Almost Everything Very Fast (18 page)

Later, when the night was well advanced and smelled of schnapps and tobacco, Wickenhäuser would conduct one or another of these guests to his bedroom. The morning after, I noticed, the undertaker always changed his sheets.

I ate with him, accompanied him on shopping trips, helped him buff the coffins to a high shine. I didn’t earn a single reichsmark for any of this, but was allowed to sleep in a bed as soft as one million mullein flowers, dine on beef tongue, foie gras, and wild strawberries with cream, and dress myself in clothes cut to measure, without which I could barely fall asleep anymore, so cozy was the costly cloth against my skin. Between the spelling lessons I gave to the illiterate mason so that he wouldn’t blunder when carving the headstones, and arranging bunches of flowers (I added a couple of daises to every one), I had plenty of time to explore Schweretsried. Whenever I stepped out the door with Wickenhäuser, it was as if I were his Most Beloved Possession—I was introduced to everyone the undertaker knew, however slightly. I felt especially awkward when Wickenhäuser proudly alluded to my “lovely, lofty brow” or my “lovely pitch-black hair” or my “lovely figure,” and called me Adonis, instead of rascal. Thus I preferred to take my walks alone. Having arrived in the big wide world, I soaked up every trifle: the cough-inducing fumes of the automobiles; the discomfort in the faces of former customers, for whom I was Death’s emissary; the brawling at the Iron Pine, democrats versus reactionaries; the hue and cry of the Yugoslavian book peddler, representative of a dying breed of conscientious salesmen, who struggled to read every book he had in stock, for which reason this Yugoslav was probably the only resident of Schweretsried who actually registered the appearance of
Mein Kampf;
all the varieties of seasonings, from oregano to turmeric (and their spellings!); the soft glow of the gas lanterns.

However, my fascination often gave way to anger at the pedestrians who crossed my path or bumped into me. I couldn’t stand walking behind someone, the streets seemed overcrowded, saturated with noisy, foul-smelling men, which is why I made a point of breezing past all those walkers, until I reached the city limits or some deserted area whose quiet reminded me of home, and of Anni. The longing for Anni was like an invisible thread coiled around my chest. Now and then it was as if she tugged on it, so that my heart throbbed and I was afraid I might forget her. Then I’d ask myself why I hadn’t tried to make contact with her by now, and I answered that it was impossible: there was no mail delivery to Segendorf, Wickenhäuser’s next excursion south was beyond the horizon, and I was much too young to travel on my own.

Looking back, I think these were only excuses to salve a guilty conscience. The real reason was that I preferred Schweretsried to Segendorf. Even if I had to sacrifice the proximity of my sister.

One morning Wickenhäuser and I were polishing a coffin that a local glass blower had chosen for his daughter. Burglars had slit her throat with shards of glass from one of her father’s vases.

“What’s your opinion, rascal?”

“About what?”

“About this girl’s death.”

“The thieves are murderers. They ought to be executed.”

“A fine opinion. But now: imagine a different truth.”

“Maybe the thieves broke into the wrong house at the wrong time? Maybe the girl … killed herself?”

“Clever as always, my little rascal. You see, it isn’t so hard. You can make sense of anything, if you want to, as long as you’re willing to exert your brain a bit. Everything can be true. What you decide to believe is always the truth. Remember that. Rascal, would you be happy as an undertaker?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“It would be lonely.”

“Maybe. And now …”

“The opposite?”

Wickenhäuser nodded.

“If I were an undertaker, I could earn a lot of money.”

“Good.”

“I could keep you company.”

“Very good.”

“I could eat orange marmalade every day. I could own a flush toilet. And electric lights.”

“Right, keep going!”

“I could collect money from the church, which has deep pockets. I could console people. I could always wear nice suits. I could keep the best plot in the graveyard for myself. I could do something respectable.”

Wickenhäuser slapped the coffin lid with a loud bang. “
And
you could have any woman you want.”

That same evening he introduced me to a girl my own age whom he’d brought to the house.

“Her name is Stephanie,” he said, at which the girl briefly wrinkled her brow. As we introduced ourselves, I was surprised by her strong handshake. Wickenhäuser slapped me on the shoulder and winked at us. He hurriedly wrapped himself in his coat, and opened the front door. An urgent appointment, he said, he might be gone a long time.

Then we were alone.

The girl, who presumably wasn’t called Stephanie, was neither pretty nor ugly. You wouldn’t have turned to look at her in the street, at any rate. Without a word, she began to unbutton her dress. I didn’t move, just watched, as she peeled away one layer of clothes after another and took off her jewelry. Her body was petite, her skin pale and firm. Next, she started to undress me. It all seemed so strange, but nevertheless, I let it happen. Her touch wasn’t unpleasant. She knew how to fill a young man with self-confidence, when to groan, when not to snicker. I stopped her only once—when she went to kiss the scar on my elbow. While I was sleeping with her, I thought, fascinated: I’m sleeping with a woman. And I asked myself why I’d waited so long to try something that felt so good. I was hardly irritated by the fact that in the hours we spent together she barely looked me in the eye; that was just part of her profession, I told myself.

Sometime around midnight she dressed again, nodded a good-bye, and left the house.

I never saw her again.

At breakfast the next morning I felt Wickenhäuser watching me. I let him fidget for a while, and picked the salt from my pretzel as always, as if there were nothing to discuss. Only after washing the dishes did I say, “Okay then.”

“What do you mean?” asked Wickenhäuser, though I think he knew immediately what I was talking about.

“I’ll stay.”

In Schweretsried I saw the world, and that was exactly what I wanted. Wickenhäuser showed me the business of death, and, since I learned quickly
,
the undertaker never had to repeat an instruction. At first I served as assistant; later on
, rascal
came to mean
partner.

Back then, the pastor of Schweretsried marveled at how strikingly often baptisms followed hard on funerals in the same family. So many husbands, it seemed, had sired children shortly before their demise. The preacher ascribed this to the righteous equity of the Lord. The Grace of Heaven, so to speak. At the regulars’ table in the Iron Pine he told Wickenhäuser about this joyous miracle; the latter smiled and shook his head. “What a rascal!”

“Who?” asked the pastor. “God?”

“Sure,” said Wickenhäuser. “Who else?”

Wickenhäuser explained to me things no woman would have been willing to explain herself. After each burial ceremony, I’d ask the widows in a whisper to follow me into the office for some final paperwork. They never refused; their eyes were puffy with weeping, and their thoughts weren’t running as smoothly as usual. In the newly furnished guest room—my office—I offered them a seat on my bed. None of them suspected anything. Patiently I asked the widows if they were satisfied with my services. They always said yes. Slowly I scooted my chair closer, and proposed a slight discount. They always welcomed it. I sat beside them on the bed, and warily slipped an arm around them. At which point they’d always cuddle up to me. Finally I admitted what exceedingly intense feelings I cherished for them. (The truth is always what one decides to believe.) Most of them tensed up, leapt from the bed, and excused themselves, polite, aloof; but some, more than a few, gratefully kissed my face. They smelled of makeup applied too thick, and sweetish sweat. In bed they were quiet, almost noiseless, as if they didn’t want to wake their departed husbands.

Wickenhäuser assured me that I could have my fun with the widows, as much and as often as I liked, none of them would ever dare to confess such a misstep. But he warned me that I should never, at no point whatsoever, look one of those women in the eye. That’s why he’d taken care that my first time hadn’t been anything special. As far as Wickenhäuser was concerned, making love didn’t mean sleeping with someone; in his opinion making love meant that you created love, you actually
made
love. “It happens quicker than you’d think,” Wickenhäuser pointed out, and added with a significant smile: “And then suddenly all you’ll want is to be with that one person.”

On weekends, guests were no longer invited over. Instead, the two of us celebrated alone, and it would be wrong to say we didn’t have a good time, playing our rhyming games. If one of us recited badly, that is, without rhyming, we’d have to take a hearty swig of brandy.

This happened fairly frequently.

These evenings usually ended—more often than I liked—with the undertaker, emboldened by alcohol, begging me to share his bed. To make a little love.

I turned him down. To me, Wickenhäuser was a teacher and a business partner, nothing more. Hidden in my affection for him I sensed the possibility of a love that I didn’t want to permit. To love someone again the way I’d loved Else was too great a risk for me. Because one morning the undertaker, too, would fail to wake up.

I sometimes capitulated to Wickenhäuser’s pleas purely out of pity, and slept beside him, under separate blankets. Even when he wept and wistfully described that moment in the log cabin when, for the first and only time, we’d embraced, I refused to take him in my arms, and corrected him, saying that on that particular occasion, he’d been the only one doing the hugging. This melancholy, which by day withdrew behind the sparkle in Wickenhäuser’s eyes, broke out again at night. It was only following his visits to Segendorf that Wickenhäuser was able to suppress it for a few days—or, at best, weeks—at a time, and I asked myself what Master Baker Reindl was able to give the undertaker that he couldn’t find among such a rich assortment of men and women here in Schweretsried.

For me, Segendorf lay far in the distance, as if the first eleven years of my life had been merely a dream, one that was fading with every day. Anni helped me with that. My sister answered none of the letters I sent with Wickenhäuser, never returned a single greeting. Which is why I never went with him to Segendorf. I took it to mean she didn’t want any contact with me. And whenever I tried to understand why, Wickenhäuser consoled me, saying I shouldn’t stew over it, and instead enjoy the freedom I had here in Schweretsried. He told me that of all God’s cruelties, the greatest was saddling a man with family.

In the cool summer of 1930, when I was a handsome seventeen-year-old, the undertaker returned from another excursion to Segendorf. “Have a look, rascal,” he said, pulling the tarp from a hazel coffin. “We’ve picked up another bargain.”

“How much?” I asked, excited.

Wickenhäuser whispered it in my ear.

“In that case, you’re buying me dinner tonight,” I said solemnly, hesitated, and pushed two more words over my lips: “Did Anni …”

“I’m sorry.”

“Is she doing okay?”

“She looks gorgeous. But not as gorgeous as you.”

“Did you ask if she wants to come see me?”

“She’s a village kid, rascal.”

“Did you ask her?”

“The girl runs away as soon as I drop your name.”

“Maybe next time.”

“There won’t be a next time. I’ve finally decided not to go back. It’s too far away.”

“What about Reindl?”

“She understands. Besides, she isn’t getting any younger.”

That evening I tossed and turned in bed, and kept examining my elbow; the scar was pale; unless someone was looking for it, they wouldn’t notice. When Wickenhäuser had spoken about my sister, she had tugged hard on that thread around my chest. I didn’t understand how a lack of news from Segendorf could so preoccupy me—as if it were bad news.

I threw off the covers and walked in the dark to the door of Wickenhäuser’s bedroom, paused, and while I was debating whether or not to knock, heard a conspicuously unshrill voice: “Come on in.”

Wickenhäuser was sitting upright in bed. His eyes were bloodshot.

“I knew you’d see through it, rascal.”

“What?”

“But I was hoping that if I didn’t tell you, you wouldn’t go.”

“Tell me, already.”

“Your sister’s getting married.”

“To whom?”

“Fellow called Driajes.”