Life Goes On: A Novel

by Hans Keilson

* * *

  Herr Seldersen read the letter, his wife standing beside him, and neither of them said a word. They were both thinking the same thing: This is the end. If he wasn’t careful now, everything would be all over, but what was he supposed to do?

  “You need to go to Berlin at once,” Mother pressured him. He shook his head. “Yes, you do,” she repeated, “what’ll happen if you don’t?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. It was all the same to him now—he just let things take their course. Frau Seldersen cried a lot that day.

  The next morning, Father took the train to Berlin. He had thought it over and decided to try to talk with the old boss in person; maybe he’d accomplish what he wanted that way. Maybe he should ask Herr Nelken too. It’s impossible, he murmured to himself, they can’t, in the middle of winter … He had to make it through the winter, he could still feel some remnants of ambition inside him.

  Herr Seldersen had a lot of trouble being admitted, and it took a long time. He didn’t dare to look around, he thought everyone here in the office knew how things were going with him and what had brought him in to see them. At the reception desk, he gave his name.…

  Herr Seldersen? Yes, of course, they knew who he was, even if he hadn’t been by the office for a long time. “Nice to see you, what is this concerning, please?” Father hemmed and hawed a bit, but eventually said he wanted to discuss a certain letter he had received from them recently. They sent him another flight up; he’d be able to talk to someone there. He walked through the roomy hallways, as familiar to him as his own hall at home. It was dead silent. There were a few customers by the stockrooms, with delivery crates full of packages; the salesmen were standing around bored—lots of new faces, Herr Seldersen didn’t know the people here anymore. Then he ran into an old colleague. Good to see you, great to see you.

  “So, you’ve come by to see us? It’s been a while. How’s it going?”

  Oh, if only you knew, Father thought, before stammering out a few vague words.… “Whenever I need something, I write, the trip is too expensive when just a postcard will do.”

  “Don’t you get visits from us anymore?” the other man asked.

  “Of course,” Herr Seldersen hastily answered, “but you know how it is with traveling these days, you used to be on the road yourself.”

  “Yes, yes, I know,” he said, lost in his memories.

  Father asked why there was so little business here—it was dead, and in the winter season, before Christmas…? He had expected there to be …

  The other man brushed it off: “Business isn’t exactly booming anymore; we feel it here too.” Then he said, in a quiet voice, that the big firm Hans & Co. was stopping payments. It wasn’t public knowledge yet, but it wouldn’t be long now—it was an open secret. Hans & Co.? Herr Seldersen repeated, that’s impossible. He shook his head; unbelievable, where would it end? One after the other, and now the big firms too, the ones we always thought were … In the end, you couldn’t be surprised when …

  No, you couldn’t be surprised, the other man agreed.

  “But where will it end?” Herr Seldersen got excited. “Where, I ask you?!”

  Pause.

  “I don’t know, Herr Seldersen. Every day in the papers you read a big list of the ones who’ve given up. Maybe that’s the best thing, I don’t know.”

  “Okay, but then what, what comes after that?”

  “I don’t know that either,” the man finally said. He was almost ashamed to say it. “I don’t know, I’m old, I won’t live to see it so I try not to think about it.”

  Herr Seldersen fell silent. Whatever happened, he wouldn’t be there to see it, the other man had said, and that was enough. Now Herr Seldersen often wished he could think like that too—for a long time he had felt the longing for peace, for rest, for unconsciousness, stronger and stronger and dangerously close. No one knew.

  He said goodbye and went up another floor. Here he had to look for a long time before he finally found one of the directors. Herr Seldersen greeted him and kept looking for the senior director, he knew him personally, he had great hopes for his talk with him. But he couldn’t find him anywhere, it was getting late and he hadn’t accomplished a thing. He knew the other director too, if only slightly—he had joined the firm only recently, less than five years ago. He was young, vigorous, and decisive. From the beginning, Herr Seldersen had felt an aversion to him. He never had much to do with him in the years when things were going better; he had always timidly avoided contact with him, for who knows what emotional reasons.

  Finally he worked up the courage to go up to the young director and politely ask him where he might find the senior director, the old man—he asked for him by name.

  “He’s not here,” he answered. “What is this concerning, please?”

  Herr Seldersen explained that he was hoping to talk to him in person. When was he expected in?

  “Rarely,” the young director replied; “he’s rarely in the office—at his age, with the present circumstances.… It’s better that way.”

  Father understood. So he had come all this way for nothing. He thought for a moment, then gave a short bow—he was the older man in the conversation, after all, even if he was the one making the request, he mustn’t be too obsequious. He told him his name. “I know who you are,” the director answered in a friendly voice; before, he had acted like he was talking to a stranger. Herr Seldersen took a deep breath and cautiously revealed the reason for his visit. The director understood immediately; he was already informed about the entire situation. He stayed perfectly polite, expressed his regret countless times, excused himself for a moment to take a call and then came back to continue the conversation, or called a young man into the room and dictated a few sentences that had just come to him; during these pauses, Father stood there not knowing what to do with himself. What he most wanted to do was just run away, but he couldn’t do that, so he waited patiently. Herr Nelken turned up too, but stayed unobtrusively in the background. When the young director came back, he picked up the conversation precisely where he had left off. His tone was friendly and accommodating, just what one would expect from a smart young businessman, but that was exactly what made Herr Seldersen feel so awkward.

  “Yes, I see,” he said, “I admit that our recent history hasn’t been good and you have to be careful.” The director nodded forcefully … he should show him their books sometime, Herr Seldersen wouldn’t believe what he saw.

  “But if you don’t give me any more credit, where will that leave me?”

  Silence.

  “The fact is, we can’t trust you,” the director said slowly. “The experiences we’ve had show that we’re right not to trust you.”

  Herr Seldersen tried desperately to think of a response. “Trust,” he whispered, “right. When someone has money it’s easy to trust him, but—”

  “But Herr Seldersen,” the director interrupted him, “we gave you credit, until you settled with us a year and a half ago and we took a big loss. Then we kept giving you credit—not as much as before, that’s true, but you still had a chance. Now you’re behind in your payments again. Is that our fault?”

  “But it wasn’t enough before; if you had given me a bigger chance … think about it, the competition is tough.”

  “I don’t know,” the younger man shrugged. “Even so … it would have meant taking on a much bigger risk. You didn’t have any backing, and we can’t just give out credit wherever we want to. You’re a businessman too. Admit it, it wouldn’t have been good business.”

  “But if I’d had wares to sell,” Father repeated. He couldn’t get past that thought, as though that were the key to the whole situation.

  “No, Herr Seldersen,” the director suddenly said, and it sounded as if he were kindly wanting to teach Father something, “that wouldn’t have helped you. You’re wrong if you think it would have. Your costs would have only been higher.”

  “Higher? Why?” Father asked. He didn’t see why
.

  “Don’t you have unemployment in your town too?” the director asked calmly.

  Father fell silent. Now he understood, and it made him dizzy. It was the same misfortune everywhere; no matter how you twisted and turned you eventually ended up back where you started. Everything was connected, and who could escape? Not him, not anymore—his path was blocked. And the way the director made his comment about the unemployment, apparently so calm and indifferent, made Father slowly realize that he wasn’t just sitting here by himself, alone, laying out his own personal situation—there was something else in him too, which was a feeling he had never had before. He saw in his mind’s eye a patient march of sad people coming up to him and saying: We can’t buy anymore, we have only enough money to spend on food and that comes first. But Father gave them something. Nothing would ever change, as long as he was there he would hold out and give people credit, otherwise the whole thing just couldn’t go on.

  And here he was, fighting to get credit himself from someone else—a desperate struggle, he wanted to keep working.… “And now you want to leave me in the lurch,” he said softly. He wanted to scream, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it anymore.

  “We’ll give you goods, of course,” the director answered, politely as ever. “If I remember correctly, you can have a third of your order from us at once, isn’t that correct?”

  “That’s not enough,” Father protested. “Especially now, before Christmas; now’s when people want to buy.”

  The director shrugged. Herr Seldersen left, walking with heavy footsteps. When he passed Herr Nelken he looked up, and a thought flashed through his mind. He decided to stop for a moment. Herr Nelken stood there looking down at the floor; maybe he was looking for a pin he had dropped. Father didn’t know if he should shake his hand…? He had played his part here to the end, and he left.

  That afternoon he saw his children. He seemed to be noticeably calmer and more composed than he had been recently, but they knew how things stood. They sat together for a long time and Father told them why he had come to Berlin, about the conversation he had had, and the result. Long silence. Finally Anneliese said that they couldn’t just leave it at that, something had to be done. He looked at her. “But what?” he asked quietly. “Any suggestions?” Silence. Then he said that he had seen it coming for a long time, but up until then he had never talked about it, so as not to worry them unnecessarily. Now it couldn’t last much longer, and it didn’t make any sense to keep hoping. Tears ran down his cheeks when he spoke these words, but he didn’t notice he was crying. They sat there in total silence. The whole time, Albrecht never stopped staring at his father; he remembered that he had seen him cry once before. Back then, Father had been sitting on a small bench in the kitchen, crying because he had to start going door-to-door again; he didn’t see any other way forward, and it seemed so unbearable to him that he was crying. Those tears were for nothing, he hadn’t gone door-to-door after all. Everything turned out different—things didn’t improve, but they developed more slowly, and terribly, than he could have suspected. Now he was sitting here, crying, and saying that the end had come. They weren’t giving him goods to sell anymore, he had irrevocably lost their trust, it was over for him.

  But it wasn’t yet over, he was wrong. His ignorance was his only excuse for saying such a thing. He had not exhausted every possibility, not yet suffered the deepest shame—that still lay ahead.

  The afternoon disappeared in endless reflections, considerations, plans that came to nothing—it was hopeless. Father went home, kissing them affectionately goodbye before boarding the train.

  “We shouldn’t let him travel alone,” Anneliese said. Albrecht shrugged. He was paralyzed himself.

  Mother was waiting for him at the station back home. It was cold and windy, she was freezing even in her overcoat. When she saw him at the gate, saw how he handed over his ticket and then looked around to see if someone had come to fetch him, she knew everything. They greeted each other in silence, she took his arm, and they walked home like that, slowly, against the wind. Father haltingly told her about every possible thing—what he’d seen in Berlin, his afternoon with the children, they send their best wishes—but not a word about the real purpose of his trip. Finally Mother asked him. She couldn’t hold out any longer, her nerves were shot.… “And what did you manage to get?”

  “Nothing,” Father answered. “Nothing.”

  Pause.

  “My God,” Mother whispered. “What now?”

  Had Father even heard her? He pulled his cap down hard, covering his face. Mother quietly cried to herself; she’d been worried all day, she’d had a premonition! All for nothing, and now what? The wind whistled and bent back their bodies; they had to crouch and push hard against it to gain any ground at all. They struggled on, bit their lips, and said nothing. They arrived home exhausted. Mother brought out dinner, but neither of them ate and they went right to bed.

  * * *

  And now I have to describe a night that is so full of unfathomable sorrow and deepest despair that I can hardly bear to think about it. I intend to tell it carefully and delicately, so as not to reopen any old wounds: the story of the night when it seemed as though destiny had found a terrible way out of the dilemma. I begin:

  In the bedroom closet in the front corner, near the window, Herr Seldersen kept a revolver hidden in a drawer under the washcloths. He had brought it home with him from the war; everyone knew it and no one ever mentioned it. No, I have to start over again, I have to go much further back and not leave any of the events that led to this night under the slightest shadow.

  A revolver is good; with a gas hose the suffering is only drawn out longer. Behold Herr Seldersen, a man past fifty who made it through the war on the front lines in good health; four turbulent years were unable to put an end to him, and he came back—the way one does from a campaign one has lost: tired, exhausted, worn-out, but he was healthy, with all his limbs intact, his life spared. And now this old man, on whom life has played such dirty tricks, is lying awake in his bed, unable to sleep, restlessly tossing and turning from side to side as though his whole body were one big wound. His wife lies awake next to him. He groans, pleads, and curses, asking for only one thing: to forget, to rest, rest at last. In the dark of night, he slowly sits up in his bed and gently, carefully slips off the blanket, and he is so inflamed by his idea, the thought of what he has decided to do, that he doesn’t notice Mother taking off her blanket just as quietly, but infinitely more nimbly, scared that it’s too late. Father stands in front of the clothes closet, softly turns the key, and carefully opens the door whose cracked wood he knows will creak. Then Mother is standing next to him in her nightgown, like a ghost, toweringly large and absolutely determined. She grabs Father’s hand and slowly pushes it down with a powerful strength that has miraculously emerged from her old, ruined body. Father is so surprised at first that he puts up no resistance and Mother has an easy time of it, but he soon regains his strength and a silent, desperate struggle begins in the dark. “Let me go,” he groans, insane with rage that someone is stopping him. She stands there as if possessed, clasping his hand in an iron grip. And silently crying. “Enough,” Father says at last; “it’s finally over now.” He begs her to let him go. Not a word escapes Mother’s lips: her whole body is tense with the extraordinary effort, but she is certain of victory. Pause. “No, no,” she says softly, her voice shaking in a sob, “no, no.” Who could prevail against that? There is a fierce, bitter struggle. Father looks at Mother in the dark room and sees her old face, her hair let down, her body shaking with fear and agitation. “Come here,” she whispers softly, “come back and lie down.” It sounds so kind, almost seductive. Father has no choice, he obeys and silently lies down in bed. But the struggle isn’t over—it is as though he has only now realized his situation, he throws himself from side to side and a storm of sobs comes over him, his body almost bursting from the violent heaves. Mother, lying next to him, stays completely
still at first and lets the pain work itself out, without thinking anything, just there for him. Then her hand gently feels for him and she takes his head the way she used to, slides imperceptibly closer, and wraps Father in her arms. All he can do now is cry it out; she feels his quaking body and gradually feels that his great convulsions are coming at longer and longer intervals, and then gradually he calms down. And so sleep, benevolent and liberating, overtakes him at last.

  * * *

  Two days later, in the evening. Herr Seldersen has followed his wife’s advice and paid a call to Herr Dalke, putting himself through his deepest humiliation. He let the morning go by, then the afternoon, and only when the streets were starting to dim in the twilight and the lights came on in the shops did he feel the courage to do it. Yes, he went to see Herr Dalke, who made as much in three days as he did in thirty, who had backing, people’s trust, everything he wanted. Now Herr Seldersen was going to see him. In truth, they were competitors, even if they had a good personal relationship—had he lost all shame?

  Herr Dalke was a clever man. He was upstairs in his office, bent over his books, when Father walked in.

  “Good evening,” Herr Seldersen said softly. “Is now a good time?”

  Herr Dalke didn’t look at all surprised to see him. He walked over to Father, invited him to take a seat, and then sat down across from him. He asked him—no, he didn’t ask much, he knew why Father was there. He skillfully avoided asking, and did not make it hard for Herr Seldersen to get straight to the point; he knew what had made him come see him. A conversation, cheerful enough, went back and forth between them, about everything weighing down on Herr Seldersen, and then it was actually Herr Dalke who made the suggestion to Father: hesitantly, gently, he didn’t want to impose it on Father. He offered him a sum that was just enough to cover Herr Seldersen’s purchases for the winter. Father sat in silence; he hadn’t expected that, anything but that.

  “It’s too much,” he said, “I can’t accept that, I’ll have to pay you back later, after all, it would be much too difficult, no.”