by Colm Toibin
“They converted?”
“My aunt said that they assimilated.”
* * *
One evening, when Thomas had reached the entrance to his building, having stayed late with Paul and his brother in a café, someone came up behind him while he was fumbling to put his key in the lock. When he turned, he saw a tall, thin, middle-aged man with glasses. It took him a moment to recognize Herr Huhnemann from Spinell’s.
“I need to speak with you,” Herr Huhnemann said in a hushed, hoarse voice.
Thomas thought he was in some trouble, that he had been attacked or perhaps robbed. He wondered how he knew where he lived. The street was deserted. He felt that he had no choice but to invite Herr Huhnemann into the building. When he got to his apartment door, however, he had second thoughts.
“Do you really need to see me tonight?” he asked.
“Yes,” Herr Huhnemann said.
In the apartment, he invited his guest to remove his coat. Once it was established that he had no injuries, Thomas thought, Herr Huhnemann could go. He might need money for a cab.
“It took me a while to get your address,” Herr Huhnemann said as they sat opposite each other in the small living room. “But I found a friend of yours in a café and I told him it was urgent.”
Thomas looked at him, bewildered. The hair was still gray and spiky. But there was something else apparent now that he had never seen before, a sort of delicacy in the features that became more noticeable when his guest was silent.
“I want to ask your forgiveness,” Herr Huhnemann said.
Thomas was about to say that he was grateful for being found out at Spinell’s, but Huhnemann stopped him.
“Since I had a key to the building, I could gain access to the office when it was empty. I must confess to you that I would go there at night just to touch the seat where you sat. I would do more. I would put my whole face down on that seat. And all I wanted during the day was some response from you.”
It struck Thomas that it might have been Paul Ehrenberg who had given this man his address.
“No matter what I did, no matter how many times I passed, no matter how many times I spoke to you, you saw me as merely another clerk in the office. And then, when I observed that you had not been copying the ledger, I took my revenge on you. I must ask your forgiveness. I cannot sleep unless I have your forgiveness.”
“You have my forgiveness,” Thomas said.
“Is that all?”
When Huhnemann stood up, Thomas presumed that he was preparing to leave. He stood too. Huhnemann moved slowly towards him and kissed him. At first, it was just his lips against Thomas’s, but then he slid his tongue into Thomas’s mouth as he put his hands inside Thomas’s shirt and then, with more deliberation, let his hands edge lower. His breath was sweet. He waited for a response before he did anything else.
What happened between them seemed natural, as though no other set of actions was possible. Herr Huhnemann, clearly, had more experience than Thomas. Thus, he could guide him and encourage him. Naked, he was tender and vulnerable, almost soft. Compared to his severity during the day, this was strange. He came to climax with astonishing gasps like a man suddenly possessed by some demon.
It was only when Huhnemann had left that Thomas began to believe that he had not actually wanted what had occurred. Huhnemann had managed to lure him into it. It had been gradual and enacted with skill. Once he had dressed himself, he felt the deep revulsion he should have felt as soon as Huhnemann had made his intentions plain.
He got his coat. The street was still empty. Huhnemann had disappeared into the night. Whatever happened in the future, Thomas determined, that man would never gain access to his apartment again. If he ever presented himself at his doorway, Thomas would let him know that what had occurred between them would not ever be repeated.
He found a café that was quiet and stayed open late and he sat at a table towards the back. He ordered a coffee. What disturbed him most was his own reaction. He had wanted to be kissed and touched, even by Huhnemann, whom he had viewed before only as a bustling middle-aged man whose attention irritated him, a busybody who caused him to be found out at work.
How was it that he had felt even a sliver of desire for him? Would he, as he grew older, wait at night in the hope that Huhnemann or someone like him would approach his building on the chance that there was a light on in his living room? Would he have to watch as his visitor hastily dressed himself, unwilling even to catch his eye?
Or would he meet other versions of Paul, who would tease him and fill his dreams? Would he be known in Munich, or in whatever city he moved to, as a man who could be discreetly visited at night?
He stood up to pay, sure what he was going to do. The certainty remained with him as he walked home and was even more present when he woke in the morning. He would ask Katia Pringsheim to marry him. If she refused, he would ask her again. Once the dream of marrying her came into his mind, he felt a new sort of contentment.
* * *
Over the next while the battle lines were carefully drawn on the question of whether Katia should accept his offer of marriage. Her grandmother was vehemently opposed to the idea, while her mother greatly favored the match. Katia’s father thought that, if she were marrying anyone, he should be a professor rather than a writer.
Thomas’s mother, in turn, thought Katia was spoiled by her rich family. She wished that Thomas would ally himself with someone sweeter, less inclined to show off. Heinrich, who was now in Italy, wrote to Thomas mainly on literary matters while his sisters expressed themselves happy to have Katia as a sister-in-law.
As he sat with the twins Katia and Klaus, Thomas realized the extent of the chasm between them and him. They had never known loss. They had never been uprooted from anywhere. It was presumed from childhood that they were talented; they were encouraged to follow wherever their talents led. Had one of the family wanted to be a clown, then they would have proudly been given a false nose and sent to the circus. But they did not wish to be clowns. They were musicians and scientists. Each one of them excelled at something. And each one of them would inherit a fortune. While Katia’s father could behave like a distracted mathematician, he managed the vast amount of money and the valuable property and shares he had inherited from his father. He made clear to Thomas a number of times that his only daughter was, in his opinion, the most intelligent of his children. She could, if she were ready to make sacrifices, become a distinguished scientist.
The Pringsheims took for granted a knowledge of literature and music and painting. A few times when Thomas found himself talking at some length about a writer or a book, he noticed Katia and Klaus surreptitiously glancing at each other. It must have seemed, he thought, as if he were trying to display his learning. That was something that the Pringsheims never did. They had no time for earnestness.
When, in a letter, he first proposed marriage to Katia, she replied to say that she was perfectly happy as she was. She enjoyed her studies, she wrote, as well as the company of her family and her time spent cycling and playing tennis. She was only twenty-one, she emphasized, eight years younger than he was. She had no desire for a husband or for a role as manager in the domestic sphere.
Every time he saw her, he felt exposed. She often said little, leaving him and her brother to talk. Klaus refused to be serious. From the beginning, also, Klaus understood the effect he could have on Thomas, how he could draw Thomas’s eyes from his sister to himself. The game Klaus played with Thomas appeared to amuse Katia.
Her handwriting was almost childish, her epistolary style pithy and simple. Thomas realized that the only way he could get her attention was by writing her long and complex letters, the sort of letters that he might write to Heinrich. Since he could not prevail if he attempted to be sophisticated or effortlessly stylish like her brothers, then he would not try. Instead, he would take her seriously as no one else ever had by writing to her with considerable gravity. One risk was that his letters would bo
re her. But the other possibility was that Katia, coming from a family that, despite all their wit and irony, viewed artists with respect, would see him as a novelist in command of his own thoughts, rather than a nervous, overenthusiastic son of a Lübeck merchant.
* * *
One evening, as he sat in a café, he saw Paul Ehrenberg enter. They had not been in touch for some time.
“I hear that you have found a princess and are seeking to awaken her,” he said.
Thomas smiled.
“Marriage is not for you,” Paul said. “You should know that.”
Thomas indicated that Paul should keep his voice down.
“Everyone at this table knows that marriage is not for you. Anyone who follows your eyes can see where they land.”
“How is your work?” Thomas asked.
Paul shrugged, ignoring his question.
“She is young, your princess. And rich.”
Thomas did not respond.
Paul waited for a week before he appeared without warning at the door of Thomas’s apartment. It had been raining and his clothes were wet. Thomas found him a towel for his hair and a hanger for his overcoat. He thought that Paul had perhaps come to talk about Julia, who had announced her intention of leaving Munich to live in rural Bavaria.
“I hope you will advise her not to contemplate such a move,” Thomas said.
“I have already told her that I don’t know what she might do in rural Bavaria. Most people would do anything not to live there.”
“She thinks my younger brother will do better in a rural school.”
Thomas wondered how long they could go on talking like this. He went to the two windows and pulled down the blinds.
“What were you about to say?” Paul asked.
“Nothing.”
“I don’t think you should marry,” Paul said.
“I will surprise you, then,” Thomas replied.
Chapter 4 Munich, 1905
Once the engagement was announced, the Pringsheims gave a dinner for Julia Mann, her daughter Lula and her son-in-law, Josef Löhr. It was the first formal dinner that Thomas had attended in their house. On entering the main drawing room, Löhr exclaimed: “I would say that all of this cost a pretty penny.” Katia turned to smile at Thomas as if to suggest that there was no remedy for his brother-in-law’s banality. He wished that Carla were not on tour with a play; her abilities as an actress might be some use in this company.
They were received with warmth and openness by Katia’s parents. With great ceremony, the mother oversaw the serving of drinks while Katia’s father directed his remarks on the day’s news to Löhr, who replied suitably. When they were called to the dining room, Thomas’s mother had wandered into one of the farthest reception rooms, where he found her examining the fabric on a set of chairs. He encouraged her to follow him to the dining room. While the food was served, she remained silent, attempting, Thomas thought, to play the part of a demure, refined widow.
A glass vase holding an orchid stood close to each setting on the table. The glassware and tableware were old, Thomas thought, but he could not be sure how old. The candelabra looked modern. All around them on the walls hung modern pictures. If this were Lübeck, Thomas saw, his mother would be familiar with this house, invited regularly. She would be able to talk freely to Katia’s father about his neighbors and his colleagues. She would speak to him with teasing familiarity about his decorative skills and his taste in art. She would find that she had friends in common with his wife.
Here at the Pringsheims’, however, Julia Mann was out of her depth. Alfred Pringsheim was not a merchant. He did not own shops or warehouses or export anything. He was merely a professor of mathematics who had inherited money from his father, who had invested in coal and railways. While he could look after his money, he enjoyed declaring that he knew nothing whatsoever about making it. And he was not even sure he knew how to spend it, he would add. He had built the house because he needed shelter and bought the paintings because he and his wife admired them.
“Where do you do your banking, might I ask?” Löhr responded.
“Oh, I always say that I myself look after my family,” Alfred said, “and the Bethmanns look after me.”
“That makes sense,” Löhr replied. “Bethmann’s. A good old firm. Jewish.”
“That has nothing to do with it,” Alfred said. “I would bank with Bavarian Catholics if I thought they knew anything about money.”
“Well, if you were ever changing bankers, I could introduce you to the very best people. I mean, investment bankers who have their ear to the ground and know which way the wind is blowing.”
Katia looked at Thomas, her gaze filled with irony.
“The man who thinks too much about money is himself poor,” Alfred said. “That is my motto.”
He sipped his wine, nodded his head and sipped his wine again.
“I wonder if there will come a time when there won’t be banks at all, when there won’t even be money,” he said.
Löhr looked at him sharply.
“In the meantime,” Pringsheim added, “every morning I feel a little thrill when I wake to find that my bedcover is made of silk. Strange for a man who doesn’t care about money!”
Thomas noticed that his mother was looking around the room, taking in the paintings and pieces of sculpture and then moving her attention to the carved ceiling, craning her neck to see the elaborate designs between the beams.
While Hedwig Pringsheim, Katia’s mother, made sure that everyone had enough to eat and drink, a few times signaling to her husband that he should let others speak, she herself did not contribute to the conversation at all. Her silence seemed like an artful way of asserting herself.
The evening was more relaxed because Klaus Pringsheim was in Vienna. Katia did not have anyone with whom to share her amusement. Instead, her brother Heinz, a student of physics, immensely proper, sat at the table like a young man destined for a military career. When his face was in repose, he appeared to Thomas even more beautiful than Klaus, the skin of his face smoother, his hair shinier, his lips fuller.
As Thomas heard Katia trying to make conversation with his sister, explaining the family’s love for the music of Wagner and, in recent years, Mahler, he felt even more deeply the difference between his own family and the family into which he was marrying.
“And we love hardly anyone in between,” Katia said. “My mother is almost more particular than my father.”
“She likes Mahler too?” Lula asked.
“Gustav Mahler is an old friend of hers,” Katia said and smiled innocently. “He always says that Vienna would be perfect if only my mother could come and live there. He admires her hugely. But she can’t live in Vienna because my father’s work is here.”
“But did your father not mind him saying that?”
“Luckily, my father never listens to anyone. He listens to music. Maybe that is enough. So he doesn’t know what Mahler says. He thinks about mathematics most of the time. There are theorems named for him.”
Thomas could see that Lula did not know what a theorem was.
“It must be wonderful living in this beautiful house,” Lula said.
“Tommy says that your family owned a beautiful house in Lübeck,” Katia replied.
“But not like this!”
“I think there are better houses in Munich,” Katia said. “But we have this, so what can we do?”
“Enjoy it, I suppose,” Lula said.
“Well, I’m getting married to your brother, so I won’t be enjoying it for much longer.”
* * *
A few times in the weeks before the wedding, Thomas managed to kiss Katia, but her twin brother hovered too much for him to be comfortable, and Katia had a way of suggesting to him that he should exercise discretion while making clear also that she found the restrictions imposed on her almost a joke.
When Klaus entered the room, having briefly left them alone together, he would smile insinuating
ly. Often, he would go straight to his sister and tickle her, making her squirm and giggle. Thomas wished Klaus would devote more time to his music and perhaps allow his brother Peter to take his place and represent the family with more decorum.
Because Katia spent a deal of time in her room preparing herself for outings, Klaus sat with Thomas, discussing art and music in a lazy, relaxed way, or questioning him about his life.
“I have never been to Lübeck,” he said one day while Katia was upstairs. “And no one I know has ever been to Hamburg, let alone Lübeck. Munich must be strange for you. I feel free here. Freer than in Berlin or Frankfurt or indeed Vienna. In Munich, for example, if you wanted to kiss a boy, no one would mind. Can you imagine the fuss such a thing would create in Lübeck?”
Thomas smiled faintly, pretending that he had barely taken in what Klaus had said. If Klaus persisted, he thought, he would find a new subject and make sure that they did not return to this one.
“Of course, it would all depend on whether the boy actually wanted to be kissed or not,” Klaus said. “I think most boys do.”
“Does Mahler make much money?” Thomas asked.
He knew that the subject of Mahler would be too enticing for Klaus.
“He lives quite comfortably,” Klaus said. “But he worries about everything. That is his nature. In the middle of a huge symphony, he worries about the few notes he has written for some poor little piccolo player who is hiding at the back.”
“And Mahler’s wife?”
“She bewitched him. She loved his fame. She behaves as though he is the only man in the world. She is beautiful. She enchants me.”
“Who enchants you?” Katia said as she came into the room.
“You do, my twin, my double, my delight. Only you.”
Katia made her hands into claws to scratch his face. She let out a loud animal sound.
“Who wrote the rule that twins cannot marry each other?” Klaus asked. He made the question sound serious.