I Confess (38 page)

"I had to. I had to have one person to whom I had told it, one person I could talk to."

"Herr Frank, you are a very, sick man.'*

"I know."

"Not only physically, but mentally too. Your brain isn't working right any more."

"Are you trying to tell me that I am already insane?"

"I'm afraid you are, Herr Frank."

"But I feel perfectly normal. I don't talk nonsense, do I? Or behave in any way conspicuously?"

"You are insane, Herr Frank, in a very dangerous way. The basic concepts of humanity have lost all meaning for you. You can no longer differentiate between good and evil. You no longer know what a human being is and what death means to him."

"I know well enough," I said softly.

"You think you know, Herr Frank. You still cling to words, but not to their meaning. Do you feel any remorse?"

I thought it over carefully. "No," I said, to my own astonishment.

"You see?" He nodded. "Do you feel fear?"

"No, Herr Doktorr

"None?"

"I don't want to end my days in prison," I said, "but I am not afraid of prison. If you choose to report me, it's all right with me. I'd say it's complacency rather than fear that inhibits me."

"And do you still love anybody, Herr Frank?"

I nodded. "Yes," I said. "I love you. Dr. Freund."

He said nothing but rose and went to the radio and turned it on absentmindedly. In a few seconds we could hear the muted sound of Christmas songs. "And if / were to beg you to give yourself up?"

"I would promise to do it, Herr Doktor, but I'm afraid in the end I wouldn't go through with it. I had one chance already and didn't take it."

"Yes," he said and walked over to the window. "Oh Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree," sang the children's voices.

He turned his back on me as he spoke on. "I am just as perplexed as you are, Herr Frank," he said. "I always thought I could help anybody. I overestimated myself. I don't know what to advise you." He turned and looked at me, suddenly startled. "But dear God in heaven, we have to do something! I can't let you go. You're a sick man. And a menace to your surroundings."

"Not anymore."

"Every sick man is a menace to his surroundings," he said. "You too. You only don't know it. But you are dangerous." He was staring at me.

"Doctor," I said, "I have something to confess."

"No!" he cried.

"Yes. I must. Don't be afraid. It isn't terrible. I guess my brain isn't functioning normally any more. My confession was somehow linked together in my mind with an intention. I hoped you wouldn't be able to give me any advice. I hoped you would recognize that I was a danger to my fellowmen and should not be left alone anymore."

He came over to me slowly, in his eyes a baffled comprehension. "You mean . . ."

T nodded. "T was afraid you would turn me down. Now I see that you won't. I can't be alone any more—^you are right. And I want to die here, in your school. I never want to leave it again. I want to stay with you, Herr Doktor. May I come? With Martin?"

He was silent for a long time, then, his voice toneless, he said, "Yes."

"Hallelujah!" sang the angels in heaven.

17

It was January and snowing outside when I began to write this story. Now it is March, and the snow has melted. Spring has come early this year. In the garden crocus and primula are in bloom and the buds on the bushes are swollen. I have worked hard these last three months and feel that I've done a good piece of work, in spite of the fact that lately it hasn't been at all easy for me. The pains are more frequent, I breathe with greater difficulty, I doubt very much if I will live to see the summer although I would like to. Because in July the children's home in Neustift am Walde should be completed and the first guests will move in; Martin among them. Dr. Freund has promised me that. (He still doesn't know that the hotel is being built with my embezzled funds. I told him it was my intention to leave it to the bank in Munich in my will.)

I am very pleased that they are getting along with the building so well and so fast. Now nothing can happen anymore. The money has been irrevocably invested in windows, doors, walls, furniture, carpets, heating installations. Even if they tore the place down, they wouldn't get their money back. Last week the roof frame was

finished. Dr. Freund drove out with me and we saw them raise the festively decorated tree, and we walked through all the rooms and drank tea with the workmen. It was a beautiful day.

I lead a very regulated life. I am modest and don't get in anybody's way. Usually I eat in a small restaurant nearby, with taxi chauiffeurs, streetcar conductors and laborers. Martin eats in school. He cooks quite well now. He has the room next to mine.

He is still formal with me and treats me with the same lack of interest, but he is getting along fairly well with his studies and gives httle trouble. At the time he greeted my suggestion that we live at the school with enthusiasm. We moved in on December 26. We brought very little with us. Officially my residence remains in the Reinerstrasse, to avoid attracting attention, but I've been back there only twice.

During these last weeks I usually wrote from nine to twelve and in the afternoon from three to seven. When I didn't feel well, I wrote in bed. I wrote every day. I think I said at the beginning that the idea to write all this down was Dr. Freund's. He suggested it to me on New Year's Eve, over a bottle of wine.

"You mean," I said, "that a criminal feels impelled to boast of his crime or to reproach himself for what he has done?"

He shook his head. "This urge," he said, "to talk about things that move us deeply is felt by criminals and saints. Not only Dr. Crippin was drawn back to the scene of his crime—the Apostles John and Luke felt impelled to write their gospels."

"I am not a saint."

"Certainly not," he said, "but you always wanted to write a book, didn't you? And you never did. So write it now. It's your last chance."

So I began to write, and as I wrote I grew calmer. I lost that dreadful restlessness and the endless need to tell all. If I had not written this confession, I would probably

have gone to the police and given myself up. Dr. Freund has visited me regularly and wants to know how I am progressing, but he has never asked to see what I was writing. Not a page. And why should he? He knows my story, and he has so little time. I don't really know what Fm going to do with the manuscript when I've finished it. I don't even know if I'm going to finish it. It has become a sort of diary for me. I don't want to part with it.

I received a card from Wilma, from Diisseldorf, where she is playing. "I weep," she wrote. I didn't answer. I didn't know what to say. I thought a lot about it, but I really can't remember Wilma very well. It all happened so long ago, and now I forget faces and events easily. Otherwise, of all the people I used to know, only Herr Hohen-berg is left. He visits me frequently. Sometimes we have supper together in the little restaurant and sometimes he comes up to my room with me and we play chess. Or we talk about his son. He is better. I am so glad Dr. Freund is helping him too. One might say that Hohenberg has become my friend.

The pains are here again. Thank God I have morphine.

18

March 21

About a week ago, a new boy joined Martin's class. His name is Adam and he is retarded in a rather special way: he won't talk to anybody. Or at least a week ago, he wouldn't talk to anybody. Dr. Freund has known him for months, from his visits to the clinic; and in the end, when nobody else would take the boy on, he entered Adam in

our school. In his case even a carefully rehearsed "shock treatment" didn't help. Adam remained mute.

Dr. Freund spoke to Adam's mother who was desperate about him. "Only a year ago we had such good times with him. He was so musical. BeUeve it or not, at filve he could play the saxophone."

"Does he have one?" asked Dr. Freund who told me the story later.

"We bought him one. He wanted it so much. Now we've sold it. There was no point in keeping it because he doesn't play anymore."

"What does he like to play most?"

"An American piece. Jazz ... you know ... whaf s it called? I can't remember the name. I'm sure my husband can."

"Let's ask him."

She asked him. The name of the piece was "Sentimental Journey."

Dr. Freund drove into town and bought a saxophone and gave it to Adam's mother. "Put it on his bed at night," he said, "and in the morning tell me what happened."

Nothing happened. On the following day Adam's mother told Dr. Freund that Adam had seen the saxophone, picked it up, looked at it for a moment, then put it down again. "Hm," said Dr. Freund.

After that he spent half the day telephoning until he found a colleague who could play the saxophone. He asked the man to take the evening off. At eight o'clock the two men walked into the courtyard of the house in which Adam lived and Dr. Freund's colleague began to play "Sentimental Journey" on the saxophone, much to the disgust of others living in the house. He played loud and well.

Adam sat in his room, the saxophone lay beside him, he didn't move.

Next day Dr. Freund called up his colleague. "Look here," he said, "I've given the matter some thought. We

didn't go at it the right way. Adam is doubtlessly an extremely musical child. You played 'Sentimental Journey' correctly. Let's try it again, but this time play the blues passages all wrong. Get it?"

"I get it," said his colleague.

That evening they stood in the courtyard again, and Adam sat in his room. Dr. Freund's colleague began to play, and he played the blues passages hot, after which he stopped. The two men waited. In a moment you could hear the saxophone in Adam's room. And he was playing the passages correctly! He was setting things right. He played the blues passages as they should be played. Next morning Adam, for the first time, answered a question asked him by his teacher.

19

March 27

Dr. Freund says:

"The misfortune of our times is that man is no longer capable of thinking correctly. He is confused by a thousand isms, by the terror of the totalitarian state and by the complete collapse of an obsolescent capitalistic system. On one side force and fear, on the other ignorance and incomprehension. How can people be expected to think correctly? They must think wrong. With false values and even falser norms. They have to mistake brutality for heroism, force for freedom, stupidity for progress, technology for genius. They have to believe that love, kindness, being able to forgive and a sense of humor are old fashioned conceptions. Disappointed innumerable

times, they have lost their faith in the good thing and in life. They have grown cjnaical and hard, hopeless and despairing. From the person without love a direct path leads to the person without discipline, without faith, without strength. If you, Herr Frank, had had something m which you could have beUeved, something you could have loved, something you could have clung to, you would not have become a murderer. Your sick brain is a classic example of the sick brain of our world. Seen like this, your crime is no ordinary crime—^it is a symbol."

20

April 2

I am very excited as I write these words and try to report on an event which deeply affected Dr. Freund and me. I have already mentioned Adam in these pages, the boy in Martin's class who is gradually learning to talk again since the success of Dr. Freund's experiment with the saxophone.

Toward a better understanding of what follows, I must explain that lately Martin has been having a lot of trouble with spelling. At arithmetic he has always been good and still is, but his abiKty to spell has deteriorated. Dr. Freund asked him to come to his office. I was present when Martin walked in.

"Well, Martin," said Dr. Freund. "It was nice of you to come right away. I'd like to talk to you."

Martin nodded, a httle apprehensively. "Do you know what I want to talk to you about?'*

"No, Herr Doktor."

Dr. Freund leaned forward. "Your teacher has told me something nice about you. Can you imagine what it was?" "Probably that I've been bad again."

^'But Martin!" Dr. Freund shook his head. "I said something nice about you. Would it be nice if you'd been bad again?"

"No."

'Well, there you are. So it can't have been that. Can you think what it was? It has something to do with your biology class."

Martin shook his head. He had no idea. And he couldn't have had any idea because Dr. Freund was making it all up. It was his intention to talk to Martin about his poor showing in spelling. He was simply making a small detour on the way.

"Well, if you can't think of it, I'll have to tell you. Your teacher says that you've been particularly attentive in her biology class."

Martin was astounded. He had come fully expecting to be reprimanded. And now he was being praised! His face broke into a big smile.

"And you never noticed it?"

'^o." His smile broadened.

''But she noticed it, Martin. You see, you don't even notice anymore when you're well behaved and attentive; you take that for granted. And why do you take it for granted?"

"Because things are different now."

"What's different about them?"

"Everything. Everything's changed."

"That's right, Martin. And who has changed it? Who is the only one in the whole wide world who could change it?"

"I was," said Martin.

"That's right. And now, since you seem to be doing so well in biology, and in arithmetic too—am I right? Isn't there perhaps a subject in which you aren't doing quite so weU?"

He had reached his goal, only Martin didn't know it.

"Now that you ask me, Herr Doktor, I'm not doing very well in spelling."

"Is that so? In spelling? That surprises me. Your teacher didn't mention it."

"He didn't?" Martin looked astonished.

"No. Not a word. And I think there's only one explanation for that: your teacher hasn't noticed yet that you're having trouble with spelling. Otherwise I'm sure he'd have mentioned it to me." Suddenly Dr. Freund laughed. "That gives me a funny idea. Would you like me to tell you what it is?" -