The Vienna Melody (45 page)

“Open their eyes?” Selma had asked. “Have you ever seen anyone who could? Besides, perhaps the way to learn anything is through happiness. I don't know. But what I do know is that you don't learn from catastrophes. Don't be angry with me if I ask: In what capacity and with what do you intend to open the eyes of people who all their lives have never really had them open?” She was thinking of the vain attempts she had made to get on to some kind of footing with the people called Hans's parents, his brother and sisters and relatives, and who seemed more strangers to her than anyone else on earth.

The answer was so obvious that Hans was surprised at the question. He would do it in the capacity of an eyewitness and with truth.

Thus in their very first talk Selma realized that his case was incomparably more complicated than that of others who had come home a long time before him. Those others had had to grapple only with disillusionment and changes. But at Number 10 you had to battle a family whom neither victory nor defeat had budged an infinitesimal degree from its foundations.

She had had abundant samples of that. The ground-floor apartment, which had been promised her as soon as Hans came home, was not free. Hermann lived there; there had been nothing else to do, as Hans's homecoming was so unexpectedly long delayed. But the former studio of Uncle Drauffer on the third floor was free, for since no one had their portraits painted any longer he had put his painting on the shelf and was selling antiques. Of course it had to be thoroughly cleaned and furnished, and for the moment no one was available to undertake that. In any case there was one bedroom available on the fourth floor until Hans should have reached a decision. For it was Hans who would make the decisions, was it not?

The thought of a bedroom on the fourth floor had put Selma into such a panic that she spent every free minute day and night getting the studio, which it had not been possible to get cleaned for at least six months, in order. For weeks in the evenings, after performances, she had appeared with a bucket and cloths and had done her utmost to remove the traces of a portrait painter's career from the floor and walls. She was complained of, upstairs and downstairs, for making too much noise, but when Hans arrived the apartment was ready. He did not so much as look round properly; his thoughts were frighteningly far away. Selma had prepared the calendars to show him. But she did not show them. She was bent on trying to understand, to help him.

“Where are you going?” he asked as she put on her hat and coat. “To the theater, I have to act.”

“You're acting on our first evening together?”

“The repertoire, unfortunately, doesn't depend on me. Won't you come along? I thought you might be interested.” No sooner had she said that than she realized she should not have. His eyes were still full of the things he had had to look on. She could almost see them herself in those absent-minded, frightened eyes.

“For the time being I've no taste for the theater. Forgive me,” he said.

“Of course. It was awfully stupid of me to suggest it. Will you have supper alone or will you wait for me? I'll be back at a quarter to ten at the latest. I'll hurry like mad.”

He looked at her. You could see how hard it was for him, coming from another world, to accustom himself to this one. “You can't believe there's such a profession nowadays as acting,” he said.

She had waited until the last moment to put on her hat and coat, and it was getting late. “I understand how you feel,” she said. “But, believe me, people have rarely needed two hours of enjoyment as much as they do now.”

“Whom are you supplying with these two hours? The people who need them? Or the profiteers who have the money to pay for them? The people who have nothing to eat don't go to the theater!” She saw how it pained him no matter what was said. “Will you wait for me?” she asked. “Yes. I hope you don't take it amiss that I'm not going with you tonight. Naturally I'm keen to see you on the stage—it's just—you must be patient with me. I must adjust myself again. One always imagines things all wrong.”

“Yes, Hans. Perhaps you'll go up to your mother? I don't like you to stay alone.”

“You're really not angry with me, Selma? My nerves are on edge. I'll get over it.”

She kissed him. “If I were you I'd go round all day bellowing or striking people. You're much too self-controlled. Don't you want to box my ears?” She thought of the stars and half-moons on her calendars.

He laughed. Thousands of miles lay between that laughter and her. Death and horror. Deathly loneliness. And hundreds and thousands of thoughts which he had imagined quite differently. His face was still young. Experiences had been powerless to change it. They had made it only more transparent. The high forehead, beneath the soft hair, wrinkled itself into deep-cut furrows when he thought. Beneath these furrows and his light eyebrows, which were lighter than his hair, he looked at you as one suddenly emerging from the darkness into a harsh light; his sensitive mouth, with its long upper lip, inherited from his father, trembled when he was silent, and opened with an effort as it does with people who have kept silent too long. Selma had met Sister Agatha, who sometimes came to visit the invalid, on the fourth floor. When Hans laughed she recognized a resemblance to her.

“Good-bye,” she said. “You may get bored but not angry. Think for a bit how unspeakably happy we are that you've come!”

He heard her go down the stairs. He almost ran after her. It was a shame the way they treated her here in the house. And Mother's conduct towards her was worst of all!

He threw open a window and called after her.

“Yes?” she called back. She had just reached the doorway.

“I only wanted to bellow a little. You're wonderful!”

“But you don't want to see me!” Her face was enchantingly transformed.

“Off the stage!” he bellowed. “And you have done marvels with this apartment! And I'm happy to be with you!”

“Thanks,” she called. As far as he could see her she was waving to him.

We shall straighten things out at once
, he decided, and hurried up to the fourth floor.

The table in the dining room was laid for supper; in front of Papa's beer glass lay the evening paper; the knives and forks rested on little silver holders; the napkins were folded in triangles on each plate. It had always been thus since he could remember.

As always, since he could remember, Mother was standing at the sideboard just before supper, preparing little appetizers to be eaten before the main course. Today it was anchovy rings on toast. She was the only one in the room, for it was a few minutes before half-past seven.

Henriette, too, was disillusioned and deeply hurt. The homecoming of her favorite son had not been much happier than that of her younger one long before. He had spent the entire day with Selma. Men came back from war as strangers, almost as enemies. And how she had trembled for him. Should she tell him that on the day he went to war she had taken a vow? Never to go to parties. Never to touch a drop of wine. Never to read a novel. And that she had kept it all the years until today? No, she would not tell him. With this son it was not the war or being a prisoner which had changed him. It was Selma! Under the guise of getting-out-of-the-way and not-wishing-to-disturb-you she did as she pleased. Under the pretence of understanding him better than anyone else, she estranged him from his mother. She had been doing that methodically through her letters: that was obvious from his answers. How often he had written to her and how seldom to his mother! “Love to all,” he had written. “All” meant her. And today he had remained barely an hour with her and then gone straight to Selma. Yes, Selma was an excellent actress. And she was ‘intellectual.' Perhaps she was cleverer. She had read more books. She knew how to debate. To discuss problems.
I can't carry on a conversation about Karl Marx or Freud
, thought Henriette.
And when it comes to politics I am an idiot. But I know a thousand times more about feelings than she does! What makes a person happy, what he yearns for, what hurts him—all that I know. What these intellectual women are suddenly trying to make us believe is the only right way, and what they call the new objectivity, is all ridiculously untrue. Whether among emperors or metal-casters, life depends on the emotions and nothing else!

What was it that had been the magic of Vienna? It was a lack of weighing every step you took. It was a letting-go of yourself, allowing yourself to be swept away by everything that had nothing to do with reason and everything to do with the heart. Try to declare war on charm! And you will lose your life. What a futile thing it is not to wish to show your feelings. If you do not show them you have none to show. If you have none to show you brand them as sentimental. Oh, this Selma was a cold, calculating person! If I did not know people
, Henriette thought,
perhaps I might even have been taken in by her sometimes. Talented—yes, she is talented, and she gives herself such an air of propriety. Propriety! Anyone can be proper. You don't need a heart for that. As a matter of fact, she fits very well into this house from which she wants to force me. Dear God in heaven! To be forced out of this house! I never desired anything else. But now it is too late for that. For forty years I have been a prisoner here. My jailers have grown old; Otto Eberhard is senile; Franz is no more than a shadow. I could not oppose them. But I can and will oppose a creature who has come into this house on an entirely different basis from me.

All day long she had been mulling over these and similar thoughts. “Well, how do you like it downstairs?” she now asked her son. “Where is Selma?”

“At the theater,” he answered curtly.

“That's bad luck, on your first evening,” she said. “What is she playing in? The new comedy?”

“I don't know.”

“Aren't you going?”

“Not tonight.”

“Have you ever seen her on the stage?”

“Once in an amateur performance. I hardly remember it.”

“She's highly gifted. As Hero and Viola, in any case, she was excellent. I haven't yet seen her in the comedy.”

Hans came over to her. “It's no use, Mother,” he said. “Don't make such an effort. That is why I came up. Nothing on earth will separate me from Selma. Not even you.”

This was the first time he had used such a tone in speaking to her. “I thought you had come up to give me a kiss,” she said with a voice that quavered. “We haven't seen each other for so long.”

“This is why I came up. During all my absence you were dreadful to Selma. It must stop.”

“She has complained to you!”

“Not by a single syllable. She's much too fine for that.”

“How can you speak to me like that, Hans? Have you forgotten everything?”

“Nothing, Mother. But I believe you are forgetting that these are frightful times. We'll need every ounce of our strength to get through them. Every one of us. We must make it easier for each other, Mother. Not harder.”

She was so hurt that her eyes grew moist. In one short day that person had stolen thirty years. “I don't know what you are hinting at,” she said. “I have nothing against Selma. On the contrary, I tried to be fair to her. Probably she has something against me.”

“You must understand, Mother, that it's not enough not to have anything against someone. You must try to love Selma.”

“Hans, I told you. I've done my best to be fair to her!”

“The only person who had sufficient imagination to realize what it was like out there was Selma. The only one who helped me with her letters and books.”

“Because she loves you much more than I do. Of course she does!”

“Not more than you. Just more unselfishly.”

Henriette lost control over herself. “Do you think you can teach a mother what unselfish love is? Selma loves only herself. No. Only her profession. You'll discover this when it will be too late.”

From the vestibule Simmerl could be heard saying, “Supper is served.” In the same instant Franz entered the dining room, Hermann following immediately.

His father waved to Hans and went to the chair at his place, which Simmerl was holding for him. The devastation in the sick man's face was rapidly growing. Henriette and Hermann also seated themselves.

“Won't you have supper with us?” Henriette asked when Hans remained standing.

His father pointed to an empty chair on the long side of the table. Hans obeyed. He still obeyed this man.

When they were all seated Simmerl brought the hors d'oeuvres prepared by Henriette. He was dressed in a gray Styrian jacket with green revers, a white neckcloth, a green waistcoat with silver buttons, long gray trousers with broad green stripes, and the usual white cotton gloves for serving. The only change in him was his bald spot.

“Is Fraülein Martha Monica not home?” asked Henriette, whose hands trembled as she helped herself to the toast;

“Not up to the present,” the butler said solemnly.

An instant later the front door was opened and slammed shut again. With a “Do please forgive me; there was a traffic block near the opera house,” in stormed the girl for whom they were waiting. She kissed Franz's and Henriette's hands, nodded to her two brothers, and sat down beside the older one. “I'm so glad you're here!” she said in her thoroughly cordial way. She smelled of jasmine.

Hans thought of the stench of corpses and carbolic in the Carpathian trench where half of his company had been shelled to bits but could not be removed for three days.

“Will the young master not take an appetizer?” asked Simmerl.

No, the young master would not take an appetizer.

“Are you having supper later on with Selma?” inquired Marthai Monica.

“Yes,” he replied.

They sat there and had a butler to wait on them! They were aware of nothing! They realized nothing! Someone should have screamed at them, “This cannot go on! Do you hear?”