How German Is It

by Walter Abish

  There are no photographs of her mother anywhere in her father’s house in Brumholdstein. And conversely, the photographs of her father in their house in Würtenburg have mysteriously vanished.

  In a year or two we’ll take a long trip together, Helmuth promised her. First, we’ll go to America. I’ll show you the Grand Canyon, and then we’ll see if we can locate some cowboys.

  Is Magnus coming along?

  Do you want him to? asked Helmuth. A perfectly reasonable question.

  Do I want him to? she asked, then unaccountably burst into tears.

  .

  19

  Taking turns, a four-man-crew, using two jackhammers, was breaking up slabs of the concrete pavement around the cave-in, while another group of men, all foreign workers who were barely able to communicate in German, was removing the concrete chunks and the wet soil, exposing the massive sewage pipe, while a pump kept draining the bottom of the trench. The windows of the bakery as well as the windows of all the other stores were covered with a fine gray film of dust. A bored-looking supervisor, leaning on a wood tressle, stared into the ever-widening trench. The street was closed to all traffic. Although the corroded sewage pipe had been repaired, the foul smell still hung in the air.

  Helmuth was working in his makeshift office in the house when Gisela, returning from school, raced up the stairs, eager to inform him that the diggers had uncovered a grave, some even said that it was a mass grave of German soldiers killed by the Russians during the war.

  The trouble with that theory, Helmuth pointed out, was that the Russians had never reached Brumholdstein, or Durst, as it was called at that time.

  Gisela stared at him blankly. Then it must have been the Americans?

  Americans or the French or the English, but it is unlikely that they encountered any resistance at Durst. What did Miss Heller say in class? Or didn’t she mention it?

  She said, Rubbish. She said she didn’t want to talk about it. She said that a lot of people were killed in the war, and that it was very sad.

  How do you feel about having Egon and his photographer friend come to stay with us?

  She grinned. Are you really having someone put in doors tomorrow?

  Don’t you think it’s a good idea?

  I don’t know, she said. I’m just getting used to sleeping in a room without doors.

  After Gisela had left, Helmuth sank back into his chair, overcome by a sudden inexplicable torpor. His phone rang and rang until Gisela finally answered it. When he picked up the receiver, he could hear the excited high-pitched voice of Gisela explaining to her mother that the corpses in the mass grave might be German but then they might not, and that since Egon and his friend were coming to stay with them he, Helmuth, had decided for the sake of their privacy to install new doors.

  Doors? Doors? You mean to say that there are still no doors in the house? I don’t believe it. Then, sensing his presence, Maria shrilly asked: Helmuth, is that you Helmuth!

  .

  20

  Five days ago a section of the pavement near the school caved in, and three days later, as they were fixing the broken sewage pipe, someone who deserves a medal discovered a mass grave, Helmuth announced to Egon and Rita. It’s a real mess. For all we know there may be a hundred, perhaps even a thousand bodies buried in that spot. For all anyone knows, all of Brumholdstein is sitting on one mass grave. Anyhow, as you can imagine, with our tradition of thoroughness, we have to inspect the grave before we can repair the pavement. Everyone is complaining. The storekeepers are losing their customers. The street is still closed to traffic. Well, what more is there to say.

  They were in the garden. The sound of hammering reached them from the house where the two carpenters were installing the new doors. One in the guest room, one in the room occupied by Gisela, one in the bathroom, and one in his room.

  While Helmuth was speaking to Egon, Rita kept watching Ulrich play ball with Gisela and her friend Erika. She could not resist aiming her camera in their direction. Click, click, click. Inside the house, standing on a ladder, Obbie was scraping the loose plaster off the ceiling.

  You look as if you want to ask me a question, said Helmuth, the moment he and Rita were alone.

  I do?

  Yes, ever since you arrived. I could read it on your face. You wish to ask me something.

  What do I wish to ask you?

  That I don’t know. But I suspect it’s something specific. Well, now is your chance. Egon is upstairs testing the door.

  Did anyone ever tell you that you can be very disconcerting, she said.

  You’ve still not taken a photograph of me, he pointed out.

  I may just neglect to do so.

  Egon joined them. He had been on the phone to Munich. While on the phone, he had watched Rita and Helmuth from the window upstairs. Now, letting the screen door slam as he left the house, he came toward them, beaming, a glass of wine in each hand. Where are we going tonight? he asked.

  We could eat here, said Helmuth, with a noticeable lack of enthusiasm. There’s some cold chicken.

  We could go to a restaurant, declared Egon. My treat. But I get to choose the restaurant. How about a fish restaurant?

  Why not give this place a try, said Rita smiling seductively at Egon.

  Egon, looking at her quizzically: We could also explore the seamy life in Daemling. They have a Turkish restaurant, I’m told, with a belly dancer.

  I feel so relaxed here, said Rita, stretching herself in the canvas chair.

  Relaxed? She’s a bundle of nerves, remarked Egon. Just watch her when she’s in action. Before we know it, she’ll be snapping the mass grave.

  I wouldn’t if I were you, said Helmuth. People might get the wrong idea.

  You can be extremely nasty, Rita said to Egon. Did you know that?

  Ulrich really has a way with children, said Egon, turning to look at Ulrich now being chased by two determined young girls.

  Don’t believe it, said Helmuth, and they all laughed.

  The carpenters left at six, and Obbie, covered from head to toe with plaster, left a half hour later.

  I’m getting hungry, announced Rita.

  Where is Anna, asked Ulrich, who had joined them and was now sitting on the grass. I haven’t seen her all day.

  She’ll turn up, said Helmuth. Then, with some irritation: If we’re going to eat here, someone will have to get some more wine.

  .

  21

  How to read the writing on the wall?

  Even in the most expensive restaurant, one will occasionally come across graffiti on the toilet wall. In this instance, scrawled on the metal partition in one of the cubicles, the third from the left, the following: Why does one have to read the writing on the wall?

  When Franz first read the sentence he pondered over its meaning. Was it intended as a joke, or could it have a deeper meaning?

  By eight in the evening all the tables at the Pflaume were occupied. It took a good deal of experience to handle six tables, to serve soup at one, coffee and dessert at the next, without at the same time abnegating, if that was the right word, one’s independence of action and thought.

  When Franz was at home his wife served the meals. Franz had seen to it that everyone in his neighborhood did not suffer from any misapprehension that he, merely because he was a waiter, served the meals at home. No, at home he did not lift a finger. He did not pour the wine, or light the candles, or hold open the door, or smile ingratiatingly.

  On a warm summer evening, concealed by one of the eight fluted artificial columns in the dining room, he observed Helmuth von Hargenau and his brother, Ulrich von Hargenau, directing their attention at Rita Tropf-Ulmwehrt, while her companion, Egon, the man who, with his wife Gisela, had recently appeared on the cover of Treue, watched them with an expressionless face.

  Well, I’m glad I talked you into coming here, said Egon to Helmuth as they were leaving.

  I’m glad we came, said Helmuth agreeably. To his brother:
Coming back with us?

  No, I think not. I’ll turn in early.

  Something’s fishy there, Franz told his wife. I mean, after all, there’s always room in the house for one’s brother.

  Maybe he prefers to be by himself, said Doris.

  Must one read the writing on the wall? asked Egon jokingly, after they had driven Ulrich to the house on Hirsch Strasse where he was staying. What do you mean, Rita asked. Just some graffiti in the john, said Helmuth. Whatever we may lack in Brumholdstein, it’s not imagination.

  Helmuth, do you always read the writing on the wall? asked Rita.

  I did, shortly after my arrival in Brumholdstein, replied Helmuth, I came face to face with it. I was out for a drive, following the old road that runs parallel to the railroad track. Anyhow, it was a nice spring day, and I felt like stretching my legs a bit, so I parked the car along the side of the road and started walking. I must have gone three or four miles without seeing a soul. Then, before returning to the car, I sat down with my back to a fencepost. I wasn’t trespassing. I was simply leaning against the fencepost across from a farmhouse that I remember having passed on a prior occasion. The barns were to my right. I could see a couple of horses and cows on a grassy slope, but not a soul in sight. I must have sat there for some time, just staring at the sky, staring at nothing in particular, when in my field of vision I suddenly saw a man with a rifle. He was standing on an incline on the other side of the road, evidently waiting for me to spot him. I took him to be the farmer, or one of the help. He was in his thirties. He didn’t go away. He just stood there staring at me. Finally, I waved my hand. His response to my greeting was to raise his rifle as if to alert me to its presence … as if to indicate that the weapon could be used against me. What can I say that would explain my behavior. For one thing I was not accustomed to being threatened by farmers. In Würtenburg no one would raise a rifle against me or against anyone else. Frankly, I believed he was bluffing. Moreover, I didn’t like being intimidated. Not by him. Not by anyone. My friendly wave was as far as I was prepared to go. So I stayed put … partly because I can be terribly obstinate, also—because I was frozen to the spot. My body seemed incapable of coming up with the correct move. I had hoped that having made his threatening gesture he would leave, and I would then feel free to make my exit. Instead, quite calmly, he raised his rifle to his shoulder—I can still see that effortless motion on his part—and then gradually shifting his rifle, he aimed at me. I was too scared to move; I remember yelling: Hey, wait a minute … I’m just leaving … Thinking that perhaps he had mistaken me for someone else. Possibly, a drifter. Anyhow, he fired one shot that raised the dirt inches from my feet. Then grinning maniacally, he lowered the rifle. I got the message. Awkwardly I stood up and walked back to my car without once looking back.

  Didn’t you report it to the police? asked Rita.

  Report what? A random rifle shot. A farmer carrying a gun? He would deny it, and I would look a complete fool.

  When they returned to the house, Egon excused himself. He had to make a quick call. Ah, the duties of a conscientious husband, remarked Helmuth, looking at Rita for a reaction.

  And I thought you were able to conceal your emotions, she said, raising her Leica to take a quick shot of him, sealing his irritation as well as his petulant grin on the light-sensitive celluloid.

  .

  22

  To begin with, the absence of Anna Heller. Tactfully, no one mentions her name to avoid annoying Helmuth. It’s all too familiar. Does Rita recognize in Anna’s absence a vacuum she may be called upon to fill? Women are accustomed to playing these roles. Anna is gone, and everyone behaves as if she had never existed. Only Gisela refuses to play the game, refuses to abide by the rules. Will Anna be coming today? Will she? Will she?

  Rita and Egon are ensconced in the large guest room at the end of the corridor. Since the doors have been installed, it is possible to have a little privacy upstairs.

  The mattress on the floor in their room is new, as well as the linen, purchased a few days prior to their arrival. It’s a lovely room, isn’t it, was Rita’s initial, somewhat exaggerated observation. If Egon has any reservations, he conceals them, saying: Not bad, really … after all, Helmuth just acquired the place.

  Not that there aren’t certain drawbacks. For instance, one cannot escape the penetrating smell of fresh paint. It hangs over the entire house. The windows are kept open, and since there are no screens on the upstairs windows, the insects, mosquitos, flies, butterflies and even bees, fly in to settle permanently on the freshly painted walls.

  Is Anna coming today? Gisela keeps asking. By now no longer expecting to receive any information, yet determined to keep the issue of Anna alive.

  Helmuth is disgruntled, probably on account of Anna’s absence. He might not have minded so much had Rita, lovely Rita, and Egon’s presence not been a reminder of what he is missing. Rita, to Helmuth’s annoyance, keeps teasing him: What? You stopped shaving? What next?

  Stop it, says Egon. Poor Helmuth has suffered enough. To Helmuth’s annoyance they laugh. They can always retire to their room and close the door. In fact sometimes they do not see Helmuth the entire day. Where can he be, Rita asks Egon. But no one complains. No. That is not quite true. Gisela, whenever she is around, complains a lot. She is too far away from her friend Erika, and she feels neglected by her father and by the others. She misses Anna Heller. She has even begun to miss her mother and her brother. First thing in the morning she is in her father’s room, sitting on his mattress, watching him sip his coffee. Watching every expression on his face, on his unshaven face. Always, asking for a slight favor: Can we please, p … l … e … a … s … e … drive to Erfurcht where they have a puppet theater, and on the way can we pick up Erika … and can I this once stay overnight at Erika’s and then … and then … And then always the same response: We’ll see. Does that mean yes, or no. It means, we’ll see. Yes or no?

  .

  23

  Not a sound. In the middle of the day, with the garden deserted and the house in complete silence. Not a sound. Not a whisper. Has everyone left? Have they gone on an outing without informing him, Ulrich wonders. No. The cars are still there, on the gravel driveway, parked in the shade of the large elm. Helmuth, it turns out, is downstairs. At work in his makeshift study. Sitting at the large drawing table, a four by eight plywood board on carpenter’s horses. At his side on a low table, a pushbutton telephone with four lines. Pinned to the wall, the blueprints of his project. A large electric fan standing on the broad floorboards noiselessly swivels from left to right, then back. On the plywood table, the tools of Helmuth’s trade. Drafting pencils, plastic triangles, a large T-square, a map of Brumholdstein, a pair of compasses, pencil sharpener, slide rule, eraser, pad, a large roll of tracing paper. Helmuth scowls at his visitor.

  Each day they seem to have less and less to say to each other.

  Helmuth in stained white trousers, barefoot, bare-chested, studying the calculations for the cantilevered staircase of the museum. The telephone does not ring. The fancy Japanese battery radio on a shelf is turned off. Silence. At the very least, one should be able to determine if the young man hired to mow the lawn, trim the hedges, and in general make himself useful, is still at work. But only silence. The buzzing of a trapped bee.

  Gisela, bored, disgruntled, and depleted, is curled up on a couch in another room on the ground floor. She is too bored to get on the phone and complain to Erika. Of late, she is having some difficulty getting Erika to the phone. Whoever answers the phone always promises to deliver her message, but Erika does not return to her calls—that suffices to cause in her a certain unease. She is too bored to move to the garden, too bored to fix herself something to eat in the kitchen. She is killing time, waiting for the sun to set, for everyone to emerge from their holes, their hideaways, and for the onset of a conversation charged with those peculiar innuendoes, those curious exciting and mysterious sexual innuendoes that seem to have become
part of every exchange between her father and Egon with Rita as the prize for which they were struggling. Or rather the prize for which Helmuth is struggling, since Egon is merely trying to retain her, inasmuch as she is to be retained or lost.

  Obbie was upstairs most of the time, savagely attacking another wall: how else to describe the way he furiously slapped paint on the wall. By now, this short and awkward-looking man had started to paint in at least six different locations. Ulrich, when he first observed Obbie at work, had at some point expected Helmuth to explode with anger at Obbie’s sloppiness. But obviously Helmuth is either indifferent or simply fascinated by Obbie’s erratic pattern. As far as Ulrich could see, Helmuth has given Obbie free rein of the house. Just go ahead and paint the place. And that is what Obbie is doing. At some point in the future all these painted areas will overlap. At present Obbie is silently painting the hallway, or the corridor, or one of the eight vacant rooms upstairs, or he might be working in the attic, or concentrating with a maniacal patience on the window ledges, or the upstairs terrace … while Egon and Rita (one assumes they are together) will be in their room as usual taking their afternoon or midday nap. Another nap? Well, it is summer. And they rightfully have come to regard this as a vacation. A vacation that will re-energize them—prepare them for the next season in the city …

  As soon as Egon and Rita return to their room for another period of rest, Obbie who has developed an insatiable interest in the comings and goings of the household, moves his ladder closer to the guest room. Then, switching from paintbrush to the roller, he gravely applies an additional layer of white paint, perhaps the fifth or sixth coat, to their door, while in rapture gazing at the whiteness of the door as he waits for something to break the silence … But what can he be waiting for? A quick harsh moaning sound … or the sound of a woman’s voice rapidly saying, Yes, yes, yes, with such urgency, such intensity that he for a moment will forget where he is and what he is doing. And then, ultimately, comes the sharper, more high-pitched sound—to his ears an unbearably foreign sound—that he embraces, that he welcomes with all his heart. But in the meantime only silence.