Life Goes On: A Novel

by Hans Keilson

  “I know,” she whispered.

  Silence.

  “We have bills to pay ourselves,” Frau Seldersen said hesitantly. “The money doesn’t always come in, we have to make sure.…” Her own words gave her courage. She kept talking. The woman understood that she was one of the people Frau Seldersen was talking about. She owed money, she had a whole page in the account book.

  “We haven’t seen you in the shop for a long time,” Frau Seldersen continued. “Have you been sick? I wanted to look in and see how you were doing, and maybe while I was here you could pay a couple of marks of what you owe.”

  Now it was on the table: she had come to collect money. That was why she had climbed the four flights of stairs and accepted the stress and the pounding in her chest that went with the visit.

  The woman on the other side of the table, the customer who had just been warned, sat on a chair in her room and thought it would be better if she were sitting there all alone, or were outside somewhere. Then she remembered that she was sitting within her own four walls after all, nowhere else—not, for instance, in Seldersen’s store or before a judge. She blinked across the table at Frau Seldersen and said:

  “I was planning to come to the city tomorrow, maybe the day after, soon though. I couldn’t in the last few weeks, I’m sorry.” The Seldersens needed money too, of course, she understood that. Then she stood up, took her key, and, turning around several times to look at the sofa, opened a small compartment in the cupboard. She rummaged around inside it and pulled out a small cardboard box where she kept money, hidden so that her husband wouldn’t find it. She took out a few coins and carefully locked it all up again, constantly worried that her husband might wake up. Suddenly she no longer seemed to believe he was as deeply asleep as she had just said. Then she came back to the table. “Here,” she said, giving Frau Seldersen the money.

  “Thank you.” Frau Seldersen put it straight into her purse, calculating to herself … the woman had not been to the shop for four weeks, and now she was giving her five marks, proudly thinking about what a major payment she had managed to pull together. That made a little over one mark per week, not counting interest. Precious little, and nothing to brag about. But the woman felt that she had done a good and honest thing and Frau Seldersen let her go on believing it. She had five marks in her purse and she spent a while longer sitting at the woman’s table; she was no longer in a hurry, and above all she didn’t want to seem like she had come only for the measly sum of money.

  The man continued to lie on the sofa, sleeping off his binge, and the woman stood at the other side of the table, upright, her hands on her hips, looking down at Frau Seldersen. She only half listened to what Frau Seldersen was saying—she couldn’t stop thinking about what had just happened. Then Frau Seldersen stood up and said goodbye, and walked quietly to the door so as not to wake up the man. There she turned around one more time and nodded. The woman was still standing by the table, and she looked at Frau Seldersen with wide-open eyes. Frau Seldersen suddenly felt terrible. She had acted confident and self-controlled the whole time, but now her hands shook, her lips trembled, she wanted to say something to excuse herself. She was ashamed.… But she opened the door without a word and went down the narrow, winding four flights of stairs.

  The woman in the room sat back down at the table. Now they were coming to see her at home to get the money she owed them! That had never happened to her before, but it was strange … the whole incident didn’t seem to reflect badly, much less shamefully, on her, but rather on the other woman, the one who had climbed the four flights of stairs to get her money. She was the actress the spotlight was trained on. Very strange, the whole thing. She thought she’d have to talk it over with her neighbor one flight down.

  Frau Seldersen went around to different customers’ apartments; they all lived near one another here, the afternoon was long, she had a lot of visits planned. Children were playing in the street and Frau Seldersen stopped and held out her hand to a little boy or girl. “Hello,” she said in a friendly voice, “is your mother home?”—“No,” the child answered in a squeaky little voice, “my mother is out in the fields, she’ll be home later.”

  “And your father?”

  “Dunno.”

  “That’s not very nice,” Frau Seldersen said, “you know who I am.”

  She moved on. She crossed a courtyard where chickens ran around cackling and clucking and a dog barked furiously, straining at his chain. Mother went up to the window and looked into the room. She gently tapped her finger against the glass.

  “Who’s that?” called a tired voice from inside. Frau Seldersen said her name. Hurried footsteps came shuffling over and an old woman appeared behind the window curtains.

  “What a surprise!” she cried. “Frau Seldersen, come in! How nice!”

  Mother went into the room and was heaped with honors: she had to sit down, the old woman brought her a cup (with no handle and a chipped rim), they had a coffee together. The woman was alone; she lived with her married son and his wife wasn’t home.

  “You were asleep,” Mother apologized. “If I had known…”

  But the old woman brushed it off. “Only because of my heart,” she said in a hoarse voice. “I have to lie down a lot. Yes, my heart’s almost done.”

  “That’s what I was wondering,” Frau Seldersen took the opportunity to say. “I wanted to come by and see how you’re doing.” She didn’t have enough courage to say anything else for the time being. So she asked sympathetically about everything she could.

  “I haven’t seen you in a while,” Mother suddenly started to say. Could she do it?

  “I don’t go out much anymore,” the old woman replied. “The noise, the excitement, all the people, and my heart.…” She gasped a little for breath. “I am a burden to my children.”

  Frau Seldersen looked at her. She had known her for a long time, known her husband too; he had been dead for ten years. She had lost a son in the war and now lived with the other son. He was getting by without regular work; the old woman was supporting everyone with her tiny retirement pension. Would Frau Seldersen dare to say something anyway?

  The two women talked for a good long time. Mother hadn’t forgotten why she’d come, but she didn’t let any hint of it slip out. An inexplicable shame held her back. And the old woman, meekly and happily telling the younger woman about her sorrows, felt practically the same thing: the whole time she was thinking that she was still in the Seldersens’ books and hadn’t given them any money for a long time. She had a little bit set aside in the drawer. Would she dare to bring it up—Frau Seldersen was here on a visit anyway, it was a good opportunity—would she give her the money? She stood up and walked with unsteady steps, swaying through the room. Frau Seldersen said she should lie down, it would be better for her heart. The old woman stopped and gave up on her plan. Well, maybe she’d be back in the store again. Frau Seldersen said goodbye, she had already stayed too long.

  The next place she tried, she found no one at home and the door locked. She turned around on the doorstep. At the fourth place, the rooms were full of people—neighbors, friends, men, women, they’d brought their children. A big tussle on the floor, hellos, noise, tobacco smoke. Frau Seldersen stopped in the doorway and didn’t set foot in the room. Everyone’s eyes turned to her. She waved into the room.

  “Don’t you want to come in?” the men called out. They flung their cards onto the table with a smack. “It’s a birthday party.” Mother said thank you, she wasn’t planning to stay long. The children crawled over to her. One woman stood up from the table and walked carelessly over to her. Greetings. Mother whispered something in her ear. She looked startled, but Frau Seldersen kept whispering, without letting up.

  Pause.

  The woman walked slowly across the room, her back very straight, everyone could see her; the men interrupted their game, the room was suddenly dead quiet, even the children stopped and watched expectantly. The woman reached the kitchen
cupboard and took two small coins out of a teacup on the middle shelf. Then she came back.

  “There,” she said, holding out her hand to give Frau Seldersen the money before everyone’s eyes, the way you get rid of a beggar at the door. Not another word.

  “Thank you,” Frau Seldersen said. “Hope we see you again soon.” The woman promised it, then shut the door. The noise had already started up inside.

  Frau Seldersen slowly descended the stairs, her pulse racing, out of breath, dizzy, half unconscious. When she was back outside, she thought darkly that there was still time to pay a visit to several more people … but she had had enough for the day. She slowly turned her steps back to the city.

  That night, when Herr Seldersen was counting up the day’s earnings, she silently put the money on the table next to him. He nodded his head and kept counting. Frau Seldersen, after a while:

  “From Frau Arndt and the Mertens.”

  “So,” Father asked, “you ran into them and asked them for it? I wouldn’t have dared.”

  She gave a dismissive snort and said: “I went to their apartments. Old Frau Bach is sick, maybe she’ll send her daughter; they just needed a little reminder.”

  Father took the money and put it with the rest. He didn’t say a word, not even a thank-you passed his lips. His face was rigid, immobile, anger and frustration eating away at him. But Frau Seldersen was angry too, and no doubt she had better cause to be. Did he think it was easy for her to bring herself to take such a step? If he only knew.… They had fobbed her off like a beggar at the door. Never again would she try to be helpful, try to do something for him, never. All she got in return was ingratitude.

  Just ten days later she set out a second time. This trip was more successful, even Herr Seldersen couldn’t get around acknowledging her skill and effectiveness. But he still hadn’t come to terms with the substance of the thing. This woman!

  Frau Seldersen, on the other hand, encouraged by her success, made these collection walks a regular habit. Twice a month at least.

  The money was still not enough, though. The creditors would not stop writing and Herr Seldersen didn’t know what else to do. He wrote to Albrecht, without telling his wife first.

  Albrecht was in one of the larger cities in central Germany, doing his job as a musician and leading his life without any thought for the future. The day was divided in two halves: in one, he worked hard and almost without a break, and in the other he slept. There was nothing in between—no relaxation, no rest, no happiness. When he received his father’s letter, he got an advance on his salary and sent the money off that same day. He got back a thank-you letter just as quickly, which brought tears to his eyes—he tore it to pieces and wanted to forget everything about it. After two months, he traveled back home and arrived tired, listless, a little embittered. A couple of days, then his work started in Berlin. He rested and met with no one.

  Fritz Fiedler was still stuck at home. He hadn’t found anything, no matter how hard his family tried. He lounged around; the days went by without his finding any regular, meaningful work to keep him busy. He was slowly falling to pieces. And he watched it all happen in angry silence. He only rarely went out or saw anyone.

  Frau Seldersen had let the maid go and had been doing all the housework for a while now. She added it up for Albrecht: how much they were saving on food, wages, and everything else. In the weeks since the maid had left, Frau Seldersen had lost more than ten pounds; the work was a visible strain on her. But she forced herself to keep at it, bitterly, as though she had never had a maid in her life. Now and then she looked down at her hands—chapped and raw, her fingernails worn and brittle—but never spoke a word of complaint out loud. In Herr Seldersen’s view, it was worth doing not only for the money they saved but also because he knew what it meant to stand around all day without any real work to do, in the store or, like Mother, leaning in the doorway keeping an eye out for customers. Any work was bearable, but to live without anything at all to do was impossible.

  At first it went well. They were both satisfied with the new arrangement, even if life had become less comfortable. Herr Seldersen stayed downstairs alone in the morning, got the mail, and anything Mother didn’t already know about she didn’t need to know, as far as he was concerned. But it wasn’t long before she started coming down to the store again; she would stop in to see him in the afternoons first, then in the mornings, and finally she arranged things so that she was always downstairs when the mail came. Why wasn’t she upstairs? Father asked grumpily. She shook her head; she couldn’t, their problems and the painful uncertainty kept driving her downstairs. So then they were standing together in the shop again, getting under each other’s skin. Frau Seldersen was perceptive and knew more than Father told her, although not nearly everything. He wanted to protect her, and he didn’t tell her what happened each day—the letters, the warnings, and other unpleasant incidents. But precisely this consideration was what she couldn’t stand—she didn’t know anything but suspected a lot, nothing for certain, just suggestions and suspicions everywhere that weighed more heavily upon her than the truth would have. When she was alone she looked at the account books, calculated the individual balances, and compared them with earlier ones, paging back, back, back through the years. Her head spun and she went around as in a dream.

  One day, an acquaintance stopped her on the street and pointed out that her dress had a big worn spot on it. Frau Seldersen was confused, and thanked the woman for letting her know; she hadn’t noticed, she wasn’t paying as much attention and care to her clothes these days; she was dressing rather carelessly and indifferently, in fact. “Thank you very much,” she said, “I wasn’t paying attention, there’s always so much to think about—” But she stopped short, she mustn’t give away too much.

  “Yes, I know,” the woman answered. “You’re not looking so good, you used to look so much younger.”

  “I have two grown children!” Frau Seldersen protested. She thought that was an excuse. Then she told the woman that she was now taking care of the household by herself: there are only two of us, but still, there’s always work to do. The woman shook her hand and kept walking.

  Tears came into Mother’s eyes during her walk home. Now people could tell how things were with them just by looking at her on the street, not just Father but her too! And she had tried so hard to keep it all hidden, not let anyone know!

  Up in the apartment she fell apart and lay down on the bed, sobbing. She stayed there until afternoon, when Herr Seldersen came upstairs for lunch. When he didn’t find anything prepared, he grumbled and went back downstairs.

  I’d really like to know what that woman does all morning, she can’t even have lunch ready when I come upstairs hungry! She doesn’t have that much to do. But it’s like he always said, she was never very organized.

  So ran Herr Seldersen’s thoughts, and he worked himself into a greater and greater feeling of resentment. He hadn’t noticed that Mother’s eyes were red from crying, that she was stumbling around shattered, sick, and suffering. His poverty had made him deaf and blind; he was excessively sensitive only within painfully narrow confines.

  * * *

  The days were getting shorter and colder and it was long since time to order the winter clothes for the shop, but Herr Seldersen kept postponing the date. He wrote to his suppliers and told them not to send the items yet; that way the bills would come due a little later. But then, when the time came, a letter arrived: the manufacturer was saying that they could not supply him with the items he had ordered, his payments in recent months had been too irregular and they couldn’t take on the risk of another loss at this time. In recent months they had found themselves in several such delicate situations where they’d least expected them, but times were tough and from now on they had to be particularly careful with their decisions. They could send Herr Seldersen a third of his order.

  So then winter was upon them; people wanted heated rooms and warm clothes, but the shelves of S
eldersen’s store were bare. People came in to shop, he gave them a friendly welcome and acted like nothing was wrong, and they told him what they wanted. Just a moment, he said, and he sent Mother or the shopgirl to Herr Wiesel’s or Herr Dalke’s to fetch the items. Frau Seldersen didn’t approve, from the very beginning; for her it meant the end of their last bit of independence—now they were nothing but a branch, a subsidiary, of the other two businesses—but Father showed a disregard he had never shown signs of before. While the customer waited patiently in the store, he said that the items had just arrived and were still in crates in the basement, not yet unpacked. His ability to make up excuses was inexhaustible, and in fact he even seemed to take a thief’s pleasure in presenting such stories to his customers. Still, the excuses were sometimes so obvious and transparent that Mother took her key and went upstairs, ashamed to be in the room. Later, when Father saw her, he grinned with delight, but she could see beneath the smile, he couldn’t fool her. Now people only rarely came into the store—the news had gotten around that Herr Seldersen didn’t have a great selection, everyone could sense how it stood with him. The stories he told them, to explain why he kept them waiting, were ones they never heard anywhere else. They got impatient and refused to be kept waiting anymore.

  They would rather shop at Herr Dalke’s—his merchandise was no better, and not significantly cheaper, but Herr Dalke still ran a real business: the presentation, the displays, what couldn’t you find there! You could forget your troubles for a little while, feast your eyes on the endless products, and aside from that the children would be given a balloon, or some kind of little toy, a flag with Herr Dalke’s name on it. A wonderful little treat, and at no cost. Herr Seldersen ordered big paper plates for Christmas and gave them out for free, but they weren’t anything compared to the flags and balloons. It was a useless waste of money; better to forgo such expensive advertising ploys in the future. He couldn’t compete with Herr Dalke.