A Legacy (4 page)

The story of Johannes's first evening at Benzheim was a part of the experience of my childhood. I knew it at a time when the turn of his affairs had made my father my only companion and me the only company of his later years. I was seven, then eight, then nine. By day I played alone; at night in a high-ceilinged room my father told a lighter version of his life, and I concealed my knowledge. Thus the memory of the boy who was a man and died before I was as much as born, and of the school I never saw, were part of the secret reality of my own past.

They called the meatballs klops. An orderly went round and ladled out two grey pellets on each thick white plate. The cadets did not take up their forks. They tried not to look at the food, they tried not to look at each other; they did not know where to look. They did not know what to do with their hands. Then the prefect, Stubendltester was the unprepossessing term, went off like a firecracker. The sound was something like Klawp/sah RHOWFF! and it was an order. Twenty-three white china disks flew up, changed hands, whirled through the air, tilted on the same angle at the head, flew on—it was a dazzling manoeuvre, executed like a variety turn. Johannes sat up, friendly and captivated.

The prefect rapped RrrrhALT! and the plates grounded smoothly. There was a plate once more in front of every boy and about ten of them were empty; and there was now before the prefect's place a neat mound of meatballs. He shovelled, fast as fast, a klops at a time. The boys kept their poses. Then he put down the fork and cracked his sound. The plates circled; six more were cleared. They landed with Johannes's full one conspicuous in their middle.

"You there, pass up your plate," said the prefect. "And mind you know how to next week. Tonight you may take it up to me yourself."

Johannes did not budge.

"Did you hear me?" said the prefect. He did not speak, he shouted.

"Yes," said Johannes.

"Bring up your platel"

"No," said Johannes.

The walls did not come down.

"Oh it isn't that I want to eat it," said Johannes. Then, fearing he'd been rude about the food in someone's house, he said, "You see, I'm not hungry," and began to weep again. Johannes's German was deplorable, full of wrong inflections and French words, and he spoke it with the buzzing slur of the Baden peasants.

The cadets acted sniggers.

Johannes turned to a boy of twelve. "Have mine," he said, "won't you?"

The boy recoiled but knew it was too late. He had looked at the new monster's plate; he was included in his doom.

"I am waiting," said the prefect.

"You had enough," said Johannes. "It is disgusting to eat up other people's dinners. They look as if they wanted them themselves."

There was a swell of embarrassment.

"Stand up when you speak to me," said the prefect.

"Pourquoi done?" said Johannes.

"STAND UP."

"This is very silly," said Johannes.

There was a stiffening—the captain on the round stood by Johannes's chair. "Get up," he said.

Johannes got up.

"Name?"

"We already met, Monsieur VOfficier, you very kindly showed me upstairs this afternoon."

The captain was the physics master. The masters at Benzheim were Army officers, and a tricky lot; men whose physique was too poor for soldiering and whose talents or connections had failed to get them a staff appointment. "Name?" the captain said.

"Johannes von Felden."

"Cadet von Felden," said the captain, leaning on his stick, "I must remind you, One: your Stubenaltester is your immediate superior; Two: your display of civilian humour is out of place at Benzheim, and will not be tolerated."

"Do I have to do everything he tells me, sir?" said Johannes.

"You heard me. In future you will address me as Herr Hauptmann."

"Yes, Herr Hauptmann."

"We have had enough of your Yes's and No's, Cadet von Felden. The correct form is 'At your orders, Herr Hauptmann.' That is all. Cadets, you may finish your supper."

Johannes picked up his plate and took it to the head of the table. He put it before the prefect with a slight bow. "Monsieur, vous me degoutez" he said, and returned to his chair.

The prefect resumed command; the plates circulated— four untouched lots remained. As he chewed he pulled out his watch, laid it on the table, then went, Faaahll/ T TSOOH! and the four boys before whom full plates

happened to have come down, ate. It was forty seconds to go till grace, they had long finished their bread and mug of cocoa, and the wretched minced meat was stone cold.

That night in the dormitory they fell on him. They did not have an easy time of it, for Johannes was very strong. In fact anywhere else, his strength, his innocence and his beauty— "ah, il etait beau" my father had once said— would have saved him. He fought like a beast at bay—he sprang, he charged, he bit; he clawed, he bucked; but no one accused him of fighting like a girl, and what unnerved them most was the noise he made. He growled, he covered them with injurious French, "Qa, alors ca — ca c'est trop fort!" He howled in the dark from the top of his lungs, great loud forest howls of rage and pain, and they knew that silence during these affairs was of the essence. But at the end they were too many for him. He mauled them, but they mauled him badly; and when rather sooner though than they had meant they let him go, Johannes was in a pitiable state. He leapt on his bunk with a cry of, "Vous n'etes qu'une bande de mal-elevesV* trembling with fury. And so outraged was he, so aching and incredulous that, overcome, he fell asleep at once, and for the first time perhaps at Benzheim a new boy went to bed on his first night without a thought of home.

Next morning he walked out.

He was waked by an enormous bell. He was so beaten up that he could hardly move and it was very cold. He followed the others—washed before a line of tin basins, got dressed as he was expected, joined the stampede downstairs for early rollcall. He stood in the yard with them, at attention in the March wind. When they re-formed for tramping in to prep he walked off. He just walked off. A couple of officers looked up, Johannes walked on. A sentry called a question, Johannes walked by—across the square,

past the guardhouse, through the gate, down the hill, into the town—

He did not last long. He was picked up a few hours later at an inn as he was trying to get them to let him have a meal and advance the money for a telegram home, and was rather impressively arrested. The town of course was out of bounds, though permission was usually given to spend an hour with a visiting relative. It was one of those quaint German market towns, all scrape-and-bow and nook-and-beam, and the inhabitants were making quite a good thing out of the hungry cadets, yet their hearts were with the authorities and the band, and the streets were full of cakeshops, sausage butchers and spies. Johannes's full intentions were not grasped. The charge was absence without leave, and as he was new, and probably a halfwit, they let it go at that. He was arraigned at rollcall, caned and locked up for forty-eight hours in a cell. When they let him out he sprang at the lieutenant and bit him through the uniform. He was handcuffed, tried, sentenced and locked up again. After that he became more tractable. As he could not spell and could hardly write, they put him in the lowest form and he held himself very quiet. The small boys never managed to keep all the rules, they were always having something buttoned the wrong way or staying in bed ten seconds after bell or dropping the soap because their hands were cold, and they were always being punished, and among them Johannes was rather less conspicuous. Even so discretion was not his strong suit: he yet had much to learn. He betrayed himself into an argument—disinterested, as he was not slow— against the Benzheim custom of penalizing every day and on all occasions the boy who happened to be last in any move. Johannes though under-educated was rational and he was struck by the point that someone or other had to be last through any door, and he pressed it. And when at the fortnightly half-hour he was told to write his letter home, he covered a copybook page with his laborious
scrawl in utter confidence. One can imagine what followed. Later the letter was put into a dossier and the poor scrap survived.

Ce Dimanche 28 Mars i8y . . . Cher Papa,
Je suis fort malheureux. Tous le monde ici est fou. Mes earnerades sont des me chant. Quand je suis parti ils mon prit et fat fait de la prison. IL FAUT EN-VOYER ME CHERCHER TOUS DE SUITE je vous embrasse Embrassez pour moi Jules, Ursus et Ulysse, Zoro et le Petit Gabriel
votre bien malheureux

Fils Jean

All in all he was much in trouble. His reputation had become bad and he was watched. And so it took him several weeks before he got away again.

Julius meanwhile did not fare too badly at his crammer's. The work surprised and bored him—"at my age!"— and there was rather an amount of it. Unlike his brother's, his hand was formed and ornamental; but like Johannes's it was illegible, and like Johannes he had never learnt to spell. He was also vexed by the necessity impressed upon him to become correct in German, pointing out that as he was supposed to be sent en poste elsewhere it would surely be more sensible to learn languages. There were compensations. Bonn was not at the end of the world, and there was an excellent train service. Every week he spent a day or two in Holland or in Belgium, looking at Bruges and Ghent, eating oysters at Amsterdam, gutting antique shops, walking evening streets in Brussels and waterfronts at Antwerp and Delft. He looked: he picked up things: he learnt. It was still a time of finds, and he developed an eye and a shrewd manner with the dealers. At

Liege he stalked a table for three weeks. "Quel dommage" cried the shopman, "qu'un homme si elegant puisse etre aussi radin."

I did not hear much about the crammer and his family, but I gathered they were amiable enough. Julius charmed them into disposing of their furniture and letting him install his acquisitions in their dining room; and they seem to have put up with his tame raven—no cage—French bulldog and the cat who as least likely to mind town or climate had been chosen to go to Bonn with Jules. And he persuaded them to keep geese. Such intelligent animals, he never failed to say, so rewarding. He was shocked by the crammer's food and asked leave to accompany the maid to market. And there he went, six foot one, booted, gloved and hatted like Apollo, buying fish, teaching to choose vegetables. Still, grey roasts continued to appear in baths of flour gravy, potatoes were boiled without their jackets, the haricots verts were sliced. . . . Julius bought a spirit lamp; found that he could cook; took over. The old Baron sent a man from Landen every week with game, smoked meats, proper bread, butter, pears; and he wrote advice. Always consider Texture . . . Order Every Step beforehand in your Mind . . . Make yourself master of the Basic Culinary Processes, and you will be free to do Anything . . . My grandfather held decided views; in his youth he had known and corresponded with the great Chefs Cuisiniers of the Empire and the Bourbon Restaura-tion, and he was the author of a slim brochure entitled, Quelques Remarques sur la Theorie du Braisage des Mets, which had been dedicated to Careme and which is a lucid and still useful manual.

Of course Julius had money troubles. His board and tuition were paid for him quarterly; he had a letter of credit from his father—enough for a young man to live on as he should, and it was presumed that he would run up some bills. He kept a horse, brought from Landen, and a trap, looked after by a boy also from Landen, who was

boarded at the crammer's too. A barber came to shave Julius in the morning, and to brush his hair; a local tailor pressed his suits, and his linen was looked after by the women of the house. He saw to his own boots. Julius did not squander, but his ordinary needs were not cheap, and he certainly did not have enough left over for starting a collection. If he knew about prices, he knew nothing about finance: various people were disposed to accommodate him and he made some rather injudicious debts.

He sought no company at Bonn. When he was not travelling he spent the evening playing piquet and bezique with his crammer, to whom he had taught these games. The crammer's idea had been that they might use the time for study.

"After dinner" said Julius.

The crammer, conscientiously, wrote to Landen. The old Baron, who addressed him as Monsieur le Precepteur, sent a dozen of Madeira and a note to the effect that his son was not an Encyclopaedist but an homme du monde, books at night Unhealthy and Exaggerated, time of no Moment, and instruction to be pursued at a Rational pace. After this plea, probably unique in his career, the crammer appears to have settled down to a long stretch of geese-training, haute cuisine, period furniture and games of chance, with the rest of his establishment given over to the care of Julius's clothes. What happened to his standing with the University of Bonn, what was his treatment of his subsequent pupils, indeed whether he found any, I do not know. It was not the kind of question my father would have understood.

Julius's mould set early. His range and frame were already fixed at Bonn. In his own mind that period of his life became his student days, and in fact he had yet to accumulate that knowledge of the objects of five centuries, find scope to feed his tastes, acquire more things in more places with more means, increase his skills—but the tastes

and skills remained the same. They were the lines that enclosed his nature and laid out the always repeated pattern of the coming years: the daily care spent on his person and its setting; the existence built with money, unease over money; the guards against intrusion; the trick of living in Germany as though it were a vacuum; the sidestepping of self and life through a hobby; the lack of curiosity about the human world, and the absence, remarkable in so young a man, of the need for general human company. Women were the exception—he was susceptible and at periods believed himself involved. But these loves were not windows, only entrances into another decorated room. He only liked and knew one kind, the polished, the well turned out, the agreeable. He valued liveliness; vacuity was no requirement; in fact he disliked what he called Vesprit lourd, but there were bounds, and nimbleness of mind was acceptable only when balanced by a steady level of manners and good temper. Indeed, his rue-de-Rivoli standards were high and he never deviated from them even in marriage. At that time, when women in their thirties were considered old, the finished manner was compatible with youthful charms, and Julius enjoyed all the success he could have wished for among a number of married beauties of the age of twenty-nine.