A Book of Memories (76 page)

It just sat there, squat and motionless, etching sharply its ornamental entablature into the night sky, while I wouldn't even dare cry out; I kept walking.

No wonder, then, that the next morning I was quite exhausted, worn to a frazzle, as they say, as if I hadn't slept all night, though I must have slept very deeply to feel so dazed; still, in my frustration, I would have liked to go back into the dream, bccause maybe it was precisely there and then that what should have happened did happen, but my room in the meantime became much too bright, its features too sharp, as if outside, behind the drawn curtains, snow had fallen; it felt cool, almost cold; occasionally I heard soft footsteps in the hallways, and from the breakfast room downstairs came the even clatter and clang of dishes, snatches of conversation; a door creaked, then the same door that had wakened me during the night slammed again, there was the brief laughter of a woman; all these friendly, soothing sounds reached me softly, from a distance, but I didn't feel like getting out of bed, for all those pleasant morning sounds, familiar to me from childhood, bade me resume a life whose apparent ease and leisure was now not at all to my liking; no, I shouldn't have come here, after all, I said to myself, irritated, and turning over to the other side and closing my eyes, I tried to sink back into the warmth and the dark the dream had offered; but back where?

Snatches of the dream were still hovering about, it didn't seem too hard to return to it, and the man, too, was still standing there in front of the pissoir's gleaming, tarred wall, still in the pose of handing me a rose, which I didn't want to take from him because the grin on his puffy white face was so repulsive, and interestingly the rose looked blue, purplish blue, a firm, fleshy bud about to burst open; and now it was offering itself to me most insistently, as if morning had not yet come, as if I were still there, lingering with it in the night.

And then, in the open door between the bedroom and the sitting room, I saw standing before me a young valet with flaming red hair, standing there quietly, steadily, attentively, his friendly brown eyes following every little movement of my awakening, as though he'd been there forever and even had a good idea of what my dream had been about, although it was probably his soundless footsteps or his mere presence that had startled me out of my slumber just now; he was a strapping young lad, his healthy robust build more like a porter's or a coachman's, his thighs and shoulders about to burst the seams of his trousers and green frock coat, a quiet unobtrusive presence that reminded me of my own duties, as if he had clambered out of my dream or from a place even deeper within me, and also made me think of our servant back home and, once again, of the memory-filled night I had just gone through; I sensed the same stolid calm and rough-hewn dignity emanating from his body that I used to feel in Hilde's presence, so while feasting my eyes on the boy's freckled face and also suppressing a powerful yawn, I grumpily repeated the sentence, by now completely superfluous: No, I should never have come here; but if not here, where? I wondered, and this hulking body pressed into the wrong clothes seemed so comical, as did his flat nose, his freckles, his childishly open curious eyes, and the solemn air with which he stood there waiting for my order, and my own grumpiness, now that I was fully awake, also seemed so inappropriate and foolish that I burst out laughing.

"Will you be getting up now, Herr Thoenissen?" the valet asked dryly, as if he hadn't heard my laughter, which might have been rather over-familiar.

"Yes, I think so. Anyway, I should."

"Will you have tea or coffee?"

"Perhaps tea."

"Shall I fill the washbowl now or after the tea?"

"Do you think one should wash every morning?"

He was silent for a moment, his expression unchanged, but he did seem to understand something.

"And will you be taking your breakfast downstairs or shall I bring it up?"

"No, no, I'll go downstairs, of course. But isn't it rather chilly here?"

"I'll see to the fire right away, Herr Thoenissen."

"Yes, and how about giving me a shave?"

"Of course, Herr Thoenissen."

He disappeared for a few minutes, an opportunity I should have used to get out of bed and relieve myself
—I suspect he took his time to give me a chance to do just that, for among themselves men are considerate that way, I wouldn't call it politeness but, rather, a brotherly appreciation of the embarrassing fact that in the morning an overfull bladder often causes an erection, and to jump out of bed in such a state would mean presenting whoever was there with the sight of a deceptive function of biological processes; we'd have to let him in on something whose true nature we ourselves don't fully understand and for that reason deem rather shameful—in any case, I delayed getting up and when he wheeled in a cart and quickly closed the door behind him I was still lying in bed or, rather, having tucked the pillow behind my back, was half sitting, making myself very comfortable, as if I knew that by getting up I would interrupt, or send in a different direction, an event which promised to be perfect in itself and at the moment was far more important to me than easing some physical discomfort; the pressure in the bladder cannot artificially be relieved, but the erection will subside if we divert our attention from it, and with it the last trace of the dream's sensuous excitement will perhaps also fade.

These were some of the things I was thinking about while he quietly busied himself around me, rolling the serving cart up to my bed, treading softly on the carpet, and making certain the dishes on the glass-topped cart did not rattle; I felt I was watching a feline, a silent predator, disguised as a valet; the event of the moment, which held me in its grip and which I found pleasing, was the series of his movements and gestures refined to the point of imperceptibility: without dripping a single drop on the gleaming damask napkin, he poured out the steaming tea and asked if I took it with milk
—I don't know, should I? I said, but the deliberate audacity of my reply did not bother him; he acknowledged it and at the same time intimated that he was in no position to answer this question, the decision rested entirely with me, but whatever I decided would certainly meet with his approval, the manner of which would be neither submissive nor indifferent but would reveal, in a purely neutral form, the embarrassing perfection of readiness to meet any wish and at the same time take into account my possible eccentricities, which he might find hard to follow; with stubby fingers he folded back the napkin covering a basket of crisp rolls, and after handing me the teacup and the sugar bowl with its silver tongs, he was gone—I don't know how he did it, I didn't even hear his retreating footsteps, he simply left, sensing I had no further need of him.

Though at the moment there was no one I needed more.

When after the first sip of the hot tea I looked over the rim of my cup, he was back, carrying firewood in a big wicker basket, and he knelt down in front of the white tile stove, positioning himself so as not to turn his back to me completely, I could see him in profile while he cleaned out the stove and started the fire; with one half of his body he remained at my disposal, ready to let me be if I wished or to respond to my slightest indication of need.

The rolls were warm and fragrant, drops of water glistened on the little balls of yellow butter resting in a bed of fresh strawberry leaves; when I gave the cart a slight nudge with my elbow I saw the raspberry jam dotted with tiny seeds quiver in its dish.

If my childhood had not been burdened with so many dark unpleasant memories, if the image of my mother, even as a memory, had not been so coldly distant, I might have thought that what was beckoning to me from this little scene was a long-lost feeling of security, might have said then that in those wholesome rolls, steaming tea, fresh yellow butter, quivering jam, I sensed a peaceful order of things that assures us that once we awaken from our dreams, however frightful, our world
—at whose center we ourselves sit, in the bed warmed with our own bodies—not only will be there, spinning securely according to its own immutable laws, but will struggle mightily to satisfy our needs and desires, will heat our room with the trees of the forest, with no cause for alarm, fear, or anxiety; but the truth is that even as a child I had sensed the brittleness, falsehood, and illusory nature of this order; and later, my passionate search had led me to people who were not only ready to expose it but whose declared purpose was to end it, end all deceptions and bring about genuine well-being and security, even at the price of blowing up this shaky corrupt order and incurring a heavy loss of life, so that afterward, on the ruins of the old, they could build a new world fashioned in their own image; I might say, then, that while my eyes, tongue, and ears savored the pleasures of the morning's unchanged old-fashioned order, my mind's eye viewed its own joys, reminiscent of its childhood, from the greatest possible distance, and as it did, I suddenly grew old.

How far this white bedroom lit by bright sunshine seemed from the rooms of bygone years, the dim rooms of my youth where I spent my time in secret company with Claus Diestenweg, hatching plots to bring down the hated old order and build a new one; and how very close it seemed, I thought, to the rooms of my childhood which never really existed in this pristine form.

A fleeting change of mood is all it takes, and we feel, to quote the poet, that time is out of joint.

It was almost as if the man now lying in bed, slightly disillusioned and still perturbed by dreams yet casually sipping tea, had to cope not with three successive stages of a single life but with the lives of three different individuals.

A puff of smoke blew out of the stove, then the fire flared up, painting the valet's face red and continuing to blaze, it seemed, in his hair.

The smoke made him squint; he wiped his tearing eyes and for a moment stared into the clearing, now smokeless fire.

"What's your name?" I asked him quietly, still from my bed.

"Hans," he answered, and as if momentarily forgetting his dutiful attitude, he did not bother to turn toward me.

"And your family name?"

I was glad to have a valet here with me, yet at the same time, having just slipped back from my earlier life, I was ashamed at being glad.

"It's Baader, sir," he said, his voice back to the earlier, proper tone, and there seemed to be no connection at all between the two voices.

"And how old are you?"

"Eighteen, sir."

"Then I will ask you, Hans, to congratulate me; as of this morning, I am thirty years old."

He stood up at once.

He broke into a grin; his beautiful almond-shaped eyes disappeared in the soft cushions of his eyelids and cheeks still like a child's; above formidable teeth his gums flashed pink, almost like raw flesh, which in redheads are always in attractive harmony with their complexion and hair color; sweetly, almost as it I were his contemporary standing next to him, a chum he was about to jab playfully in the chest, he swung out his arm toward me, but the gesture was so blatant and therefore so inappropriate that he became embarrassed, blushed, his whole face turning flaming red, and he could not speak.

"Yes, today is my birthday."

"If we had known, Herr Thoenissen, we would have observed it properly; still, allow me to congratulate you!" he said, smiling, although the smile was no longer meant for me but for himself, pleased that he had managed so cleverly to extricate himself from a delicate situation.

And then there was silence again.

And when in this helpless silence I thanked him, something happened between us which I had anticipated, waited for, tried to help along, for naturally, my thanks alluded not to his congratulations, which I had more or less forced out of him and which in themselves were rather ludicrous, but to him, him for being so perfect and for moving me deeply with his perfection.

He stood there silently for a moment, as I lay motionless in my bed, he bowed his head, humbled and helpless, and I kept looking at him.

And when, moments later, he asked if he could now bring the water, I motioned him to go: this was the boundary beyond which lay the forbidden realm that I shouldn't have wanted us to enter; at the same time, something also came to an end between us, because the intimacy forced out of the moment was now exposed, and sharing anything between us was out of the question, I remained master and he servant who had to fend for himself, be clever in dealing with me, most probably as disgusted as he may have been moved, understanding our inequality enough so as to spoil any pure game of intimacy between us; it was an experiment, then, to want to touch something that had nothing to do with our assigned roles, and I had nothing to lose, since with my advantage it remained my experiment and, I had to admit, for me it was humiliatingly one-sided; yet I couldn't resist the experiment's temptation, because I enjoyed my advantage, enjoyed his defenselessness and enjoyed that he had to endure it precisely because he was a servant, what's more, could even enjoy my own humiliation given his; so our little story continued on its own accord, almost completely independent of me; it couldn't be stopped.

Standing astride my spread-out thighs, he wet my face with a porous sponge that still smelled faintly of the sea; with a slow, circular motion of two fingers he applied the shaving cream and with the soft shaving brush whipped it into a thick lather over my stubble; of course our bodies were very close; with his free hand he had to hold or support my head and put his palm on my temple or forehead now and again; I had to guess his wishes from his movements, follow them, help them along; his knee would occasionally touch mine, but he had to focus all his attention on my face, while I kept an eye on his every move; he held his breath a little and so did I, both of us trying not to breathe into each other's face, a mutual restraint that only intensified the scene unfolding between us, which was about to reach its climax when, having done with the preparations, he pulled the bone-handled razor from its case, ran the blade a few times over the strop, stepped between my legs this time, placed his index finger on my temples, pulling the skin nice and tight, ready for the blade, and then, for one moment, looked into my eyes.