by Colm Toibin
Thomas felt he should change the subject.
“I met you and Mahler just before he died,” Thomas said. “I don’t know if you remember. I attended rehearsals of his Eighth Symphony in Munich.”
“I knew you then. Or I knew you to see. You and your wife were fixtures at the opera in Munich. Everyone pointed you out. He felt lucky that you came. I always call that Eighth Symphony the Apple Symphony, as it is filled with apple blossom and apple pie. And plenty of cinnamon and sugar with all those choirs. I had no peace during that time.”
“I thought it was a remarkable work.”
She approached him and held his hand and then stood with her back to the door. She seemed to be excited.
“And it struck me then,” she went on, “that we could have made a real match, you and I. I would have loved a proper German to marry, someone outward-looking, as you are, not in a permanent state of gloomy introspection, like Gustav and Werfel. Even Gropius, although he wasn’t Jewish. Thousands of years of sadness can wear one down eventually.”
Thomas thought that perhaps he should warn her not to repeat these views in public anywhere in New York.
“And I would love keeping house for you,” she went on. “I always thought you were more handsome than your brother. And now that I am close to you, I feel even more certain about you.”
The gallant thing to do might be to say something in return. Instead, he tried to make sure that he would remember every word she said so that he could recount it later to Katia.
At the table, Alma spoke freely, hopping from one topic to another.
“I think people who say they are sick have a duty to actually be sick,” she said. “If Gustav had a pimple on his nose, he was sure it was the end. And I suppose he had the courage of his convictions since he died young. He was, indeed, sick. But it did come as a shock because he was sick so many times before he was really sick.”
Thomas thought how strange it was that she should speak of Mahler in this way. Thirty years after his death, he was already among the pantheon of great composers. Alma spoke of him in such a casual way as this helpless creature to whom she had been married. He studied the light in her eyes. She must have brightened up Mahler’s life with her darting, chirping talk.
“Gustav used to go silent as you have just done. It was an energetic silence. And when I asked him what he was thinking of, he would reply: ‘Notes, quavers.’ What are you thinking of?”
“Words, sentences,” Thomas said.
“Puddings and I want you and Katia to come and live in Los Angeles. That is where we have decided to settle. Puddings is going to write screenplays, or at least that is the idea. And we have gone through a list of everyone there and, except for the Schoenbergs, there is no one to talk to.”
“What are the Schoenbergs like?” Thomas asked as a way of distracting attention from the fact that Heinrich and Nelly, also planning to live in Los Angeles, were not on Alma’s list of people to talk to.
“They are pure Vienna.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“He cares only about his music. Nothing else matters. Oh, except posterity. He cares about that too, and so does she. They are single-minded people and everything they say is interesting. That is Vienna.”
Across the table Thomas noticed that one of the straps of Nelly’s dress had slipped from her shoulder, making part of her brassiere visible. Just as he found that Alma Mahler’s provocative tone reminded him of a Germany he had lost, he was intrigued by Nelly’s brashness. Whereas Alma was like the young bohemian women in those cafés in Munich, Nelly had carried with her across the Atlantic the tone of German women who worked in shops or bars, a tone that was flirtatious but also had an edge of contempt, a tone that suggested its owner could see through most forms of pretension.
He listened to the accents of the two women in the same way as he might have eaten different kinds of food that came from his childhood.
“I am longing for some California sunshine,” Nelly said. “Aren’t we all? Los Angeles will be filled with cars, and I adore cars. People talk of America as exciting. Well, they haven’t been in Princeton, that is all I have to say! Last week I really would have liked a drink. Not just a drink, but a drink in a bar. So I went down the road. And what did I find? Not a bar in sight. I asked a man and he told me that there were no bars in Princeton. Can you believe that?”
“You went out on your own looking for a bar?” Alma asked.
“Yes.”
“In Vienna, we have names for a woman who does that.”
Nelly stood up and moved slowly out of the room, leaving her food half-finished.
“Of all of the Second Viennese School composers,” Alma said, addressing Thomas directly, “the most talented and original is Webern. But, of course, he is the one who isn’t Jewish so he gets the least attention.”
“But he hasn’t written an opera,” Golo said.
“Because no one has asked him to. Why haven’t they asked him to? Because he is not Jewish!”
Katia put her two hands on the table and sighed loudly. Both Heinrich and Werfel looked uncomfortable.
“My wife,” Werfel said, “when she has some drinks, likes to speak ill of the Jewish race. I was hoping she would not carry this with her to America.”
From the other room, there came a crash. The needle of the record player had landed on a piece of metal and, since the volume had been turned up high, the noise was unbearable. Soon there was a jagged scratching as the needle was placed carelessly on a record and the sound of a jazz melody went through the house.
Katia shouted: “Turn that off!” as Nelly came into the dining room with a drink in her hand.
“I decided to put some oomph into the evening,” she said.
She walked unsteadily to the back of Heinrich’s chair and put her arms around his neck.
“I love my Heinri,” she said.
Katia went into the other room and turned off the record player.
“I think it is time my wife went to bed,” Heinrich said.
He stood up with some difficulty, as though he were in pain, and took Nelly’s drink from her, leaving it on the table. And then he caught her hand and kissed her on the side of the face before they both proceeded out of the room without saying good night to anyone.
Their steps could be heard on the stairs as they made their way to the floor above.
“As I was saying,” Alma said, as if she had been interrupted, “I have simply never warmed to Schumann. I don’t like his symphonies. I don’t like his piano music. I don’t like his quartets. And, more than anything, I don’t like his songs. And I believe that you can always judge a composer by his songs. My husband’s songs were exquisite, as were Schubert’s. And I love some of the French songs. And the English songs. And there are a few Russian songs. But nothing by Schumann.”
“My parents loved his Dichterliebe,” Katia said. “It was often played in our house. I would love to hear it again.”
Golo began to recite:
“From my tears burst
Many full-blown flowers,
And my sighs become
A nightingale chorus.”
“Ah, Heine,” Alma said, “he was a wonderful poet, and how clever Schumann was to use him. But it does not sing to me, sighs or no sighs. If Los Angeles is free of Schumann, as I think it is likely to be, then I will be a happy woman.”
There was no mention of Nelly’s putting on the record. Alma and Werfel left when the car Thomas had ordered came for them. They made the Manns promise they would consider moving to California and living near them.
“But no Schumann, mind!” Alma shouted. “No Schumann.”
She sang the opening of one of his songs while getting into the car.
As Golo prepared to go to his room, Katia asked him and Thomas to follow her into the dining room, where they could close the door and not be easily heard.
“I have three words for her,” Katia said. “And I cannot think of t
he shame that will be brought on this house when news leaks out, as it will, that Mrs. Heinrich Mann was seen wandering alone on the streets of Princeton looking for a bar. She is a trollop and she is a slattern and she is a barmaid. And to make matters worse, she put on a display tonight in front of Alma Mahler. I don’t know what Alma will think of us.”
“Alma had her own moments,” Golo said.
“She has always been larger than life,” Katia said. “But she has been through so much.”
“You mean, losing her two husbands?” Golo asked.
“She was devoted to Mahler, as far as I know,” Thomas said.
“Well, it will be a while before she agrees to come to our house again,” Katia said. “We were so looking forward to having them. You know, it’s lonely here, Golo!”
* * *
The next morning Thomas was in his study when Katia opened the door and closed it behind her. She looked worried. She had just dropped Heinrich and Nelly at the station so they could go to New York to buy clothes. Thomas presumed that she was coming to tell him something Nelly had done.
“No, it’s not Nelly, it’s Golo. I had a cup of tea with him just now and he said things that I thought you should hear. I have asked him to wait in the morning room.”
Golo, who was reading a book, did not look up when his parents came into the room, even though Thomas was sure he must have heard them.
“I didn’t seek all this drama,” Golo said. “My mother asked me what I thought of last night and I felt that I had no choice but to let her know.”
His tone, Thomas noted, was like that of a much older person, perhaps even a clergyman. He sat in an armchair with his legs crossed and looked at them both severely.
“You don’t know the details of how we got out of France because none of us wants to go over them,” Golo said. “But there are things you should know. When we met Werfel and Alma, she had twenty-three suitcases. Twenty-three! She, Werfel and the suitcases had been in Lourdes. Her sole preoccupation seemed to be the fate of those suitcases. When Varian Fry told her that she would probably have to walk over the Pyrenees and should try to make herself as invisible as possible, she asked him who would take her suitcases.”
He stared into the distance before he began again.
“In a briefcase, the one she had with her when she disembarked, Frau Mahler had the original score of Bruckner’s Third Symphony and a lock of Beethoven’s hair that had once been presented to her husband. I don’t know what she intended to do with the hair, but I know what plans she had for the Bruckner. She wanted to sell it to Hitler. And Hitler wanted to buy it. When I say Hitler, I mean Adolf Hitler. They had even fixed on a price. The issue was that she wanted cash and the German embassy in Paris did not have enough cash to satisfy her. But she was ready to sell it to Hitler, who remains concerned, apparently, about the fate of Bruckner’s papers.”
“Surely that was just a story she told?” Thomas said.
“Ask her. She will show you the correspondence,” Golo replied. “She feels no shame. And she felt no shame on the journey from France into Spain, which was more arduous than any of us had foreseen. It involved climbing sheer rock. Our guides were nervous. I was never sure they were not taking us on a circuitous route so we could be arrested before anyone knew. We were all wearing the wrong clothes but Alma looked as if she were going to some ball. Her white dress looked like a flag of surrender to be seen billowing for miles. Once we set out, she began to scream that she wanted to go back. She called Werfel names. Her names for Jewish people were worthy of an Austrian.”
Golo stopped and stared at them both. While Thomas, for a moment, had thought he was holding back tears, he now saw that he was fully collected.
“It is appalling,” Golo said, “that we had to be in Alma’s company last night. On that journey over the Pyrenees, Nelly could not have been more kind and more careful. She loves Heinrich, she really does, and she made that obvious all the time. She even helped me to lift him and at times carry him when he was too weak to go on. She was so sweet to him. As we rested, she reassured him. She is a most graceful, tender person. On the journey by ship as my uncle lay in his cabin making drawings of women, Nelly told me that he had actually left her behind when he fled from Berlin to France. He left her to take money from his bank account and settle his affairs, all of which put her in grave danger. She was even arrested at one point and was lucky to escape. Alma, in the meantime, was still worried about her luggage. Varian Fry crossed the border with some of it, which she then sent separately to New York from Barcelona. Varian was infinitely patient with her on the luggage question, as he was wise all the time in how he saved us. In the future, the world should know what he did, just how brave he was. But now, here in this house, I insist that what Nelly did should also be understood and her warm heart suitably appreciated. I do not want to hear her being called a trollop or a slattern or any other word. She is a good woman. I want that to be known. Yes, she was indeed a barmaid, and I trust that, since we are in exile now, we have not brought with us the snobbery that so maimed our lives when we lived in Munich.”
Thomas decided to leave it to Katia to respond, but when she remained silent, he saw that he had to speak.
“I’m sure Nelly is very fine. And she is a member of the family,” he said.
“As long as that is fully understood,” Golo said. “I insist that she be treated with respect.”
Thomas was tempted to ask Golo under whose roof he was living. Who had arranged his safety? Who was supporting him as he read library books? And he wanted to ask him further in what way his life in Munich had been maimed?
Instead, he gazed at him coldly and then smiled in a forced way. He led Katia from the morning room back to his study. They closed the door and sat in silence until Katia eventually departed, leaving Thomas alone to continue his morning’s work.
Chapter 13 Pacific Palisades, 1941
When Monika arrived in Princeton from England, neither Thomas nor Katia was sure how to console her. On seeing her first, Thomas had expected someone broken, shocked, still suffering. He took her close to him and hugged her. He was ready to say how unimaginably terrible her ordeal must have been, and how tragic her loss. But as he was preparing to speak, she cried out: “This house is far too big. It’s another example of our family. I wish we had a smaller house. A house like other people have. Mother, could we please have a smaller house?”
“In time, my dear,” Katia said. “In time.”
“I suppose there are servants?” Monika asked. “While the world is at war, the Manns have servants.”
Katia did not reply.
“I have been dreaming about a kitchen. A refrigerator filled with food.”
“I am sure there is food,” Katia said.
“Are you not tired?” Thomas asked her. He wished Elisabeth were here, or even Michael and Gret. It was typical, he thought, of Michael not to be where he might be useful.
When Golo appeared in the doorway, his sister recoiled from him.
“Don’t approach me. Don’t hug me,” she said. “My father has just done that. It was like being embraced by a dead trout. It will take me years to recover.”
“Worse than being torpedoed in the Atlantic?” Golo asked.
“Much worse!” Monika said and began to shriek with laughter. “I need to be rescued. Help me. Send for the fire brigade. Mother, do they have fire brigades in America?”
“Yes, they do,” Katia said calmly.
* * *
As Thomas got ready to leave Princeton and abandon this world of bare trees and scarce sunlight, the prospect of moving house again, perhaps for the last time, excited him.
Once he had announced his decision to leave the university, fewer invitations for lunch or dinner arrived. His refusal to accept Princeton’s hospitality was seen by his colleagues as a sort of betrayal, and they did not want him, a prize example of their concern for what was happening in Germany, in their homes as much as they had before. K
atia told him that she felt the same when she encountered their wives.
He was amused at the suggestion that he was moving to some great American wilderness. On their visits to Los Angeles, he and Katia had noted how cheap it was to buy or rent a house near the ocean, how spacious the gardens and how glorious the weather.
Every report they received on the city was good. Heinrich and Nelly had found it easy to rent a house and a car. Even though he was having trouble with Warner Brothers, which had no interest in any of his ideas for films, Heinrich wrote to say that he felt some days he had arrived in paradise.
“The presence of so many German exiles there will be a gift and a nuisance,” Katia said, “but you can leave me to deal with the troublesome ones.”
“They will all be trouble,” Thomas said.
“Not as much trouble as our neighbors in Munich turned out to be!”
Thomas was surprised to receive a short note from Eugene Meyer, asking him to meet at the Knickerbocker Club in New York at a time that could be arranged by telephone with Meyer’s secretary. When Thomas and Katia had stayed with the Meyers, Eugene had remained in the background while Agnes dominated the table. Alone together, Eugene and Thomas had discussed the awkwardness of train times between New York and Princeton and between Washington, D.C., and New York. Even on these mundane matters, he noted, Eugene had nothing interesting to say.
Thomas arrived at the Knickerbocker Club at the appointed hour and was directed to a large, light-filled room with many sofas and armchairs. At first, he thought the room was empty, but then he saw Eugene Meyer sitting alone, inconspicuously, in a corner. Eugene stood up and spoke in a low voice.
“Perhaps I should have seen you at Princeton. But I felt we might be too easily noticed there.”
Thomas nodded. He stopped himself from pointing out that whereas he might indeed be noticed, Eugene Meyer would not.