almost ruined Traich. After the Wertheimers came back from England, at first to Vienna, only much later to Traich, as Franz said, they had kept to themselves, hadn’t wanted any contact with their neighbors. He, Franz, had come back into their service, they had always paid him well and always credited him for having remained faithful to them even during Nazi rule and during their entire England period, as he put it. The fact that he took better care of Traich in the so-called Nazi period than the Nazis would have liked, as Franz put it, not only got him a warning from the Nazi authorities, it also landed him in jail in Wels for two months, since then he hated Wels, wouldn’t go there anymore, even for the local carnival. Herr Wertheimer hadn’t wanted to let his sister go to church, said Franz, but she went to evening mass in secret. The parents of the young Wertheimers hadn’t gotten much enjoyment out of Traich anymore, said Franz, with whom I was standing in the kitchen, they died in an accident much too early. They were on their way to Merano, said Franz. Herr Wertheimer senior didn’t want to go to Merano, but she wanted to, he said. They only found the car two weeks after it had fallen over a cliff in Bressanone, he said. The Wertheimers had relatives in Merano, I thought. Wertheimer’s great-grandfather had hired him, Franz, in Traich. Even his father had spent his life working for the Wertheimers. Their employers had always been good to all of them, hadn’t let any debts pile up, and so in return they quite naturally never had any complaints, as Franz put it. He couldn’t imagine what would happen now with Traich. What I thought of Herr Duttweiler, Franz wanted to know, to which I only shook my head. Perhaps, as Franz put it, Wertheimer’s sister will come to Traich to sell Traich. I don’t think so, I said, I absolutely couldn’t imagine that the Duttweiler woman would sell Traich, although I thought it perfectly possible that she was thinking of selling Traich, but I didn’t tell Franz what I was thinking, I said very clearly, no, I don’t think the Duttweiler woman will sell Traich, I really don’t think so. I wanted to calm Franz, who was naturally worried about losing his lifelong employment. It’s of course quite possible that the Duttweiler woman, Wertheimer’s sister, will come to Traich and sell Traich, perhaps as soon as possible, I thought, but I said to Franz I was convinced that Wertheimer’s sister, the sister of my friend, I expressly emphasized, wouldn’t sell Traich, they have so much money, the Duttweilers, I said to Franz, that they don’t need to sell Traich, while I was thinking that precisely because the Duttweilers have so much money they’re perhaps thinking of simply getting rid of Traich as soon as possible, they certainly won’t sell Traich, I said, and was thinking, they may well sell Traich immediately, and I said to Franz, he could be certain that here in Traich nothing would change, while I was thinking that perhaps everything will change in Traich. The Duttweiler woman will come here and take care of everything that has to be taken care of, I said to Franz, will take the estate in hand, I said, and I asked Franz whether Frau Duttweiler was coming to Traich alone or with her husband. He didn’t know, she hadn’t told him that. I drank a glass of water and thought while I was drinking that in Traich I have always drunk the best water of my life. Before Wertheimer went to Switzerland, he invited a crowd of people to Traich for two weeks, it took days for him, Franz, and his co-worker to get everything back in shape, they came from Vienna, said Franz, had never been in Traich before but were quite obviously good friends of his master. I’ve already heard about these people from the innkeeper, I said, that these people traipsed through town, artists, I said, probably musicians, and I wondered whether these people weren’t artists and musicians with whom Wertheimer once went to school, conservatory colleagues as it were from his time at the conservatories in Salzburg and Vienna. In the end we remember all the students we’ve gone to school with and invite them to our homes only to find out that we no longer have the least thing in common with them, I thought. Wertheimer also invited me to his house, I thought at that moment, and with what relentlessness; I thought of his letters and above all the last card he sent to me in Madrid, naturally I now had a guilty conscience, for I realized I was connected with these artist invitations on his part, but he hadn’t mentioned these people, I thought, and I would never have come to Traich to see all these people, I said to myself. What Wertheimer must have gone through that he, who never invited anyone to Traich, suddenly invited dozens of people to Traich, even if they were former conservatory colleagues, whom otherwise he always detested; there was always at least a hint of scorn in his voice when he spoke of his former conservatory colleagues, I thought. What the innkeeper only alluded to and what she of course couldn’t know more about than that they traipsed through town, laughing and finally kicking up a row in their gaudy artist costumes, in their gaudy artist parade, suddenly became clear to me: Wertheimer invited his former conservatory colleagues to Traich and didn’t chase them away immediately but let them run wild against himself for days, even weeks. A fact that had to strike me as totally incomprehensible, since for decades Wertheimer didn’t want to have anything to do with these conservatory colleagues, never wanted to hear anything about them and even in his sleep he wouldn’t have had the idea of inviting them one fine day to Traich, which apparently he now had done, and between this absurd invitation and his suicide there must be a relationship, I thought. Those people ruined a lot of things in Traich, said Franz. Wertheimer had been exuberant with them, which by the way Franz had also noticed, he became a totally different person in their company during those days and weeks. Franz also said that the people had spent more than two weeks in Traich and let Wertheimer provide for them, he actually said provide, just as the innkeeper had said in relation to these people from Vienna. After this whole crowd, which hadn’t kept quiet a single night, got roaring drunk every night, finally went away, Wertheimer got into bed and didn’t get up for two days and nights, said Franz, who in the meantime had cleaned up the dirt from these city people, in general brought the entire house back into a decent human condition, in order to spare Herr Wertheimer the sight of Traich’s devastation when he got up, said Franz. What he, Franz, particularly noticed, that is that Wertheimer had had a piano delivered from Salzburg in order to play it, certainly should have some meaning for me. A day before the people from Vienna arrived he had ordered a piano for himself in Salzburg and had had it brought to Traich and played it, at first only for himself, then, when the whole company was assembled, for this company, Wertheimer played Bach for them, Franz said, Handel and Bach, which he hadn’t done for more than ten years. Wertheimer, said Franz, played Bach on the piano without stopping until finally the company couldn’t take it anymore and left the house. The company was barely back in the house before he would start playing Bach again until they went out. Perhaps he wanted to drive them all crazy with his piano playing, said Franz, for no sooner had they stepped inside than he would start playing Bach and Handel for them, playing until they ran away, outside, and when they came back they had to put up with his piano playing again. It went on this way for over two weeks, said Franz, who soon had to think his master had lost his mind. He thought that the guests wouldn’t put up with it for long, that Wertheimer always played the piano for them without stopping, but even so they had stayed two weeks, more than two weeks, without exception, he, Franz, suspected, since he saw that Wertheimer actually drove his guests crazy with his piano playing, that Wertheimer bribed his guests, gave them money so they would stay in Traich, for without such a bribe, that is without money in return, said Franz, they surely never would have stayed more than two weeks to let themselves be driven crazy by Wertheimer’s piano playing, and I thought that Franz was probably correct in assuming that Wertheimer had given these people money, actually bribed them, even though perhaps not with money but with something else, so that they stayed two weeks, indeed more than two weeks. For he surely wanted them to stay more than two weeks, I thought, otherwise they wouldn’t have stayed more than two weeks, I know Wertheimer too well not to think him capable of that kind of blackmail. Always only Bach and Handel, said Franz, without stopping, until he blacked out. Finally Wertheimer had a king’s meal, as Franz put it, brought up to the large dining room for all these people and told them that they all had to be gone the next morning, he, Franz, had heard with his own ears how Wertheimer said he no longer wanted to see their faces the next morning. He actually had taxis from Attnang-Puchheim ordered for every one of them for the next morning and indeed for four o’clock in the morning and they all drove off in these taxis, leaving the house in a catastrophic state. He, Franz, began cleaning up the mess immediately and without delay, he couldn’t have known, as he said, that his employer would stay in bed for two days and two nights, but that had been a good thing, for Wertheimer had needed the rest and he undoubtedly would have had a stroke, so Franz, if he’d seen what a state those people had left his house in, they shamelessly destroyed some of the furniture, said Franz, overturned chairs and even tables before leaving Traich and shattered a few mirrors and a few glass doors, probably out of arrogance, said Franz, out of anger at having been exploited by Wertheimer, I thought. A piano actually stood where no piano had stood for a decade, now there’s a piano, as I saw after going up to the second floor with Franz. I was interested in Wertheimer’s notes, I had said to Franz while still downstairs in the kitchen, without hesitating Franz then led me up to the second floor. The piano was an Ehrbar and worth nothing. And it was, as I noticed right away, totally out of tune, an amateur’s instrument through and through, I thought. I wasn’t able to keep myself from sitting down at the piano but then I shut the cover immediately. I was interested in the notes, the slips of paper Wertheimer had written, I said to Franz, whether he could tell me where these notes were. He didn’t know what notes I meant, said Franz, only then reporting the fact that Wertheimer, on the day he had ordered a piano for himself at the Mozarteum, that is one day before that crowd of people came to Traich who more or less devastated Traich, had burned entire stacks of paper in the so-called downstairs stove, that is the stove in the dining room. He, Franz, had helped his master with this task, for the stacks of notes were so large and heavy that Wertheimer hadn’t been able to drag them downstairs alone. He had taken out hundreds and thousands of notes from all his drawers and closets and with his, Franz’s, help had dragged them down to the dining room to burn the notes, solely for the purpose of burning the notes he’d had Franz light the dining room stove at five in the morning that day, said Franz. When the notes were all burned, all that writing, as Franz expressed himself, he, Wertheimer, called up Salzburg and ordered the piano and Franz distinctly recalled that during this telephone call his master kept insisting that they send a completely worthless, a horribly untuned grand piano to Traich. A completely worthless instrument, a horribly untuned instrument, Wertheimer is supposed to have repeated over and over on the phone, said Franz. A few hours later four people delivered the piano to Traich and put it in the former music room, said Franz, and Wertheimer gave the men who had put the piano in the music room a huge tip, if he wasn’t mistaken, and he wasn’t mistaken, he said, two thousand schillings. The deliverymen weren’t out the door, said Franz, before Wertheimer sat down at the piano and began playing. It was awful, said Franz. He, Franz, had thought his master had lost his mind. But he, Franz, hadn’t wanted to believe in Wertheimer’s insanity and hadn’t taken the nonetheless curious behavior of Wertheimer, his master, seriously. If I had any interest in the matter, Franz said to me, he would describe to me the days and weeks that then took place in Traich. I asked Franz to leave me alone in Wertheimer’s room for a while and put on Glenn’s Goldberg Variations, which I had seen lying on Wertheimer’s record player, which was still open.