Panorama (44 page)

When Josef sees Dr. Brendel, he will certainly agree with Frau Director that he is a fabulous person and not just a doctor, she always says that he acts out of the purest love for others, the Director against him only because he worked for ten years as an assistant in a mental institution, though Dr. Brendel had done that only for noble-minded reasons. The mental ailments today are by far the most dangerous ailments, the source of them has to be discovered, observed, and treated, in most cases there being something that can be done, while in most families one can see that the onset of some form of dementia is everywhere, sometimes taking the form of megalomania,
sometimes a persecution complex or some other type of mania, sometimes one being lucky enough to suffer only from hysteria or a neurosis, a word by the way that has a wonderful tie to “sublime” because of a similar poetic effect, though it can all be healed through goodwill and patience. Frau Director considers it a blessing that in this house a modern and informal spirit rules, she continually makes sure that everything develops naturally, much like the transformation of a cocoon into a butterfly or the ugly duckling into a beautiful frog, no, I mean swan. She has many ideas about pedagogy that Robert especially will benefit from, since she can capitalize on her experience with Irwin and Lutz, for when Irwin was as old as Lutz is now she had hardly any awareness of pedagogy or psychology as she does now, but since then she had learned a great deal and continued to learn, each day increasing her knowledge. During all this the ape has gotten more and more red in the face, and can no longer contain himself, pressing a hand to his mouth, but then blurting out that he doesn’t wish to say anything against Mother, she certainly has had outstanding success in raising the boys, which one can only envy, but fifty years ago people also knew how to raise children, back then a good spanking and that was it, while what is thought and done today is no advancement. Frau Director wrings her hands as she listens to this antiquated talk, wondering what it has to do with an evolved Western perspective, those are nothing but medieval methods, and those are medieval ideas, one can see what spanking has led to, there being no free people, but rather nothing but numerous enslaved souls, thieves, ruffians, murderers, as well as the many hellish thugs and sex criminals, while in a more ignorant time or with a less reasonable mother Irwin would by now already have come home with a venereal disease, though here that has been prevented from happening, spanking children on the behind also leading to the dangers of anal eroticism, as one day’s spanking is the next day’s sadism.

The Director is beet-red, beads of sweat springing up on his ape nose, his veins swelling up blue, as he yells that he has had enough of this nonsense, if his wife wants to feed on the slop she finds in her books and courses, then she’ll have to do it in the Devil’s name, but he forbids that his boys be further corrupted with these methods. This “pissiatrist” Dr. Brendel is no longer allowed in this house, otherwise there will be consequences, the Director slapping the table with the flat of his hand the entire time, then
he jumps up and wants to leave and slam the door behind him, though at the last minute he composes himself and turns in the door, puts on a sugary-sweet smile and says almost tenderly, “Good night, Mother!” Then the ape quietly closes the door behind him, his wife quickly recovers from her shock and says next with satisfaction, “Just look, Josef, that will serve as evidence how right I am in my principles. From this you can hardly imagine what a lovely man he is, an angel, as I always say. But everything brings him worry and an unreasonable way of life, which traps him in this cycle.” Josef has to continue to listen to such talk until at last he is able to go. He confesses how tired he is, it all being a lot to take in, and he needs to mull it over on his own, so he’d like to now go up to his room. “Good night, Josef, I’m quite pleased with you. You have a lovely kind of seriousness, though unfortunately you also seem to have bad nerves. But just wait, as soon as Dr. Brendel appears I will speak to him about you. Perhaps you are just animalistic, I mean anemic. Well then, good night, Josef, good night!” Anton leads Josef up the stairs and shows him his room, in which his suitcase already stands. Anton then departs quickly with a slight nod of the head, during which he gives a condescending and sardonic smile.

Finally Josef is alone. The room is larger and nicer than he had expected, but the air is heavy and stale. Josef goes to the window, before which there is a step that he climbs to open the window, outside of which is the garden, the night air not cold but full of a soft ringing, a light rain falling, Josef turning from the window and suddenly feeling happy without knowing why. The furniture is quite dapper, the entire accommodations quite comfy, it all looking similar to the boys’ living room, yet simpler, and therefore more appealing to Josef, only the two unframed paintings on the wall being not to his taste, for they look like mirrors, which he never likes, he only realizing up close that they are blank aluminum plates in the middle of which appear bright flecks and dabs of oil paint. Josef thinks to himself that this must indeed be the kind of art that Professor Bäumel admires, abstract and empty of life, though to Josef they seem disguised nonsense, form without mass and figure, he wanting to remove the paintings, they bother him, but they are firmly attached to the wall, so he takes a cloth from the table and covers them up.

Josef is depressed, feeling that tomorrow he should leave this house for
good, he feeling dazed, not knowing how anyone could take Frau Director seriously and wondering how a professor at the university not only could have recommended that he work as a tutor for a year but he had specifically recommended this position, congratulating Josef when he got it. The Director is of course a businessman above all else, even somewhat genial, but she is an unusually charming and intellectual lady, perhaps a bit high-strung, though that’s not so surprising amid so much culture, impressive intellectual interests, and a surprisingly well-rounded education. Josef would have imagined things to be much different in this house, and he is ashamed that he didn’t handle himself better, for he shouldn’t have remained silent about a number of things, he being cowardly or not brave enough, but he had to keep silent, for it was in the interest of the children and he has to act on their behalf, or at least for Lutz, for isn’t he adorable? No, Josef can’t just run off, he has a job to do, and he can’t give up hope just because things fell apart earlier, for perhaps the wife is better than she appears, and the professor was right about her being a bit high-strung, if not in fact way too high-strung. But can any good come of it? No matter his doubts, Lutz needs his help, and it’s touching how such a mistreated child talks about animals and plants, while Irwin had not yet made any such endearing impression on Josef, he being the ice-cold son of a cool, if not weak, father.

Everything in this house is marvelous, but Lutz needs to be taken away, he needs to be saved from it and yanked away from his parents. When the boy raves about a microscope, his eyes shine as he starts to talk, his delicate hands looking like his mother’s, though more refined, while he has nothing of his father in him, nor does Irwin, who is a very handsome boy, despite his eyes drilling into you, his gaze never faltering. Lutz meanwhile sits completely still, his breathing inaudible, his microscope in front of him, he having adjusted the viewer, one eye closed, the other peering at the object through a little round peephole, the right hand shifting the slide back and forth, the left hand turning the knob, the picture becoming more clear, then less clear, the object beautiful, the preparation a success. It’s a continual learning process, Lutz doesn’t know what’s going on around him, he not hearing how his mother talks, as she talks constantly, because she can’t stop herself, she piling up strong words, though in a faulty Latin, her marriage a happy one, the psychiatrist standing nearby, he admiring her soul and captivated
by it. The spirit no longer has any connection with any object. It is all a quick view that is continually swept away, the object unattainable, no amount of enthusiasm doing any good, the hand turning and turning, the image never sharp.

Josef opens the door to the hall, all lights having been turned off, and even though it’s not late, everyone here goes to bed early, the Director certainly already asleep, his wife reading
Ethics
or a book that Dr. Brendel recommended to her, something about blossoming neuroses or sublime cathedrals in the north of France, though probably not, it being too weighty a tome. Josef closes the door, but he listens hard, a thin thread of dance music audible, most likely a gramophone from the neighboring villa, the tones suddenly becoming louder, then becoming scratchy and muted and dissolving into single notes that can barely be heard and which the listener can transform into lovelier music on his own and to which he can add additional melodies until it all exudes its own richness. Thus it becomes dreamlike, and maybe now Lutz is enjoying a good dream. One shouldn’t listen in on everything. Lutz is on a hike, just as he wanted. Josef goes to bed, the sheets cool and comfortable. He wants to read something, so he turns on the light, but the light flashes and makes a crackling sound, a short circuit, and then the room is dark. Amid his torpor Josef thinks about everything he has seen in this house, and then he sleeps.

P
ROFESSOR
R
UMPLER OF COURSE CAN’T HIRE ANYONE AT THIS TIME, HE HAS
enough people, and though it’s clear that anyone would want to work for him, and he of course is happy to support ambitious young talent, one must also consider the times, everyone knows that things are bad in Germany today, it’s a horrible time for intellectual matters everywhere in the world. “We continue to maintain, of course, our high intellectual standards, but what do you want to do here? You’re a newly minted young doctor who studied, what, philosophy, but who knows nothing of life, can’t do stenography, doesn’t know how to write a proper letter on a typewriter, and yet here you stand with a heap of recommendations in your hand! Dash it all, I had to take my knocks in life first, and because of that I had no recommendations, I had to recommend myself. How old are you? I see, twenty-five. Do you know that I gave Schnitzler all the best ideas for his books? He was a talented writer and became famous, that was at the turn of the century. Do you think someone wrote me a recommendation for that? It doesn’t matter, I built a position for myself, but of course everyone begrudges me my position,
how few worries I have. You have no idea of the kinds of people who have worked for me; I could plaster the walls with university professors.”

Josef stands quietly in the office of Professor Rumpler, who sits at an elegant desk, though it’s hard to tell if it’s made of wood, as the surface is covered with a heap of papers and books, a telephone, and a bust of Goethe made of waxed plaster, Professor Rumpler constantly reaching out to grab it by the crown, while in between he holds his own head and complains how no one knows the immense pressure the head of a cultural center has upon him. “You’re constantly pulled to and fro, everyone wanting to put his two cents in, because he knows everything about the matter, though of course no one knows anything. What you think doesn’t mean a thing, nor is it a question of taste, but you have to take precautions in order to defend democracy and freedom when they’re threatened. But freedom, what is that? Goethe knew the answer, that’s clear, but he didn’t have to live in our times and take social and political precautions that I have to keep an eye on. You see, you have to make compromises if you want to balance the swastika with the Socialists. You also have to know the government’s plans exactly and what it wants, in order to be careful. If I speak to someone on the left, then they scream that Rumpler is a Red, and then if I briefly talk to someone on the right, then the lefties start screaming that Rumpler is a Nazi. My friend, people begrudge Rumpler, but it’s easy for people to run off at the mouth. Who today appreciates humanity and democracy? They don’t mean anything, you might say, but you have no idea of the difficulties. Let me just show you what goes on here so that you’ll get rid of your desire for a position in a cultural center. You should thank God that you’re young. When I was young I had my whole life in front of me, and there was still a structure, the feudal and the liberal, and the emperor still ruled the people in a monarchy. But don’t go running around and saying that Rumpler said he’s for the monarchy, that’s ridiculous, I’m not so backward, and I consider there to be no choice but to be for a democratic republic. Nonetheless I still say that people, classes, and religions understood one another better before 1914, but advances, yes advances, bring disadvantages along with them. Listen, my young doctor, you should write down everything I say, though I can’t pay you any money, but it’s a job for a young man, namely to write everything down, I’m ready to take on Goethe! You should do it voluntarily.
Nonsense, you’ll say, but the board funds nothing, the state subvention is ridiculous, and also the school minister and the foreign minister and the President’s Office all want this and that, numerous interests all competing with one another and never working together. But you should write it all down, the gathering of democratic powers, Switzerland a good example, my good friend Thomas Mann, dash it all, even he has to fight for his freedom. He should do a talk here so that we can fill the great hall once again. But, you see, no one comes to talks these days, education, who needs education? Lectures are a load of crap, and schools don’t support us enough, so we give away free tickets, wads and wads of them, while tonight we have a lecture about the Red Cross, highly humanitarian, but what do you know, no one will be crowing for that, and yet you want a position? Do you know what you’re asking? Everything eats up the tax revenues—health care, pensions—so how am I supposed to bring anything in? I don’t even have time to chat with you, a million little tasks await me. You see, there are already people waiting outside, each of them wanting to speak to me, and I have no help, though there are requests to give lectures, concerts, courses, and various programs, all of them wanting to be on the radio or to take part in something. I can hardly keep up! If you want to become my Eckermann, dash it all, then you could learn a great deal and bring out a book,
Conversations with Rumpler!
Indeed, that could do well, why don’t you write things down as I dictate them? Get a pad from Fräulein Grenadier, and learn stenography, but first show me your recommendations again. Well now, we’ll see, first you need to have a look around, but a quick one. I don’t know where my head is. You’ll have to roll your sleeves up and dig right in, all of my men and women need, of course, to be hardworking. You need a strong measure of idealism in order to work with others, and there is no shame in having to take tickets, even I do that. Quite the opposite, it never hurt me, and with my bad heart! All of us do it, which is democratic. Of course I can’t pay you much, you understand, the salary is small, but you will learn a great deal here, that’s for sure, and you won’t regret it. When I lie down for my final rest, perhaps you’ll recall and say to your children what a character Rumpler was, a man, an upstanding man who always held high the flag of humanity. If a reconciliation between the Bolsheviks and the Fascists should ever occur, people will say that Rumpler dedicated himself to it, dash it all, having
worked and fought for it, the popular reconciliation of free intellectuals, the symbolic renewal of Lessing and Beethoven, Nathan and Die Neunte! Dash it all, it’s a difficult business! You have to sacrifice all your time, not a one of us works an eight-hour day. It’s not like at a bank or in a store, where you can throw in the towel and have a party. Saturdays are never free, and even on Sunday someone has to be here to keep an eye on people. Do you have any idea what would be stolen if there were no monitors? The regular hours are from ten until one and three until eight, but at eight the lectures and everything else start, so each monitor has to stay until eight-thirty. My colleagues never go home before nine, and often it’s ten or eleven. Not to mention that once a week each has evening duties until all the events are over. For overtime there is a tiny allowance, which takes care of everyone’s needs. Now I’ll show you the office, and tomorrow you can start.”