Panorama (8 page)

Bubi and Ludwig have lots of secrets and often tell them to Josef, saying that he can’t tell them to anyone else, though he doesn’t agree, which is why he never swears to, refusing to commit to either his most earnest or even most casual word of honor, though he does say, “If you don’t want to tell me, then I don’t have to know.” Then they tell him everything anyway, after which Bubi says, “If you tell anyone, you’re a no-good creep, and I’ll be mad at you.” Josef doesn’t want that and therefore he says nothing, even though he hasn’t promised anything, and it wouldn’t be a sin if he did say something, but he betrays nothing. Josef believes that real secrets are only those you keep to yourself, and they are only what you believe and would say to no one, because you wouldn’t know what to say if you did, and such
secrets will exist until you know everything, but even then you’ll know how everything is and how it is not, and you’ll be able to say just how it is so, but when you’re young you still have to search for the truth and ask questions, and, when no one wants to tell you, you have to ask again and again until you have learned everything and know it all.

The mother knows almost everything, but Josef is uncertain whether the father does, because the father has so much to do, and when you are allowed to talk to him he is so tired that you can’t ask him any kind of hard question, as he says, “Child, that’s what books are for, or ask someone at school.” Aunt Gusti knows a great deal, since she is a teacher, but she doesn’t know enough, because she says, “You never stop learning. You have to keep applying yourself in order to learn from more gifted people.” Aunt Betti doesn’t believe that and says, “I don’t need to know everything. Everyone knows enough for himself. That’s enough for me.” The grandmother knows a lot, for she remembers the father when he was little and much more that happened before then, but she doesn’t like that Josef asks so many questions. “You’ll soon see. We do the best we can for you.” Fräulein Reimann also knows a good deal, but she has too little time and has to explain everything to the entire class, and because many of them don’t understand she has to repeat herself ten times, and yet still the children don’t know anything, thus making the teacher mad when she has to give them bad grades. Anna doesn’t know much, but she says, “I don’t need to know a lot. Whoever works doesn’t have to have a lot in his head. But Angela was such a clever child that she astounded people with how gifted she was as a little girl.”

Bubi always says that all girls are dumb, only Kitti is smart and will marry a prince who will carry her off in his carriage, but she’s still a little girl, younger than Angela was, and she knows very little, though Tata is very proud of her, since Kitti can already count to ten, as Tata says, “What a little scamp! No one even taught her. She learned it all by herself.” But Kitti certainly didn’t learn it all by herself, for it was Bubi who showed her again and again, showing her on the adding machine in order to teach Kitti, for she couldn’t do it on her own. Bubi also thinks that Tata is not too smart, otherwise she wouldn’t work so much, though whoever is clever is paid a lot, like his father, who is a director, everyone having to call him Herr Director, though he’s not the same as the director of a school. Bubi thinks that if he
doesn’t become a general he’ll be a director, though general is much better, at which Bubi asks Josef what he wants to be. Josef, however, doesn’t want to say that he’d really like to be a streetcar conductor, that it’s the best job, because you ride through the city all day and see so many people, as he’s embarrassed and worried that Bubi will laugh at him, so he says that he doesn’t know.

Fräulein Jedlitschka knows hardly anything, and everyone agrees that she’s so dumb that she can only play games and nothing more, for she is so bad at darning socks that the grandmother says she has to redo them herself, because the Fräulein mends the holes with thread in such a way that they all rip open again and are worse yet. Now the girl has to go away because she has taken something, and there’s nothing worse than taking things without asking permission, though Josef doesn’t know what the girl has taken, and Anna has not told him. “That’s none of my business. That’s your mother’s business. I’ve never taken anything. I worked for eight years for Angela’s parents.” On Sunday the family sits together and talks about the nanny, and the mother says, “There’s a saying in English that one should never take as much as a needle. Josef, there’s nothing worse in the world than to take something that doesn’t belong to you.” The father then says, “The child doesn’t understand at all, Mella. We shouldn’t involve him in this business. Josef, run along and play.” The mother replies, “You’re right, Papa.” And then the grandmother, “Get rid of her, I say, get rid of her! No one wants to be looking over your shoulder all the time.” But Aunt Betti says, “That will cause bad blood. You should give the nanny a letter tomorrow morning in which you suggest that she should look for a new position, since, unfortunately, you have to dispense with her services.” Yet Aunt Gusti says, “Excessive kindness is also wrong. You just have to say to her without insulting her, ‘We’re sorry, Fräulein Jedlitschka, but we’ve decided to let you go at the end of the month. Please make the necessary arrangements.’ ” The father, however, disagrees. “I like a clean slate. I will give the nanny her last pay tomorrow and say that she doesn’t need to come back.” And then everyone says, “That’s much too good a deal. You’d have to say so yourself, Oskar!” The grandmother then says, “If you’re going to pay her what she has coming, then she should work for it as well. Everything needs to come to a good end,
and then nothing more will come of it.” The mother agrees, and no one else is against it, all of them agreed, all of them saying that there will not be another nanny, for they are done with nannies.

Now Fräulein Jedlitschka has to play somewhere else, with another child, so Josef wants to make sure to hide his toys so that she doesn’t take any away with her, but in reality he is sad, though he’s also glad, because Bubi can’t stand her and says a proper young man doesn’t need any such thing, he’d rather have a butler to wait on him. But butlers don’t exist anymore, because there are no more men available for work, and even in the streetcar there are now female conductors who wear uniforms exactly like male conductors, and have a proper badge and wear a gray jacket like men, though they don’t wear pants, the grandmother saying, “It’s a scandal that they run around like that. In my day one would never have let a woman be gawked at on the street.” But Aunt Gusti says it’s great for the women, there’s no reason for them to be ashamed, and the mother also thinks that the women are just fine. She bemoans the fact of how proper her parents were, otherwise she would have studied medicine, and then Georg Diamant and Herr Machleidt would still be alive, and the mother would be of much greater use in the hospital, for she would then be an orthopedic doctor, but her good father had only allowed her to study to be a good nurse and a certified gymnastics teacher and masseuse, because those were female occupations, though Aunt Betti says, “A proper woman belongs at home. It’s scandalous that women must do everything these days, for the man is the breadwinner of the family. A real woman belongs at the stove. The war is to blame. My Paul would never have allowed during normal times that I should slave away in a store, and do it all on my own, though I do it because Oskar means so much to me.” Aunt Gusti then adds, “I have no problem with women entering any profession and not just remaining done-up dolls who don’t know how to do anything. You can trudge through life like Frau Machleidt, but how much better it would go for her if someone had taught her how to properly cut cloth. Then she wouldn’t have to go from house to house looking for any work she can find.… She could have her own dress salon.” Aunt Betti replies, “You wouldn’t talk so if you had married!” This really upsets Aunt Gusti, and the mother thinks it’s all terrible talk and
doesn’t understand why Aunt Betti has to hurt Aunt Gusti so, but the father has had enough and laughs and says something in partial Czech, which no one understands: “zum Pukken prasken.”

Then everyone plays tarot, including the father, the grandmother, and the aunts, but not the mother, she doesn’t like cards that much, and the father also says that she plays so badly that she can’t tell the king from the queen. Josef would indeed like to play as well, but that’s not allowed when everyone is there, they want to play themselves, and so they say that tarot is not a game for children, who have only two card games they can play, Black Peter and Quartet. Josef doesn’t have any Black Peter cards, and whenever Bubi and other children come over they play Black Peter with tarot cards, which means he uses The Fool for Black Peter, but he has only three quartets—a flower quartet, a composer’s quartet, and then one that is really beautiful, which is called The Age of Greatness. On it are the emperors of Austria and Germany, as well as the king of Bulgaria and the sultan, this quartet being called The State Leaders of the Middle Countries, though there are also enemy leaders, namely the czar of Russia, the kings of England and Italy, and the president of France, in addition to all the heroes, lots of archdukes and princes, field marshals and generals, admirals, U-boat commanders and fighter pilots, all the friendly ones adorned with flags and oak leaves, while all the enemies have loads of weapons, Bubi liking the quartet so much that his mother gave him one as well for his birthday, which pleased him no end.

Fräulein Jedlitschka is now gone, and she didn’t take anything of Josef’s, but instead everything went smoothly as through thick tears she said goodbye to the mother, whom she said she would never forget, she was so grateful, it was the nicest time of her entire life, the mother also deeply moved as they shook hands for the longest time. “Thank you so much. I wish you much future happiness, and I hope you have a wonderful life.” Then the girl kissed the mother’s hand and was gone, even though she never looked at Josef again. But the mother doesn’t like having her hand kissed and never allows Anna to do so, though Anna wants to very much, especially whenever she receives a nice gift, for the mother always says, “A genuine grown-up doesn’t do that and doesn’t need for it to be done. One should express one’s gratitude through simple respect.”

Now that Fräulein Jedlitschka is gone, Josef is alone more often, but he likes to be alone, for that gives him the chance to read many books, and the mother lets him take some from the bookshelves, though not just any and always just one at a time. Josef is now at Aunt Gusti’s more frequently than before, since she suggested that she could help the mother more with taking care of him. The mother is so stressed of late, since she is often at the hospital for the entire day, there being ever more wounded soldiers who need a massage. Which means that Anna has to do everything at home, with only the grandmother to help her out now and then, though everyone is happy with Anna, she’s a wonderful cook, and the mother has only to tell her what needs to be done and she does it as well as can be done in the midst of this war. Bubi’s father is also now enlisted, a first lieutenant, though he doesn’t, thank God, have to go to the battlefield itself, since he has a stiff leg, so instead he trains recruits on the exercise fields, Bubi only sorry that he can’t be there, though his mother says, “Don’t think, Bubi, that it’s any great thrill trudging along with a bunch of farmer boys who don’t know what right or left is!” However, Bubi demonstrates how well he can march, since he is the best at gymnastics in his class, and he understands all the commands and barks out orders loud enough to make the panes rattle in the windows.

The father’s store is now closed, because he doesn’t have enough goods to sell and it’s not worth opening each day just for repairs, and since one makes so little off them they’re nothing but a bother. Now the father spends a lot more time at the garden plot with Wenzel, who has built a wooden shack there, though most mornings the father goes to work with the war blind. He shows them how they can earn their daily bread, though of late it’s been difficult to do even this, as paper leather cannot be found, for despite the father’s running from one official to the next, he still comes back empty-handed. Meanwhile Ludwig’s father is at last home, having been granted a long leave, and Ludwig’s mother hopes that he never has to go back to the field, for he’s so miserable, even though his wounds are light, just a bit of shrapnel, though they had ulcerated badly, someone calling them boils, for they hadn’t been treated right. The mother says that it’s a shame, as she scoffs at every diagnosis, knowing how unsanitary the field hospitals are, and how bad things happen to the wounded there that need not happen at all, some getting gangrene, for whom almost all hope is lost, thus causing
many brave soldiers to die. But luckily Ludwig’s father has no gangrene, only boils that cause a lot of pain. Josef knows just what it feels like, for he once had boils and had trouble sitting, and the doctor said that they were caused by undigested cornmeal, after which all kinds of things were mixed in with it and Josef had to eat rusk biscuits, as well as being prescribed extra milk, but since he didn’t like to drink it the mother told Anna to make it into pudding, which he liked very much.

Breaks from school are frequent now, even if they are not vacations, mainly because so many children are sick that half the class is missing. At other times there’s no school for other reasons, such as if there is no coal and the furnace cannot be lit, or there are fewer and fewer class hours, as well as another school being set up in Josef’s school as several classrooms are turned over to the many wounded, since fewer and fewer students come to school. But Ludwig’s father is not in any school, he’s fine at home, even if he spends a lot of time lying down, and he just has a leave since it was only boils, though that is not the only thing that exists in the field hospital. Dysentery has also broken out, and it is a very bad sickness that weakens men entirely, such that they can hardly sleep or keep any food down, many of them dying. Everyone says that Ludwig’s father is very lucky, for though he’s a bit weak, he’s getting stronger and is sitting up in bed and in an armchair, but no one is allowed to visit him and Josef doesn’t go to see him, only the father having visited once with the mother after he said, “At least we should make an appearance in case they need anything that I can get for them.” Then they visited and took along some real coffee and a little cocoa. Ludwig’s mother was so happy that she sent Josef a lovely book the next day, Ludwig bringing it to him.