by Hans Keilson
Herr Fiedler breathed more easily; he had been preparing himself for much worse. “Feel free to take him firmly in hand, Doctor,” he said, convinced by his own words. “He seems absentminded and dreamy at home a lot too. Don’t hold back, he’s old enough to learn that he owes everything to his parents and his own hard work.”
Dr. Selow said nothing. He didn’t know how to proceed.
“We give him anything he wants,” Herr Fiedler continued. “Anything, there’s no road closed to him. But first he needs to finish school with a diploma; after that he can do whatever he wants, university, anything. We’d like it best if he decided to go into the civil service. And what you’re mentioning now,” he went on in all frankness, “goes back years, he’s a bit lazy, and too comfortable; he gets into trouble at home about his schoolwork; he had to repeat a year, as you know. That can’t happen again. If it does I’ll take him out of school and put him to work, he knows that. He just needs to pull himself together and make a bit of effort, we all need to make an effort.”
Those, more or less, were the words that Herr Fiedler spoke—honest, conventional, straightforward. The meeting was as good as over. All things considered, a somewhat sad proceeding. Herr Fiedler had sat there at first not knowing quite why he had been asked to come in, restlessly fidgeting back and forth in his chair, thinking about all the work he had piling up at home. Then he had got going and all but celebrated his triumph, while Dr. Selow realized that he had rushed things when he saw Herr Fiedler on the street and decided on impulse to ask him to come in. Fritz’s father sat across from him, making, truth be told, a rather sorry impression: he had openly admitted that he didn’t know exactly what his son did every day, and, worse yet, how his son was doing in general. He had only guesses. And what he then said was irrelevant, shedding far more light on himself than on his son.
“But it is always a positive thing to meet and talk,” Dr. Selow said. He stood up. The meeting was over. He went back to his classroom, he was already late.
Herr Fiedler walked slowly home. The road ran downhill and the next street ran back uphill again; he panted slightly, it was harder and harder for him as he got older. He had had to stand on his own two feet since he was fourteen years old—no one had ever taken as much trouble about him as he had just taken about his son. It wasn’t easy, those early years, and now there were threatening signs that pointed toward still more difficult times. But he had provided for his children. His oldest son worked with him in the business and would later take over, although the truth was, he ran everything already. His daughter was married. Only Fritz was left. From the beginning, he had hoped for something better for Fritz, and gave him a good education. Fritz would be able to build a life for himself on a higher foundation.
Herr Fiedler told his wife very little about the conversation he had had, no matter how much she pestered him for details. He himself felt no further misgivings.
* * *
In the fall came holidays and report cards. Summer had gone into the countryside, warm and beaming—not a season for working and sitting behind books. Fritz’s and Albrecht’s grades were satisfactory enough: Fritz’s were questionable in two subjects, but there was a long time left before final grades next Easter, there was no reason to get too worried. Even so, he seemed disheartened and demoralized all of a sudden. No one would have expected it from him, least of all Albrecht, who had known Fritz for a long time. This discovery surprised him very much. They got along well: it wasn’t a close intimacy of confessions and shared personal secrets—actually there was nothing to share along those lines, whatever might come later—just a healthy friendship in school and playing sports. Their situations and their attitudes about their surroundings were different; the same experiences produced feelings and reflections in them that were as different as the families they came from.
At first Fritz didn’t show his face; he stayed out of sight, whereas usually hardly a day went by when he didn’t come over, sit in the big rocking chair, and slowly rock back and forth. Then they would drink a coffee with Albrecht’s parents. He felt comfortable and happy at Albrecht’s apartment, more than at home.
One afternoon, Albrecht met him by chance. Fritz was riding his bike down the street very fast. When he saw Albrecht, he said a quick greeting without slowing down, and at the corner he looked up at the clock tower and started going even faster, even though it was uphill. No question about it, he was in a hurry, maybe he had an appointment somewhere.
The next day, toward evening, Albrecht went to see Fritz. He crossed the small courtyard and climbed up the stairs into Fritz’s room; the doors were open. Fritz lay stretched out lengthwise on his bed, fully dressed, smoking and daydreaming. The whole room stank of smoke. Apparently he couldn’t think of anything better to do on a day off from school than lie in bed and stare at the ceiling.
“Ugh, the air in here,” Albrecht said. He opened the window.
The twilight broke gently into the room. He made himself comfortable on the sofa. Silence.
“No one’s seen you around for a long time,” he began after a while. “I thought you must be on a trip. What have you been up to?”
“Nothing,” Fritz said. He lay on his bed, lazy and gloomy. Time was trickling away through his fingers.
“And yesterday?”
“I was riding to the Oder, I wanted to go for a swim.”
He was speaking the truth. His life went by monotonously, without variety: he lay in bed until noon, since he only got tired and managed to fall asleep late at night. He passed his mornings reading, sleeping, and smoking; then, after lunch was a dead time. When school was in session he would sit upstairs at the table in his room and work, or at least try to work; the hours went by but he just sat there, empty and expressionless, and gazed at the open books in front of him. It was even worse during the holidays, much worse. Then the whole day was free, he could use it however he wanted, but he didn’t have any idea what to do. Sleeping, smoking, lazing around—that was all he did, it was a real shame. He had already stopped playing sports. He still ran in school events sometimes, and occasionally won a prize, but he did so without ambition or dedication. As in every other area of his life, a feeble apathy had taken hold of him that no one had seen in him before.
“Dr. Selow left today,” Albrecht began. “I saw him going to the train station. He was running, he was in a hurry.”
“Yes, he came by here yesterday to say goodbye. I wasn’t at home.”
Albrecht: “I think he’s been having a lot of problems with the director these days.”
“Uh-huh.”
For the past six months, ever since a new principal had arrived at the school, there had been several incidents, creating a combative atmosphere that wasn’t in the institution’s best interests. Dr. Selow primarily taught ancient languages, but the school was going through a change that would soon make his position superfluous. Previously, the classical humanist ideal of education had set the tone at the school, but now it was off the program, like a play that no longer brought in the audience and the money. In its place came a direction better suited to practical life, and a new cohort, boys and girls in the same class, was already rising into the middle grades. So there was no place for Dr. Selow anymore and he had asked to be transferred.
“They’ll cut his position,” Albrecht said, “or who knows?”
“Yes, they’ll probably have to.”
“It’s too bad. I would have liked to keep studying with him for the next year and a half.”
“A year and a half, what do you mean?” Fritz asked in amazement.
Albrecht laughed at his friend’s stupid question.
“Then we’ll be done,” he said, “if nothing happens.…”
“Hm…”
Silence. The sound of footsteps came across the courtyard and up the steps, and Frau Fiedler came in. “Always sitting in the dark,” she said, turning on the light. “Whatever you want to think and say in the dark must fear the light of day.”
She went to the bedroom next door, and when she came back she stopped for a moment.
“You boys seem to be enjoying yourselves,” she said. And at the same time: “You don’t look good, Fritz, what’s wrong? Don’t you think so too, Albrecht?”
She exuded a maternal familiarity.
“All right, Mother,” Fritz said; “leave us alone now and turn out the light.”
She left. For a moment she stood helplessly in the doorway, looked sadly at the two boys, then slowly climbed back down the steps. Darkness lay across the room again. Fritz sat on the edge of the bed, his hands in his lap and legs dangling in the air. He was agitated—his mother’s intrusion had brought him out of his apathy, but only for a moment, then he stretched back out on the bed.
“That’s too bad,” he said. “I would have liked to see Dr. Selow again.”
“You can just go to the station,” Albrecht said.
Fritz made an astonished face.
“I never thought of that!” And then: “Ach, getting up and going to the station, that’s too much trouble.”
“Of course it is, you’re too lazy and comfortable here,” Albrecht replied sharply.
Pause.
Fritz looked subdued, even defeated. Was there more to this failed farewell than met the eye?
“Yes, you’re right,” he said after a while. There was a noticeable change in his voice. “I’m not in the mood to do anything anymore, I need a project.”
That sounded promising. So he wanted to undertake a project: what did he have in mind?
Silence.
“I’ve heard that it’s always good to take a trip.”
“A trip?”
“Yes.”
Albrecht didn’t know what to say about this answer. So, a trip, not a bad idea, he would like to take one himself. This year was the first time he had had to spend his whole vacation at home, and next year would probably be more of the same. “Where are you thinking you’ll go?”
Yes, well, he wasn’t entirely sure, so he couldn’t say exactly, in fact everything was a bit up in the air with him, but there was one thing he could say for sure, that he wouldn’t postpone it for long.
“So, in the next vacation…”
“Who knows?”
“You can’t leave during the year in any case.…”
Fritz said nothing.
“Why not?” he said, after a short pause. “Maybe that’s exactly the right time to leave.” He didn’t make a face—he clearly meant it seriously.
“You’re crazy!” Albrecht said. “In the middle of the school year! I’d like to see how you pull that off. You’re making it up, it’s another one of your jokes.”
No, Fritz wasn’t crazy, not at all. On the contrary. Now was just when he wanted to show the world how fully he had his wits about him. He got going, talked faster—it was clear that this idea ran deeper than Albrecht would have believed at first.
“But school,” he said, “you can’t just—”
“School, school, school!” Fritz snapped at him. “That’s all you ever think about!”
Albrecht looked at him in amazement. The idea was new to him.
“Of course it is; school is the only thing we do, for now.”
“Hmm. You don’t understand,” Fritz said after a while. “It’s different for me.”
Albrecht didn’t understand, not at all. Fritz was trying to say he was special? Albrecht thought that was presumptuous and extreme of him, and told him so.
“I’ve spent more than enough time thinking constantly about school,” Fritz answered sadly but definitively. “But now I’m sure of it, I’ll never graduate.”
Albrecht was totally confused. He hadn’t expected that.
“Whatever gave you that idea, not graduate? What do you mean? You’re not stupid, you’ve always passed your classes before.” He had had to repeat a year, but that wasn’t even worth mentioning, that happened all the time. “And your grades are satisfactory.”
Then Fritz turned furious. He couldn’t take it anymore, he had held it in long enough:
“Satisfactory, that’s great,” he mocked. “Thanks to lying, cheating, and copying, my grades are satisfactory. Even you have to admit it can’t go on like this.”
The words hit home. There was no way to gloss it over. Everyone thought they were doing Fritz a favor by helping him, he appreciated their help and everyone thought it was perfectly fine. Over time, habit made the whole situation seem practically sacrosanct. Everyone let him copy their homework or answered for him in class until there was no way to tell anymore what was Fritz’s and what was the others’ work. Finally, he no longer trusted himself to do anything by himself without someone holding his hand. No one had predicted or intended that as the result, and when it turned out that way there would still have been time for Fritz to pull himself together and throw off everything that had come over him—the indecisiveness, the laziness. But by then Fritz was busy with all sorts of other thoughts directed far into the future.
Albrecht mustered up all the encouragement he could:
“You’re exaggerating, really, you’re exaggerating.… If you just sat down and worked … then…”
Fritz flew into a rage. “Stop it! That’s just the point, it’s too late for that, everything’s gone too far.” He shook his head sadly. “Don’t you see,” he whispered, as though he were afraid someone might be listening, “you said that just like a teacher, sit down and work, all well-meaning and energetic, but that’s just it … I can’t work anymore.”
“What do you mean?” Albrecht asked in amazement. “You can’t work anymore?”
He looked at his friend. What crazy ideas he had! Not work anymore! Work … he repeated the word softly to himself—“work”—and couldn’t even understand what it meant. “You think that what we’re doing in school is work?”
“No, no.” Fritz shook his head. His voice sounded muted. “I’ll tell you about that later.… It’s meaningless work without any connection to anything.”
Albrecht thought for a long time.
“What made you think these things?” he eventually asked.
Fritz made a painful effort to explain: “Don’t you feel it too? Think about it: we study dead languages, all that vocabulary and tricky grammar, until our heads are about to burst—my father never did that, and he’s managed a good life for himself, but that’s another story. I keep asking myself: Why bother? What’s it all for? Just to load up my brain and have mountains of dead knowledge at my fingertips? Then, when I come home from school and walk around here, I’m empty-handed, I don’t know what to do with myself. School and everything we study there is the past, dead, over and done with, while here there’s a totally different, changed life all around me, with its own problems and anxieties, you know?”
Albrecht only nodded. He wondered how his friend had arrived at these ideas; he wouldn’t have thought him capable of it.
“I don’t see any bridge between the two worlds, no connection at all. They’re on opposite sides and I’m caught in the middle. Actually,” he went on, “it was Dr. Selow’s job to show us the connection, the bridge—don’t you think? But he never did. He felt comfortable in the past and never really understood the present, he put it down with little biting comments and insinuations, maybe it’s because of the war for him, so that deep down he’s as helpless and confused as we are, with only his routine to keep him going.… I feel like shock and confusion are all he has.”
Albrecht took in his friend’s words. They had a lot of truth in them, but just as much exaggeration. Secretly he felt a strange correspondence between what Fritz was saying and the thoughts that came over him more and more often these days when he looked at his own father. But all that, taken together, was still not enough to make him accept his friend’s confession in advance, so to speak—he needed more from Fritz than that.
“So that’s it?” he asked.
“No,” Fritz replied, “it’s worse. You asked befo
re if school was really such hard work for me. Look, that was absolutely the first thing I realized—that it wasn’t hard work, no effort at all, it doesn’t tire me out, I just sit around, get bored, fritter away my time, and that’s what makes me tired. Look at me, do you really think sitting on a school bench and exercising nothing but my brain is enough for me?”
He was eighteen years old, he was strong and burning to use his strength, but it just sat there fallow, wasted on little things. He needed wind in his sails. On the outdoor track he could run so fast that he was already at the finish line when the others were just turning into the straightaway, and then afterward, as they fell over on the grass, half dead, he could walk off whistling a tune. But that’s nothing lasting, just a short burst of effort; really, it’s nothing but a game.
“What do you want to do instead?” Albrecht asked. He couldn’t help it, he just asked it, maybe he’d get some kind of answer. His friend’s words seemed so muddled and confused—he must have something specific in mind.
“What do I want to do? Work! Really work, come home at night with my arms and legs tired and fall into bed exhausted and know where the tiredness came from. I want to work in a quarry or dig the soil or something, not just sit around and look on.”
Albrecht thought of something, and was glad to have something to say: “Talk to your parents first, or at least to your mother.”
Fritz violently shook his head. No, he’d never get anywhere that way. He’d tried once, he’d overcome his shame and hinted at the truth to his mother, as much as he could given how reserved he was. She’d just looked at him like she wasn’t sure she had heard him correctly: “Are you crazy? You want to drop out now, with only two years left? The sacrifices we’ve made for you all these years, the worries—all for nothing?”
She’d called them sacrifices—well, they could afford to sacrifice a few things, it hardly amounted to much, just little things that flattered their vanity.
“Whatever made you think of that?” she had asked, and it seemed like she wanted to hear his reasons. So Fritz had tried to explain to her what had driven him to this decision. He wanted to be honest and straightforward, say everything clearly and resolutely. He told her about the malaise he was feeling, how he no longer enjoyed things in his life, and so forth. But the deeper he went into his situation, the more worked up he became and the more he struggled to find the words he needed to explain himself. He beat around the bush, then he realized that his thoughts were all confused; by the end he was all mixed up, everything in the depths of his heart was so tangled and disordered.