his father had died. (Ages ago, when I was five or six, his father had made me a recorder out of hazelwood.) Two years ago, he said. But I was not really interested in when his father had died. My question was only a device to distract myself from my obscene thoughts about my mother’s coffin and at the same time to distance myself from my sisters, to punish them for some quite unspecified offense. I went on talking to the gardener, unable to stop thinking of opening my mother’s coffin, ignoring my sisters and prolonging my conversation with the gardener. It was astonishing that he had worked at Wolfsegg for so many years under conditions that were far from easy, I said, knowing that this would get home to my sisters. Conditions at Wolfsegg were always extremely difficult, I said, without being more specific. There was no need to be specific, for my tone of voice conveyed what I meant about the conditions at Wolfsegg, and the gardener at once understood what I meant — that for decades, if not for centuries, the owners had always made life difficult. On the other hand, I told myself, it’s fortunate for us — and by us I meant my family as a whole — that we have good workers like him. My sisters listened attentively, though they had their backs to us, pretending that there was no reason to pay any attention to me and the gardener. Caecilia pressed the toe of one shoe into the ground at the side of the path, as though to trace a letter in the soil. This was a habit she had had as a child. She said something to Amalia that I did not catch, but this was only pretense, as they were both absorbed by what I was saying to the gardener. In this way we were all three playing games, all spying and eavesdropping on one another. It struck me that just as I was exploiting the gardener, simply in order to take my mind off my obscene thoughts about my mother’s coffin, so they were exploiting each other in order to spy on me. I stopped talking to the gardener and joined my sisters, thinking that they would be able to stifle my obscene thoughts, that their almost incessant chatter, which was doubtless a reaction to the terrible situation created by the accident, would provide the distraction I sought. I suggested that we go over to the Children’s Villa. I have no idea what prompted this suggestion. We all three walked over to the Children’s Villa. On the way I remembered how Schermaier had never spoken about the time he spent in the prisons, the penitentiaries, and the concentration camp in Holland, and decided that if he did not speak about it I would one day write about it. In Extinction, the book I’m planning, I’ll write about Schermaier, about the injustice he suffered and the crimes committed against him, I thought. His wife still wept when forced to think of those bitter years that had brought them both such unhappiness, but she too never said why she wept. It’s my duty, I thought, to write about them in my Extinction, to cite them as representatives of so many others who never speak about what they suffered during the Nazi period and permit themselves only to weep now and then — all the victims whom the National Socialists have on their conscience, the National Socialist criminals whose crimes are never mentioned today, having been hushed up for so many years. I’ll say quite simply that our National Socialist society was able, with impunity, to destroy him for the rest of his life, even though it could not annihilate him. On the way to the Children’s Villa I promised myself that in my Extinction I would find a way of drawing attention to him, even if I could not restore to him the rights of which the Nazis had deprived him. My Extinction will provide the best opportunity to do this, I thought, if I ever manage to get it down on paper. Thinking about the Schermaiers made me forget the monstrous idea of having my mother’s coffin opened. When we arrived at the Children’s Villa and my sisters were unlocking the door, I began to talk to them about the Schermaiers, whom they knew well, as I reminded them. I told them that I could not get the Schermaiers out of my mind. I had no hesitation, I said, in describing them as the best people I knew, yet it was on these people that the full horror of National Socialism had been visited. His best friend informed against him, I said, as Caecilia unlocked the door. His best friend was base enough to denounce him and have him sent to a concentration camp. I could not get it out of my mind, I said. In Rome I often lay on my bed, unable to stop thinking of how our nation was guilty of thousands, tens of thousands, of such heinous crimes, yet remained silent about them. The fact that it keeps quiet about these thousands and tens of thousands of crimes is the greatest crime of all, I told my sisters. It’s this silence that’s so sinister, I said. It’s the nation’s silence that’s so terrible, even more terrible than the crimes themselves, I said. And to think that I have to receive these murderers! I’ll refuse to shake hands with them, I said. I can’t exclude them from the funeral, but I won’t shake their hands. If I did, I too would be guilty of a crime. It was in the Children’s Villa, I said, the building I loved best as a child, that our parents hid these common criminals and provided them with a life of luxury at a time of the greatest hardship. And they were never ashamed of it, I said. On the contrary, they boasted of their base behavior, I said. All this time my sisters did not say a word. Our parents made themselves guilty, I said, by harboring and sheltering these loathsome people, who should have been tried and sentenced. And executed, of course. What must people like the Schermaiers think, I said, when they see how these murderers are treated, when they see mass murderers going around scot-free, leading a life of luxury, while they themselves are forgotten and live in the most miserable conditions? This state is like my family, devoted to Nazi criminality. And the Catholic Church, I went on, is no better. The Church only ever seeks its own advantage, keeping quiet when it ought to speak out and taking cover, when things get too dangerous, behind Jesus Christ, whom it has exploited for two thousand years. I’m nauseated by these people, I said, who will follow the coffins tomorrow, heads bowed, with nothing to fear, all of them highly esteemed members of our society. In my own way, I said, I’ll distance myself from all these people whom I’ve always hated. I won’t let them near me. I’m not Father, I’m not Mother, I said. The Children’s Villa was almost completely bare. What’s happened to the beautiful pictures, I wondered, that I saw here only a year ago in the entrance hall, one on each side, and on the walls of the downstairs rooms? I was told that my mother had sold these pictures, painted by early ancestors of ours, to an antique dealer from Wels, for a knockdown price. I always despised my mother’s lack of appreciation for exceptional works of art. My father had no time at all for pictures, unless he was told that they were valuable. This used to impress my mother too; nothing else did. Neither had an eye for art. The walls of the downstairs rooms were now cold and unwelcoming, I thought, though only a year ago they had been so attractive. But the Children’s Villa has in any case been degraded by having accommodated two mass murderers for so long, I thought. That has made it intolerable. On the other hand, I had earlier considered restoring the Children’s Villa, and this now seemed a good idea. I was instantly taken with the idea and said to my sisters, No matter what took place here, the Children’s Villa is the first building I’ll have restored, from top to bottom. It’ll be as it was before its degradation. The Children’s Villa is the most beautiful building at Wolfsegg, I said. And summer is the best time for restoration work. The Wolfsegg money should be spread around, I said. It’s madness to let it molder in banks. My sisters did not understand me. In any case the place must be aired, I told them. I said we should open all the windows. It’s frightfully stuffy in here, I said. As it was a fine, warm day, we opened all the windows one after another, first in the ground-floor rooms and then upstairs. This was done in complete silence; even my sisters did not speak to each other. I recalled that only three or four days earlier I had described the Children’s Villa to Gambetti, and now, as we opened the windows, I had proof of how accurate my description had been. The windows really were as big as I had described them, taller than any others at Wolfsegg except those in the main house, taller than any in the Huntsmen’s Lodge or the Gardeners’ House. And on the ceilings were the plaster moldings that I had tried to describe to Gambetti, representing scenes from German classical plays — Lessing’s