Out of the Line of Fire (3 page)

What is even more disconcerting is that whenever I’m in my room listening to the radio I have the unsettling impression that at any moment the announcer is going to break into English, that this is all part of an enormous deception and all I need to do is get up and go outside and I’ll be back amongst the sights, sounds and streets that are familiar to me. When the odd English phrase does occur, in a news item or an advertisement for example, it’s like the still surface of a lake being suddenly broken by some small fish leaping out of the water to catch its prey. It happens so quickly, so unexpectedly that it’s over before you have time to focus on it. All you have, in effect, is an after-impression which replays itself again and again in your mind, as if to reassure you that you did actually hear what you think you heard.

Again there is a knock. There is no mistaking it this time since it comes in the silence between the second and third movements of Berg’s piece. I think of Hanna Fuchs momentarily and glance at my watch. Nearly midnight.

I go to the door and open it. I recognize the blue-checked shirt immediately. His eyes too are blue and his dark curly hair makes him look younger than he really is. He stands there smiling nervously, as though he is stagestruck. He still does not say anything.

Can I help you? I say.

I heard your radio, he says in English.

You speak English, I say superfluously.

Yes, he says shrugging his shoulders. At least, a little.

I can see that for some reason he is still nervous.

Won’t you come in, I say. Would you like some coffee?

I don’t disturb you?

No, no, not at all. Please, come in.

Actually I came to invite you to take a coffee with me.

He speaks carefully, as though the words are nettles through which he is trying to pick his way.

Well, now that you’re here we might as well have it here. What do you think?

Yes. This is logical. You’re sure I don’t disturb you?

Positive. Make yourself at home and I’ll just get some water for the jug.

When I come back from the kitchen he is standing by the bookshelf. He has taken one of the books down and is leafing through it. It is Peter Handke’s
Ich bin ein Bewohner des Elfenbeinturms (I am an ivory-tower dweller).

Peter Handke, he says. You like Peter Handke? I wrote this years ago myself.

You
wrote
it yourself?

I mean, I
read
it myself. Entschuldigung. He laughs. Yes, I read it years ago. I liked it very much. Perhaps my English is really not so good after all. What is your opinion?

I think you speak it very well. You’re probably just not used to it, that’s all.

No, no. I mean the book. What is your opinion of the book?

Oh, I see—the book! Well yes, I liked it very much too.

I am aware that already, for some reason, I have begun to talk like him.

He lived as a child in my home town, you know.

So you’re not German then?

No, Austrian.

From Klagenfurt.

He smiles, surprised. He seems happy that I know something of his home town.

When the water has boiled I pour it into two mugs while he sits there nodding to himself, as though confirming some inner monologue. I hand him his cup.

Danke.

Bitte.

Again, apart from the music playing softly in the background, we sit in silence. I suddenly realize that neither of us knows the other’s name. I introduce myself. He jumps up, shakes my hand.

Yes, of course, he says rapidly. I completely forgot. I was standing there, you know, outside, wondering what to say. I had it all prepared: ‘Hello, my name is Wolfi Schönborn. Would you care to take a coffee with me?’ With me it’s always like this. I even get nervous when I open a book, you know, for the first time. It’s the same thing, isn’t it. You never know what you’ll find, do you. Each person, each book, is like a new world…verstehst du?

Yes, I think so, Wolfi.

Yes, that’s right. But how did you know?

What?

My name, that my name is Wolfi.

You just told me!

When?

Just then. You said you were standing outside my door and that you had prepared what you were going to say: ‘Hello, my name is Wolfi Schönbaum…’

Schön
born
.

Yes, Schönborn and that you were going to ask me to take…to have some coffee with you.

Yes, of course. Now I remember. I wasn’t sure whether I had actually said it or not. I’m sorry. You must think I am an idiot. Yes, Wolfi Schönborn. My name is Wolfi Schönborn.

He falls silent again, sits looking around the room holding his mug in his hands.

That was very funny the other day, he says, with the toilette. Frau Bartsch was steaming.

Yes, I know. I had a good laugh myself.

It was Eva, you know, the new Iranian girl. Have you met her yet?

No, not yet.

She seems very nice, but her German is not so good.

Talking of which, how did you know that I spoke English?

Frau Bartsch. I was talking to Frau Bartsch. She told me you come from Australia. He shakes his head. Such a long distance. Australia was previously a ah…Strafkolonie?

Penal colony.

Yes, penal colony. In der Strafkolonie…you know the Kafka?

I nod.

…of the English.

Yes, that’s right.

She says you are preparing a book.

I can see Frau Bartsch has a big mouth.

You think so. I must look next time.

I turn towards the wall and try unsuccessfully to stifle a laugh.

Did I say something funny?

No…well, it’s just a misunderstanding. It doesn’t matter. I’ll explain it to you some other time.

He seems confused, offended.

What about you? I say to cover my own embarrassment. What are you doing?

My ah…Doktorarbeit.

Your Ph.D., you mean.

Yes, your Ph.D.…My Ph.D., I mean.

I am a little stunned by this piece of information. Wolfi doesn’t look more than about twenty.

What on?

Bitte?

What on? What’s your topic?

Mann o Mann. How should you say it in English. In German it’s called ‘Metonymische Realitätswahrnehmung’. At first it was called ‘Jenseits der Realitätswahrnehmungsgrenze’.

You’re kidding?

Yes. How would you call it in English?

God, I don’t know. Let me think. ‘Metonymische Realitätswahrnehmung’, was that it?

He nods.

That would be something like ‘The metonymic perception of reality’. Yes, that’s right—the metonymic perception of reality. What was the other one?

Jenseits der Realitätswahrnehmungsgrenze.

You Germans are amazing. Why not something complicated? Let’s see, that would be…‘Beyond the limits of the perception of reality’ or ‘Reality: Beyond the limits of perception’. How does that sound?

In English it sounds very complicated.

And in German it’s not?

Well, yes, when I think about it, in German also it is complicated.

I sit looking at him for a moment, trying to reconcile what he has just told me with the apparent innocence of his fresh young face.

If you don’t mind me saying so, Wolfi, you look a bit young to be doing a Ph.D. How old
are
you?

He blushed noticeably.

Twenty-three. I am twenty-three. I would be finished with twenty-two but I left because of the home situation. I was a Wunderkind at the university.

A Wunderkind!

Yes, a Wunderkind. How is this translated in English?

A child prodigy, a genius.

Yes, that’s right, a child genius.

Modest too.

Bitte?

Nothing. It’s not important.

Oh, I see—bescheiden, modest. You mean this ironically, of course. Sarkastisch.

No, not really. It’s just a little unusual to hear someone describe themselves as a Wunderkind.

Yes, but unfortunately it’s true. My father is Professor in Philosophy at the university I was studying at in Austria, studying at in Austria, at in…Sounds funny, doesn’t it. His ah…Fachgebiet?

Specialist field.

Yes, his special field is logical positivismus. Do you know Wittgenstein?

I don’t
know
him but I know who you mean. I thought he was dead?

He is. So what?

I shrugged my shoulders.

Yes, well Wittgenstein was a friend of my father’s father [ein Freund meines Vaters Vater!], at least to begin with. He used to visit him when my father was young…

But I didn’t think Wittgenstein was a logical positivist.

He’s not. Why do you ask?

No particular reason. I just didn’t think Wittgenstein was a logical positivist, that’s all.

He looked at me weirdly for a moment, then continued.

Yes, but my father is. To him, however, it is more than this. It is his way of life. You know, even as a child I could do nothing without my father wanting to know why I did it or why I said it. ‘But how do you know Wolfgang?’ he would ask. Even when I was very little he would ask this. I would point to the sky and say the sky was blue and he would ask: ‘How do you
know
the sky is blue, Wolfgang?’ Can you imagine that? With three years I should answer the question how did I know the sky was blue. Not
why
the sky was blue, but how did I
know
it was.

He was talking quickly now. He had got up out of his chair and was pacing the floor.

My mother would be distressed by this interrogation and they had many arguments over me. For a while he left me alone but in the high school he started it up again. By this time my mother’s and father’s relationship was no longer existing. So the three of us, my sister and my mother, she was still very young, very beautiful, she married my father with…at seventeen—when she was seventeen years old—and I was born very quickly, you understand.

You mean your mother was pregnant when she got married?

Oh no…God no. That would have been impossible. No, if you knew my father. My father is a Catholic, a very strict Catholic you understand. No, my mother would have to be…would-have-had-to-have-been—English is so complicated—hätte eine Jungfrau gewesen sein müssen… yes, would have had to have been a virgin. My mother is a passionate woman, you can see this from photographs of her and she would have been a passionate young girl. But if you knew my father you would know that it was imperative for my mother to be a virgin. But what was I saying…

You were going to say something about your high school days.

No, no. There was something else I was going to say…

He stood for a moment with his hand to his chin, looking at the floor. He looked around the room and then said distractedly: Now I don’t remember. I’m sorry.

He looked embarrassed, as though he had already said too much.

I think perhaps I go now.

He put his cup on the desk, shook my hand rather formally, thanked me for the coffee and left. His departure was so sudden that I stood there for a moment dazed. I went over what he had said, trying to figure out what had made him suddenly decide to leave. The more I thought about it the less real the situation became. Perhaps I had hallucinated the entire conversation. I even opened the door and stepped into the hallway half expecting him to be still standing there. It was empty of course.

*

Wittgenstein (1889–1951) completed his famous
Tractatus
in August 1918. When he was taken prisoner by the Italians in November, he had the manuscript with him. From his prison camp near Monte Cassino he wrote to Bertrand Russell, with whom he had studied in 1912, and a short time later the manuscript was smuggled out of the prison camp and delivered to Russell by diplomatic courier.

On 19 August 1919, Wittgenstein wrote to Russell from Cassino.

Thanks so much for your letter dated 13 August. As to your queries, I cann’t answer them
now
. For firstly I don’t know allways what the numbers refer to, having no copy of the MS here. Secondly some of your questions want a lengthy answer and you know how difficult it is for me to write on logic…The main thing is the theory that can be expressed [gesagt] by props—ie by linguage—(and, which comes to the same, what can be
thought
) and what can not be expressed by props, but only shown [gezeight]; which, I believe, is a cardinal problem of philosophy.

I also sent my MS to Frege. He wrote to me a week ago and I gather he doesn’t understand a word of it at all. So my only hope is to see
you
soon and explain all to you, for it is
very
hard not to be understood by a single sole!

The age of surrealism began, coincidentally, in 1919 and it is interesting to compare Wittgenstein’s letters to Russell in English with those he sent to him in German. In the former he stumbles forward like a blind man, barking his shins on a strange and unfamiliar linguistic landscape, while in the latter he soars like a bird, delighting in his own freedom.

Dank’ Dir für. Deinen lieben Brief! Ich habe jetzt eine Anstellung bekommen; und zwar als Volksschullehrer in einem der kleinsten Dörfer; es heisst Trattenbach und liegt vier Stunden stüdlich von Wien im Gebirge. Es dürfte wohl das erste Mal sein, dass der Volksschullehrer von Trattenbach mit einem Universitätsprofessor in Peking korrespondiert. Wie geht es Dir und was trägst Du vor? Philosophie? Dann wollte ich, ich könnte zuhören und dann mit Dir streiten. Ich war bis kurzem
schrecklich bedrückt
und lebensmüde…

Thank you for your kind letter. I have now got a job—as a teacher at an elementary school in a tiny village called Trattenbach which is situated in the mountains four hours south of Vienna. It must certainly be the first time that a school teacher from Trattenbach has ever corresponded with a university professor in Peking. How are things with you and what are you up to? Philosophy? Then I wish I could be there to listen and to argue with you. Up until a short while ago I was
dreadfully depressed
and tired of life…]