The Torch in my Ear, page 21
Then it was our turn. However, the dwarf kept his brother on a leash and wouldn’t let go for long. Each of us was introduced. He found an accurate satirical formula for everyone. It turned out that the dwarf had observed us carefully. And though the manner of his introduction was mordant rather than considerate toward his colleagues, everything raced by, in rapid succession, so that we couldn’t stop laughing. We were behind with our mirth, we were still laughing when he was two people ahead of us with his comments. It was considered lucky that Hund wasn’t in the laboratory that day. From the very beginning, he had glared at Sieghart with undisguised hatred, even before the nude photos had come up. It was as if, at the very first sight of Sieghart, Hund had sensed the misfortune that would strike him because of the dwarf’s zealous activities. Sieghart had never addressed Hund directly, although he had asked people what sort of photos his were, and he had never concealed his scorn for them. But now, Sieghart would have mentioned Hund by name and said something about him, for he introduced his brother to everyone, even Wundel, our village idiot, who led a rather underground existence. Thus, Sieghart couldn’t have avoided saying something about Hund; and given Hund’s obvious sensitivity, the outcome would have been terrible.
Actually, the entire presentation didn’t last all that long. Sieghart seemed to have us in his pocket along with his brother. He pulled each of us out in turn; and as soon as that person had gotten his share, Sieghart put him aside again. The brother, however, came out of the frying pan into the fire. He received as much scorn as all of us together. I began to understand why he was in uniform. Fleeing the dwarf’s domineering ways and eternal sarcasm, the brother had sought refuge in the army. There, orders were at least expected, and he didn’t have to fear the little one’s unpredictable flashes. I wondered why the captain had even bothered dropping in. He must have known what to expect from his brother. My question was answered right after he took leave of us.
“I told him to come and have a look at chemistry, if he’s got the gumption. People aren’t as well behaved here as in the army, you can talk while you’re working. But he always thinks people should keep quiet during work. Everybody has to keep his mouth shut, like a recruit. Can you imagine how often I’ve badgered him to come! ‘You’re chicken, that’s right, you’re chicken,’ I told him. ‘You don’t know real life. In the army, you’re all protected, like historical landmarks. Nothing can happen to you. War is a thing of the past. There won’t be any new wars ever.’ Why do we need an army? We need it for cowards who are scared of life. He’s six feet four and he’s scared of chemistry! Blushes in front of every female. We’ve got five ladies in the room and he blushes five times. Why, I wouldn’t be able to stop blushing at all with my eight numbers, that’s how many there are now. Incidentally, I told him about our ladies. Especially the fine Russian lady. She’s something for you, I said. She doesn’t look right, she doesn’t look left, but it’s education, not cowardice! Well, he was scared long enough. But he finally did come, after all. And now you’ve seen the guy! Six feet four—you almost have to be ashamed of a brother that tall. What a scaredy-cat! He’s scared of me! When we were children, he was so scared of me, he cried. Now, he doesn’t show it so much. But he’s still scared of me. Did any of you notice? He’s afraid of me! What a scaredy-cat! The captain is afraid. What a laugh! I’m not afraid. He could learn something from me.”
Sieghart’s braggadocio was sometimes annoying because of its loud volume, but it didn’t hurt his work. He progressed nimbly and skillfully with his analyses; but he also had sympathy for Wundel, the swindler, who looked like a village idiot, cautiously grinning as he stole through the room with the tiny glass jar of substance in his crooked hand, which was concealed in the right pocket of his smock. He zigzagged softly from person to person, never in the expected order, suddenly standing in front of you, his eyes pleading, close to your face, as he said: “Herr Colleague, do you know this? It smells like a forest.” He held the open jar under your nose, you inhaled the smell deeply, looked at the substance, and said: “Yes, of course, I know that. I’ve made it.” Or: “No, I don’t know it.” If the former were the case, Wundel wanted to know how you had made it. He asked to borrow your notebook with the weights and calculations, and you lent it to him briefly. Then he secretly wrote down the results and, full of confidence, tackled the experiments, knowing the outcome in advance.
Everyone knew he cheated, but no one gave him away. He arranged things in such a manner that no one knew everything about him. When he had set up his apparatuses and his retorts were bubbling, when he weighed his jar with pinched lips, one assumed he was doing his work and merely checking the results against the figures he had begged from various sources. Had we known that all his work processes were bogus from start to finish, that he never did more than offer a semblance of working, we would certainly have hesitated to support him so consistently. He never went to the same colleague twice, he zigzagged in such a way as to avoid those whom he had already used. And though you saw him sneaking to and fro every few weeks, you weren’t always clear about the results of his discreet investigations. His real talent was a knack for tricking people into underestimating him. Such systematic cunning was the last thing you would have attributed to this grinning pancake. For that was just what his mask looked like. His eyes, like those of a mushroom gatherer, were always on the ground; his grin fitted them as badly as his high drawling voice.
Since he had to be quiet in his doings, he avoided Sieghart, who always spoke loudly. However, Wundel couldn’t prevent Sieghart from soon recognizing him as a mushroom gatherer and greeting him as such. “We’ve met before, Herr Colleague!” Sieghart sonorously addressed him, and Wundel recoiled in terror. “And do you know where we met? It was a long time ago! And now, just you guess where! You can’t remember? I remember everything. I’ve got the memory of an elephant.”
Wundel flailed his arms helplessly as if trying to swim out of the laboratory. But it was no use. Sieghart grabbed hold of a low button on Wundel’s smock and repeated several times: “Well, you still don’t remember? Gathering mushrooms, of course. Where else? In the forest. I always see you gathering mushrooms. But you’re always looking at the ground. You only have eyes for mushrooms. Oh, well, that’s why you always get your basket filled with mushrooms. Me too, me too, because I’m so close to the ground. I don’t even know who’s got more mushrooms in his basket, you or I. But I also have a good look at the people. I’m a nosy bastard. It comes from my photography. What would you do now if I showed you a snapshot of you gathering mushrooms? I caught you.” Caught wasn’t a word that Wundel liked to hear; the dwarf’s affable chitchat was agony for Wundel. He did his best to avoid him in the future by arranging his zig-zags more carefully. He didn’t always succeed. Sieghart had taken a great fancy to him. Once he apostrophized someone with the aid of a particular flash of inspiration, he would never let that person go again. And Wundel, truly a connoisseur of mushrooms, was one of the dwarf’s favorite victims.
However, this was merely a skirmish. He actually liked Wundel. Perhaps he sensed his cunning. For if anyone disparaged Wundel as the “village idiot,” Sieghart would resolutely declare: “Wundel? He’s no village idiot. He knows what he’s doing. He won’t be caught napping.”
But still, Sieghart did set his sights on someone whom he wanted to wipe out merely because of this man’s reputation as a photographer.
The promising shoebox had been stowed away in Sieghart’s locker for some time now. He did take the box out from time to time, amply turning it over in his hands—occasionally, he even began to untie it (the box was covered with knots). But no sooner had a fellow student noticed and taken a step or two toward the box than Sieghart paused, as though suddenly inspired, and said: “No, I don’t feel like it today. You people don’t deserve it. This is something you really have to earn the right to see!” He offered no information on what one had to do to earn this privilege. Sieghart was waiting for something, no one knew what, and he contented himself with luring the fools in the laboratory and making their mouths water by undoing a knot or two. The box was soon knotted up again and stowed away. And comments like “Who cares! There’s probably nothing in the box!” didn’t put Sieghart off.
Then, one day, Hund showed up with a new package, a very thick one this time; and he plopped it down by his place at the table. This wasn’t like him. He had learned from Sieghart. The dwarf impressed many people; his boastful ways were attracting followers in the laboratory. Hund waited a bit, but not as long as the previous time. Then, louder than usual, he said: “I’ve got photos! Who wants to see them!”
“Do I ever want to see them!” crowed the dwarf. He was the first to dash over to Hund and station himself at his side. “I’m waiting!” he said provocatively, while the others, far more slowly, clustered around Hund. This time, everyone who could leave his work came over. “I got the place,” said the dwarf. It was meant to sound cheerful, but it sounded hateful. And equally hateful was Hund’s retort: “Stand in front of me, otherwise you won’t see anything because of your size.”
“It’s not the size that counts, it’s the pictures. Boy, am I excited. When he’s done, I’ll open up my big box. Nothing but nude photos of young women. I hope you haven’t started specializing in nudes, Herr Colleague; that would be regretful—or are we still sticking to nature? A kitten in a window or a silver poplar in the wind? A snow landscape in the mountains last winter? I’d like a dear little village church, surrounded by the graveyard, and a couple of pious crosses. After all, the dead won’t be forgotten. Or do you have a rooster on a dungheap, whereby I don’t mean to say that you want to show us any crap, Herr Colleague. Please don’t misunderstand. I mean a real rooster on a real dungheap!”
“If you don’t go away, I won’t show anything,” said Hund. “Go away from my place or I won’t show anything.”
“He won’t show anything! How will we ever get over it! Yes, indeed, I have no choice now.” The dwarf was shouting. “I have to make amends with the nude photos of my young ladies! Come over to my place, dear colleagues. You’ll have a wonderful time. It’s worth the trouble. Not this!”
Sieghart grabbed two of his colleagues by their arms and, pinching them mightily, he pulled them over to his place. The others followed. The thing that had been awaited for so long was finally here. Who cared about Hund’s fighting chaffinches. Only one person remained with Hund, and another stopped halfway, turning back to him irresolutely.
“Go ahead!” said Hund. “Now, I won’t show anything. Today, I had something special. Just go and look at his shit!”
With his elbow, Hund pushed away the only person who had remained true to him, perhaps out of pity. Hund didn’t rest until he stood at his place again, as totally alone as always. Nor did he make any effort to disturb Sieghart’s performance. He stood, silent and gloomy, in front of his package, on which he had placed his right hand as if to protect it against insolent invasion.
Sieghart, meanwhile, was untying his shoebox. He worked lightning-fast; the box was already open; he was already taking out a whole pile of photos, scattering them across the table as if they were nothing special.
“Please, help yourselves, gentlemen. Ladies for all seasons, anyone can have a lady here. There’s several for everyone. No false modesty now! Everyone can put together his own harem. Now what’s this? Doesn’t anyone have the courage to reach into happiness? Do I have to take you by the hand? So cowardly, gentlemen? I would never have dreamt. Just imagine, I had all these ladies before me en nature! I had to plunge right in and snap the shutter. Why, just think what would have happened if I hadn’t been resolute and snapped quickly! These young ladies wouldn’t have undressed a second time! What would they have thought of me! And what do the young ladies think of you now if you don’t plunge right in!”
He grabbed the hand of the student closest to him and pulled it into the heap of pictures, making a trembling motion with the hand, as though it were recoiling at the splendors it wanted to plunge into. The dwarf thrust a good dozen pictures into the student’s hand and cried: “The next gentleman, please!” Now, the others came of their own accord, and soon all of them were gaping stupidly at the unclad girls, who were by no means seductive in offering themselves to our eyes. It struck all spectators as a bit risky. What would happen if an assistant or even the professor with his retinue walked in? Yet one couldn’t call these pictures indecent; otherwise, some of the students wouldn’t have had the nerve to take hold of them in front of the others. Only it was embarrassing that the female students were excluded. And every man felt guilty about Fräulein Reichmann, whose place wasn’t so far away (she gazed into the air, acting as if she heard nothing).
Hund, however, was totally forgotten. The students didn’t even realize he was still in the room. Suddenly, he stood there, in the midst of the students and pictures, he spat and shrieked: “Sluts, nothing but sluts!” Then he vanished. But the atmosphere was no longer the same. Sieghart felt insulted on behalf of his lady friends. “My lady friends didn’t deserve this,” he said, quickly gathering the photos together. “Had I known, I wouldn’t have brought anything. If my lady friends find out, it will be over between us. I must ask the gentlemen to observe utmost discretion. You mustn’t breathe a word of this outside the laboratory. No apology will suffice, even if we go to the ladies together and beg them in unison to forgive us, over and over again—it won’t help. There’ll be nothing but silence. I can rely on your discretion, can’t I, gentlemen? Nothing has been unpacked here, and the insulting word was not uttered. I, too, will keep silent. I won’t even tell my big brother.”
A Red-Haired Mormon
I spent the summer of 1926 with my brothers in Sankt Agatha, a village between Goisern and Lake Hallstatt. We found an old, lovely hotel, the former smithy, with a spacious tavern. It wasn’t suitable for adolescent boys. But right next to it, there was a much smaller, newer boardinghouse, the Agatha Smithy, run by an old lady named Frau Banz. The rooms were small and modest, as was the dining room, which didn’t have more than three or four tables. We sat at one table with the owner, a sturdy woman, who looked stricter than what she seemed like when she spoke. For it turned out that she wasn’t prejudiced against unmarried couples.
The other guests were a pair of lovers: a middle-aged stage director, dark and bushy, somewhat ravaged-looking, always joking; and his extremely young, slender girlfriend, who was a lot taller than he, ash-blond, not unattractive, and highly impressed by his incessant talk. He always explained everything; there was nothing he didn’t know better. He liked getting into conversations with me, for I talked back to him. He listened to what I said, he even seemed to take it seriously. But then he very soon started in himself, swept away everything I had said, mocked, joked, hissed, playing lots of individual roles as in the theater—and he never ended without imperiously gazing into the eyes of Affi, his girlfriend. She took it for granted that he should say the last word, not I. While she never attempted to say anything, I did try a couple of times. No sooner had he beaten me to the ground than I unexpectedly sprang up and refuted what he had said, which in turn elicited his mordant rejoinder. However, Herr Brettschneider wasn’t malicious; it was simply part of his undisturbed ownership of Affi that she never heard any other male speak too long, not even an adolescent. Frau Banz listened wordlessly; she took no side, never revealing with even the slightest twitch of her face whom she agreed with. And yet we knew that she followed every twist and turn of the conversation.
Herr Brettschneider and Affi lived in a small room next to mine; the walls were thin; I could hear every sound from over there: whistles, teasing, giggling, and often a satisfied grunting. Only it was never silent. Perhaps Herr Brettschneider sometimes held his tongue when asleep; but if this was the case, I never noticed, for I was asleep myself at such times.
It was not surprising that we wondered about the dissimilar couple; they were the only guests aside from us.
However, something else preoccupied me more at this time: the swallows. There were countless swallows here; they nested in the marvelous old smithy. When I sat at the wooden table in the garden, writing in my notebooks, they darted overhead, very close to me. I kept watching them for hours and hours. I was spellbound. Sometimes, when my brothers wanted to go off, I said: “Go on ahead, I’ll catch up, I just have to finish writing something.” But I wrote very little. I mostly watched the swallows, and I just couldn’t part from them.
For two days, there was a kermess in Sankt Agatha; this was the event that has remained brightest in my memory. The booths stood around the tremendous linden tree in the square in front of the old smithy. However, the booths also reached all the way to the house we were living in. Right under my window, a young man had set up a table with a huge pile of shirts. The hawker tossed the shirts about with a quick, violent motion, picked up one shirt, then another, but usually two or three, raised them aloft, and dropped them with a smack. And he kept shouting:
