Are you going out later, Hans?
In this lousy weather? Right now it's impossible to see fifteen feet ahead on horseback, which is where all earthly happiness is, and out in the country the evening mists are drawing in, reducing visibility further. On horseback the open country is different from when I visit Auntie Mali on the farm. Later on I may go to a jazz club.
When I look at you I feel as if I may have lived my life in vain and your father may have died in vain. But when I look at the two comrades who were here just now I know there was a meaning in it after all, a meaning my own son can't afford me.
Death's good for nothing anyway, it costs nothing, nothing but your life, giggles Hans wittily.
He is uninterested in strangers on principle, because he is only interested in himself and Sophie.
Go on, eat me, there may be worse times ahead, admonishes the spurned slice of bread and margarine. But Hans believes in a better future and does not eat it.
IT WAS NOT so very long ago that Rainer strayed and quit his predestined path as one of God's children. In the past the Catholic faith served him for many things which he now hopes to recover by violent means. Recently his sister Anna has been tending with ever greater frequency to be a mute in the midst of this jettisoned detritus. Still, at times it all bursts forth out of her and washes away almost everything that gets in her way. Today they are both lying on Anna's bed, holding each other tightly in their arms; they have diverted the wind of Reality to the dining-kitchen (done up in a farmhouse style) and in here they let the wind of the Past blow. Rainer is possibly going to break a taboo in here, the taboo on incest, to see if anything comes of it. But in the event he doesn't break it after all. So other dams have to break. The adolescent knocks them down himself because this degenerate home's door will stay shut if ever freer morals come knocking. Say the worthy progenitors.
Along with other misdeeds, Rainer used to be an altar boy at church. Nowadays this is a source of abhorrence that memory cannot cope with. Papa used to say: Off you go to mass. And off he went. Father's blows hurt worse than the cold tiles under his raw knees. That icy winter cold at 6 a.m. and the priest's slaps, though at least he didn't use aids such as coat-hangers or crutches, whack, yet another clip round the ear because Rainer got his Latin muddled and answered back cheekily a time or two, though no one had asked him anything, he'd been given an order. And then wearing these white lace-trimmed vestments with black collars that drag and make you look like a girl. And then the pictures, mostly of God and the Virgin Mary, in sundry styles and materials. The majority are rounded in shape because they were made in the Baroque era. And the giggling groups of youngsters, the Flock of Catholic Youth, bleating, shoving into the Catholic Youth hostel to play table tennis, serious songs issuing from the student throats of the older ones, and that pride when a child becomes a member of the Flock of Catholic Youth. Of late they have been able to watch TV, and do so, all the time. The Church always has the latest gadgets, and uses them against its members, too. Golden banners and flags with portraits of the Blessed Virgin, girls in navy blue pleated skirts: it all happens in the unloved Piarist Church. At choir they often say that God summons young folk, and lo, there they are, the moment they're summoned. Because young folk are proud of their Christianity. Which takes courage in a world grown thoughtless and heathen. Rainer is also a constituent part of Youth. Unfortunately he is the poorest component, and shows his wear and tear particularly clearly. He goes forth unto God, but he does so reluctantly, albeit he of all people has been summoned the most, because God knows his weakness and his reluctance, that is why he summons him especially loudly: Rainer! Rainer! He'll be throwing up on the tiles any moment. If he went to the high-class Piarist Grammar School, God would doubtless be well pleased with him, but his parents can't afford the fees. His rich fellow altar boys are never clipped round the ear. Naturally this fact struck the enlightened Rainer immediately. He always notices things like that rather than immersing himself all the more profoundly in prayer and ignoring the outside world. The Church takes whatever it can get and keeps hold of it. The Church never passes it on to where it's needed. Rainer needs love, not blows. God supposedly loves him, but the fact has never struck him, he's only been struck by the priest.
Nonetheless, Father kicks him into the sacristy every Sunday, with his one remaining foot, to get dressed up and show off his talents to his auntie and grandma in the choir of bright and cheery youngsters. God especially loves the choir because it sounds so hale and fresh. Rainer's auntie and grandma are diligent churchgoers, and in May and in Lent they do extra shifts and now and then fork out funds in recognition of his pious duties at the altar, so that he can buy himself a pair of those fashionable shoes with the sharp points or a pullover some time. These funds, alas, are the whole point of the exercise as far as this superficial lad is concerned, but he will learn to search within himself. Right inside. And then the scratching and scraping of feet in outsize interiors that are just about suitable to the greatness of the Lord God, you can't see Him, true, but then He needs an awful lot of room. Boys on the left, the young servants of the Lord. On the right the girls, the young handmaids of the Lord. The dean's words go smack down the middle, to the effect that Our Lord has suffered the little children to come unto Him, even though they probably had something better planned at the time. The altar boys sit resting during the sermon, most of them thinking of some kind of mischief, filth, or school affairs of no consequence, which does not bother God since He is even acquainted with the concerns of infants and His ear is ever open to hear them. But Rainer thinks of God, in person, in order to confide his worries to Him. For a short while, God is even his last hope because nothing whatsoever is working out any more and Jesus (of course) will fix it, but before that can happen you not only have to pray, you also have to make sacrifices, and Rainer prefers not to invest. It's too uncertain. Anyway, why does the fellow have to be up there and not down here, down where your prick is, which, if Jesus is to be believed, you mustn't rub or squeeze, not your own and (of course) not anybody else's either.
Only one image involving a certain harmony has remained in Rainer's memory, where it has stuck for a long time. One big Catholic Youth girl had looked out a certain passage in the prayer book for a smaller girl, and, having done so, stroked the little girl's head, over and over, which made Rainer quite calm inside. For years and years he would think of the scene in the bathtub (an improvised tub in the kitchen) while Mummy, even when he was a big boy, soaped his body to make him clean all over, one of God's Children within and plainly identifiable without, too, as a Child of God. Nonetheless he was always embarrassed, although a Child of God is pure in every respect. I'm your mother, I brought you into this world, and you don't need to hide from your Papa, he's got the same as you, in the same place too. Which prompts a muffled howl deep in Rainer's throat, the way a wolf howls.
Mistakenly he longs for harmony and peaceableness, indeed for beauty, which he often unlawfully tells his schoolmates about. So that they will understand him, he describes that harmony in terms of expensive cars, air travel, parents who kiss and crystal that glitters, all of which can be viewed in his home. Though things like that cannot be purchased. They are either within a human being or they aren't. But his schoolmates don't believe what he says.
Come on, love, you have to be quite clean, Anni doesn't kick up a fuss if her own mother does it, it's just as if you did it yourself. But go right ahead and be embarrassed if you insist. Being embarrassed is healthy enough, at any rate.
We are all the same, that is to say: human beings made of flesh and blood. But not you, Mama, you're incorporeal like the Lord God and only Papa degrades you physically, and that's why I say that that body does not exist, that's why I cut away everything below the chin before I pin up photos of pretty girls on my wardrobe. Because flesh rapidly starts to stink once the meat's been killed and left in the fresh air. This boy! Now dry yourself off properly, you can do that yourself, can't you.
The organ thunders, and Rainer dries himself off, you're not supposed to look down at yourself while you do so, your gaze should be straight ahead, everything you do is done in honour of a Higher Being. When you're bigger a lot of things will be different, some things will finally take it easy and lie down.
Anna tries to express most things by way of music. Today she has already gone through Schumann and Brahms on the keyboard, tomorrow it may be Chopin and Beethoven. What her mouth cannot say, music says, including things that come from the Lord God, as many composers (Bruckner) have claimed. Rainer reads some old diary entries out to her, to the effect that great things can only be accomplished as a result of long-term, precise planning and preparation. Back then the statement struck him as being universally valid. That's what it says here. It goes on: 1. What am I planning, what is my great aim? and 2. What might be conducive to the realisation of that aim?
At that time, Rainer still wanted to study some science subject (chemistry) at the Institute of Technology, now all he wants is to get hold of other people's wallets and then some day hold a position as a teacher of German literature, writing poems on the side. The paramount principle (it says here) should be that natural science will never be an end in itself, will not remain the sole concern of his thought and actions, but will have its place in a larger, more comprehensive structure. He wants (as the diary says) to have higher standards, above and beyond human thought, but at all events they have to be standards. May the Christian faith be the foundation of my life to the very end. I see my task as a scientist as follows: to introduce Christian thought into the area chemistry gives me access to and achieve a synthesis of the two fields (at least in part, as he has added in all honesty) – to the greater glory of God. Listen to this, Anna! It's incredible, incredible. One result of this endeavour would necessarily be to use chemistry for the good of mankind, to make existence fit for human beings. In this I see a way of practising Christian love of my neighbour, in my whole life, by employing all my talents, powers and abilities. May God in His Grace allow me to realise this ambition.
Whaddyathinkofthatanni? The basic essentials are: 1. Thorough knowledge of chemistry, maths, physics and Christian thought, and 2. Thorough knowledge of German, English, Russian, French. In this, may I at all times succeed (guffawhawhawhaw!) in remaining modest and humble-though not in such a way (oh no, not on your life!) that I go crawling to the kind of people who might cause me problems at some point or from whom I can profit although their actions ultimately run counter to my ideals. Furthermore, I must have 1. Self-discipline hahahahahascreechhahaha! The siblings rollick in a heap, drooling with laughter. This last needs to be a process that emerges from constant engagement with the world about me canyoubelieveIwrotethis? No, says Anna. Well, not bad, a whole word, to be exact: no, a new record! A minute later she is able to talk away again like a parrot. But no one knows of the traces left within Anna.
From countless portraits and ceiling frescoes, the Lord God looks down on His children, who have turned out so wretchedly, and is astonished that He could have created something like that and then taught them this fact in religious instruction classes. Belief still causes Rainer problems in his honest moments, he cannot yet rule out the possibility that such a God does exist, even if he and Camus have substituted Nothingness. He hasn't disappeared yet, and numerous priests are even personally acquainted with His family.
Come and get it, children. And in a moment they are sitting down to their ever-popular dinner. As always, Rainer addresses Mother when he wants to tell Father something. Tell him I'll knock his crutches away and send him sprawling on the cold stone floor. I want to write a poem but there's no foundation here for it to stand on. Yes there is, you have the choice of a cosy farmhouse floor or a stone floor, says Anna, which is quite a speech for her. Father promptly yells like a raging bull and says he'll break his back for him if he talks so disrespectfully. Then his son will have a fractured spine and will be creeping about the floor like a worm whereas he will at least still be able to hop or hobble. Father also says he can take him away from that grammar school any time because he is the breadwinner in the family. Mother offers round mash and stewed apple and says that in that case Dad would have to admit to people that he'd sent his son to be an ordinary apprentice instead of to grammar school, wouldn't you, Otti, eh?! I'll beat you black and blue as well, Gretl, see if I don't, because at that age I was one of the illegals, doing my duty. And nowadays I still do my duty, at a desk where there are a lot of keys to rooms that I have access to at all times.
Rainer bares his teeth like a rabid dog. The Saviour up on His machine-made parlour crucifix looks worried. The pressure of His crowns of thorns is considerable, because the barometer says a storm is on the way, and in the parlour the black stormclouds are gathering too. Our crimes will be crimes of violence, Anni, don't you agree? Not committed when we're worked-up, though, to get rid of aggression. No, you have to avoid getting worked up: you have to do it in cold blood. You're quite right (Anna), because otherwise the crime itself would be of secondary significance, whereas in fact it must be the main thing.
In the big farmhouse chest, which you could fit an entire butchered pig carcass into, there are a lot of broken toys left over from childhood days. Like everything in the flat, these toys have survived into the desolate era of leaden adolescence, to no one's particular delight. Rainer's old diary also says that the task (whatever it might be) is a big one, but oughtn't that very fact be the incentive to tackle the problem and thus ultimately gain in strength? This calls for self-discipline, respect, tolerance, and the ability to do without things. Nowadays Rainer tells anyone who will listen, and everyone else too, that at home he never had to do without anything because his family has everything there is to possess. Which is a lie. But here it says that doing without will make him richer (it's unbelievable!), he will scale the mental heights, where (as it quite clearly says in here) a bracing wind, fresh and cleansing, blows. Yuck. Everything that's been cleansed is, in his opinion, nothing more than a fine ice-cold stream of air. The image on the picture postcard of Ourladyoflourdes is curled up at the feet of the Redeemer, which is where it belongs and not, say, at the head, the draught is to blame. There are waves in the holy water in the heart-shaped container too, it's slopping about. The rosary, also from Lourdes, the gift of a neighbour, sways gently to and fro in the fresh breeze of Youth. This fresh breeze is coming off a life that has just got off to a fine start and will hopefully not be cut short prematurely.
Mother finds consolation and help in religion, in her difficult situation as breeder and household manager. Papa tolerates this without comment, even though the Lord is a man too, as the word implies. He'd better not get too close to Mother, hadn't the Lord. She's the one who is forever chasing after Him.
Rainer never thinks of those filthy photos which apparently exist, though according to his sources they are photos strange men took of his mother. The fact vanished from Rainer's head as fast as it had entered it. Supposedly there are close-up shots of genitals too. What you don't see doesn't exist.
The stewed apple is eaten up by Papa almost single-handed, though it's the children who are still growing and Papa has finished growing, indeed he has already been maimed. Mummy doesn't get any at all. After all, she was the one who made it.
Outside, some stupid clouds or other are massing and will spill all any minute. Right into an everyday evening.
The twins leave the farmhouse parlour with their arms tightly round each other and enter the world of the music that sounds forth from the record player, the artist is the very opposite of the farmer who has a parlour like that at home. Anna enters the realm of silence and Rainer that of manic talkativeness, which is his way of trying to get hold of the world. The Poet is a King in his realm. His is the Empire of the Imagination, in which there are unlimited mansions.
THE CAFE IS a typical grammar school kids' cafe. So a large number of grammar school kids are there. They are discussing religious or philosophical topics. Schoolgirls go to mass with jazz music, throw their first parties, and after a lovely concert of church music bestow their first kiss. A grammar school boy seated at a marble-topped table tells the person sitting opposite him that the time may be right for their friendship, their first fleeting acquaintance, to become something else – the grammar school girl still describes the two of them as chums, which strikes the grammar school boy as reticence of an incomprehensible order. Somehow he senses that that is exactly what might endow their relationship with a quality of permanence, though, and he says it out loud. At that party last Thursday he was aware of it, too, the schoolboy says in low, soft tones. And so the pleasure he takes in symbols that can express with such marvellous directness what words can never say is all the greater.
Hans listens to this foreign-language dialogue and scans the pastel-coloured ice creams, squeezed-out tea-bags and pots of hot chocolate. But he promptly withdraws his gaze in alarm on realising that no one wants it.
Presently the schoolboy says to the schoolgirl: Not even the canniest of historians will ever find out who it was that kissed whom on that 27.3.
Hans wonders: What does 'canniest' mean, and what's this 'whom' anyway, and what is a historian?
The schoolgirl says that she is looking forward to the holidays and that the great day of her first ball must have been under a lucky star because it was such an exciting evening, I have good memories of it from the start to the very last moment. We were dancing and everything seemed so sparkling and beautiful. The two young pupils confuse the various past tenses; and though they constantly have to make use of them, they still remain as new in their mouths.
Hans also hears that the fellow at the next table, who doubtless has no idea what a real man has to be capable of, went skiing in the Otztal Alps. His thoughts were with the schoolgirl beside him a great deal, as they always are when he is in the mountains. The connection may not be apparent at first glance: the thing is that whenever I see lofty mountains I have profound thoughts, and aren't friendship and love -and fidelity – profound human experiences? demands the schoolboy, and the schoolgirl answers that she too went skiing, but somewhere else. And once again all that passed between them was written words. And a telegram that never reached you: Happy Easter and baci mille. Brigitte.
Hans wants to order a beer and another one later and yet another, but Sophie has already ordered a coffee and a cognac for him. Sophie's soft silence nestless into her dark pleated skirt and dark pullover. Hans is silent too, in her brother's expensive gear. All around him Innocence is talking, sons and daughters are talking away as if they were being paid to do so, about things and doings and goings-on that are as innocent as they themselves. Hans is neither a son nor a daughter because he is the son of a nobody.
Prater Park dappled with sunshine in the first light of day, the wet grass, the wet leaves, the thrill of getting up really early for once, the horse's neck nodding, a fine spray of powder snow, the swish of steel runners in glacial snow, shrieks of merriment when someone takes a tumble, and then a jolly evening in the log cabin, with punch or gluhwein, ditties to guitar and accordion accompaniments, and then that notorious step outside the door of the cabin, gazing into the starry winter heavens, the first kiss, and someone to catch a star.
Hans wants to try a huge gateau with buttercream like that some time, but Sophie imposes her veto. He is not allowed to booze and then sing hollodero or spit at people either.
Thrilling car trips with elder siblings acting as chauffeur, Father gave them a little car as a present when they passed their school-leaving exams and later he'll give you one too. Evenings of music played en famille in a wood-panelled room, Father playing cello, Mother (who is a doctor) playing piano, the siblings playing flute or violin, loved silly by their parents. New Year's Eve at the Semmering house, the youngsters laughing and giggling and kissing as the provisions the merry party need are lugged up to the house, which has about as much in common with work as a carwash has with a blast furnace, how dearly, how very dearly Hans would like to carry loads far heavier still, so heavy that everyone would marvel at him. The itch to travel. To head off to the romantic old monastery and take part in spiritual exercises at Whitsuntide, to find what you have lost, and subsequently say it is impossible to describe that Whitsun atmosphere. They often say it is impossible to convey an atmosphere in words but they use an incredible lot of words to say so, words you wouldn't think anybody had ever heard of, but they are familiar with every one of them. Whitsuntide, says the youth, who is already a student, Pentecost, it suggests strength, the Holy Spirit – or is there perhaps something else to it?
Hans pricks up his ears and lays them back because there is undoubtedly something else to it.
Love of a young girl, for instance? Judging by the sheer radiant power of the experience, it cannot be anything else! After breakfast there are discussions of fidelity and such matters, and then they join forces to cook up something for lunch, followed by another discussion, of duty and affection. Some masses are beautiful and profound yet low-key too, which really gets to you.
Now Hans is permitted an ice cream after all, and he splats about excitedly with his spoon in the unfamiliar pinkgreenandbrown slush, piggy that he is. Aren't I a mucky pup, demands Hans, and Sophie smiles. And now I'd really like a piece of chocolate cake. You'll be sick (Sophie). Nobody has ever seen Sophie eat, but she must do so because she still carries herself upright and walks about and uses up calories.
Birthday parties where everyone loves everyone else and minor quarrels only serve to make that love even deeper, rather than eating it away like nitric acid. A cool church, words spoken freely but not too freely, the sounds of guitars playing, the togetherness of a group of people that are as one, afterwards we have to take our leave of Father Clemens. Alas! Slide shows that are both interesting and fun. Walks on clear starry evenings, on your own land or on land adjoining your own. Something that represents a new beginning, a new bud set to blossom. Eternity is silence and sounds are transience, gets written into the appropriate diary. Sunshine and parents who get on well, visits to castles, farewells, sadness (though with a twinkle of merriment in one eye because it is perfectly likely that we'll meet again), siblings who help you cope by playing amusing parlour games, siblings who squabble and laugh as they do so, the piano, Debussy, Impressionist paintings, a lake, sheep, the miller in the forest, golden clouds, rambles with a rucksack on your back. Minor rendezvous and major plans, the chapel of the Hofburg, jazz clubs, lemonade, swimming baths, leaving the slopes, not enough snow, alas, skiing injuries that heal, jokes that make you forget you're confined to a sickbed. The feelings you have, birthday surprises, evenings spent listening to Fischer-Dieskau singing lieder. Being confined to your bed, a passing fever, visiting art galleries, 'satisfactory' for your Latin homework (a grade that calls for a celebration). Visiting Grandma. Rain, a dark sky, street lamps, the back seat of the car, wurst rolls, skin creased by laughter, photos, a silk headscarf, integral calculus, translating Cicero, debating whether it is right to cause other people unhappiness for the sake of truth. What is truth, what is dishonesty, and what is hypocrisy? Listening to records, discussions by candlelight. Beautiful dresses, your first evening gown, which you promptly wear to the Burgtheater, which you enjoy immensely. Don Giovanni at the opera house, which you enjoy immensely. The boy you only knew as a tennis partner with a powerful service suddenly slips off your coat at the cloakroom, it is as if he had been transformed, and later he kisses you in the park. In doing so he has crossed the borderline dividing childhood from adulthood. A serious matter, which the family celebrates. A point when everything seems empty, faces are revealed as masks with nothing behind them, you are on the brink of a deep abyss, you cannot see any way out (etc.) and you are suffering. There are a lot of expressions that describe this state precisely. As you find out when the problem is discussed among a small circle of friends. The problem ends in mutual understanding and thus automatically ceases to exist. Love. Only ignorant people grow angry, the Wise Man understands, or some other maxim to the effect that Man is the dearest object of God's love. Something or other is sealed with a long kiss and ends in peace. Holding conversations in French and English.
Hans gnaws at his lower lip with his upper teeth. There will be a hole there shortly, though that is still better than having an Abyss of Principle yawning before you. He and Sophie understand each other on principle, though. Sophie is sucking lemonade through a straw. This morning her mother threw another screaming fit before driving off to her bank to do something or other. As always, Hans is flexing his muscles, quite openly, he slides to and fro on his chair as if he'd shat himself, he gives Sophie a confiding wink and in his turn describes a terrific booze-up where one or two friends of his were hilariously abusive and went on a rampage, a few things were smashed up in the process. He is talking too loud and everyone can hear him, nobody understands him, but they tolerate what they do not understand, and if the tolerance is lacking it is through discussion.
Even if occasionally one has to part from the other here, there is still a sparkle in his eye on account of the reunion that is doubtless soon to follow, adieu, a grey VW beetle crawls round the bend and is gone, but a great deal remains behind: friendship, and a human quality. To the accompaniment of good-humoured jokes cracked by her family, who are just eating lunch, a girl suddenly leaps to her feet as if a tarantula had bitten her and welcomes her boyfriend, whom she has been awaiting for so long and who is now returning from a climbing trip. Afterwards the whole family does something together. This sense of sharing, which pervades the place like a thick fog, leaves Hans enraged. He pulps the last fragments of ice cream in the metal dish with his spoon, taking out his anger on innocent foodstuffs.
Accounts of hikes across glaciers, farewell to the family. Dearest sister Christine, who is in on the joke. Off to the post office, a one-and-a-half-hour walk, peaceful hours in Uncle Sepp's Olde Bar. A young lad climbing down the mountain to her after first climbing up it. An altogether unique feeling flowing from me to you and from you to me. Grannie, giving her friendly nod. Walking, talking, eating lunch. Taking strolls to the clearing amid the larches. Someone who loves nothing quite so much as the sight of grass and sky.
Hans tests the currents that are flowing here, all about him, from one to the other and from the other to one. What is it that's flowing? The people in question have no name for it, or at least not as such, though their language offers them ways of addressing each other that creates an instant unity. Heading off towards the Semmering hospital, viaducts, tunnels. Going up to the Jockelhof, fixing the rooms, eating and taking siestas and being too lazy to write during the holidays, a band of mist and a blue sky, beaming, the sky's a fine one to go beaming. Plenty of things to talk about. Mutual understanding.
Hans cannot suppress a cough and splutters half of the coffee Sophie ordered for him too into the saucer, mixed with saliva it comes spraying out of him. In his brain there is a huge hole, which might also be labelled Nothingness in general. When grammar school kids talk, they are simply together, with each other, and the very simplicity of that apparent fact is what expresses the 'immeasurable profundity of what is said', they say in two-part harmony. It is often interesting to watch other people, you sit on a tree-trunk for the purpose. The goal is on the tips of our tongues and its name is Love.
The inexhaustible reserve the youngsters around Hans are drawing upon now affords a brief meeting of glances and a brief attainment of peace in each other. If you are sitting on a felled tree in a pine forest enjoying the sunshine you can easily forget what time it is. Not that you could forget your gold watch, just the time of day.
In spite of himself, Hans glances at his old wristwatch to see if he hasn't left it somewhere. It is still there.
Sophie is silent, and so is everything inside her. Her silence does not imply that she lacks anything here any more than elsewhere. From time to time she says hello to an acquaintance. If she exchanges a few words with one of them, a curious common ground is established. Hans believes that what is between her and him is Love. It leaves him shaken because it generally does leave lovers shaken, but it leaves Hans all the more shaken because he knows nothing he can compare it with. He is at the mercy of Love, helpless.
Another schoolkid is now comparing two people who get on well with two hemispheres that fit exactly, making a perfect sphere. They talk in a relaxed way, with mutual confidence, about that perfect geometrical solid.