Death in Rome

by Wolfgang Koeppen

  In the car to Judejahn's hotel, with Dietrich at the wheel, the Pfaffraths were thinking: We can't tell him, we'll have to break it to him gently, she's crazy, and no wonder after everything she's been through, we did what we could, we have nothing to reproach ourselves for, no one can blame us, we stood by her, Judejahn will see that, we brought her here, and now Judejahn will have to decide what will happen. Dietrich was thinking: He's staying at a far better hotel than we are, he must be rolling. At the Teutonic castle I was envious of Adolf because his father had so much more clout than mine, I wonder if he still does, more than my father. How did he slip through the enemy net, how did he get away, and is he still the same, will he make a bid for power, will he fight, and is it the right moment to throw in my lot with him, or is it still too risky? And Friedrich Wilhelm Pfaffrath said: 'Perhaps it was a little premature to think of his return. Perhaps he should wait another year or two for things to sort themselves out. We'll get our sovereignty, we'll get a new army. You have to hand it to the people in Bonn, they haven't let us down. We're not out of the woods yet, but once the army's in place perhaps then the time will have come for truly nationalist forces to take over, and deal with the traitors.' 'We'll deal with them, all right,' said Dietrich. He grimaced and clutched the steering-wheel. He almost ran over a gentleman with a diplomat's rolled umbrella crossing the street at the Porta Pinciana, evidently, and to his evident peril, a believer in reason.

  He received them in his dressing-gown, having rubbed himself down with alcohol and splashed a fragrant hair tonic over his grey bristles, and he looked like an old and unsuccessful boxer getting into the ring one last time for a hefty purse. They were bewildered by the luxury surrounding him. They stood there like beggars, like poor relations, the way they had always stood in front of him, and he felt it too, it was all nicely calculated, and they saw the silk-covered walls, felt the thick carpets underfoot, his suitcases impressed them, and on his bed they spotted the apogee of wealth and the stamp of arrogant independence in the form of a large mangy tomcat. 'That's Benito,' Judejahn introduced him, and he was pleased at their puzzlement and their concealed alarm. Friedrich Wilhelm Pfaffrath felt nauseated by the animal, but he didn't let it show; it was as though the black stallions in his dream of Lützow's bold hunt had been transformed into this mangy torn. Judejahn didn't ask after Eva. He saw through the Pfaffraths. He narrowed his eyelids to wicked piggy little eyes, he dropped his head like a ram's—his opponent would be advised to beware of the old pro. Up until now Eva had been the poor relation, and the Pfaffraths her benefactors; that couldn't be tolerated any longer. Judejahn decided to put Eva under his protection. He would get hold of some money, Eva was to buy herself a house, she should be independent. When the Pfaffraths started speaking about Eva, Judejahn told them to forget it. He would see to everything himself; he gestured sweepingly, dictatorially. He expressed no wish to see Eva. He understood her. He could see why she hadn't come, and he approved. They couldn't see each other, couldn't look into each other's eyes, not with the Pfaffraths looking on, those rats who had understood nothing at all, but perhaps Judejahn could see Eva secretly, like a sad secret mistress he was afraid of seeing. But then he laid himself open, failed to cover himself, he asked after Adolf, and Dietrich blurted out that Adolf had entered the priesthood, and that was like a punch in the throat. Judejahn reeled, his face twisted, he grew pale and then red, his brow and his cheeks purpled, his veins stood out, he was apoplectic, he clutched at his throat, and then there broke from him a deluge of oaths, a torrent of obscenities, he flooded them with ordure, yelled at them, the craven, conformist, greedy Pfaffraths, who stood there trembling, too terrified to move, like tame pigs faced by a wild boar. He blamed them, blamed them for betrayal, for defeat, for breach of promise, desertion and capitulation, for fraternization with the enemy, they shat their pants, they were lickspittles, collaborators, arse-lickers, they had dragged their carcasses to Canossa, lame dogs whimpering at the thought of Hell and in front of the priests, they had probably come to Rome to kiss the Pope's feet, to receive absolution, but history would condemn them, Germany would damn them, cast them out, the family deserved its fate, the Führer had seen that himself, the Führer had come to lead a cowardly people, a rotten tribe, that was his tragedy. And they listened, the Oberbürgermeister listened, his wife, Anna, Dietrich, they hung on his every word, in silence, quaking, but they hung on his lips, it was like olden days, the great Judejahn spoke, the big chief ranted, and they submitted, yes, they felt good, they felt pleasured to the quick, a lustful shearing in their bellies and their genitals, they worshipped him. He stopped. He was exhausted; previously, he wouldn't have been exhausted; previously such outbursts gave him strength. There was sweat in his bristles, sweat dampened the silk pyjamas he had on under his dressing-gown; his face was still as red as a cock's comb. But he knew how to take a punch, he didn't go down, soon he'd pulled himself round again. He slapped his thighs, laughed, what a joke, what a fantastic joke, he should have sent a few more priests to heaven, since he'd gone and supplied the Church with a new one. And then he went and poured himself a cognac, knocked it back, he offered them one too, but only Friedrich Wilhelm Pfaffrath would join him, Dietrich excused himself saying he had to drive, restraint that only produced a contemptuous laugh from Judejahn. 'What's the matter with our kids?' he cried. Then something seemed to occur to him, something amusing, and he went over to the bed and from Benito's claws he took away the Italian newspaper which the hotel had delivered with his breakfast that morning. Judejahn had leafed through it, uncomprehendingly looking at the pictures and at the captions under the pictures, and so doing had come upon his nephew Siegfried, whom he could barely remember, but he thought it was probably his nephew, Siegfried Pfaffrath. And so he held the picture up to Friedrich Wilhelm Pfaffrath, mocking and incensed, and because he had misunderstood the text accompanying it, he said his brother-in-law's son had turned out to be a violinist, which admittedly wasn't as bad as being a priest, but it was bad enough, it was a violation of the family traditions, it went against background and the training of the Teutonic school. And so Judejahn had his little revenge. Pfaffrath took the newspaper, he was shaken by this unexpected attack, and he said Siegfried wasn't a violinist at all, he was a composer, and then he regretted saying so, because it really didn't matter to Judejahn whether a fellow scraped at a fiddle in a café or wrote concerti, it was an unmanly occupation in either case, a dodgy way of life. Pfaffrath could understand Judejahn's way of thinking, but he himself had a different reaction when he saw his son's picture in the Roman newspaper, perhaps he felt reminded of his bookshelf, the edition of Goethe and the life of Wagner, he felt proud of Siegfried, proud of his progeny, and he passed the newspaper on to Anna, who clucked like a mother duck when her little duckling scuttles into its world, jumps into the pond, takes to the water and swims, and Dietrich peered over her shoulder, saw his brother and muttered, 'Incredible,' which could be taken to be an expression of astonishment, or admiration, or then again of disgust. And thus Judejahn remained compromised by his own devout offspring, whereas the Pfaffraths actually seemed to feel pride in their fiddler- or composer-boy, although of course it wasn't apparent what opinions Siegfried had, what his vices were, what squalor he might inhabit, in unpatriotic or Jewish company, or how he had managed to secure the publicity in the paper. Judejahn stalked across the room in his dressing-gown, like a boxer pacing the ring in protest against an unjust decision. He flatly refused to accompany them to Monte Cassino. What did he care about battlefields, he mocked, all quiet and at peace, where the blood had drained away into the soil, where the bodies were buried, and plants grew and donkeys grazed, and wretched tourists swarmed round the donkey paddock. What was the battle of Monte Cassino anyway, compared to the battle for Berlin! The battle for Berlin was not over yet, nor would it be, it was still being fought; it was being fought in the soul and in the air, he wanted to say, but Judejahn had forgotten the legend of the battle of Chalons, which
little Gottlieb had learned at school. He remembered something about heavenly forces, but he didn't think of ghosts, they didn't exist, nor of the dead, who did exist, but they didn't fight, they were dead, and so they must be pilots, and of course pilots fought in the air, and in the end they would fight with new weapons, with the force of the atom, because Berlin had not fallen. 'Do you believe in war?' Pfaffrath asked Judejahn. And Judejahn said he always believed in war, what else was there to believe in. Pfaffrath too believed in a new war, it had to come, justice demanded it, but Pfaffrath didn't think the time was yet ripe for it, he didn't think a war at this stage was in Germany's interest, he thought the odds were too unfavourable, but he didn't dare say so to Judejahn, lest his brother-in-law might think him a coward. 'Will you come back, then?' he asked, and Judejahn said he was always at war, always fighting for Germany. And then he put on an absurd piece of play-acting for their benefit: he rang the diplomatic representation of the country in whose service he stood, and, in a mixture of French, English and Arabic, he ordered the official car, every bit as though he were giving tyrannical commands, and was deciding war or peace in the Middle East. Friedrich Wilhelm Pfaffrath and Anna his wife did not notice that little Gottlieb was up to his tricks again, they were awed by the greatness of their brother-in-law, but Dietrich Pfaffrath winced: he couldn't decipher the words, but he suddenly had a feeling that his uncle's great days were over once and for all, and that Judejahn was now nothing better than an adventurer with uncertain prospects and shady backing. 'Careful,' said a voice inside him, Judejahn might damage his career, but Dietrich would have loved to march behind Judejahn, in a conspicuous place of trust, of course, if ever Judejahn unfurled his standard and issued his call to the nation. But for the moment there were jobs going in the Federal Republic, jobs that Dietrich would get if he passed his exams. Not until Dietrich is unemployed, without a car to play with, lying on the scrapheap of the academic proletariat, only when there is an economic crisis, will Dietrich march blindly behind any false flag, will he advance righteously to any false war.

  Siegfried was late for the rehearsal. He was late on purpose, he was afraid, he was afraid of his music, he was afraid of Kürenberg, he had walked, he had taken the wrong bus in the wrong direction, he had followed a child for a while, he had been daydreaming and his feet were unwilling, his shoes had lead soles, as he approached the concert hall, and now he stood hesitantly in the foyer in front of the cloakroom, a couple of raincoats hung there on sorry hooks like corpses, a couple of umbrellas lurched against the wall like drunks, a cleaning-lady was eating a roll, and the fatty rind of the ham, melting in the heat, leaked out of the roll, and the woman's unsupported breasts rolled obscenely in her sweaty, unbuttoned blouse, and Siegfried thought of the woman's belly, and of the fact that she had borne children, and he was disgusted by the warm, moist belly, her warm, moist children, by life which was warm and moist, and the love of life to which we are condemned seemed peculiar and loathsome to him, the desire to reproduce that affects even the poorest people, the sheen of eternity which is a false eternity, the Pandora's box of hunger, fear and war, and he heard trumpets, his trumpets, and they were threatening him, and he heard harps, his harps, and they seemed to be trembling, and he heard violins, his violins, and it was as though they were screaming, and his own music seemed to him remote, remote, remote. And it terrified him, too. He walked up and down the corridor. His form was reflected in the mirrors on the walls, and he found himself ugly. I look like a ghost, he thought, but not the ghost of music. He made no effort to walk quietly. His footfall was loud on the hard linoleum flooring in the passage, it was almost as though he meant to disrupt the rehearsal, as though he wanted to rush into the hall, and shout, 'Stop! Stop!'

  Then Ilse Kürenberg came towards him. She was wearing a summer dress in cornflower blue, and she looked youthful, firm-fleshed but not fat, and he warmed to her because she was childless. He thought: She has not given birth, any more than the statues in the gardens of Rome have given birth, and perhaps she is the goddess of music after all, the muse Polyhymnia, who is both experienced and virginal. But he was mistaken. Today Ilse Kürenberg seemed to be the nameless goddess of advancement, because she was in the company of a gentleman who looked like a large, captive and rather melancholy bird, whom she introduced to Siegfried as the head of the music department of an important radio station, or she introduced Siegfried to the bird, because the bird had such an important job. And Ilse Kürenberg and the bird were speaking French, they were both speaking quickly, fluently and musically, perhaps the bird was French, and Ilse Kürenberg had learned French, perhaps old Aufhäuser had chosen a French governess for his daughter, or perhaps Ilse Kürenberg had learned French in exile during the war, or perhaps both; but Siegfried now felt ashamed to be so uncultured himself, the Teutonic castle had been no help, his father had done nothing for his French, Friedrich Wilhelm Pfaffrath had no great opinion of France, no great opinion of the euphony of the French language, perhaps he had a higher opinion of French women, but then only as war-booty, and by now Siegfried was stammering, he was racking his brain for vocabulary, he didn't understand what the bird was asking him, but he was asking him something, because Ilse Kürenberg was nodding and looking to Siegfried for agreement, and so he agreed, not knowing what he was agreeing to, and he felt like rushing off, leaving the goddess of music and the radio bird standing—let them gobble each other up or whatever. But then Siegfried heard the final chord of his symphony, it sounded like the collapse of all hope, like a wave swamping a ship, leaving only a few planks and a sound of splashing. Kürenberg emerged into the corridor. He was sweating and mopping his brow. Oddly, he was using a large red handkerchief, which made him look not like a conductor, but more like a farmer labouring in his fields. People were following him, journalists, critics carrying notebooks, a photographer, who straightaway set off a flashlight on the group. Kürenberg saw that Siegfried was depressed, and he pressed his hand and said: 'Courage! Courage!' But Siegfried thought: Courage? I don't lack courage. Courage isn't what I need, anyway. Maybe I need belief. I do believe, but what I believe in is the futility of everything. Or maybe not everything, but that my being here is futile, my speaking to these people is futile, our picture being taken is futile, the flashlight is futile, my music is futile, but it wouldn't have to be, if I only had a little faith. But what am I to believe in? In myself? It would probably be sensible to believe in myself, but I can't believe in myself even if I try to sometimes, then I feel ashamed, and yet you have to believe in yourself, only you have to do it without feeling ashamed. Does Kürenberg believe in himself? I don't know. I expect he believes in his work, and he's every right to believe in his work, but if his work is in aid of my music, in which I don't believe, is he then still entitled to believe in his work? It was nice just now, the way he looked like a farmer coming off his fields. But what field is he working on? What land? And who will harvest the crop?

  Kürenberg introduced Siegfried. The critics spoke to him. They addressed him in many languages. He didn't understand them. He didn't understand them in any language. He was with them, yet not with them. He was already far away.

  Approaching St Peter's, the church already fully in his sight, the squat-looking dome oddly disappointing in its grandiose setting, the rows of mighty pillars, the flanking colonnades, still in a line with the lamp-posts of the Via della Conciliazione, which leads up to the cathedral, the buildings on either side imposing headquarters of insurance firms, offices of international concerns, bureaux of flourishing trusts, with cool, well-made façades, looking as monotonous in the sunshine as sets of published accounts, prompting thoughts of expensive rents and the Saviour who drove the money-changers from the temple, in view of this world-famous, holy and—how could it be otherwise—extremely worldly scene, in front of the ancient, hallowed and busily trodden stage, which no pilgrim reaches without a shudder of reverence, and no touring party fails to tick off its itinerary, Adolf was seized by a great panic.
Would he pass muster at the shrine, would he not be found wanting, would his faith be strengthened? An omnibus had dropped him here, he and the other passengers tossed out like a crateload of fowls allowed to pick. And already they were scratching away, hunting for bits of culture and lasting impressions, anxious not to miss a single grain of wonder, already they clicked open their camera lenses, greaseproof paper rustled, provisions were broken out to still hunger brought on by the star-count in Baedeker, while some swiftly plunged into souvenir shops, the cartolerie resembling little backhanded sinecures, the excursionists, having flown clear of their home cages, off the perch of habit, sent greetings from St Peter's before they had even set foot there, and Adolf felt sad, he was tossed around in the crowd like a piece of driftwood at sea, he was barged aside, an insignificant priest, or he was asked things because they thought he would know the answers, pointless questions for pointless bits of information. And foolishly he became aware of the lamp-posts by the roadside, and was reminded of another approach, where the posts were not crowned with cheap factory-lights like these, but where ornamental pillars were crowned with smoke and fire, with glowing fireballs, a street of blazing pillars through which he, the privileged child, the son of his father, had proudly driven. The Via della Conciliazione reminded him of Nuremberg, of the site of the Party rallies, only that parade ground had in the eyes of the boy outdone the approach to the cathedral, from which he didn't expect splendour, didn't want splendour, but which itself wanted to be splendid and challenged the universally rejected and despised splendour of Nuremberg, and lost out to it, as flambeaux had been followed by blazing houses, blazing cities and blazing countries. Certainly, in the real world, one couldn't expect hovels to be standing here by the wayside; a show of poverty, in the real world, was not to be tolerated here; mendicant monks, holding out their tin begging-bowls for bread and the love of God, have probably become extinct in the real world; but these new constructions, these buildings, evidence of clever choice of location and successful investment, were they not all too clearly a triumph of this real world, and thus a belated monument to Simon Magus, who had wrestled with St Peter in this city?