I followed Erika. She met me in the doorway of the study, heavily laden with her case in one hand and her travelling bag in the other. “Where are you taking them?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe I’ll find a spare corner up there.”
I took the case and the bag from her and put them down beside my desk. “You really are a darling, Christian!” she said. “I’ll get them out of here tomorrow as soon as Ralf leaves.” She kissed me on both cheeks and quickly went away, closing the door carefully behind her.
I spent the time until supper leafing through a book of pictures of Halle. The memories I’d conjured up during my walk on the Mäuseberg didn’t do the city justice. The solid, spacious corner house where Handel was born three hundred years ago looked a comfortable place to me when I first saw it. A sign of life from a past that can’t affect the present and is cherished with well-justified pride in that city. There’s a picture of the parade of the Saltworkers’ Fraternity, the men in their black hats and long red coats, the women in white dresses with frilled sleeves and blue bodices. There are the creaking wooden floorboards laden with precious books in the library of the Francke Foundations.
Little as I like to say so, Ninoshvili’s banquet tasted better than anything I’d eaten in a long time. I had no hesitation in catching up on the wine that the three of them had opened earlier. And I offered no resistance worth mentioning when Ninoshvili, after the five of us had assembled round the table, rose to his feet and said that if we were going to do it all properly, we ought to choose a Tamada before beginning the meal. Erika asked, “What’s that?” Julia explained it was the name for a master of ceremonies, whose job it was to see that the banquet went with a swing. Erika liked the idea, and Ninoshvili said, “Let me suggest Christian for the office of Tamada.”
I said I wasn’t qualified for that honour, but I thought Ralf would be good in the part. He’d make sure the dishes were brought in briskly. Ralf said, “David can do that himself,” and emptied his second glass of the beer he had preferred to the Kakheti wine. Julia and Erika agreed that the post of Tamada called for a connoisseur, and also suggested Ninoshvili. Finding that he had a majority of three votes, from Ralf, Julia and Erika, he accepted.
He proposed the first toast to the Federal Republic of Germany and the hospitality of the Germans, a nation that had always been particularly close to Georgia. “Let us empty our glasses to that!” I drained my own, and everyone else did the same. I was wondering how soon Ralf would be under the table.
After the Tamada, with Julia’s help, had served up the cheese flatbreads, he asked me to open the banquet proper with a word of welcome. I rose and said that, as the Tamada had already rightly remarked, international friendship between Georgia and Germany could look back on a long tradition. Let us, I said, gratefully remember some of the founders of that friendship, such as Herr von Bodenstedt, who appreciated the beauty of the Georgian people; Herr Radde, the discoverer of Iris caucasica; and Herr Haeckel, who observed the fauna of Georgia very attentively, and even counted the population of the Caucasian Cimex lectularius. Let us empty our glasses to those pioneers of our joint culture, I said.
Erika, having drained her glass and held it out for a refill, asked, “What’s Cimex thingummy?” I cut a piece off my flatbread and said, “The bedbug.” Erika burst out laughing. Ninoshvili gave a thin smile.
When it came to Julia’s turn, she proposed a toast to Georgian literature and to David, the writer who would also help it to make its breakthrough in Germany. After the soup, the Tamada asked our friend from East Germany, now reunited with the West at last, to speak next. Erika, giggling, stood up, collected her wits with some difficulty, and said, “Right. I’m afraid I can’t speak as well as the rest of you, but I think this meal is really fantastic. So now let’s drink to David Dzhugashvili, master chef. Long live David!”
Ralf was already on his third beer when his turn came to propose a toast. I hoped he’d say, “Kiss my arse,” or at least just grunt something surly. But he got to his feet, began swaying slightly, reached for the edge of the table, and looked all around, smiling, his eyes swimming. Then he said abruptly, “Cheers!” and emptied his glass.
As the Kakheti wine was running out, I went down to the cellar and brought up a basketful of fresh supplies, choosing a Riesling from a winegrower in St Goarshausen from whom I had bought an inexpensive selection. This gave me a chance to bring the river visited by Julia and Ninoshvili on their way back from Frankfurt into the toasts.
When the Riesling had been poured, I asked the Tamada for permission to propose a toast, and he gave it. Rising to my feet, I said that Rhine wines were known to be the best Germany had to offer. However, since time immemorial every foreigner would have been well advised to tread with great care in the valley of Germany’s great river and its vine-grown ravines, as mentioned in a classic German poem, which runs:
The ancient Romans in their day
Sampled the valley and its wine.
But when with girls they’d sport and play
They had to leave the river Rhine.
The German warriors threw them out.
It was an ancient Roman rout.
Erika laughed out loud, raised her glass and emptied it. Julia drank a sip and then asked, frowning, her voice slurred, “And who’s supposed to have written that?” I replied, “Oh, some German poet or other. I’ve forgotten the name. Stupid of me.” Ninoshvili smiled.
If I counted the bottles correctly, then we must have put back four more in the course of the banquet. Ralf left half his fifth bottle of beer. After he had eaten almost a whole chicken, gnawed the bones, and mopped up the very last of the walnut sauce, he got to his feet and said, “Night, all.” On his way to the door he began staggering and had to brace his legs. Ninoshvili jumped up and took his arm. Ralf brushed the hand away.
I stood up and supported my son under the arms. He let me lead him out, and on the stairs I put his arm over my shoulder and hauled him up to the top floor, as heavy and clumsy to handle as a sack of four. I got him over to his bed, he dropped onto it, and I took his trainers off. By the time I put out the light and closed the door, he was already asleep. Climbing down, I nearly missed a step myself.
Meanwhile Ninoshvili had opened another bottle. Julia said, “Ninoshvadze, if you’re going to propose another toast I’ll fall off my chair. Thump!” She began to giggle. Erika burst into shrill laughter. Ninoshvili, who as I noticed, with some resentment, seemed to be feeling no ill effects, raised his forefinger and wagged it at Julia. “Oh no, oh no! We can’t part like this, my dear friend!” He refilled the glasses. “We haven’t drunk our last toast yet. And with that last toast, as Georgian custom demands, we will honour the master of the house.”
Julia said, “Oh, all right, but that will be the end of it. Who’s going to make the speech? Shall I…” She tried to stand up, but Ninoshvili took her shoulder and pressed her gently back into her chair. “No, no! The Tamada himself has to do that.” He rose and looked at the ceiling. Then he looked at me.
He said it was a pity that Ralf had already left, so that he couldn’t see due honour paid to his father, Christian Kestner, the master of this hospitable house. Kestner was a great, a famous name, borne in the past by a friend of Goethe, Johann Georg Christian Kestner, secretary at the Imperial Supreme Court, who features under the name of Albert in The Sorrows of Young Werther. Who was Albert, who was Kestner? Why, the master of a household where hospitality reigned supreme; an upright man, who unhesitatingly asked his friend to stay with him and his wife Charlotte. Albert could not have known that his friend would fall in love with Charlotte, but he did all he could to prevent the terrible end of the novel—the death of young Werther by his own hand—although, alas, in vain. And so it was that they had to bury Werther.
The Tamada looked around. Erika was listening to him as if spellbound. Julia had propped her chin on her hand and half-closed her eyes. The Tamada said, “They buried him at night, around elev
en o’clock. Tradesmen carried his coffin. No priest accompanied him to his grave.” He raised his glass. “But let us not be sad. Let us empty our glasses to an immortal work of literature. To men like Albert and Christian Kestner. And at the same time let us empty them to the master of this house, my friend. Long may he live!”
“Cheers!” said my wife, and she reached for her glass.
Chapter 38
Julia is already asleep. I got up once more, went into my study and found Werther on the bookshelf. Yes, of course, he was quoting the end word for word. Tradesmen carried his coffin. No priest accompanied him to his grave.
There was a bookmark in the middle of the book, and as far as I remembered it wasn’t one of mine. I opened the novel at the marked page and found the passage in which Werther, before Albert’s eyes and as if playfully, puts the muzzle of his pistol to his forehead above his right eye and then, when the horrified Albert knocks the pistol away, defends suicide against Albert’s stern condemnation of it as a sinful crime.
It is true that theft is a sin, but does the man who robs to preserve himself and those close to him from imminent death by starvation deserve pity or punishment? Who will cast the first stone at a husband who, in righteous anger, sacrifices his unfaithful wife and her worthless seducer?
He has been poking around in my books and taken Werther off the shelf. He has understood my message, oh yes, and he is striking back. He left the bookmark in place so that I would find his own riposte. And it certainly doesn’t mean that he is afraid I might kill him. It means that I ought to be afraid.
Chapter 39
I got up at around eight on Sunday morning. Julia was asleep, buried in her pillows. I showered and dressed, carefully went downstairs and into the kitchen, where the crockery from the banquet was still stacked. I heard Erika snoring in the living room. I poured some coffee and laid myself a place at the dining table. As I sat down, Ralf looked in at the door, still unkempt and in his pyjamas.
“What did you get up for?” I asked.
“I set my alarm. Where’s Julia, then?”
“Still asleep.”
“Didn’t she say when she’d be getting up?”
“No.”
He shook his head. “What do you want her for?” I asked.
“She and David were going to take me to Schwitte.”
“What, so early in the day?”
“Yeah, of course. I mean, we’re playing the first round this afternoon.”
I drank a little coffee, put down my cup and looked at him. “I’ll take you there if you like.”
He scratched his chest and then said, “Yeah, okay. I’d rather that anyway. Goodness knows when those two will be up.”
I felt better than I had in a long time. While Ralf was showering I laid him a place at the table, looked in the fridge for the chocolate spread—he still loves it as much as a five-year-old—and cut some bread. He didn’t turn down the scrambled egg I offered him either, but tucked in as if he had had nothing to eat for days.
When he had finished, and went up to the top floor to fetch his backpack, I looked in on Julia. I shook her gently by the shoulder. She turned on her back, opened her eyes and clutched her forehead. “Oh God!” Her face twisted. “My head is splitting!”
I asked if she was happy for me to take Ralf to his chess tournament. She asked, “What’s the time?”
“Nearly nine.”
She thought for a moment and then smiled at me. “Oh, that would be really kind. I’m still knocked right out.”
“I’m not surprised. You just rest.”
“Where’s David?”
“No idea. I expect he’s still asleep.”
Ralf didn’t talk much on the drive, and I avoided coming too close to him by trying to strike up a conversation. When we came to the motorway he leaned back in the passenger seat, grunted contentedly, and closed his eyes.
At some point, without opening them, he asked, “Have you remembered who the poet was?”
“What poet?”
“The one with the verse about the ancient Roman rout.”
“Er… no.” After a while I told him, “Actually I made it up myself, thought of it when I was down in the cellar.”
He laughed. I added, “I meant it ironically. And I was rather tipsy as well.”
“Sure. Me too.”
SchwitteMinnenbüren lies among tree-grown hills in the valley of a winding little river, the Laaxe. As you drive in, you pass the extensive premises of the company that acts as patron of the chess club, Friedrich Hünten Furnishings Ltd. Herr Hünten also runs a direct-sales outlet adorned with coloured fags: a huge warehouse with a car park at one side of the street, and a board on its roof bearing the inscription Buy Now, Pay Later, Big Savings!
The town centre, as I thought it must be because there was a fountain in the middle of it, was deserted. Presumably the housewives served up Sunday lunch at twelve on the dot. I asked two characters of Mediterranean appearance who were standing outside an Italian ice-cream parlour whether they knew where the chess tournament for young people was being held. They looked at each other, then one said, “Youth hostel. You drive youth hostel.” The other nodded. I asked where the youth hostel was. The second man said, “Go on along street. Then right by river.”
Behind me, a man with two boys craning their necks on the back seat had stopped. He called out of the window, “Are you going to the Youth Open too?” I wasn’t sure whether the Youth Open was the same as my own destination, but I didn’t want to reveal my ignorance, and called back, “Just follow me.”
I found the youth hostel, an immaculate whitewashed clinker-built wooden structure, on the banks of the Laaxe.
Ralf’s application had been registered, the hostel warden, a sturdy woman in her forties wearing an overall, said, “Room Three, please lock the door after you again and hand in the key. To get to the tournament you want to go to the comprehensive school, that’s back to Schwitte and take the second turning right.”
There were four bunk beds in the bedroom. Ralf said, “Can’t wait to see what kind of guys I’m hanging out with here.” He put his backpack into a free locker. The two boys came storming in, one flung himself on a bed, the other climbed the ladder to the bed above it. The hostel warden appeared in the doorway and said, “Out of here. I told you, Room Two, can’t you read numbers?” And the two boys stormed out again. “Well, there you are,” I said.
The tournament tables were set up in the school’s sports hall. A good two dozen chessboards stood at the long rows of tables, with the chessmen standing on them, the time clocks and notation forms beside them. There was an earsplitting din in the hall; a good third of the participants were no older than fourteen and acted accordingly. Ralf made his way through the pushing, shoving crowd in front of the tournament manager’s table. As he had shown no inclination to say goodbye, I waited.
When he came back with his starting number, I asked if it was all right with him for me to stay a little longer and take a look at one or two of the games. He said, “Sure. If you have time.” Then he saw a boy who went to his school and was in the year above him. I left the two of them together and wandered out.
In the room outside the hall I found the Youth Open Tournament advertised on a board with other posters, as well as a Rapidplay Tournament to be held next weekend (first prize 5,000 marks), presentation to the winner of that tournament and the Youth Open (first prize 400 marks) on the same occasion. The Youth Open poster also gave the names of two Russians (both described as GM, presumably “Grandmasters”) whose coaching services for training promising young players could be won.
Over loudspeakers from the sports hall I heard the tournament manager delivering a speech on behalf of Herr Friedrich Hünten, who had generously made this tournament possible, but unfortunately was unable to come this afternoon, and so on and so forth. The speech ended with the words, “And now for a fair and sporting competition! The boards are open!” All was quiet in the hall. I went back
and looked for Ralf. I found him at a corner table opposite a boy of ten or eleven, who could only just get a proper view of his pieces.
Ralf had chosen an opening that I didn’t know. His opponent obviously did. He examined the board as soon as Ralf had made a move, never needing more than half a minute, made his own move, pressed the clock and, pressing his pencil hard entered Ralf’s move and his own on the notation form in round letters. Then he put the pencil down and studied Ralf’s face. He twice subjected me too to a thorough and silent examination, from my eyes down to my shoes. Another time he leaned back in his chair, put his head back and looked at the ceiling of the sports hall as if inspecting the framework of the roof structure for weak spots.
From the tenth move on I began to fear for Ralf. The child, his thin fingers moving fast, snapped up one of his pawns from the centre of the formation and set about moving into its position. I thought I sensed Ralf getting nervous; he rubbed his hands together under the table, took out his handkerchief and blew his nose. I strolled on. The child craned his neck and looked over his shoulder at me.
I lingered for a while beside a board where a well-developed girl of about sixteen was trying to defend her pieces against a boy with thin black down on his upper lip who was trying to checkmate her. The girl shielded her eyes and her flushed face with both hands, kept only her toes on the floor, and was constantly shifting back and forth on her thighs. The boy suffered from acne, and had a severe tic of his left eyelid that came over him now and then at very short intervals. He sometimes opened his mouth and moved his lower jaw as if to make certain that the bones were still properly jointed.
I liked Ralf’s opponent better than this twitching youth, who very likely, however strong his game might be, did not have a better grasp of chess than the girl rocking back and forth. All the same, I didn’t want to see my almost grown-up son humiliated by a provocatively self-possessed child. For all I cared the younger boy could win his games in all the following rounds, just not this first one.
David's Revenge Page 14