by Colm Toibin
The teeming commercial life of the street had its own sensuality. He could idle at shop windows, or bathe in the general busyness, stepping aside as goods were delivered from a truck to a store. Most people in these streets were men. Thomas derived such pleasure from observing them that he almost passed the record store without realizing.
He remembered on his previous visit to the shop that he was like a child surrounded by things that he dearly wanted, an almost unimaginable richness of them. And he recalled too the close attention that the owner and his assistant, both English, had paid to him.
The stirring of desire that had occurred on the street found a focus now among thousands of records that he could choose from.
Even though a bell rang when he opened the door, no one appeared for some time. He noticed how cluttered the big square room was, with boxes of records piled up everywhere. When the owner emerged from an inner room wearing, Thomas thought, the same loose-fitting gray suit as he had on the first time Thomas had come to the shop, they both looked at each other and said nothing. The man must be half his age but this did not lessen the connection. As he glanced around again, he was sure that there were many more records here than on his previous visit.
“Why all this?” Thomas asked, indicating the extent of the merchandise on display.
“Business has never been as good as it is now. It means that America will soon be at war. People are stocking up with music for the war.”
“Cheerful music?”
“No, they want everything. From opera buffa to requiems.”
Thomas looked at the man’s full-blooded lips against the whiteness of his face. He seemed amused about the war. Thomas wondered where his assistant was.
He turned and began to examine a shelf of records.
“Those are not for you,” the man said. “Unless you have suddenly become interested in swing.”
“Swing?”
“They used to help pay the bills, but now they are only in the way. It is all Bach Masses and cello music and Schubert songs. I have a man who is collecting all the recordings of Hugo Wolf songs. A year ago, I had one Wolf record here that had spent five years gathering dust.”
“I never warmed to Wolf.”
“An interesting life, nonetheless. Composers have more interesting lives than writers. I can’t think why that should be. Unless yours is interesting.”
He was reminding Thomas that he knew exactly who he was.
“Buxtehude?” Thomas asked.
“No change there. Just the boring organ music. No one has made a recording of the vocal music. I expected Membra Jesu Nostri to appear, but there is no sign whatsoever of it. I sang in it, you know.”
“Where?”
“Durham Cathedral.”
His assistant now appeared.
“I have a friend who went to one of your lectures in Princeton,” the assistant said without any greeting.
Thomas took in his rosy cheeks and his blond hair.
“I don’t think we have been introduced by name,” he said.
“Henry,” both the owner and Henry himself said at the same time.
“Are you both called Henry?”
“He is Adrian,” Henry said, pointing to the owner.
The owner’s gaze was even more ironic and penetrating now that he had been named.
“Schoenberg?” Thomas asked.
“Is all the rage,” Adrian replied. “Last week an old couple of deep Episcopalians came in here and bought Pelleas und Melisande.”
“We have a new box of records with the lieder, what’s it called?” Henry said.
“Gurrelieder. Fourteen records.”
“What else do you have by him?”
“Quite a lot. He is almost popular.”
“Can you deliver any records I buy to my hotel?”
“When?”
“My wife and I are at the Bedford until tomorrow morning.”
“They can be delivered by the end of the day.”
“There is a contralto aria from Samson and Delilah.”
“ ‘Mon coeur,’ ” Henry said in a perfect French accent.
“Yes, that.”
“Just the aria, or the entire opera?” Adrian asked.
“Just the aria.”
“We’ll find something good.”
“And I have a recording of Beethoven Opus 132 but it is scratched. I would like another.”
“I also favor Opus 131,” Adrian said.
“I have a reason for wanting 132.”
“I have a number of recordings. Why don’t I include what I deem to be the best?”
“Yes, I can write you a check now. Maybe I should take all the late quartets and some Haydn and Mozart quartets and a Magic Flute. I presume I get a reduction for buying in bulk.”
“Is bulk a German concept?” Adrian asked.
When the amount owed was agreed on and a check was written, Adrian accompanied Thomas to the door.
“Does your wife always stay with you when you are in New York?” he asked.
“Not always,” Thomas replied.
As he shook Adrian’s hand, he saw that the record seller was blushing. It occurred to him that he himself was too old for his blushes to be fully apparent, but he hoped that he had shown how stirred he felt nonetheless.
* * *
The next day they ordered two cars to wait for them at the docks. It was a warm October day as they set out walking through the crowds. Thomas was relieved that there was no large group of journalists to greet Alma Mahler and Franz Werfel. He had been reading a volume of the letters between Gustav Mahler and his wife and had found Alma’s epistolary style unconstrained by any form of reserve. It would be best, he felt, if the New York press were spared a sample of her tone.
“My mother loved her,” Katia said, “but then, she loved anyone who was famous. I can’t imagine Alma Mahler traveling with that Nelly. But maybe Heinrich and Golo made peace between them. I still don’t understand how all five ended up traveling together.”
“Neither do I,” Thomas said. “They must have met Alma and Werfel in France and decided to exit together.”
They asked several passengers if they had sailed on the Nea Hellas and were assured that the ship had docked an hour earlier.
“It’s her luggage that is delaying her,” Thomas said. “Alma Mahler will have luggage.”
“And Nelly, your sister-in-law,” Katia said, “is bound to have said something untoward to a customs official.”
When the crowds thinned out, they moved close to the door from which passengers emerged. Eventually, led by Golo, all five appeared, and Thomas was shocked at how old and tired Heinrich seemed and how disgruntled Franz Werfel was. Nelly, on the other hand, looked like someone’s young and flighty daughter.
Alma Mahler moved ahead to embrace Thomas and Katia. As the others offered hugs and kisses or shook hands, Golo stood aside.
“All I want is a hot bath, a pink gin, and a good piano tuner waiting beside a baby grand,” Alma said, addressing the wider air and the city of New York itself as much as Thomas and Katia. “But I will start with the hot bath. Why is the hotel maid not running it now?”
“I would like so to join you,” Nelly said, touching Alma’s shoulder. “Yes, a hot bath!”
“Well, you won’t be joining me. I can assure you: of all the unlikely things that might occur in New York during our stay that will not be one of them.”
Nelly tried to smile.
“I have had quite enough of you,” Alma continued. “We all have had our fill of you.”
She turned to Heinrich.
“Tell this Nelly woman to be off with herself. There will be plenty, I’m sure, for someone like her to do in New York.”
Thomas noticed Golo watching him intently as Alma edged towards Werfel and cradled her head against him, putting one hand around his neck while holding an old leather briefcase firmly in the other hand. She began to purr in satisfaction as she snuggled in close to him.<
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“It is so good to be safe,” she said.
“I think it is time we all went to the cars,” Katia said. “We have two cars waiting. Your luggage can come later. We asked one of the drivers to arrange that with the shipping office.”
“We don’t have any luggage,” Heinrich said. “Just what you see here.”
He pointed to a few small shabby-looking cases.
“We lost everything,” Nelly said.
Having examined the suitcases, Thomas saw that Nelly’s stockings were torn and one of her shoes had a loose heel. Werfel’s shoes were coming apart. When he glanced up again, Golo was still staring at him. He stepped towards him and embraced him.
“A man from the New York Philharmonic,” Alma said, “promised to meet us. He has reserved a hotel for us. And if he does not materialize in the next thirty seconds, his orchestra can say goodbye to performing Gustav’s music ever again.”
Moving towards the cars, they found a man with a sign with the word “Mahler” written on it.
“That is me,” Alma said to the man. “And that also would have been me, a better-humored me, if you had placed yourself at a more convenient spot. This convinces me more than ever that America might be well advised to keep out of the war. It would be more of a hindrance than a help.”
Katia indicated to Thomas that they should hurry to the cars.
Alma walked along by his side.
“Don’t pay any attention to the stiffness and antisocial pouting of that son of yours. He just did not believe we would ever make it. There have been such adventures.”
She linked her arm with Thomas’s.
“Everybody likes Golo,” Alma went on. “Even though he does nothing to deserve it. He doesn’t talk and he doesn’t even smile. But no one seems to mind all that. The waiters on the ship liked him. The border guards liked him. Complete strangers liked him. Even that dreadful Nelly likes him. Now I hope I have seen her off. It would take me a week to go through all the elements of her ghastliness. And Heinrich, on the other hand, is so sensible. But we all have our moments of madness. Thus, Heinrich married Nelly. And look at me, marrying all these Jews.”
Katia, who was walking ahead, having heard the last remark, looked behind her in alarm.
Alma let out a large laugh.
Once they reached the cars, Alma and Werfel promised to come and visit soon in Princeton. Before saying goodbye to all of the others, Alma kissed Thomas on the lips.
When the Alma car, with the disconsolate man from the Philharmonic in the front passenger seat, had pulled away, Heinrich said that he would like to travel to Princeton with Thomas and Katia, and perhaps Nelly and Golo would follow in the car behind.
As soon as they had gone through the Holland Tunnel, it became clear to Thomas why Heinrich had wanted to be alone with them.
“I want to rescue Mimi and Goschi,” he said.
Heinrich’s daughter Goschi must be, Thomas thought, in her early twenties.
“Where are they?” Thomas asked.
“They are still in Prague.”
“What are their circumstances?”
“Things are closing in on people like them. Mimi is Jewish, and they will also be singled out because of me. I have had desperate messages from Mimi, messages that Nelly doesn’t know about. I spoke to Varian Fry about it, and he said I should speak to you. He seems to think you have great power.”
Thomas knew that it would not be easy to help his brother’s ex-wife and his daughter.
“If you give me all their details, then I will make representations. But I’m not sure—”
“Sometimes,” Katia interrupted, “things happen very slowly and then very quickly. So you mustn’t worry.”
Thomas wished that she had not said that. It suggested that something really could be done for Mimi and Goschi.
“How long is it since you have seen Mimi?” Thomas asked.
“It is a while,” Heinrich said. “I should have known all this was coming ten years ago. I warned everyone else.”
“We are lucky to be here,” Katia said.
“I am too old to change country,” Heinrich said. “And I was too old to stay in France. We learned that they came for us the day after we left the hotel. They missed us by a day.”
“The French police?”
“No, the Germans. We would have been taken straight to the homeland. You write your books, little novels, and you make some speeches, and then you become a golden prize for fascists. The horror is that I led Nelly into this, and that I have abandoned Mimi and Goschi.”
* * *
They told Golo about Monika as soon as they arrived. He kept coming back to the image of her husband drowning in front of her.
“You have just been through that journey,” Katia said. “You might be the best to write to her. We have all written, but Erika says that the poor child still can’t sleep or settle and she cries out all the time.”
“I would cry all the time too,” Golo said. “The idea of being torpedoed! It is unimaginable.”
Before supper, Golo found Thomas in his study.
“Is America going to declare war?” he asked.
“There is strong opposition to war here,” Thomas said. “Maybe the bombing of London will change that, but I am not sure.”
“They have to join. Have you made your position clear?”
Thomas looked at him quizzically.
“You have been silent again?” Golo asked.
“I am biding my time.”
He was on the point of saying that he had not wanted to risk the safe passage of Golo and Heinrich and Nelly by criticizing the American government, but he presumed that Golo might realize that.
“Why has no one mentioned Klaus?”
“He is in New York.”
“Why did he not come to meet us?”
“He has not been in contact for some time. He moves from hotel to hotel. When your mother tried to locate him, she did not succeed.”
* * *
Thomas had forgotten how close Michael, now twenty-one, was to Golo, ten years his senior. As soon as Golo arrived, the two huddled together, ignoring everyone else. When they were joined by Gret and the baby, Golo put his arm around his sister-in-law and then examined the baby with a look of pride and good humor. He asked to be allowed to hold the child, and once he had little Frido in his arms he rocked him back and forth.
With the baby fast asleep in the other room, Thomas watched Golo speaking attentively to Gret over supper to make sure that she did not feel left out. He was, Thomas thought, the considerate one, the dutiful son, the one who looked after Monika when his mother was recovering from her time in the sanatorium, when his father, preoccupied by the war, was writing a book, and when Erika and Klaus were doing whatever they pleased.
“The best thing about Princeton,” Michael said, “is that our father has access to the library. He can take out any number of books. The German holdings are good.”
Katia encouraged Michael and Gret to go out for lunch the next day, leaving her with Frido. She forbade Golo to lift him out of his cot.
“How will I get to know him if I don’t lift him up?”
“Your father likes to sit staring at him. That is what he does if we can get Michael and Gret out of the room.”
“Does that not frighten the poor child?” Golo asked.
“Unlike other members of the family,” Thomas said, “Frido is sweet-natured.”
“All the more reason why I want to lift him up,” Golo replied.
He bent down and whispered into the cot.
“I am your uncle who has been rescued from the Nazis.”
“Don’t say that word in front of the baby!” Katia said.
“I am your uncle who is back in the bosom of his family.”
Thomas waited for Michael and Gret and the baby to leave for New York before he unpacked the new records. When he put on the Schoenberg, it was even more affecting than the music that Michael had played on the v
iola. He wished he had the sheet music so that he could see what was happening technically. Usually, when he bought something new, Katia would stay in the room to listen, but this time she came to the doorway for a few moments and then went back to the kitchen.
In the days that followed, it rained and the house was noisy. Nelly, instead of staying in her room, looked for someone to talk to. Thomas was amused at how skilled Katia was at avoiding any lengthy engagement with her. If Thomas himself heard Nelly’s heels on the floorboards, he did not emerge from his study; Nelly had been warned by Katia not to disturb him under any circumstances. When she joined Golo a number of times and flicked through the pile of books he kept close to him, Golo moved himself and his books to the attic.
After a while, Nelly was found talking to the servants.
When Franz Werfel phoned, Thomas invited him and Alma to dinner. The news that they had accepted was met with a groan from Heinrich, Nelly and Golo.
“We were having a very peaceful time,” Golo said.
“It will be good for us all,” Katia said, “to be on our best behavior.”
* * *
Alma was dressed all in white, with an expensive string of pearls around her neck. Werfel walked behind her. He looked to Thomas like someone who believed that he was soon to be deported.
Alma began to talk even before her first drink arrived.
“It has been hectic in New York. Night after night. Lunch after lunch. Outing after outing. In Vienna, as you know, I am famous because of my first husband, but in New York they are familiar with my own work, my songs especially. I mean, not everyone, but people in the know. And they flock to our hotel. Puddings here is exhausted.”
She pointed to Werfel.
When the drinks came, she stood up.
“Now I need to see your study,” she said to Thomas. “I always like to see where my men do their work.”
As he passed Katia on his way to the study, she gave him a look as if to say that she was impressed by the quality of the company he was keeping.
“Oh, this is marvelous,” Alma said. “And the door seems strong. American doors are often made of the cheapest wood. You need good doors, what with that Nelly.”