How German Is It

by Walter Abish

  You’re angry.

  Angry? Are you sure you have the right word?

  Can I scrub your back?

  I can manage nicely by myself.

  .

  32

  What everyone knows

  By now it is common knowledge that Vin’s father died while painting their ceiling. He was an elderly man unaccustomed to working twelve hours a day. Heart failure. Stroke. Dead by the time the ambulance arrived.

  News travels. Obbie, who had assisted Vin’s father, told his stepmother, Doris, and she mentioned it to Franz, who in turn told Helmuth, confidentially, of course, who passed it on to Ulrich, who may have mentioned it to Egon.

  What else?

  Jonke is once again making eyes at Anna.

  He is giving it another try.

  Why not? She’s no longer with Helmuth Hargenau. So, now’s the time, before someone else appears. He may even ask her to marry him. Owner of a large bookstore. Respectable. In other words a good match, for people who still think in those terms.

  Doesn’t he have any pride? Before Helmuth Hargenau there was the mayor, and before the mayor …

  What else?

  Some say Jonke is a latent fascist. But what is a latent fascist? It has been rumored that Jonke is the sort of person who would give a Hitler salute for aesthetic reasons. He was far too young for the war, so little else can be said about him other than that his father reputedly had been a member of the Einsatzkommando in the Ukraine. Still, not everyone in the Einsatzkommando mowed down Jews or Gypsies. Apparently Jonke, one time when he had taken Anna to the theater, confided to her what his father had done in the Ukraine, and she may have mentioned it to the mayor, who passed it on to his wife—Quite gruesome, she said—who then at some point or other informed Helmuth, who took a certain pleasure in relating it to his brother, Ulrich.

  Is this idle gossip?

  In any event, although Jonke’s father was indeed in the Einsatzkommando during the war, and Jonke is still considered a latent homosexual by some, a latent fascist by others, he has never been threatened, as far as can be determined. But Ulrich has.

  Only the other day Ulrich received another unsigned threatening letter. And someone, evidently a good shot, put a couple of bullets into one of the upstairs bedrooms in Helmuth’s house. Reluctantly Helmuth reported the incident to the police. They inspected the holes in the window, the bullets still lodged in the ceiling and wall, and tried to establish from where the rifle, assuming it was a rifle, was fired. They decided it was from the lawn and that most likely it was a prank. Perhaps one of the farmers on a spree, having had a little too much to drink. You see, said Helmuth. Sheer waste of time. If you live out here, you simply have to put up with a certain amount of violence.

  What else?

  Vin, the mayor’s wife, ordered her books from Jonke, not from Hubbler’s, the only other bookstore comparable to Jonke. Without requesting it, she received a twenty percent discount. It ensured her coming back. She preferred fiction, biographies, best sellers, an occasional mystery. Once a year she donated a large pile of books to the library, a donation that was gratefully accepted. In each book given to the library a little sticker indicated that the book was a gift from Frau Burgermeister Vin Kahnsitz-Lese.

  Jonke thoughtfully let her know whenever he received a book that she might like to read.

  He always asked whether she liked the last book or books she purchased, and if her husband had a chance to read it (or them) as well.

  Jonke, a long dour face, a lined face, hair thinning, looking years older than his actual age, showed up at the store around ten. Unlike Hubbler’s, most of his business was mail order. His stony silence, his look of disapproval often discouraged browsers. Most of the orders he received were for out-of-print books and for first editions. At least two days a week were spent tracking down books, buying up old libraries, all of which entailed a good deal of research.

  His assistant, Rolph, remains in charge when Jonke is away. Rolph may have led to the rumor that Jonke is a closet homosexual. Yet in the store the two hardly ever speak. It is disconcerting to enter the bookstore and be met by a wall of silence, an oppressive wall of silence. To many Jonke seems rude. On the phone he is brusque: No, we don’t carry it. Bang. Down goes the receiver. Unlike Hubbler’s, where they say: Good morning, Hubbler’s here, may we help you. If they do not carry the title, they will promptly offer to order it. They even suggest that the caller first try Jonke’s bookstore.

  What else?

  A signed photograph of Brumhold on the wall behind Jonke’s desk immediately attracted Ulrich’s attention on his first visit to the bookstore. He tried to engage Jonke in a conversation, but without success.

  Jonke, the bookseller. Conservative gray suit. Our middle-aged bachelor, is the way the mayor refers to him.

  I won’t have you making fun of the man who puts all those lovely books aside for me, said Vin.

  Jonke’s assistant arrives punctually at ten, leaves at six. Together they plow through the new orders. Rolph typing all the letters Jonke has dictated the day before. He uses a manual Olympia. Everywhere boxes of books on the floor, on the tables, in the back room. Somehow they manage, the two of them. At six Jonke vanishes from view. Oh, he has his friends, said the mayor. A little circle. A gay little group.

  Once in a while Jonke is invited to dinner at the mayor’s house, once in a while to a garden party, a literary event, or some celebration in the library. Anything that deals however remotely with culture, at any rate, with books. Jonke, always alone, in a dark suit, somber, taciturn. A man who is disinclined to reveal his opinion on anything. He drives a small car. Lives somewhere in Brumholdstein. An apartment, according to Vin, who once visited it, filled with books and antiques. That is known. Collects photographs. The Hitler period. Why not. Harmless hobby. Most collectors specialize. Anna may have seen some of them, but if she did, she never mentioned it to Helmuth.

  Jonke locks up at six. No metal shutters. Just a double lock. After hours a passer-by can study from the street every detail of the store’s interior, except for the small back room which is locked. But there on the right is the large desk at which Rolph types the letters, and more to the center, is Jonke’s desk. One can see everything. The books, the piles of catalogues, the telephones, the typewriter, the photograph of Brumhold on the wall.

  Anna also had been to Jonke’s apartment. But that was some time ago. When she first arrived in Brumholdstein. She used to visit Jonke, and he used to visit her. Together they would attend concerts, theater performances. What was more logical than to have the local bookseller go out with the local schoolteacher? Jonke introduced her to his few friends, and to his many acquaintances. He also took her to the mayor’s house for dinner on several occasions. That’s how she first met the mayor. People drew the logical conclusion. They did not invite Jonke without inviting her. They did not invite her without inviting Jonke, until one day she made it clear that she would prefer to be invited without him.

  Although I have never known Jonke to lose his temper, said the mayor, for some reason he is one of the few people I know whom I would never take for granted.

  And now?

  Jonke watched Anna Heller leave her apartment building. The glass door swung open, and for a split second Anna Heller stood framed in the doorway, with the distant view of the mountains, and the adjacent brick building and the kids playing soccer on a nearby field brightly mirrored in the slowly closing door, so that he retained the simultaneous view of her descending the three steps and the shifting panorama on the glass door.

  By now he knew—how could he not?—that she was no longer staying in Helmuth’s commune, as he called it. Perhaps it was only a temporary rift. A misunderstanding that would be cleared up in a week or two. Someone had mentioned that she had been seen with Ulrich Hargenau. There seemed to be no way to avoid running into a Hargenau.

  He was on his way to the store, a ten-minute walk from the Neubaugasse, where she lived
. At first, after moving into Brumholdstein, it was disconcerting to find that the four separate residential areas were so much alike. Red brick. A kind of Art Deco entrance that clashed with the more or less prosaic brick exterior. Metal railing on the stairwell and on the steps leading to the building’s entrance. The houses were uniform in height. Since he too lived on the fourth floor, and his building was identical to hers, it was not farfetched for him, in his apartment, to close his eyes and concentrate on her movements, trying to locate her exact position in her place …trying to see what she might be doing.

  Jonke no longer remembered the reason, but one day he had stopped going to her house. Stopped visiting her fourth-floor apartment. She still blushes when taken by surprise. Hallo Anna.

  In another ten years she will be the spinster schoolteacher. Maybe not. But in Brumholdstein, where everything closes at six and the restaurants close at nine … a single woman is somewhat of an oddity … people ask: Why is she still single? If she is as much as seen on the street with a married man, everyone promptly assumes that there is something more to it.

  What else?

  Anna remains Gisela’s favorite teacher. If she could, Gisela would prefer to live in Brumholdstein for Anna’s sake. But now school is out, and she no longer sees Anna. She no longer is able to say to her father: Anna told me this, or Anna mentioned that. Once, when she saw Anna on the street together with Jonke, she promptly told her father about it, carefully watching his face to evaluate his reaction.

  Anna Heller may be living alone, but she is hardly isolated. She has a few friends, solid and supportive friends in whom she can confide. Friends who know about Jonke, and about the mayor, an untidy affair, and Helmuth, and even about Ulrich. They are the kinds of friends she can call, if need be, at midnight or even later, and they will sympathetically listen to what she has to say.

  So, she is by no means isolated. Her phone rings at least three, four times a day. A few pleasant invitations to dinners, or to a weekend in the country, or to a trip to Munich. Then there are the subscriptions that she shares with a friend to the chamber music concerts, to the opera, to the ballet.

  Whenever Jonke sees her, he tries to smile. To appear relaxed. To make casual conversation. Anything that will diminish the dourness of his face, a dourness that his thin bloodless lips, set in a permanently disapproving line of negation intensify.

  The last time they had been together, Jonke had accompanied Anna and three children from her class to the lookout point on the Geisenheimer peak, a two-hour drive from Brumholdstein. From atop the Geisenheimer one could get an excellent view of the mountain range to the south. The invitation to join them was an impromptu one, and although it was on a Thursday afternoon, when he normally was in his store, he accepted it at once. He had not minded the presence of the three young girls, one of whom happened to be Gisela, the daughter of Helmuth Hargenau. He had not, as yet, met Hargenau. If anything, the girls enabled him to relax. Jonke wanted to pay for everything, but Anna would not permit it. It was her treat, she said.

  It’s been at least two years, if not longer, since Jonke has been inside Anna’s apartment. But apartments do not change all that much. A few more books. Another reproduction on the wall. A new bedspread. Another coat of paint. A new standing lamp and a new couch. Possibly a new Mexican rug.

  In one of his rare outbursts, Jonke had once said to Anna: I can’t seem to do anything properly. I feel like a bloody fool.

  To which she had replied: Nonsense.

  That was long ago.

  After they stopped seeing each other, she avoided walking down the Stiftsmühl Strasse, where he had his store. Everyone knew that something had happened when she started to buy her books at Hubbler’s. No discounts, for one thing.

  What else?

  Rolph knew that something was up when the usually dour Jonke arrived whistling. He knew something was up, when out of the blue Jonke remarked that, in time, when he would marry, he intended to take a full month’s vacation. Maybe Portugal, or Spain … Will you close the store during your absence? asked Rolph.

  After thinking about that for a moment, Jonke said: No. No reason why you couldn’t carry on.

  Rolph nodded in agreement. Then, avoiding Jonke’s face, he asked: Is this something you are contemplating for the near future?

  It may be now or never, Jonke replied jovially. Pleased with himself. Ha ha. Now or never. Rolph laughed politely. Isn’t that the title of a novel by Hargenau?

  We don’t carry anything by Hargenau.

  The mayor’s wife just placed an order for it.

  I assure you that it will never arrive. She will have to get it somewhere else.

  Rolph was going to ask another question, then thought better of it.

  Speak of the devil, Jonke suddenly said, here he comes.

  When Ulrich entered the store, Rolph was typing and Jonke was engrossed in a list of out-of-print books. Neither looked up. Neither responded to Ulrich’s: Guten Tag.

  .

  33

  Past riches

  Sooner or later, every German, young or old, male or female, will come across some description in a book, or newspaper, or magazine of those grim events in the concentration camps, and not necessarily the remote ones in Poland, but camps in the heart of Germany and neighboring Austria, camps a short drive from Munich or Weimar or Berlin, or, as in the case of Durst, twenty minutes from Daemling. It may be a reference to the “paratroopers” at Mauthausen, as the inmates thrown over a precipice were called, or the “gold-diggers of Alaska” a reference to the men who at Auschwitz extracted gold fillings from the corpses, or mention of a certain Colonel Dirlewanger’s predilection for injecting young female inmates with strychnine and watching their death agonies in the regimental officer’s mess in Dachau. But how reliable is this evidence, these articles by former inmates or by writers who specialize in the sensational, in the outrageous? Is it simply in order to make a splash? It’s one way of getting into print. And then, of course, there are the films and photographs. What is one to make of them? The viewers, young and old alike, are faced with the grim problem of whether or not to accept the old film footage of the skeletonlike men and women in their striped prisoner’s uniforms, vacuously staring at the camera. Did this really occur or have these photographs been carefully doctored, ingeniously concocted simply in order to denigrate everything German? It would not be the first time. Germany has always been the target for slander, for gratuitous exaggerated and vituperative attacks: lampshades from human skin, soap produced from human fat. It’s too much. It’s more than one can bear.

  On a Thursday two large government trailer trucks arrived in Brumholdstein to remove the exhumed remains. Despite the secrecy, a great many people in Brumholdstein had either seen or heard of the presence of the trucks and the crew of thirty or forty men wearing gas masks, who were charged with the unpleasant task of loading them. Whoever the dead might be, someone at city hall had concluded that the mass grave was ultimately the responsibility of the government and not the township or city where the grave or graves were uncovered. A township like Brumholdstein could hardly be expected to foot the expenses of removing, identifying—if that was still possible—and then burying the dead. To begin with, how would Brumholdstein have proceeded with such an undertaking? Just one example: Are the corpses—really skeletons—to be buried separately or in another mass grave? Should an attempt be made, no matter how difficult and how embarrassing it may turn out to be—to identify them, and the cause of death? Was an accurate count essential? Was a breakdown of age and sex, provided it was possible, necessary? If the township were to undertake this task, would it also be called upon to publish its findings as well as its procedures? Who was to decide what? For instance, who had jurisdiction over the disposal of the corpses? Was it the Department of Health, under Dr. Erich Kaudner? Or the Department of Engineering, under Dr. Engineur Kleist. Could the skeletal remains be cremated? What about the press? Should an attempt be made to restrict
and censor information made available to the press? For the general welfare of the community, should the mayor and his officials claim that only a number of skeletons, not more than half a dozen, were actually dug up? Clearly, whatever the procedure, priority would have to be given to the repair of the Geigenheimer Strasse and compensation to the shopkeepers for any loss of revenue they may have suffered as a result of the street being closed to traffic.

  Furthermore, if the township were to bury the skeletons, should it also then erect some sort of monument, or would a simple marker or gravestone suffice? And what was to be inscribed on that marker or gravestone? What information? Would that depend on what the officials investigating the matter report to the mayor? Or would a simple line or two suffice? Perhaps: Men and women, inmates of Durst. Identity unknown. Cause of death, unknown. May they rest in peace.

  From the evidence available, not all were shot. According to the mayor, who also made a point of saying that all this preceded the existence of Brumholdstein, whatever happened took place in those desperate final days of the war. Most likely before the Americans reached Durst. The grave was an attempt to sweep the evidence out of sight.

  On the other hand, can anyone really rule out the possibility, remote as it might appear, that these people were not inmates of the camp but Germans killed in air raids, or killed by Americans, or killed by the inmates after they had been released, or killed by fanatic Germans … for in the final days of the war, anyone the least bit disinclined to participate in the final struggle, in that last futile battle, was strung up from the nearest tree or street light, without much fanfare. Thousands upon thousands of Germans died, unidentified, on the road, in villages, in trains, in the woods. Hence, it could not be ruled out that the skeletons found in the mass grave were Germans. It was unlikely, improbable, but could not be ruled out.

  Anyhow, much of this became academic when the government with its enormous resources and its immense bureaucratic machine offered to remove the skeletons from Brumholdstein. It stood to reason that the government would by now have all kinds of guidelines for this sort of task. It would not by any means be the first time that the government had been called upon to remove from a mass grave partially decomposed bodies or skeletons that presented a definite health hazard to the community. Knowing the way bureaucracies function, it was reasonable to suppose that a number of government pamphlets must be available on the subject. But knowing the realities of present-day existence, who can really tell what will happen? Perhaps the bodies, if they are found to be the bodies of Jews, will be shipped to Israel for burial? For all anyone can tell, there may already exist an agreement between the two countries on that matter. After all, if Germans were to be found in a mass grave anywhere else, out of sheer patriotism this country would want to have them shipped to Germany and not leave them to be buried on foreign soil.