‘Well,’ said Dr Wagner, ‘you know how it is. First I kept putting it off, then it was too late.’ And he thought of an expedition with his boys as they ran about wildly, jumping over the bonfire.
He also thought of the First War, and the trenches. It had sometimes been quite romantic there. He thought of the young, and their wonderful bodies, wonderful even if disfigured by their scars. He set about rolling up his sleeve to show the marks left by his own wound.
At the beginning of the war, Dr Wagner told the party, he had received some marvellous letters from his pupils. They had been written on the heights of the Acropolis, in Denmark, from the Caucasus and Burgundy. The flow had dried up now. He had heard less and less from his boys since Stalingrad. But he had kept them all in a folder, and he read them now and then. He intended to add photos of the boys to their letters, and it would be like a memorial to the dead. And after the war he would publish the whole thing in memory of the young blood that had been shed.
Katharina sat to one side on the sofa, with the baroness. In her black pullover and black trousers, you could hardly make her out in the darkness. Now and then the glowing end of her cigarette shone. And the baroness looked surreptitiously at her; maybe she could make a friend here? Help to polish her nails or comb that heavy dark hair? She moved closer to Katharina, but Katharina withdrew. She needed her freedom.
Under the large old pictures of ancestors who were not the Globigs’ ancestors at all, they sat together. And the ancestors looked down at the company with their bright eyes. Were they surprised?
Dr Wagner raised his glass and said:
You happy eyes
Whatever you saw
Whatever it was
May it be as of yore.
‘Yes,’ said Auntie. ‘That’s good … who wrote it?’
They were all sitting by the hearth, the women, the baron with the parrot and the cat, and Peter, keeping quiet. He was still too young to be allowed to join in the conversation, but he could be there, and he listened to it all. Was he proud, he was asked, to bear such a great name?
The baron read aloud from his history of his birthplace, when and by whom the city had been founded and then, getting more interesting, how the Russians had wreaked havoc when they occupied the Baltic states in 1919, stabbed the city councillors and threw their bodies down a well. He smoked a very special pipe as he told this tale, Peter had never seen a pipe like that before. Or a suit patterned with such large checks either.
Wagner the schoolmaster, wearing his third tie, his head propped on his left hand, stroking his goatee beard the wrong way with his bony fingers, listened to the baron’s stories, not exactly spellbound, but with interest. He hadn’t known how efficiently the German Freikorps fighting bands had cleared the place out. There had been no shilly-shallying; they had driven the Reds away.
Was the baron going to revise his narrative? asked Dr Wagner; he thought it needed a finishing touch here and there.
‘No,’ said the baron. ‘What I’ve written, I have written.’
Dr Wagner still had the poems of his youth in his desk in Mitkau. Why not give the company a taste of one or another of them on an evening such as this? Yes, why not?
The flames on the hearth flickered over the circle, making its members’ eyes shine. The bottle of Barolo brought out by Katharina had something to do with that. They even took the old glasses out of the cupboard for it.
The parrot put his head under his wing, the cat lay on the baron’s lap. It made you think of Boccaccio and Dante. They had sat by the fire telling stories too, hadn’t they?
Late at night they lowered their voices to a whisper. The subject of conversation was the Jews.
‘They’ll take their revenge …’
‘I don’t think much of those fellows, but …’
‘Oh well, forget it …’
Who’d have thought it could be so cosy at the Georgenhof? They’d think of that later on. A pity, really, that Eberhard wasn’t here. Where was he now? Was he thinking of the Georgenhof? Of Katharina and his son, Peter?
Finally Dr Wagner played the first movement of the ‘Moonlight Sonata’ as he had never played it before, followed by another piece of a very different kind, and his audience quite forgot to ask what it was.
Wagner with his crooked back and his third tie under his goatee beard. He had never played that piece to them before. It must come from his last happy times. Summer days in the Harz Mountains. Winter days with his mother. Autumn with the leaves turning colour. The circular walk below the town walls, a fine view of the countryside.
The baron, who usually just cleared his throat while Dr Wagner was playing the piano, asked whether he would play that piece again. But Wagner had already closed the piano lid.
15. A Teacher
The next day, the Baltic couple left. The baron told Auntie how much he admired her for her thoughtfulness and all her busy activity, addressing her by name. ‘Frau Harnisch,’ he said, ‘you are a very industrious woman,’ and he patted her on her bony back. He kissed Katharina’s hand several times, with feeling, and lightly stroked Peter, who was with them, on the cheek. ‘Look after your mother, won’t you?’ And he waved to the ancestors on the wall, whose wide eyes followed everything that was going on.
Then he went into the kitchen and spoke to the two maids at some length. Was he appealing to them? Telling them they must take good care of their dear mistress and always stick together? The conversation probably went something like that. He gave them five marks each, and they thanked him, bobbing a little curtsy.
He even drew slender Sonya close to him for a moment.
‘Lora!’ screeched the parrot. ‘You old sow!’
Dr Wagner the schoolmaster was already at the front door. And as cart after cart went by down on the road, to the background noise of guns rumbling on the horizon — Goodnight, dear mother, goodnight — the two of them shook hands, man to man. Don’t come to grief at the last moment, keep your chin up and so forth. And here’s an address in Wuppertal, commit it to memory, we can get in touch that way when all this is over.
The baron had certain plans; he knew exactly what he wanted to do, and so did his wife. They hoped to go as far west as possible. Bremen, perhaps, why not? Somewhere in the country there, maybe.
Dr Wagner had no concrete ideas yet. I surge like the sea, restlessly swaying. Lao-Tse said something like that. He would let himself drift, he wouldn’t do anything by force, he would work calmly and with composure towards his own fulfilment. With a sweeping gesture, he indicated the East Prussian countryside at his feet and the snake-like line of refugees boring into it. Mustn’t put one’s hand into the spokes of the wheel of Fortune. Thank God, he had to say, that his mother was dead already. Gone at the right time. Those dear old people had been a luckier generation.
The Baltic couple had hardly gone out into the road, rucksacks on their backs, the suitcase beside them and carrying the parrot cage, when a car swerved out of the column and stopped. Did they want a lift? They certainly did! ‘Then in you get!’ said the driver. Although that suitcase, a heavy great thing — it would surely break the axle! — would have to be left behind. ‘Sorry.’ And they had to get a move on, they didn’t have much time, couldn’t wait around in the road.
What was to be done with the heavy suitcase? All those chronicles, and the half-finished manuscript? Should they leave it at the manor house until better times came? Think of all the things that might happen … Hadn’t tanks driven by only last night on their way to the front? So the baroness dragged the case back up the bank beside the road and into the house again. Wagner, still standing in the doorway, took it into his own keeping; yes, he’d do what he could, he’d care for the suitcase like the apple of his eye, they could depend on that.