Life Goes On: A Novel

by Hans Keilson

  “I mean,” Fritz interrupted, “are you happy about it?”

  Happy? Why shouldn’t he be? To be honest, there was nothing else that he wanted to do; he just wanted to explore around a little, be left in peace. The presence of his friend didn’t seem to lift his spirits; he felt no particular ambition, it was as though he were calmly just letting things happen.

  “What else should I do?” he said in a calm voice.

  Yes, well, there you have it. What else should he do? Fritz said nothing.

  “And what will you do next?” Albrecht asked.

  Fritz looked at the ground, as though trying to pick up what to think from down there.

  “I’ll try to find a place to stay somewhere.” No, he wouldn’t be beaten as easily as that, his brother-in-law and parents would help him, maybe he would learn to drive a car first, but he wasn’t quite sure yet, something would work out.

  * * *

  Albrecht quickly got used to his new life. Everything was relatively easy and simple. He had rented a room on a quiet side street in a formerly elegant neighborhood in the southern part of the city, with a large chestnut tree in front of his window, whose green and mighty branches covered almost the whole high opposite wall of the courtyard. The apartment’s owner, an older lady, spent her days outside the house, managing a salon. There was a maid to do all of the housework, from the time when the parents of the spinster who lived there were still alive; she had stayed on and was old, taciturn, and worn-out. At first, when Albrecht moved in, she was grumpy and suspicious; later, she took great care of him.

  In the early days, Anneliese checked up on him; their father had asked her to, reminding her of the days when she had arrived in the big city all by herself for the first time. The boy is so helpless, he had said, he looks so confused, who knows how he’ll manage—but still, he has to set out on his own sometime. Anneliese promised to look after him; they ate meals together in the afternoon. She knew her way around everywhere and didn’t hesitate to share what she knew.

  “You have to be especially careful crossing the street: always look both ways, you can’t fall asleep or daydream like you used to at home.”

  Albrecht, surprised: “Fall asleep? Daydream?”

  “Yes, that’s right, but here you have to keep your wits about you, there won’t always be someone running along next to you to look out for you.”

  “I don’t need anyone to do that!” Albrecht replied angrily. He had had enough, she was going a bit far with her advice and supervision. She was acting like he went around in a daze all day and never paid any attention to what was happening around him. But she wasn’t done yet.

  “Another thing,” she added, and you could tell from her voice how important she thought this next piece of advice was: “These days, crowds gather on the street sometimes and occasionally it turns into a serious situation. Just keep walking, don’t get involved, it’s always the innocent bystanders who get the real beatings.”

  Albrecht promised to follow this advice. He had a vague sense of what his sister was talking about; he had read about these gatherings in the newspapers often enough; at home too, he remembered, there were sometimes rallies and protests marching through the city. Shut the window, his father had always ordered. It always ended harmlessly enough, though. But here, in the big city?

  It didn’t take long before Albrecht got a foretaste of what his sister had been darkly, vaguely hinting at. One night a couple of days later, he was strolling carelessly down the street, with no particular goal in mind. It was bright out, with advertisements lit up everywhere, marquees jutting out into the streets, display windows clamoring brightly in every color. There were a lot of people out, but that was nothing unusual, you always saw lots of people on the streets, day and night. Among the crowd were policemen patrolling in twos and threes. At one point, when Albrecht stopped to read the bold letters of a newspaper headline, a policeman came up and told him to keep moving. His helmet was strapped on tight; a truncheon dangled threateningly at his side. The crowds of people on the sidewalks grew more and more dense, carrying everyone along with them in the same direction—it wasn’t a well-defined procession, but they were definitely all together, there were even people overflowing the sidewalks onto the streets. The electric streetcars and buses made a huge racket with their constant bells and signals; they could barely move and they were packed with people. Everyone was in a hurry. Albrecht found himself among them and he followed their pace, you could almost think he was one of them. Posters covered the utility poles; the ground was littered with newspapers and flyers; suddenly someone distributing flyers pressed a whole stack of them into his hand. Not now, Albrecht thought, and he let them drop to the ground, keeping only a few to read at home. At first he wanted to get out of there. But he was curious too, curious about where everyone was heading. The police were standing on the streets, close together, and they divided the people streaming past them into different groups without moving from their posts. The rows of people separated and then rejoined one another behind the policemen, split apart again, separated, and rejoined one another, until they got to the front lawn of a large restaurant. Everyone went inside. They stepped over the barrier chain, holding little red tickets high above their heads so that the men would let them through without making them wait. A meeting was taking place inside. Albrecht stood indecisively with the others in front of the counter, with a long line of people in front of him. Various considerations ran through his head. When he got to the front and they asked him for money—not much, but more than he had imagined paying—he quickly took back the money he had held out. “No thanks,” he said, “that’s too much for me, I can’t pay that.” The girl behind the counter gave a little laugh and he took a step back; the man behind him had already counted out his money and he put the exact amount on the counter and took his ticket, without a pause.

  There he stood, having made a fool of himself in front of everyone. He had lied, an outright lie; he could have said that he was a student, he only had to show them his ID card and he could have gotten a cheaper ticket. For whatever reason, he felt ashamed at that moment, ashamed of relying on his student status. He no longer had any interest in going into the hall and joining the assembly, and he started to walk away, a little ashamed. Leaning against the rail next to the cashier was a man of medium height, whose job was to stand there and make sure everything went smoothly, with no delays during the rush. He had been watching Albrecht the whole time—how he had indecisively joined the line and then suddenly jumped out of line. He laughed a big, wide laugh with his whole face, walked up to Albrecht, and casually offered him a free ticket. There it was in his hand: a free ticket. Albrecht was confused, but took it; it made him visibly uncomfortable to be faced with another decision. The man calmly stood next to him and waited to see what he would do. “No,” Albrecht said—he suddenly felt the decision fully formed within him. “Thanks very much, but I can’t go, I just realized at the last minute, when I got to the front, that I have something else planned tonight. When I walked by and saw so many people going in, I forgot about it and got in line. No, thank you, otherwise I would have bought my ticket in advance.”

  Fine, a polite refusal. The man grinned and returned to his post, watching the line. Albrecht was left alone. Bought it in advance, he had said—and he had felt very uneasy when this nonsense came out of his mouth: if he hadn’t happened by he would never have known there was a meeting here tonight, so how could he have bought a ticket in advance? He left the restaurant and hurried home. He turned off into his street, and only when he saw how calm and empty it was did he realize how noisy and crowded the main streets had been. The children who played their games in the street, who made the only noise there was on this street, had long since gone to bed; the grown-ups were leaning out of their windows and looking up at the sky, or down at the street; whenever anyone walked by, they gazed up at the opposite wall, where the residents were leaning out of their windows just as contentedly, taking in
the events of daily life. It was all so immutable, so constantly repeated, it would never change. The only place Albrecht felt comfortable was here, in the lonely calm of his street. He walked a few steps back and forth on the street and thought about his situation. He had been in the city awhile by this time, had thoroughly explored it, his days were full. He had school in the morning, then the rest of the day belonged to him. He gave lessons to earn the money he needed. Actually, he had imagined everything would be much more dramatic and extreme; the truth disappointed him a little. He had thought that he would have to seize life with both hands from the very beginning—he didn’t want to be left with nothing in the days to come. He silently nurtured great hopes, dreams, and promises to himself. But here he was, wandering around lonely and empty-handed the whole time; everything was totally different from what he’d expected, he hadn’t achieved a single thing. And gradually, as he wandered around, the realization came to him that nothing would be different in the future either. He had to resign himself to a long period of waiting: first he had to gain knowledge of the world, he always needed to know a lot about something first and only then tackle it, take action, and accomplish something. For now, there was nothing to do but look on, alertly, in silence, and note it down inside himself, so to speak. He thought back to his small hometown, the forests and all the places where he felt safe and secure, even when he was alone. Why in the world was he here? How had he ended up here, where he wasn’t happy, and where life was starting to unfold in a powerful but at the same time almost indecent way? No, this was not for him, he would never be able to stay here long. But had he already forgotten how, such a short time ago, he had looked forward to coming here, adrift in the most exuberant daydreams? What had happened? What had made him change, where did this confusion come from? Hadn’t he always felt Easy, easy, no need to rush things? And then something else too: Who in the history of the world had ever understood when they were young, really understood, that they too would someday grow old?

  In any case, he soon changed his mind. Barely a week later, there was another large assembly in the same hall, and this time Albrecht saw the announcements in advance and bought a ticket. What he experienced that night was a magnificent march and a rousing speaker; the crowd listened attentively and were carried away by the speech, and showed their approval with cheers and applause throughout. He witnessed it all with a combination of personal detachment and objective recognition of the event’s success. He saw and heard it all as though he were sitting in a theater, losing himself in the colorful artistic element, with a kind of self-satisfied pleasure, without denying to himself the humiliating recognition that underneath it all he shouldn’t be there, he was a stranger somewhere he didn’t belong.

  After a while, when he went back home for the first time in several weeks, surprising news was awaiting him. It bowled him over at first: Fritz Fiedler was going to America! He had made his decision and was leaving in just three weeks.

  Ever since Fritz had had his great disappointment in Hamburg and had come home with his belief in himself shaken, full of doubts he had never known before, he had been drifting around constantly, looking for something to do. His parents and brother-in-law tried to help him and remained hopeful that at some point they would manage to find Fritz an apprenticeship. It wasn’t easy, and Fritz himself never had any great illusions. He tirelessly looked around, went to offices, interviewed, followed recommendations, but it was no use: he couldn’t surmount the obstacles standing in his way. He did not have a diploma in hand, a lack he now felt only too often, knowing that it was his own fault. Aside from that, he had been an apprentice without completing the apprenticeship either; it may not have been his fault, but still, the year was lost, he had to start over again. That was the only way anyone would be willing to take him on. Fritz would eventually have agreed to this condition, and accepted everything, if he hadn’t felt a final doubt: Who could guarantee that his second apprenticeship wouldn’t end up just like the first, with him out on the street before it was over? He woke up out of his lethargy, clenched his fists, and rebelled—his voice rang out loud and demanding, he didn’t understand why there were so many hurdles he had to overcome.

  If he had had to, he would have found something somewhere: a job in a small business, behind a counter, in cramped, narrow rooms, working and at the same time apprenticing in the business. But that wasn’t what he wanted and he refused to do it. He prowled around the house, full of anger and unused strength—he would do it, he would prevail and not give up. He had to finally find some work to do, he could feel it more and more strongly the longer he spent at home. Everyone had things they needed to do—Father, Mother, Erich—only Fritz was stuck idly looking on. He had tried to make connections but had not succeeded. Time was not on his side, without his being fully aware of what a dangerous enemy he was facing. In the long run, Fritz couldn’t keep up his brave defense; his resistance weakened, he grew tired, and he entered a phase like the one he had already lived through before he ran away: weeks of dull, sluggish inertia. It was no use. Here in Germany he couldn’t get anywhere, there were no more options for him. And once he realized that, he had already come to his big decision. He would leave the country, for America, for somewhere. Good, if there were prospects anywhere on earth then it would be in America, he thought. Off to America! Everywhere else was a disaster. He told his parents, and then the real battle began. Why couldn’t he stay here with them? They hadn’t bothered him about anything, hadn’t criticized him, not even the tiniest hint. But no one could dissuade him, he would do what he wanted, and if it was like before and he had to … His parents knew not to take any chances with Fritz in this regard, so they reluctantly gave their approval, they did not want to lose him. This way there was always the prospect of seeing him again, and besides, they would be able to stay in contact with him while he was abroad. Fritz plucked up his courage and eagerly made his preparations, he didn’t want to lose a single day! Now he had a goal, a purpose, and new hope! His thoughts were already across the ocean. He said his farewells. Goodbye! Off to another country. He laughed: Who could be expected to keep riding a workhorse that was about to collapse? Not him, he was off to America. His mother took him to the ship.

  * * *

  Albrecht stayed in the big city, it gripped him and held him tight no matter how hard he struggled. He scurried around, and whenever he left the street where he lived and set foot on the main street, he always found himself caught up in the middle of rushing chaos. He soon picked up the habits of the city dwellers: running behind the streetcars, hurrying everywhere, eating while standing up, learning how to use his elbows in the middle of crowds of people. He grew rude and heartless and lost his sense of humor too, if indeed he had ever had one. Deep down, everything about the way people talked and lived their lives was exactly the way it was at home. The only difference here was that each individual was not the center of the world—he was submerged in the crowd and forced to confront much more directly people who were different from him. But he liked to think that back home, in his small town, there was more real life—that love, hate, friendship, and every other human relationship, no matter how banal and ordinary, was more relaxed and free, less stiff and constrained.

  Before long he knew his way around the big streets as well as he did around the forests of his hometown, and the same out in the suburbs too, where the villas of the rich stood amid magnificent gardens. He strolled along the boulevards and looked at the expensive goods in the shops, saw the beautiful people carelessly dressed in their tasteful clothes as they sat in cafés and laughed and joked and bored one another. He eavesdropped on their conversations, got to know their cares and sorrows, and saw them again in concerts, theaters, everywhere, making mountains out of molehills and heedlessly ignoring what really mattered. He got to know his way around the parts of the city where the workers lived, where poverty crawled out of their rooms onto the streets, visible in even the smallest children. The poverty and misery dug its cl
aws into him too, although only in the way that a painting or piece of music could grip him and move him. And then there were also the many people who lived their lives hidden away, heads down, buried under their problems, trapped in a hopeless battle with circumstances—the laborers and small shopkeepers, employers and employees, everyone who had a job that ground them down. They didn’t create the social conditions, but they fell victim to those conditions. How they bore up under it all, with an ancient, angry pride twisted into outright lies. They lived here in large numbers, and they cried out too, presenting their suffering and asking for help. But their voices were not powerful enough—and, more important, not free of shame. Deep down they were ashamed of their plight, and always with an eye on the bliss that was denied to them. They had not yet understood that a change was taking place, proclaiming itself precisely through them. Where would it lead? They hadn’t the slightest idea and only continued to torment themselves; whenever anything confronted one of them, he would laugh a humble laugh and act hopeful, then maybe go and shoot himself the next day, or stick his head in the oven. That’s how it was in the big city. Meanwhile, Albrecht lived his life as a student and earned a little money with the work that presented itself. He was lucky; he had a good position, many people would have envied him for it: he tutored, and when he stayed late he was given dinner too. That helped. But he didn’t like it, and he didn’t want anyone to see through him and realize how things really stood with him. He submitted applications for financial aid, filed for welfare, and found it all not a little painful.

  He was still indecisive—he still didn’t realize that one day he too would have to come to certain decisions. He saw a lot, did his work, but refused to draw any conclusions from what he saw around him. It wasn’t cowardice or fear that held him back; he could have covered up those feelings with words and disguised them. Maybe it was that he was too caught up in his own situation to see the rest of the world clearly, that as he became more and more deeply immersed in his own sphere, his work and his struggle were two giant walls that overshadowed everything else and gave him only limited access to experience. He didn’t talk to other people very much; he was strangely preoccupied with his own thoughts. He was fully satisfied when he could analyze everything and break it down into its causes and contexts. Once that was done and everything was ordered and proven, neat and tidy, he was done with it and something new attracted his curiosity. Let other people worry about solving the problems and doing something constructive.