makes pleading gestures, hither, thither, as a great smile spreads over Eva’s face. “‘Please! You must!’ ‘No. No. No.’ ‘Please!’ ‘No!’ And back and forth and back and forth it went. He pleaded and pleaded until, finally, I agreed to go.”

  “You and Papa like to argue,” says Eva, still amused.

  “And it didn’t stop there. The next day we were arguing again because Papa said he didn’t want anybody in the house while I was gone. Would you believe it? He was just being impossible. He couldn’t get out of bed, but insisted on remaining alone in the house until I came back. By then I was too tired to argue. I put food next to the bed, closed the house up, and walked all the way to Tegernsee.”

  “You walked?”

  “There wasn’t a bus in those days and we didn’t have bicycles yet. I took the train with nothing but the house keys in my pocket.”

  “Were you scared?”

  “Not scared. Nervous.”

  “Because of the train ride?”

  Käthe laughs. “Not the train ride! The opening of the play. Would the audience come? Yes. The audience came. A full house. The curtain went up. A beautiful set. The old duchess looked enchanting, they picked just the right woman for the part. And the butler, well, he seemed a little too old and rickety. Na, I thought, doesn’t matter. And then the old Duchess started to sing, ‘Brüderlein fein, Brüderlein fein, einmal muss geschieden sein.’ Much too sweetly.”

  “How was she supposed to sing?”

  “I thought it should be rougher, more cabaret style.”

  “Like how? Show me.”

  “You want me to sing?”

  An eager nod.

  “I don’t know if I can.”

  “Try, Mama.”

  Käthe clears her throat, attempts the growling Marlene Dietrich tenor. “Brüderlein fein, Brüderlein fein, einmal muss geschieden sein.”

  “Sing the rest, Mama.”

  “I can’t remember the rest.”

  Eva begs, “Come on, Mama!”

  “I can’t.” She touches her fingertips to her throat. Singing was something she had once enjoyed. With Mohr playing the accordion. “Anyway. It had become real. Papa’s play. I was seeing it, hearing it. There it was.”

  Eva sits up. “What did you do?”

  “Well, I didn’t cry. Everything was too real. The audience was absorbed. But, for God’s sake, it was too slow! They were drawing it out. Stieler promised tempo. Your father drove himself crazy worrying they wouldn’t get it right. ‘Tempo! Tempo!’ He told Stieler. ‘Make sure to get the tempo.’ And here they were slogging out every syllable, endlessly dragging. Trying too hard! For God’s sake! The audience was fidgeting, squirming in their seats, rattling their programs. Oh, dear God, I thought. It’s all over.”

  Eva is fully engrossed, legs crossed beneath the sheet, hands in her lap.

  “A flop! It’s a flop!” She slaps her hand on the bed. “How could they? How could Stieler? Dragging slower and slower. It’s all over. Finally the prologue ended and the story began. Hohorst as the duchess. Faber as Tomkinow. Both were beautiful. The curtain fell at the end of the first act. Cheering. Tremendous applause. Oh, I thought, if only it could just stop here. It can’t keep on like this. Can’t it just be over now?”

  The animated storytelling has roused Wutzi from his slumber under the table. He ambles over to the side of the bed, accepts a pat on the head from Eva, and sits. Käthe reaches out and gives him a pat, too. Funny how excited she’s become, a rising chorus of bottled-up memories. Even the dog is listening.

  “Then the curtain rises. Act Two. Everything quicker. Good. People are laughing. They feel more comfortable with the piece. They’re enjoying themselves, not bored. Curtain. Intermission. All talk, laugh, are happy. I stay in my seat, sink down into it so nobody can see me. I don’t want to see anyone, either. Stieler comes up. ‘It’s going wonderfully! Just stay calm. Don’t worry. If they can pull off the third act.’ And then, again, they’re back on stage. Now they’ll get bored. Everything’s been laid out. There’s no more suspense. Endings are always hard. Oh, please! Please, dear God. Just this one last act! The audience was quiet, inscrutab
le. The scene went quickly, and no mistakes. Then the curtain fell.”

  She brings her hands together in front of her face to describe a closing curtain.

  Pause.

  “And then?” Eva wiggles. “Go on! Don’t stop!”

  “And it was over.”

  “No, Mama. What happened then?”

  “What happened when?”

  “When the curtain went down!”

  “Then they went wild!” Käthe throws her arms up. “They shouted, they whistled, they clapped, called for the actors, the director, called ‘Mohr! Mohr! Mohr!’ The curtain parted. The players came out holding hands. They bowed. Then the leads, alone, one by one. The duchess and Stieler, hand in hand. Applause, whistles. And then they began to chant, ‘Mohr! Mohr! Mohr!’ Stieler appeared on the stage. The audience fell silent. He said that, unfortunately, the author was not present due to a bad accident, but that he would surely be pleased to know how well his play was received. Then he withdrew behind the curtain. And the audience would not stop clapping.”

  “What did you do then?”

  “Me? I put my head in my lap and cried like a baby. The purest joy. Some friends were sitting behind me in the loge and they took me back to the hotel. Rote Hahn in Stachus. I couldn’t go out, couldn’t celebrate. All I wanted was to go straight to bed. And the next morning I got the first train and raced home.”

  “What did Papa do when you gave him the news? Did he really jump out of bed and try to do a jig? Did he do that?”

  “Who told you that?”

  “You did! You said he jumped up and tried to dance around the room but then fell down and you had to help him back into bed.”

  “Well, then, I suppose that’s what he did.” She pauses here, searching for the next thread. Strange how the theater of memory brightens in places, dims in others. “All I see now is Papa lying in bed, beaming, his feet high up on cushions. I can’t really remember much of what happened afterward.”

  “Did you have a celebration?”

  “Not really. People telephoned. Papa asked for endless details, every little thing. There was no end to it. Then came the reviews. And they were all good. One said, Hosanna! A new poet! Papa immediately started writing a new play. Das Gelbe Zelt. It was a complete and total failure. But Improvisationen im Juni was performed all over Germany. Rave reviews everywhere.”

  The moon has risen over the Wallberg, and the room is brighter. There are so many tiny details. Her thoughts return to Seethaler and his strangeness. The closing of the school, finding a tutor. She yawns, glances at Eva, who is still wide awake. Wutzi has gone to sleep again at the foot of the bed. All of it is dear to her, and precious; everything now, and everything that is gone.

  Outside, an evening breeze; all around, everything is ripening. The delphinium crop this year will be the largest ever. She is selling bulbs as well as flowers now. She closes her eyes, leans her head against the wall. How badly she misses him. She misses the sweet names he called her, and even the not-so-sweet excesses—of love, of anger—that sometimes overcame them, and left each quieter afterward, and a little frightened. Also closer, more soulfully knit. Now he wants to climb Mount Fuji. Why? She sits for a few moments longer, then opens her eyes. Moonlight. How much does a half-decent trunk cost these days? She gets up, kisses Eva on the forehead, astonished at how beautiful her little girl has become, then crosses the hall to her room and falls into bed.

  Shanghai

  Wong has finally asked if he may bring his wife to stay in the apartment and Mohr has agreed. Although he knows full well she has been living there for some time, he’s pretended not to notice. All through June and July, there has been heavy fighting near Wong’s village in Hopei. His daughter is now living at a Catholic mission. His son, a corporal in the 53rd Army, is stationed in Paoting. The plight of Wong’s family is troubling, and so is the expanding war in the north. The streets of the Settlement are crowded with refugees streaming in from all parts of China. Last night gunshots during a police eviction in the courtyard behind the apartment building. Whole families, squatting there for weeks.

  For a week now, Mohr has been taking foxglove. Digitalis purpurea. A Chinese apothecary in Foochow Road prepared a tincture according to his specifications. An 0.17 percent solution he takes in doses of four drams per day. The results have been good. No morning flutters, no shortness of breath. His pulse is now quite regular. He feels alert and energetic. Even his shoes seem to fit better.

  Last night he telephoned to check on Vogel, who is still feeling ill. “Some kind of intestinal thing,” he said.

  “Drink plenty of fluids,” Mohr advised, then told him about his plan to visit Japan.

  There was a brief pause. “Why Japan?” Vogel asked.

  Mohr couldn’t help smiling to himself. “I’ve always wanted to climb Fujiyama.”

  “Are you out of your mind? This is no time for vacations. You don’t even have a passport.”

  “My identity card from the Municipal Police is all I need.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “The Municipal Police, and the agent at the steamship company. Nothing to worry about. Completely ordinary.”

  “Completely ridiculous is what it is. Really. Why are you doing this, Max? Why won’t you listen to me?”

  “Just a short vacation. I plan to come right back.”

  Vogel grunted and didn’t pursue the topic. They talked for some minutes longer. Vogel seemed frailer than usual. “Should I come out and check on you?” Mohr asked.

  “Don’t bother.”

  “I can be there first thing in the morning.”

  “Not necessary, Max. It’ll take more than medicine to cure my problems.”

  And with that the conversation ended.

  Today is Sunday and Mohr has decided to go for a drive in the country. In the rear seat of the car, map open in his lap, he watches the passing landscape. Next to him is a basket of food prepared by Wong’s wife, and The Prose Poetry of Su Tung Po, which he bought a year ago and has been reading in bits and pieces. The perfect guidebook for traveling in China—not by palanquin, but by V8 Ford.

  “Wait! Stop!”

  Wong glances into the mirror. Mohr gestures behind them, to a copse of bushes and some sort of earthworks set among the fields. Wong pulls over, puts the car into reverse with a look of mild bemusement. It is a cemetery. Unlike the usual tumbledown interments he’s seen and photographed on earlier excursions, these graves are presided over by clay horses, bigger than life, spotted with lichen and dirt-blown. He stalks among them with his camera, patting their flanks as if they are living creatures. An old man appears. Wong shouts to him from over by the car. The old man shouts back in a gravelly voice that seems blown straight off the fields.

  Wong saunters over, exchanges a few words with the old man, then turns and says to Mohr, “Master pay looksee.”

  Mohr hands over a few coins, holds up the camera. The old man looks on with a tinge of disgust.

  “No wantchee. No can do,” Wong says.

  The old man stumps off. Mohr puts his camera away, resumes his inspection. He lights a cigarette, and asks Wong to photograph him standing next to one of the clay horses, smiling at the thought of himself as a tourist. No, not a tourist. A tramp.

  They return to the car, resume their drive. Mohr stretches his legs across the backseat and watches the countryside fly past. For the moment, he has no worries; is looking forward to packing up and living out of a suitcase—even if only for a few weeks. What made him think Agnes would come away with him to Japan? The whole thing makes him feel bad now. To whom should he apologize?

  To Käthe.

  The car speeds along in the direction of Soochow. The previous year, he had had dinner there with Vogel at the Garden Hotel restaurant, served by the most obnoxious maître d’hôtel outside Paris. This time he’ll have lunch in the open air. A picnic. Mohr wonders what Wong thinks about this little expedition. Drive to Soochow, eat, return to Shanghai. Does Wong
wonder why he would want to take photographs in a graveyard? Does he wonder what amusement there is in driving all this distance? Mindless motor touring.

  “Stop!” Mohr calls again. Wong slows the car with a “Now what?” glance in the rearview mirror. On the outskirts of Soochow, the fields are ripe with watermelon. The harvest is in full swing; melons are being loaded onto carts and wagons. Mohr approaches one of the carts, covered by a film of reddish dirt, waves to a young boy hoisting two large yellow melons. An elderly man shoos the boy away with a flap of his hand, and gestures for Mohr to select one. The melons are stacked precariously high. He selects a medium-sized one, wipes the dust from it, and presents it. The man holds up five fingers.

  Mohr shakes his head, holds up one finger.

  A group of boys has stopped to watch the transaction. Mohr is thinking of the vendors at the corner of Yates Road, how they spray their stacked wares with water to keep them looking fresh, a fine, expert mist—from the mouth. He can’t count the cholera cases he’s seen in the last two years, but the piles of glistening watermelon slices are what come to mind every time he treats one.

  The man holds up three fingers.

  Mohr shakes his head again, determined not to be taken for an ignorant tourist. He knows exactly what a watermelon costs on Bubbling Well Road, after it has made the trip down Soochow Creek, been unloaded directly off the barge onto a pushcart and tugged through city traffic by a shirtless coolie. He can buy a large, uncut melon directly in front of his apartment building for three tael. He holds out one finger.

  The man holds up two. The sooty-faced little boys stand behind him, craning. Mohr’s resolve vanishes. He digs two tael from his pocket and hands them over to the man, who shoos the boys away, back to work. With the fruit tucked under his arm, he returns to the car. Three little boys are merrily inspecting the front grill. The radiator is steaming in the heat. Wong opens the door. Mohr sets the melon on the rear seat, is about to get in, but notices the trio of boys standing off to the side. He beckons to them.