The Castle in the Forest (38 page)

1

S
ince Leonding was only five miles from Linz, Alois could feel that he was near again to the active life of a real city, a longing he had not allowed himself to indulge in Hafeld or Lambach. For Klara, however, the house would have been more attractive if it had not been situated across the street from the town cemetery. On the other hand, this was the only reason they could afford it.

For compensation, the village church was near, and their new home sat within its own garden bordered by maples and oaks whose limbs had grown into such artful shapes that a godly spirit must have been present. So Klara decided.

Nonetheless, Klara feared the move to this Garden House—as indeed it was called. Part of the uneasiness came, I would warrant, from her friendship with Preisinger. He had aroused an interest that ought to belong only to her marriage. Now, on these streets of Leonding, many of the townspeople had faces sly enough to suggest that they knew quite a bit about these treacherous sides of life. While she had certainly lived in any number of more sophisticated places—Vienna, when she kept house for an old lady, in Braunau with Alois, and then Passau—she had never looked for anything larger than her duties or her family. Now she might be ready for more. Not permissible! So, for a time, forays to town were restricted to visiting the shop of Josef Mayrhofer, who not only owned a fine grocery but was a fine man and the Mayor of Leonding. There she bought vegetables two or three times a week, and always dressed neatly for the occasion. She was friendly to Herr Mayrhofer, but invariably would say, “I can't stay. There's so much work waiting for me.”

She was of course still living with the conviction that she had given herself over to the Devil on the night when she thought that Alois had just killed Alois Junior. She could see the boy on the ground again and remembered her vow, “Oh, Devil, save him, and I will be yours!”

All the same, she was attracted to Mayrhofer. He was more worldly than Preisinger, and that could prove tempting. She kept telling herself that she must not ruin a good man.

I was witnessing a comedy. I knew nothing would happen. Mayrhofer happened to be as proper as Klara. Moreover, he and Alois had already formed a quick friendship. Alois was drawn to a man smart enough to be Mayor, and practical enough to own a prosperous store. In turn, Mayrhofer respected Alois' years of service in Customs, particularly his promotions. Before long, they were drinking together at the tavern.

Nonetheless, a subdued flirtation stayed alive between Mayrhofer and Klara, and I continued to enjoy it because Mayrhofer, a man of honor, by his own measure, could not smile too often when Klara was near. Along with all else, he had a jealous wife. So Klara was doubly content to leave well enough alone. Alois had told her that the woman was a shrew and always pointing her finger. “These women who come to the store every day,” Frau Mayrhofer would repeat, “are just waiting to throw themselves at you.” Indeed, Mayrhofer confessed to Alois that years ago, he did have a small affair. Just one. Then his wife found out. His life had been a misery since. In turn, Alois was wise enough not to tell his new friend that in this regard, his own life might have been more agreeable.

At first, they drank only in the local tavern, but Mayrhofer soon confessed that given his position as Mayor, the premises were a little too raw for his office. After some deliberation, he even invited Alois to a
Buergerabend,
an evening for the town burghers. That was an occasion which took place on four separate evenings each week. The members could attend regularly or rarely, but it was an opportunity for substantial individuals to exchange opinions. These gatherings, explained Mayrhofer, rotated among the best four inns of Leonding and were held for the sole purpose of good talk with good prosperous company. The object, as Mayrhofer explained tactfully, was not to get drunk but to enjoy conversation. In fact, he did murmur that they had had a few tipplers who were not asked to come back. “We did it politely—as much as possible, under the circumstances—but it is essential, Alois, that a man must never appear to be even a hint
unbalanced
on these occasions. Merriment is certainly acceptable, but good manners are paramount.”

“I have to agree,” said Alois. “That is always the essence of fine and decent company.”

So Alois was introduced, and went through the considerable tension of sitting in with the local gentry. He most certainly did not get “unbalanced,” and he did return several times a month to keep up his friendship with Mayrhofer, who would not even go to the tavern any longer because of one dreadful occasion when a drunken lout tried to insult him. The malcontent had been told to leave by the tavern owner, and did, but the place was spoiled for the Mayor.

During the day, Alois now spent his time working in the garden or at his new beehive. He had purchased one Langstroth box, and to it added only a modest population. As he explained to Mayrhofer, “Some honey for my family's use and gifts for friends—no more than that. At Hafeld, I used to feel so dominated by these little creatures. They are a force larger than oneself.”

“So is the Mayoralty,” replied Mayrhofer.

Soon enough, Alois grew impressed by the Buergerabends and purchased a book of Latin quotations. Retaining the phrases was a treacherous enterprise, however. His greatest problem these days had been boredom. Now he had discovered its loyal assistant—poor memory!

The greatest counterbalance he found against the long stretch of eventless afternoons at home was to play with Edmund. The little boy was more charming at four years of age than any of his other children had been, and Edmund stayed so close to him at the beehive that Klara had to make a little veil and sew up white pants to go with a white shirt and white gloves. Klara protested: “The boy is too young.” But Alois insisted, and so the two were out at the hive a great deal.

Before long, Alois had fallen in love again, a charming love, indeed, for he knew it was bound to be his last true romance. He adored Edmund. It was not only because his little son was so clever but that he was, in addition, tender and sweet. “If I had ever met a woman so perfect, I would have married her for forever,” he would repeat to himself as a joke. He did like humor that was bifurcated. He could picture the look of woe on Klara's face if he ever told her this, and yet he also laughed at his own tenderness—for the boy and for Klara, too. So much of all that was good in her (which he was never about to acknowledge) was in Edmund too. As Alois measured it, the boy had his father's intelligence and his mother's capacity for loyalty. A fine balance.

Yes, so bright. And Edmund loved the bees. He did not even squeak too much when some of the sluggards crawled over his gloves on their way back to the hive entrance. Once he even received a bite inside the glove but kept from crying, so soon as Alois said, “We must keep this a secret. Your mama won't let you play here again if she knows.”

“No, Father,” said Edmund, “she will listen to you.”

“It could cause trouble,” said Alois.

“That is true,” said Edmund and sighed. “Too bad,” he said, “it hurts. I would really like to cry.”

At which they both laughed.

Back in the house, they would play Customs. Alois even put on his old uniform (although he could hardly button the waist) and they pretended that Edmund was trying to smuggle a valuable coin past a border inspector.

“Why is my coin so valuable?” asked Edmund.

“Because it was owned by Napoleon,” said Alois. “He used to keep this guilder in his pocket.”

“He did not,” said Edmund. “You are teasing me.”

“No, I am not. It is part of the game.”

“I like that.”

“Yes, but just you try to hide that coin from me.”

“How will you get it back?”

“I will tickle you. Then you are bound to confess.”

“I won't,” said Edmund, giggling already, and stepped into the parlor closet to hide the guilder. Struggling beneath the coats hanging from the rack, he wedged the coin into the cuff of his boot. That way, he did not have to undo the laces.

When he came out, Alois stared at him with a fair share of the malevolence he used to direct at suspects who were being interviewed.

“Are you ready to confess?” he asked.

Edmund was hardly frightened. He began to giggle.

“Very well. Since you are so insolent,” said Alois, “I will pat you down,” and proceeded to tickle him under the arms until Edmund dropped to the floor in a puddle of helpless mirth. “Stop it, Daddy, stop it!” he cried out. “I have to pee.”

Alois desisted. “But you are not ready to confess.”

“That is because I am not smuggling anything.”

“You are. We know. We have information that you have Napoleon's coin.”

“Try and find it,” said Edmund, and began to giggle again.

“Oh, I will find it,” said Alois, and pulled off Edmund's boots, shook them, then watched the guilder fall out. “You are under arrest now,” he said.

Edmund was furious. “You cheated,” he said, “you cheated. You did not obey the rules.”

“State your case.”

“You said you would only tickle, but you took off my clothes.”

“These are not your clothes,” said Alois, picking up a boot. “Clothes are garments. This is footwear.”

“You changed the rules.”

Alois made a face. “That,” he said in a deep voice, “is what we like to do in Customs.”

For a moment, Edmund was uncertain. Then he began to laugh. Alois laughed so hard and so long that, once again, he began to cough, which, at first, was fine—he could clear some phlegm—but his coughing did not halt for many seconds, and then came a minute of paroxysms which brought Klara over to the parlor from the kitchen. Alois rolled his eyes at her and took a tentative breath. Had he come close, he wondered, to a hemorrhage of his lungs?

Edmund began to weep. “Oh, Papa!” he cried, “you must not die, you must not,” and the sound of his voice numbed the response of his parents—he had seemed so certain of the outcome.

“Papa, I know you will not die,” he now said in amendment. “I will ask God to forbid that and He will listen. I pray to Him every night.”

“I don't pray,” Alois almost said. Still cautiously in balance from the reverberations of this attack, he could not speak but did shake his head at Klara. These pious women were the real smugglers—to steal across the border of a young boy's mind, especially when he was so bright. Someday Edmund might be an esteemed professor, or even a legal eminence in Vienna, and yet his mother had to offer this religious pap, good oats for horses.

All the same, Alois was not yet ready to correct her. Religion was necessary, perhaps, for the very young. For now, he would leave it at that. There was so much beauty, Alois decided, in the boy's love for his mother and, yes, most certainly, his father.

Up in his bedroom with the door locked, Adolf took his revenge on the sounds of laughter he had to hear from below. He chose to masturbate. The image he held in his head was a picture of Luigi Lucheni that he had seen in the
Linzer Tages Post.
It was the assassin's small mustache, fixed to his upper lip just below his nostrils, a dark little daub of a mustache. That certainly excited Adolf. Once, at a time when he and Angela had still been sleeping in the same room, he had caught a glimpse of her pubic hair just as it had begun to manifest itself, no more than a patch of dark down, and Luigi's postage stamp of a mustache was close in resemblance.

The combination had to excite him—that small peekaboo into Angela's privacy, so much like the mad murderer's upper lip. He grew twice as excited when he heard his father coughing away like still another maniac.

2

O
n one of his occasional visits to the Buergerabends, Alois decided to speak. This was after listening to the “Atheistin-Residence,” a member who delighted in assuring all the others that “I am the only brave man in our ranks. I feel blessed. That is because I do not have to believe in God.” To Alois' critical eye, he was a scrawny chap, though a long-invested member—his grandfather had been one of the founders of the society. Nonetheless, it did seem that the man had little else to offer. So Alois decided to speak up. He declared that each intelligent human had to decide for himself whether the Deity did exist, but he, for one, was certainly opposed to the sanctimony of all those pietists who would run to church at every drop of rain in their lives. He would attend on one day only of the year and that was the Emperor's birthday. “In my opinion, it is Franz Josef who is to be celebrated. Especially now, after Sisi's death.”

He soon discovered that he was dealing with a class of people who had a special attitude about such matters. While they did seem to exhibit some distaste for unseemly devotion in religion, they were still churchgoers.

If Alois had been a client, I could have alerted him. To be privately superior to religion is a privilege of the upper classes, but they do see going to church as the keel to preserving social life in common people.

One of the older gentry did reprove Alois' views, therefore, by saying, “I would agree that I would not wish to be counted among those who become overenthusiastic about every last Saint's Day observance. So often these rites are no more than a haven for unhappy women. But let us recognize that without religion, we would suffer chaos. It is the most dependable deterrent to madness in all of world history.”

Alois was ready to take up the argument. “Nonetheless, good sir,” he said, “permit me to suggest that religion does offer its own varieties of madness. I could offer as examples such highly immoral Popes as”—he knew the list—“Sixtus IV, Innocent VII, Alexander VI, Julius II, Leo X, and Clement VII. Simony was their daily practice, and a cardinal's hat was waiting for every one of their illegitimate sons. Yes, good sir, I would declare that it was madness to exhibit such an excess of corruption.”

He sat down, pleased that there was at least a modicum of courteous applause, but he had to recognize that the recognition was formal—each speaker would receive, at worst, some minimal response. Nonetheless, a chill had come upon the room. He had been too outspoken. It made him decide, most unhappily, that he should not return too quickly to the Buergerabends. Indeed, when he did come back, he chose to be silent.

All the same, these evenings were diversions. The gentry certainly knew a lot about high styles of living. They were so knowledgeable about antique collecting and spoke of interesting innovations that would soon be available in indoor plumbing and electric lighting. Again he was obliged to feel the insufficiency of his own experience.

No surprise, then, if at the Buergerabends he thought often of the young officers for whom he made boots when he was working in Vienna, dreaming all the while of a beautiful young woman who would put together exquisite ladies' hats before sharing his bed in the evening. Now, on the way home from a Buergerabend, a wealth of pity could pass through him for what had never come to pass.

Let me suggest that if the intensity of such compassion is enough to charm the heart of a saint, that is because self-pity is able to reach the finest operatic heights. It is indulged, however, at considerable expense to oneself. Alois was paying too much. His dreams at night had begun to bother him. He had now developed the fearful intuition that sleep was a marketplace where the dead could return in order to remind you of your personal debt to them. So he thought of Johann Nepomuk and his mother, and then he had to brood over his two dead wives. What if they met in this marketplace of sleep? What if they came to agree with each other concerning their former husband? He would then be facing a cabal. “That might even be more dangerous,” he told himself, “than for two of a man's former mistresses to become friends.”

One of the gentry had made that remark at the Buergerabends, and it occasioned the heartiest burst of laughter. Of course, the fellow was an old roué from one of the best families in town. Alois had enjoyed those words enough to make them his own, and even served them up at the tavern. He had to notice that the louts laughed at this with as much gusto as the gentry. How unfair that this joke should now plague his dreams!