Aladdin's Problem Page 4

  Regarding the nobility, there were two big thrusts: the first, in the French Revolution; the other, in the two world wars, which future historians will, presumably, not separate. Salient turning points came when the entails were broken by the Code Napoleon and then by the Weimar Constitution, the goal being a redistribution of land. This was made possible by the spiritual weakness of the aristocracy, which was also physically liquidated in vast areas. Numerous members of my family did not escape this fate.

  Quite generally, one may say that Prussia was well represented by the nobility until the Franco-Prussian War. Bismarck, Moltke, and Roon were paragons. The decline is evident when we compare portraits from that war with those from World War I — say, the portrait of Wilhelm I with that of Wilhelm II, or that of old Moltke with that of his nephew. But then, in my father's generation, came Moltke's grandnephew, Helmuth James Moltke, who was executed.

  38

  I close the circle: Uncle Fridolin did not contribute to our replenishment like the Hungarian coachmen. In this respect, he most likely did little; at any rate, Friederike did not bear him any children. Thus, I will probably be his heir, although this has no meaning for me; for either my problem will be solved on a higher level, in which case I will have no need of money, or else my problem will be my doom. At any rate, there will be enough for a cell in a madhouse or even in a private sanitarium.

  Financially, however, we were considerately replenished by Friederike's marriage in the changing times and their catastrophes. My uncle became a lifesaver for Bertha and me after I obtained my university degree. In choosing my subjects, I had thought of my grandfather. But he had died in the meantime, and even the most modest jobs in his firm were taken. I had wasted important years in Liegnitz. After Grandfather's death, we moved into his Steglitz apartment and lived there rent-free but lavishly. I was surprised by a tax for "residing in one's own home" and other vexations — all in all, today's exploitation surpasses by far the practices of absolute monarchy. The state has become a multi-armed octopus, drawing blood in thousands of ways. There was only one thing I liked more than in the East: in your free time, you did not have to march behind the flag and yell hurrah, and also you could read and write whatever you wished.

  There were weeks when I looked forward to Sunday — not because I had nothing to do, for I was idle even on workdays. But at least Sunday brought no mail with dunning notices and rejections. And at breakfast, Bertha's face was not so distressed.

  We slept under one blanket, and at night, when I woke up with a start, I mused how good it would be if we never got up again. I reached out and felt Bertha next to me. I was safe here; I wished that it could always be like this, and that we, occasionally waking up, could lie next to one another for years — centuries.

  Nevertheless, this period provided me with time to read. I learned more from books than at the universities. Day and night, I lived with the philosophers, the classics, and also the Bible as in a mountain range with its wellsprings and valleys — so long as I was not writing and answering ads or looking for a job. Bertha took over most of my correspondence. The offers were sobering: vacuum-cleaner companies were looking for enterprising peddlers, chinchilla farms wanted to dispose of their animals for a "nominal investment."

  Nor did I fare any better with the heads ofpersonnel departments — if I so much as managed to get that far: their psychological training in dismissing people was perfect — from offering a cigarette to buzzing the secretary who showed me out. "You'll hear from us as soon as something comes up." But nothing ever did come up.

  39

  Going to Uncle Fridolin was almost an act of despair; naturally, I had already thought of him. My reluctance is shown by the number of visits I had tormented myself with before calling on him. My lack of eagerness was probably due in part to my memory ofthe days when the family had somewhat looked down on him.

  I went to see him not at his office but at his home, which was only one block further. Aunt Friederike's coffee was excellent now; I missed her home-made cakes, but, to make up for them, there were petits-fours from Schilling's Pastry Shop. We "chitchatted" at length, as the Lower Saxons put it. Finally, when twilight was setting in, I came out with my request.

  My uncle showed little surprise. He looked at me with his "character gaze," perusing me for a long time — not as inscrutably as the heads ofpersonnel departments, but skeptically, like the little bookkeeper that he had been. My aunt placed her hand on his arm. He took off his spectacles and said:

  "Friedrich — I expected this. Come to my office tomorrow morning at eleven. Bring along your documents — every last one of them, starting with your birth certificate."

  40

  The next morning, accompanied by Bertha's good wishes, I stood outside his firm on Potsdamer Strasse. Having come early, I spent a quarter of an hour pacing up and down in front of the building. The bombs had spared it. It had only been "aired out" — and not until the final days of the Reich Chancelery. My uncle had redone the rooms for his needs and added a new facade. No show window — whatever belonged to the final arrangements could be seen in the branch offices. There was a sign at the entrance:

  PIETAS

  Funerals

  Above it, two silver palm fronds. There were no other firms in the building, only an apartment for the concierge. The latter was indispensable, for many calls came at night.

  At the stroke of eleven, I entered his office. I was led not into the waitingroom but directly to my uncle. "Herr Gädke is expecting you," said the secretary when I gave her my name. She pressed a button; my uncle opened the door and ushered me in. His office was plain, but roomy, with a big desk on which there was little paper— all incoming items were processed instantly. No pictures, only a few diplomas and the portrait of the old kaiser in uniform. "Some customers are offended, but I don't care."

  After a quick handshake, my uncle put on his spectacles and delved into my credentials; they formed a thick file, which Bertha had put in order. There was nothing amiss in my transcripts — I had done well, indeed, to some extent, very well in the Gymnasium, the university, and also the military — until my desertion. This was a blemish more in my eyes than in Fridolin's.

  My uncle read everything carefully, even my swimming certificate and my certificate of membership in the Dynamo Athletic Club in Liegnitz. I saw him nodding his approval several times. Then he took off his spectacles:

  "And how are your finances, Friedrich?"

  Bertha had thought of that too. I was able to produce bills, receipts, and dunning notices. The bottom line did not look good. My uncle reimmersed himself and shook his head.

  "So, more than I thought."

  A silence ensued. Finally, he said:

  "I will hire you all the same. Leave the bills here; I'll settle them, and you'll also get an advance on your salary. I don't like someone to start out with debts. Mind you: it's a loan."

  That was a burden off my mind; it was more than I had hoped for. I thanked my uncle; he shook my hand and said:

  "The day after tomorrow is the first of the month; you can begin then. Don't get me wrong: it's on the basis of your credentials. The fact that we are family and that you are even our next of kin is a different kettle of fish. As your uncle, I would have given you the money. But in the office, I am no uncle and you are no nephew; that's what I've already told Friederike."

  41

  Sergeant Stellmann had expressed himself in similar terms, but more robustly. One of his mottoes was: "I'm a kind-hearted man — but on duty I'm a bastard. And I'm always on duty."

  Well, it was not as bad as all that. Ultimately, I count Stellmann among my benefactors. Walking back from Potsdamer Strasse to Steglitz, I stopped off at Rollenhagen's and spent part of my advance on a lobster and a bottle of champagne. The nicest thing of all was that Bertha's face was at last cheerful again. We could now save our furniture from being repossesed.

  She had also regained her sense of humor: when we took a nap after th
e banquet, she said: "You can now stop looking as if you'd seen a ghost."

  She was already alluding to my job.

  42

  At 8:0o A.M. on the first of the month, I began my new job. Uncle Fridolin informed me about my duties; there was truly no question of nepotism. He concluded: "You will start at the bottom and work your way up." Then he introduced me to the chief executives.

  I was now a manager at Pietas. "Manager" is a makeshift title, which can mean anything and nothing. It corresponds to the military title "for special services." I was a factotum, a maid of all work, constantly busy, even Sundays and after hours. The concierge would telephone me in emergencies — and everything in this business is an emergency. Furthermore, death comes mainly at night.

  Now "at the bottom" did not mean that I had to lay hands on the coffins -- there was a special squad for that, the burial men, and they caused me enough trouble. Pallbearers and gravediggers are a strange guild, they are border crossers of a kind. While they may not philosophize like Hamlet, they are nevertheless concerned with the question of what remains of us. Usually only a couple of bones in the grave or ashes in the urn — that was their conclusion.

  But my job was to deal with their functions, not their thoughts. I benefited from my experiences in Liegnitz. All in all, it's always good to have performed rigorous service somewhere. I had to check their suits, their slow, regular pacing, their measured, even slightly sacral movements, their postures down to the mimicry, their solemn faces. It was important that they should not report for work in a tipsy state. Unfortunately, before arriving, they tended to wet their whistles — and rather copiously at that. After a funeral, it was customary — even if they did not take part in the funeral feast, they could usually count on a libation. All in all, I generally got along with them.

  43

  Thus I often had to deal with cemeteries and crematoriums. I also had to go to their administrations, to churches and registry offices, to suppliers and newspapers. At first, I could barely cope with it all.

  Needless to say, given the size of Uncle Fridolin s firm, I had to take care of only one sector; the work was divided among the cemeteries. However, three of them, including a large one, were more than enough. I had relatively little trouble with a Jewish graveyard that had escaped being plowed under. It was small, and a religious organization, the khevra kadisha (burial society), did the bulk of our work. This was good, partly because special prescripts had to be strictly observed. No flowers were allowed; Jews lay stones on a grave. I particularly liked this place because of the old, mysterious headstones. Inscriptions that we cannot read inspire a deeper level of thinking — there was a touch of Zion and Babylon to it.

  Life in an office was new to me. I got accustomed to it within a year. There are two rules for such work; one: plan; the other: delegate. Little by little, I cut back on the paperwork and made more use of the telephone. This saved a lot of time and a lot of errands. I also knew the partners now, and when my uncle saw that I was proving myself, he gave me a secretary. She prepared the incoming papers; on some I only made a few jottings, chiefly figures; she would call the administrations. Sermon, chapel, flowers, and so forth were then automatically taken care of. Finally, even these jottings were dropped; a small machine stood next to the telephone: I pressed buttons as Bertha had done on the cash register.

  44

  After a year, I was also relieved of making house calls — they are my least pleasant memories. Usually, I was expected, for the bereaved turned to the tried-and-true Pietas after the initial shock. This obtained even for state funerals. The name of the firm, with the palm fronds, appeared between newspaper obituaries and in every subway car. The more lavish the funeral was to be, the more readily they thought of us. Before the war, Uncle Fridolin, together with Grandfather, had started a burial fund; it too flourished, but he terminated it. He said: "That's something for little people" — let them go to his competitors.

  I began sighing even before those visits, when I knotted my silver necktie and slipped into my frock coat. What was I in for this time? Who would open the door — the ghostly widow or the weeping maid? No hush can be deeper than in a house where someone has died and the mirrors are draped. I would get involved in turbulent scenes, watch the family standing around the deathbed, and have to prompt anyone who would not reply. Nor was there any lack ofinfamy: the heirs already bickering in the next room, the creditors mobbing the door as they had done after Balzac's demise, the ill-concealed delight ofthe successor in the store, the office, the conjugal bed, rubbing his hands.

  45

  One thing was not as bad as I had pictured it: the close bond between tragedy and business. Whenever I entered as the harbinger of Charon's boat, followed by my assistant with his tape measure, I actually sensed a feeling of relief among the mourners. The chaos was beginning to ease — I could take over some of their worries. And also, the moment comes when, hard as it may be to say farewell, one wishes that the dead person were under the ground.

  Then again, I could not neglect business. Once, when I submitted an order to Uncle Fridolin, he said: "They would have been more than willing to spend twice as much for their father and they are even obligated to do so: he was a general. After all, we're not running a charity here."

  I took his words to heart; on the other hand, I could not exploit the bewilderment of the bereaved. Gradually, I struck a balance.

  Why did I care less and less about these visits the more routine they became? The answer would require a bit of soul-searching, for I would not wish to present myself to myself as a good person. Nevertheless, the work was stressful. My situation was roughly that of a thespian who has to perform in dramas every evening. At first, he is passionate, then it becomes a daily habit; it imbues his language, his gestures, his acting — the mask becomes constant.

  That was what happened to me. Now, when I went to the homes of the deceased, I had no stage fright; this development was harmful to my character.

  46

  It was Bertha rather than I who noticed the change. She said, when I came home exhausted: "You can stop looking as if you've been to your own funeral!" And she was no longer trying to be funny.

  When I started neglecting her, my work was only partly to blame. At breakfast, I was already leafing through the newspaper and skimming the obituaries. If was possible that an important death had eluded us. Next I drove to Potsdamer Strasse (for I now owned a car), telephoned, made house calls, and came back in the evening, often tardily. Usually, I read until late at night, since, for me, a day without books is a lost day.

  Bertha had to understand that I could not devote as much time to her as back then, in the tiny room where we had huddled together, comforting one another. Poverty unites, prosperity divides. Mercury is detrimental to love.

  Once I got the hang of my work, I developed a gambling addiction. Anyone who has been accompanied by success even once in a lifetime is familiar with that addiction. You now enter your office in a good mood instead of with a heavy heart as in the past. Things go smoothly. The way an expert card player shuffles and fans the cards — the sheer act of watching is a delight.

  47

  The atmosphere in our refined apartment grew cooler; we treated one another gingerly. Our alienation expressed itself in trivial matters — say, a necktie that she did not like. Yet she was the one who had given it to me. But it did not go with my suit.

  I never allowed an argument to develop, though I am particularly touchy at breakfast. But this was not to her liking either. She would say: "Friedrich, I think you're becoming too glib. Oh, I know: The customer is always right."

  I realized it — my work was rubbing off on my character. In marriage too, an acute attack is better than a chronic disorder; a knock-down, drag-out fight clears the air, and the reconciliation restores domestic peace.

  However, I have to do some more thorough soul-searching and ask myself whether my change was not in fact consistent with the core of my being rather t
han merely symptomatic of an occupational disease.

  48

  Have I already mentioned that I view myself as capable of getting along with any woman provided I do not find her inherently repulsive? Bertha had realized that too. She once said to me when we were lying side by side: "I believe you love me less because I am I, than because I'm a woman — isn't that insulting to me?"

  That was the age-old question of which is preferable: the wine or the beaker? I prefer the wine. The King of Thule drank from a golden beaker, which his beloved had given him; but he tossed it into the sea, gave it back to the mother. There are also earthenware beakers, and perhaps the wine tastes better from them; knowledge and culture are more likely to do damage to love. This is a problem that even the gods argue about; I cannot solve it.

  That night, I kept the answer to myself an embrace is the best argument. Now I am not saying that Bertha could not have kept up her side of the conversation and not only because the studies that she had broken off for my sake had been classical languages and therefore mythology as well. She resumed them later on.

  49

  To deal with Bertha's question in detail, I have to enlist the aid of mythology. Our psychologists and characterologists, often without realizing it, have their roots there too. I get less from their measuring skills than from a chapter of Plutarch or Vico.

  What tied me to Bertha was not just taste but also passion. We owe this distinction to Stendhal; it was he who established it. But when passion grew weaker, good taste prevented our having a quarrel a la Strindberg. Nor did another man, another woman emerge. We drifted apart, and this caused both of us distress — certainly Bertha wondered, just as I did, to what extent it was her fault.

  She did not hold back with the small overtures at which women are better than we. For example, dates, which we forget more easily than they do — why were there flowers on the table today? Right — it was the anniversary of our first night together. Then again, a favorite dish would be on the table, or else she was wearing the cheap jewelry that I had given her in our student days, and her hairdo was the same as back then. These were memories of the old times, but only memories.