Wonderful, Wonderful Times (11 page)

and put up a reasonable show in doing so. After some initial difficulties.

There is a warm feeling in Anna, and nothing else. In Hans there is a thought of Sophie, who is going to give him his first hour's coaching tomorrow. Now he gives Anna light pecks with his kisser, which is aiming now here, now there, absently and haphazardly. Anna confuses this with post-coital tenderness, which it is not and is not intended to be. On the contrary, it is solely a way of diverting attention from the fact that Hans has no tender feelings for her whatsoever, though he is glad to have got it done good and proper for once. No doubt Sophie does not want a man who is inexperienced, it's quite enough if one of them is inexperienced: her. This kind of thing can even harm a sportsman, it can reduce his fitness, and he needs to be fit for Sophie so he can conquer her in sporting style. Anna doubtless wants to do this frequently, he'll tell her she's got it wrong. She hasn't been counting on the needs of a competitive sportsman.

Hans, Hans, Hans, says Anna softly.

That's my name, all present and correct, answers Hans, laughing at his own joke.

SO THAT NATURE gets its turn as well (and so they can look out of place) the group venture forth into the famous Vienna Woods, where there is a great deal of the aforementioned Nature. In fact there is nothing else. Except day-trippers in quest of a natural way of life, since in the present age industrialisation is proceeding apace. Off the ramblers go, likewise proceeding apace.

The last scraps of morning mist are climbing the leafy slopes, and the youngsters likewise climb to the summit, where there is a tower with a view plus a cafe and restaurant, where Nature promptly comes to a well-earned stop because you can eat gateau and you are screened off behind glass. The sun enters at an angle, leaving hunks of light you have to weave your way through. The foliage of deciduous trees and various rotten stuff constitute a rustling carpet. What distinguishes the group from other groups who are out and about dressed for a ramble is that they are not dressed for a ramble, but instead they are carrying a basket containing a sack tied shut. There's an amount of scratching and whimpering going on inside the sack. This is because there is a cat in it. They caught the cat. In Jean-Paul Sartre's
The Age of Reason
is a character who wants to drown his cats, and so today they are planning to drown this cat too, though this cat also has a right to live. Rainer says that he himself has an equal right to non-existence, just as this cat does, this cat which he is going to assist on its way to non-existence before it can count to three. The cat has its suspicions. Hence the brouhaha in the sack.

Sophie is wearing a casual woollen dress made by Adlmuller. Anna's between-seasons coat was run up on her mother's sewing-machine, you can tell at a glance. Sophie wafts with springy step across roots, pine cones,

twigs and beechnuts. Sophie is the one who has to do the drowning, in a stream in the Vienna Woods which they are still looking for. She is the only one who hasn't yet undergone the initiation. Without which she won't belong to the gang. Because once they tackle their assaults on a serious basis it will be no good her weeping and wailing like a little girl, she'll have to react coolly, impassively. Rainer takes an especial interest in Sophie's participation, since it will be something they have in common, something that will unite them.

As is well known (or rather, as is not well known, because who does know this) the Vienna Woods consist of countless hills; in among these hills there are small mounds which are neither one thing nor the other, and these are divided up by furrows along which rivulets trickle. The springs are clear and gush forth, ramblers quench their thirst there if they have one to quench. Unfortunately there is often very little water in them. Except in the spring. Which is now. Often you hear the rustle of a small animal. Busy looking for food.

The group looks for one of the fuller streams. Otherwise the drowning will take forever. And who can tell if the cat will cooperate. Sophie has long blonde hair which gleams whenever one of the slabs of light gets tangled in it; when it is in the shade it is a muted yellow, brass. Rainer has even accepted that he will cut a lesser figure here than in the jazz club, that indeed Hans, who never seems the superior, might appear a cut above him in this green spot. At least Sophie is prepared to go through with the drowning in the end. Anna stays apart from the others, occupied with not showing that there is now a bond between her and Hans that can never be cancelled, the indifference in her features is a product of long practice. Just now he wanted to kiss her. Nothing doing. Tenderness is for kids.

Still, when she looks at him a tremor goes through her. Prompted by the memory of desire. If mere memory can send a tremor through her, what will it be like in reality?

Was that an animal wailing? No, ramblers making jubilant noises. Hallo! Hallo! They have startled the animals, these fat men and women with jobs for life who can finally do something with neither point nor purpose, that is to say: climb mountains. The Sophienalpe, the Schopfl, the Satzberg. In sporty outfits that generally strike weird Styrian notes. But they are city-dwellers and their rural enthusiasms are a token of affluence, because they no longer have to live in the country, nor in squalor. And how good they look in their Tyrolean hats!

They scatter leftover food around and are destroying a natural, organic environment, making it artificial, though this is a problem Anna and Rainer are not used to perceiving, since they, after all, are out to spread artifice anywhere and everywhere, as far as possible. Cheap sunglasses hide their pale, bleary-eyed faces, Rainer's nicotine-yellow fingers twitch in the direction of cigarettes, to start a forest fire. Birds utter penetrating cries. Leaves flutter down. Trains whistle in the distance. Sunday.

Anna talks of Schonberg's
Verklarte Nacht.

Wrong place. Wrong time.

In this wondrous daylight you go on about night, and not even a real night but one that's been worked over in musical form, says Sophie with a bemused smile. Hans is shadow-boxing the whole time and contesting imaginary wrestling matches and playing football, he thinks no further than the tip of his nose or as far ahead as his arms reach. He is totally in the now. He is a man of the present. The pussy-cat in the sack is not present to his mind either. That is the future. Just don't think about it. He demonstrates how to fool a footballer on the other team and dribble your way past him, he also acts out the other player, no doubt Sophie thinks he is terrific. Sophie is enjoying the sunshine and the fresh air, though she is able to enjoy these for several hours every day on horseback or in some similar way. If you are to enjoy something you must

first be familiar with it. The twins are not altogether in their element. Their lungs are rattling. They have none of that fitness and stamina Hans has so much of. Too much alcohol, too many cigarettes, boasts Rainer, and he tries to start a debate about Camus, to show himself in a favourable light. Sophie wants to go in the real light that's favourable for getting a tan. Hans wants to show Sophie a number of judo stunts a friend taught him. Soon they are tussling and laughing. This hits Rainer's and Anna's guts like poison. Anna hastens to assert that she is now practising the Berg piano sonata, a goal she has long been aiming at, and now she's reached it. It is extremely demanding but she will meet the challenge in the end. Can you eat that, asks Hans, and he neighs like a Lipizzaner stallion. Have you heard this or that or the other record, Anna? No, because that is low-brow music, you have to learn some more, Hans, or else you'll be left standing where you are, and at your present stage you mustn't do that on any account because otherwise you'll be left where there is nothing at all. Sophie's parents have season tickets to the Philharmonic. Often Sophie goes with her mother, just the two of them. Sophie's mother is an acknowledged society beauty, everyone knows her, everyone says hello, needless to say only in those places where everyone knows everyone else. I bet she has no values, says Rainer, who has merely seen her, he is of the opinion that she has no standards at all, she doesn't need any. She goes drifting about among great sterile transparent jellies. Nothing keeps her steady and stable, but the glass-bright mass keeps her in a constant state of suspension, she doesn't touch the ground. Sophie too will be like that one day, if something isn't done to prevent it in good time, now. Love will prevent it.

The Philharmonic only play reactionary stuff like Schubert, Mozart and Beethoven, spits Anna. When they heard Webern last Sunday they applauded like idiots, but the fact is they despise music like that. The

audience the Philharmonic gets is too well-bred to boo a Webern, they know how highly-rated a composer he is, replies Sophie. But of course they don't like him. Webern's work is a joke from start to finish.

Hans enthusiastically points out a squirrel, a red one. Red all over, really. What a dear creature. It races up and down the tree trunk, its eyes are bright. The sun struggles across the sky. Little midday clouds put in their appearances. Let's hope they won't gather into dark cloud-banks. Here at last is a stream of some size that may be suitable for the drowning of cats, no, definitely
is
suitable.

Okay then, Sophie. Get in the mud so you can get close to the water, or at any rate close enough. I think I'd rather not do it, says Sophie, I like animals. I always curry my horse myself. You've got to, or else you'll be expelled before you've even joined. I think you're absolutely childish, playing at Indians. The poor pussycat can't help it. You've got to do it anyway. Get a move on, we have to catch the bus. All right, I'll do it. Thank goodness I brought some Elastoplast with me. When I do it I'm sure to have to think of my favourite mare, Tertschi. She's an animal too. We'll have no use for weakness in future, Sophie, as you well know.

Sophie hauls out the scratching foaming bawling cat, which instantly slashes her hand and sets it bleeding. Ow, couldn't you have got a less painful creature? The only thing we could lay our hands on was a cat, get on with it.

In her good dress, Sophie kneels down in the dirt, covered in mud, and holds the loyal pet, which is used to people, down in the water. This takes considerable effort and strength. Snapping, snorting, thrashing and gurgling in the water.

She practically has to lie on the wretched creature, I'm getting drenched, I'll catch pneumonia.

Before the animal's death can occur, Hans, who was so comical with that squirrel back there, hauls Sophie off

the cat, the soaked animal struggles out and races away, spitting. Doubtless a fox will get it, which will not be a very pleasant death either.

Hans gives Sophie a clout so the blood trickles down from the corner of her mouth. Ouch. The gang stands round as if they were the Holy Family and the roof of the stable had been blown off and it was raining in.

Sophie is flabbergasted. Something is stirring within her but she doesn't know what. I hope nothing is stirring within Sophie, thinks Rainer, aghast.

Hans, who has seen all the right exciting films and not the wrong ones, which are plain boring, pulls Sophie towards him and kisses her, so that the blood is smeared across his mouth. It tastes sweet. Sophie is sweet. Like something washed in a special soap powder, no, like something that doesn't need washing at all because it never gets dirty. Angora.

You just have to take a young lass's sweet mouth without asking, says the folk song. And then keep a startled silence because it has come true.

This little scene leaves two people satisfied and two unsatisfied. It is always like that in life. Fifty-fifty. Which makes things fair.

YOU HAVE TO shrink back from me as you would from a demon. Fear is seen in the eyes, hunger in the physique, ill-treatment on the skin, often it's more than skin-deep. It extends into the very soul. That is expressed in a look too. A woman recoiling from the man who's about to rape her. The man she knows is her master in this situation. There must be submission in her gaze. Static. Putting on one expression after another is pointless, this isn't a movie camera, it only takes still photographs. Concentration, Gretl, please. A tenant comes in, imagine this situation: contrary to expectation he finds his landlady, who is still young (which you of course aren't), about her toilet, all alone, he gives her a look that tells her immediately that her hour has come and that no power on earth can help her now. He won't hesitate for a moment to use force. What on earth are you doing with that duster, Gretl, now of all times, get rid of it and show your stuff. You have to ease the lingerie down slowly, try to keep your hand over it, but like everything else of this woman's her hand is in the wrong place, you can see everything.

Herr Witkowski talks like a waterfall yet again, which unfortunately is only silver, Frau Witkowski preserves her silence, which is golden. Herr Witkowski has been familiar with the saying since childhood, he is also familiar with it from the prisoners' quarters at Auschwitz, likewise the statement that honesty is the best policy. Ever since History forgave him he has been honest, it has been his policy for quite a while. After 1945 History decided to begin again from scratch and Innocence, after much hesitation, forced itself to take the same decision. Witkowski started over, at the very bottom, where normally only young people with everything still ahead of them start; the climb is a more

arduous one if you have only one leg, indeed everything is tougher with only one leg; walking for starters. And even more gold is silent (for ever): the gold from teeth, spectacle frames, chains and bracelets that were saved up for, coins, rings, watches, the gold remains silent because it comes from silence and to silence it has returned. All that comes of silence is silence.