Life Goes On: A Novel

by Hans Keilson

  The man turned page after page; it took a long time. Albrecht eventually got bored in the next room and went downstairs, giving Mother an exact report: Everything’s fine so far, Father is a little worked up, but he’s giving clear answers, the man can’t find any problems. She seemed satisfied.

  Meanwhile, the man from the tax office was still working, adding, comparing. Suddenly he found two small mistakes and laughed.

  These mistakes here are insignificant, they don’t change the final totals, but a practiced eye can catch them right away.

  Father’s face flushed and he nodded heavily to one side. “When I started to keep the account books myself,” he said, ashamed, “I wanted to spare the expense of a bookkeeper. I’m sure I made a few mistakes at the beginning.”

  “You calculated the annual totals yourself too?” the man asked in disbelief.

  “I did, with my wife. It was hard at first, but later I could manage it.”

  “Good for you. I mean it, that’s very impressive.” He kept checking.

  And then, suddenly, all the sums were smaller, the daily earnings lower and lower, you could see it in the books.

  A whole history could be read in those numbers. No case study could have been better. Herr Seldersen sat there and stared at the pages covered with numbers. His tension had gradually disappeared and now he was filled with a sense of calm and control. “Believe me, that’s the way it is, just as it says there,” he said lightly.

  The tax officer said nothing. Was he sitting next to Herr Seldersen every evening as he counted his money and entered the sums? He compared the income to the outlays. Bit by bit, he lost his initial stiffness and suspicion—he thawed, you might say, and grew chatty.

  “Is your son going to go to university?” he asked Herr Seldersen.

  The latter didn’t answer for a moment; the question did not need an immediate response. How to decide what to say? After a while:

  “There probably won’t be anything else for him to do. We’ll have to wait and see.”

  He already felt a slight discomfort when he thought of the time when his son and he would have to decide.

  The tax officer said he had very much wanted to go to university himself. The war got in the way, and afterward he had to try to earn some money as quickly as possible. He often regretted it even today; he was passionate about botany.

  “So you were out in the field too.” Father steered the conversation into a new channel.

  “Of course. I was wounded too, a ricochet in the arm, it went clean out the other side.”

  Herr Seldersen offered him a cigar.

  In the end, the man had to take the books with him; he had not been able to get an exact picture of the state of things from this short look. As far as he could tell, the information seemed truthful; aside from a few minor errors, he couldn’t find any irregularities. Herr Seldersen would receive his final determination in a few days.

  When Father appeared downstairs in the store again, he laughed.

  “Everything all right?” Mother asked anxiously. She had been worried the whole time.

  “What could be wrong? Of course, everything’s accurate.”

  After a few days, the man brought the books back in person. This time he was nothing but friendly and forthcoming.

  “Here are your books,” he said. “Everything is in order. I expected nothing less.”

  Herr Seldersen felt a sense of satisfaction. They stood there together for a long time and talked about prospects for the future. The man’s name was Röllger.

  “Money’s tight and expensive to borrow too,” Herr Röllger said. Herr Seldersen nodded in agreement.

  “Where is it going to come from?” he wondered.

  Röllger said, “Well, we lost, and that’s why we’re in this dicey situation.”

  “But the others,” Herr Seldersen put in, “the ones who bring in all the money—are they really doing that well?”

  Röllger gave a mocking laugh. “You couldn’t say they’re doing well, but they’re getting by for now. They have enormous reserves. And then the debts and the reparations, when you add it all there’s no relief. They’d rather all go down together than help out someone who desperately needs it.”

  Herr Seldersen felt sure enough of himself to say straight-out that these developments weren’t all that clear to him, he couldn’t make heads or tails of how it actually all hung together; granted, he never made much of an effort or worried that much about the situation as a whole. He had enough to do on his own—later, too, he would use this sentence many times: he had enough to do on his own—and that was that. Plus, that was why he went to the polls and voted, so that other people who had more time than he did could deal with it and, as it were, decide things for him. But he was almost afraid that these other people didn’t have any more of a clue than he did! It’s priceless, really, he said, and they both laughed. And then all the grand meetings and conferences, a new one every minute, they eat well there and talk a pretty speech, you have to admit, and naturally they always have legal advisors at the ready, and they find their legal precedents and justifications, but who knows how much any of it has to do with the law, with what’s right? There’s been peace for ten years now, but it’s worse than the war was. But the time will come soon when everything turns around at last.

  “Very true,” Röllger said, “very true.” When he left he shook hands with Father. They understood each other.

  * * *

  One month later, in the height of summer, Herr Seldersen celebrated the twenty-fifth anniversary of his store. Twenty-five years! Early that morning, the landlord had sent his little daughter over with a big basket of flowers that had twenty-five daisies wound around its handle. Congratulations! Later, the landlord and his wife came in person to congratulate him. They said how honored they felt that Herr Seldersen had had his business in their building for twenty-five years. The acclaim and honor being heaped upon him today spilled over onto them as well. They had gotten along with each other for twenty-five years … and may it last another twenty-five! they said, and heartily shook Herr Seldersen’s hand. They didn’t mean it literally, and probably didn’t think anything about the phrase, but Herr Seldersen had silent thoughts of his own—in all honesty, he no longer had any great ambitions. Everyone stopped by and congratulated him, and there was something in the newspaper that afternoon: A short look back … a true member of the community … respected … a piece of history. Many congratulations and best wishes for the future!

  There were some of his customers who had remained true to him through all those years—buying what they needed from him and no one else. They had started off as parents with young children, and Seldersen had watched the children grow up, go to school, take confirmation, get married. Now they dropped by themselves—maybe their father had already died, so they brought their mother, who sat on a chair, her head shaking slightly from side to side—and remembered the old days.

  Herr Seldersen walked around and took it all in without a word, in happy silence. He didn’t like being the center of attention, even briefly; he felt more comfortable when he could stay in the background; he hadn’t rendered any great service, after all. But he could not conceal how moved he was. Thank you, many thanks! Tomorrow’s another day. But he felt it—a day like this was certainly an event. You could look forward to it, look back on it later, it made up for a lot. It was impossible to deny, though, that the memories that day called up were not always pleasant ones—they’d had their share of unhappy memories too. Twenty-five years ago, you’re just starting out, with plans and dreams, you’re young and strong and you know how everything’s going to turn out, oh, what high hopes you have. And twenty years ago … and fifteen years ago, and then … the war, four years, and then … and still you keep on, and then …

  Father had been in the store all day when, early one afternoon, little Kipfer came by. He had been a cigar worker for a long time until his lung problems started. He was just on his way to Cit
y Hall to register an assembly for next week; when he came around the corner, Herr Seldersen was standing in the door, looking out at the street. Little Kipfer paid a call on his way back. He had always been interested in politics, even when he was healthy—especially issues around the economic restructuring, industry, rationalization, all those words that sounded especially strange coming out of his mouth. After his health condemned him to inactivity, he started working for a radical party that even sent him abroad once. He was well-read and clever, with a big old soldier’s overcoat enveloping his short, thin frame. He often dropped in on Father and they always had things to talk about.

  First, little Kipfer offered his somewhat belated congratulations. The anniversary was quite a while ago. Herr Seldersen thanked him.

  Kipfer said he had been very busy, there’s always a lot of running around to do before an election. He had had to organize and set up various things, receive instructions and pass them along, everything went through him. “We never see you at the meetings,” little Kipfer started saying. “Now, you’re a sensible man.…”

  Father laughed. “Yes, well, if politics was my calling, but…” He was always so tired at night, he excused himself on the spot. At the moment he was not in the mood for a conversation.

  “A worker shoving wheelbarrows of clay around for eight hours is tired too. If everyone said that, where would democracy be then?” He didn’t let up.

  Herr Seldersen frowned, looking sullen and disgruntled. “You don’t need to tell me that,” he said, in a tone that made his distaste fully clear. “I was out in the field for four years.” After hours he wants his peace and quiet at least. He stands down here all day and hears enough of what people have to say—the last thing he wants is to go sit in a stuffy, overcrowded room and listen to speeches with all the bravos and other shouts. To a certain extent, this passionate participation strikes him as ridiculous, dilettantish, even unmanly. I don’t see how you can really think it has any influence on events, either today’s or in the future, he said. And anyway, I always stay informed about things, I read the newspapers, obviously, you have to know what’s going on in the world. But nowadays I fall asleep half the time. So said Herr Seldersen: speaking reluctantly, sarcastically, and giving off an air of comfortable security.

  Everything must be going well for you so far, the combative party functionary replied. You probably think that politics are only for people who have nothing better to do, but if you really knew what was going on in the world, you would think very differently about it. For example, you probably didn’t know that enormous harvests of wheat and cotton are being destroyed while right here at home there are more than enough people who lack even the bare necessities. Or maybe your newspaper deliberately suppressed that story—that is one of the key reasons for the general ignorance.

  Herr Seldersen had heard that. Yes, he remembered, someone or another had told him that recently. He couldn’t believe it at first. But surely there was some reason for it?

  “Right you are, there’s a reason: keeping prices high.”

  Then it was good for him, Herr Seldersen decided. He saw things in very simple terms and quickly came to his conclusions, without much reflection.

  “All right, but it still has to correspond to everyone else’s income. What good are high cotton prices to you if you can’t sell your products? The artificially elevated prices may seem good for you for now, but fundamentally it doesn’t only affect you, independent of all the other things affecting daily life. It’s one part of a system of many things that go all together, and that won’t all bring advantages to you, Herr Seldersen.” The truth is, it’s so intertwined that everything is part of everything else. Today he might say that it’s good for him, but it might go far enough, maybe sooner than he thinks, so that he too, someday …

  Hmm, hmm. Father understood what he meant but played it cool, as though without a care in the world, as though he weren’t having sleepless nights. Still, it made him uncomfortable. He could sense that this conversation did not reflect well on him and was not producing any particularly good results. He wanted to cut it off abruptly, not let it reach its natural end, but the consumptive little radical would take that as clear proof that Seldersen couldn’t withstand his arguments. So he tried a different tack.

  “It’s different for me,” he said deliberately.

  “What do you mean, for you?”

  “A businessman like me needs to use other tactics,” he said with a certain self-importance. “I’m a businessman, Kipfer, I’m in the public eye, so to speak, out in the open. What I do is not just for myself, within my four walls or under my own roof, as it were. The inspector from the tax office comes by with his wife, the landlord descends from the heights, the worker comes in from the brickworks, you see? They all have their own political opinions, and I may well disagree with half of them, in terms of politics. But am I supposed to ruin things with them? Meet them in some council meeting and say, Good evening, Herr Inspector, I’m happy to sell you whatever you want every day, you have an account with me, but as for your politics, your party is nothing but scoundrels, crooks, and con men. What would he say to that? He’d say, My political views are none of your damn business, pardon my language, and I’ll spend my money at Herr Wiesel’s instead, thank you very much. That’s the end of that customer. Or what if we started talking in the store, what should I say about his views? Maybe I’d say, Yes, you’re right, but then the next customer walks in, and he has to be right too, and then the one after that. It’s better not to say anything, just play dumb. No, anyone who’s independent or can stand to lose his customers should openly say what they think. I certainly have my opinions, but I don’t push them on anybody.”

  Of course, no one is asking you to, little Kipfer agreed. But that doesn’t seem to be the whole story, Kipfer said, not when I really think about it. You said something before about “independent,” Herr Seldersen, but who in God’s name would you consider independent? Who in this day and age depends on himself alone? The farmer, the office worker, the laborer in the brick factory? They all risk getting fired if they attract any attention with their unwanted political ideas.

  “So why are they so stupid?”

  “Stupid?” Little Kipfer shook his head. “They’re not stupid, that’s for sure.” More like courageous, in his view.

  “Yes,” Father said with a mischievous laugh, as though playing his trump card. “There are always the unions.…”

  “That’s right,” little Kipfer replied, his face flushing, “there are the unions.” But he didn’t feel beaten; on the contrary, now he was really getting started. Herr Seldersen himself had put the weapon in his hand.

  “And who do you have looking out for you, Herr Seldersen? Let’s say you run into problems, let’s say you go bankrupt tomorrow, what’ll happen to you, who’s in your corner?” He was feverish with excitement; now he had the fish in the net. “Look at your competition—Herr Wiesel, for example, or the big store up there; let’s take him first, he’s much more dangerous. He’s finished his building, two stories, huge setup, his business is worth a quarter million at least, you can get anything you need there. You think that came from nothing, like he spun it out of himself, with no one standing behind him? If you have to shut down he can last three times longer, because he has backing, support, a lot of people behind him ready to jump in if things get serious for him. He’ll only have to shut down if the big retail companies go under, and the banks. And the other gentleman on Eisenstrasse, Herr Wiesel, I was just in his store, and I know a thing or two about business but I have never seen such a big store, and it’s all paid for. Say what you want about his way of doing business, maybe you know something I don’t, but he owns a house and just bought a car too. He doesn’t have to worry either. But you, Herr Seldersen—don’t take it the wrong way if I speak openly with you; my mother was shopping at your store when I was still in school, you were still in the shop next door, I remember it perfectly—you are all on your own in
your store here, you have to fend for yourself. It must have gone much better for you before, you’ve at least earned the right to call it a day soon, but if things start to fall apart now, you’ll be among the first to go, and a lot of others with you.”

  Pause.

  “But maybe I’m wrong, maybe you still have a lot of money, who can tell?”

  “Yes,” Father hurries to answer, “a whole crate full of money, from the inflation.” Both men laugh.

  Herr Seldersen was a respectable person. He kept his distance from any political activity, and in fact considered himself above it, since for him politics meant one-sidedness, dumbing down, and shouting, without seeing any significant effect or improvement or even the first signs of progress anywhere. He was not as dumb as he pretended to be—he saw what was going on around him and sensed that it would affect him, even target him—but he has not grasped it, not really seen it yet for what it is. All in good time.

  “Herr Seldersen,” little Kipfer said, stepping closer to Father, “in these times we live in, and the times we’re facing, it’s not good to be isolated and alone, and proud of it too. Everyone needs to know where he belongs. Whether it’s you, as a shopkeeper, or me, or Dr. Reschke: anyone who doesn’t know his place counts for nothing and will be left behind, out of the running, buried alive. Don’t you see that?”

  That was little Kipfer. Who knew where he got the words from, but he talked like a book. He had a point too, even if it always ended up with his party, the only thing he cared about.

  Herr Seldersen fidgeted with his key ring in his pocket. He was embarrassed and didn’t know what to say.

  “That’s right, alone and proud of it.” Silence.

  Then little Kipfer again: “You’re too apathetic, as though none of it made any difference to you. But you’re feeling the effects, you personally. Lots of other people are too, but especially you. Or are you trying to deny it?”

  Deny it? Not in the least. In fact he had all sorts of personal experience of it, Kipfer was right, but everything else he was saying didn’t entirely fit the truth. He wasn’t apathetic. Did he not faithfully carry out his civic duty and vote in every election? Even when they came three times a year? Doesn’t he go to a meeting every now and then? But not anymore, and why should he, can he change anything? “Can you do anything at all at the moment to change conditions or stop them from getting even worse?”