He rested his arms on his knees, simultaneously inhibited and demanding. “It’s what one does? Well, it is perhaps what one does. But why you? What do you have to give them?”
“To give them? Food, clothing.”
He abruptly raised his voice. “Don’t bring up that confounded seed business of yours!”
He sat back again abruptly, as if he wanted to distance himself from me, and wrung his hands in his lap.
“No…” I struggled against the cowed ten-year-old inside of me, tried to remain calm, but noticed that I was shaking. When I finally managed to speak again my voice was high-pitched and forced. “I would very much like to continue with my research. But it’s just that… as you, professor, can probably understand… there isn’t enough time.”
“What do you want me to say? That it’s completely acceptable?” He stood up. “Acceptable that you can’t find the time?” He stood there on the floor in front of me, moved a few steps closer, grew, became large and dark. “Acceptable that you still haven’t finished writing a single research article? Acceptable that your bookshelves are full of unread books? Acceptable that I’ve spent all this time on you and you still haven’t achieved more in life than a mediocre boar?”
The last word hung quivering in the air between us.
A boar. That’s what I was to him. A boar.
A weak protest rose inside me. Had he really spent that much time on me, or had I first and foremost been a henchman for his projects? Because that was perhaps what he actually wanted, that I should inherit his research, keep it alive. Keep him alive. But I swallowed my words.
“That’s what you want to hear? Right?” he said, with eyes as empty as the amphibians’ who were staring at us from the glass tanks. “That that’s how life is? One reproduces, has offspring, one instinctively puts their needs first, they are mouths to feed, one becomes a provider, the intellect steps aside to make way for nature. It’s not your fault. And it’s still not too late.” He stared at me until it hurt. “That’s what you want to hear? That it’s still not too late? That your time will come?” Then he laughed suddenly. A small, hard laugh without joy, but full of scorn. It was brief, but it remained inside me. He fell silent, but did not wait for my answer, knew that I wouldn’t have the strength to say anything. He just walked to the door and opened it. “Unfortunately I must ask you to leave. I have work to do.”
He left me without saying good-bye, let the housekeeper show me out. I wandered back to my books but didn’t take any out. I couldn’t even bear to look at them, just crept into bed and stayed there, stayed here, while my books accumulated dust. All of the texts I’d once wanted to read and understand.
They were still there, in disarray on the shelves, some with the spine further out than others, like an uneven row of teeth on the shelf. I wrenched myself away from them, could not stand seeing them. Charlotte lifted her head, became aware that I was awake and quickly put down the book.
“Are you thirsty?”
She got up, found a mug of water and held it out to me.
I turned my head away.
“No.” I heard the severity in my voice and hastened to add, “Thank you.”
“Do you want anything else? The doctor said—”
“Nothing.”
She looked at me closely, as if she were studying me.
“You look better. More alert.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Really. I mean it.” She smiled. “At least you answer.”
I refrained from saying anything else, as any further speech on my part would only reinforce the impression of restored health. Instead I let the silence confirm the opposite, and my gaze slide away, as if I no longer noticed her.
But she did not give up, just remained standing by my bedside, holding one hand in the other, wringing them a little and releasing them again, until she finally came out with what was clearly weighing on her heart.
“Has God abandoned you, Father?”
Imagine if it were that simple, if it had something to do with Our Lord. To lose one’s faith, for that there was a simple remedy: find it again. When I was a student I had immersed myself in the Bible. I always had it at my side, and I took it to bed with me every evening. I kept searching for the connection between it and my field, between the small wonders in nature and the big words on paper. I lingered especially over the writings of Paul the Apostle. I can’t count the number of hours I’d sat studying Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, because so many of his fundamental ideas are found in this, it was the closest one that came to a theology according to St. Paul. And having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. What did that mean? That he who is captive is perhaps the only one who is truly free? Doing the right thing can be a prison, a form of captivity, but we had been shown the way. Why didn’t we manage it, then? Not even in meeting with His creation did human beings succeed in doing the right thing.
I never found the answer and I took out the little black volume more and more seldom. It gathered dust on the shelf, along with the others. What was I going to say now? That this, my so-called sickbed, was far too banal and vile to have anything to do with Him? That its core was to be found solely within me, in my choices, in the life I had lived?
No. Perhaps another day, but not now. So I refrained from answering her, only shook my head feebly and pretended to fall asleep.
She sat with me until peace descended upon the house below us. I listened to the pages being turned, she read quickly, the soft sound of muslin moving when she now and then changed position. She was apparently chained to the books, just as I was chained to the bed, even though she was wise enough to know better. Book learning was a waste of time for her; she would never have use for the knowledge anyway, simply because she was a daughter and not a son.
But all of a sudden she was interrupted. The door opened. Rapid footsteps stomped across the floor.
“Is this where you’re sitting?” Thilda’s stern voice, and without a doubt her equally stern gaze upon Charlotte. “It’s bedtime,” she continued, as if the information in itself were a command. “You have to do the dishes from supper. And Edmund has a headache, so I want you to put on some tea water for him.”
“Yes, Mother.”
I could hear Charlotte’s feet against the floor as she stood up and the sound of the book being put down on the sideboard. Her light footsteps moving towards the door.
“Good night, Father.”
Then she disappeared. Her serenity was replaced by Thilda’s brisk steps. She walked over to the stove and with loud, brusque movements she put in more coal. She did it herself now; the maidservant had long since been obliged to find other work, and now Thilda suffered daily over having to take care of the heating herself, a suffering she did very little to conceal. She emphasized it rather, by accompanying all of her movements with sighs and groans.
When she finally finished, she just stood there. But I had only a moment of silence before her perpetual orchestra started up. I didn’t need to open my eyes to know that she was standing down by the warmth of the stove, allowing her tears to flow freely. I had seen it a number of times before and there was no mistaking the sound. The crackling of the coal accompanied her tirade. I squirmed, laid my ear against the pillow in an effort to muffle the sound, but without any particular success.
A minute passed. Two. Three.
Then she finally relented and concluded her lamentation with a powerful blowing of her nose. She probably understood that she wasn’t getting anywhere today, either. The mucus warmed by her body flowed out of her, with loud, almost mechanical snorting sounds. She was always like this, so well lubricated, whether she cried or not. Except for down there. There it was woefully dry and cold. And all the same she had given me eight children.