6
He began to bawl for his milk not thirty minutes after Klara had sunk into the best sleep she had known for years.
Must one suppose that because a child’s deepest reactions seem to have a half-life of no more than thirty minutes, they cannot be profound? Because of that betrayal, he might never love his mother as much again. Yet his feelings were heightened. There was pain in his love now, and an anger which revealed itself by nipping at her breast with his teeth. Indeed, for a few days, he felt close to Luther, and when drowsy, would sleep beside the dog through an afternoon. Truth, he saw the hound as a sibling, and this brotherly affair went on until Adolf began to take too much advantage, punching Luther in the belly, trying to poke his eyes, and sometimes trying to kick him in the ribs. When the dog began to growl at his approach, Adolf would whine and run to Klara. There was a period when her delight in breast-feeding was gone. The nipping at her breast had done it. The days of weaning were at hand.
In those private councils of her mind that would never be available to her child, her stepchildren, her husband, nor even to the confessional box, she had come to the conclusion that she must have another child. If this came in part from the old fear, even now, that Adolf might not live, she also feared that she would never love him as much again, no, not as once she had, and so maybe there should be another child.
Besides, she was entering a new time in her marriage. She looked forward to being with Alois in their bed. For on such evenings—after all these years—desire came alive again, desire was there!—down in the marrow, deep!
We may remember that the last time we saw Alois, he was burying his nose and lips in Klara’s vulva, his tongue as long and demonic as a devil’s phallus. (Be it said: we are not without our contributions to these arts.) Alois was certainly being aided by us. Never before had he given himself so completely to this exercise, and quickly he had become good at it, and so quickly that no explanation is possible unless we are given credit as well. (Which is why we speak of the Evil One when joining in the act—we do have the power to pass these lubricious gifts to men and women even when we are not attempting to convert them into clients.)
By morning, Alois could not believe he had done it. To lower himself to such an extent! To make her pay for such bottoming on his part, he had, we must recall, clumped his buttocks once more over her nose and mouth—precisely the frightful sight that drove Adolf back to his bed and caused him to bawl for milk not a half hour later.
Yet, by morning, Alois also felt tender toward Klara. This unexpected gentleness in concert with the astonishing pleasure he had given her by way of his tongue, a joy whose unexpected preciosities had conducted her up to, yes, all-but-occult regions, had also left her ready enough to forgive the rotten part. (Indeed, his heavy behind smelled better than Adi’s.)
As a devil, I am obliged to live intimately with excrement in all its forms, physical and mental. I know the emotional waste of ugly and disappointing events, the sour indwelling poison of unjust punishment, the corrosion of impotent thoughts, and, of course, I also have to engage caca itself. It is true. As devils, we live in shit and work with it. So, we often look to comprehend a marriage through the eye of the cloaca—and I will add, that is not the worst way, since parenthood is not only the crown but the outhouse of marriage. As St. Odon of Cluny stated so unforgettably in a remark worthy of the best of devils: inter faeces et urinam nascimur—between shit and piss are we born. That leads me to say that the proper study of marriage resides not only in partnership, congeniality, affection, boredom, predictable habit, daily annoyance, verbal scuffles, and daily despair, but in the guts and smear of it all—the comradely knowledge of all the forbidden tastes, smells, and bodily nooks. Indeed, if all of that were absent, the sacrament would have less foundation. On caca, is marriage based. So I would assert. You, in turn, are free to reject my opinion because I am a devil, after all, and we do look for the lowest common denominator to any truth. Small wonder if the condign properties of waste are part of our province.
7
Alois’ promotion came through. The Finance-Watch named him to the post of Chief Customs Officer at Passau, and Klara was pleased, so pleased. She was married to a man of achievement.
On the other hand, they could hardly move before Alois was due to work at his new post in Passau. That was a full day’s travel from Braunau which meant there would be weeks at a time when Alois had to live apart from the family. In consequence, Adolf could loll in the big bed next to his mother.
If it was grievous that Klara would put him aside whenever Alois came home, so did the child also learn that the loss of such happiness would be regained so soon as Alois was off again to Passau.
This condition lasted for a year. Even when the family did finally rent a place in Passau, Alois had to oversee other border towns. In consequence, he was absent nearly as much as before—which permitted Adolf to sleep again close to his mother.
As for Alois, the new position gratified his vanity, but introduced a threat to his confidence. In Braunau, a less important station, the smugglers rounded up had usually been petty individuals. Since most of the product crossing was agricultural, weighings were tedious. Braunau might be nicely situated on the river Inn, but even its architecture was humdrum.
In Passau, Austrian Customs, by mutual agreement between the countries, operated on the German side of the Danube. The difference was visible. Passau had once been ruled by a Prince-Bishop, and so could boast of medieval towers. Some of its churches dated back to the onset of the Middle Ages. Passau’s walls reflected the grandeur of dedicated duty, ancient crimes, torture chambers, dark secrets, bygone glory, and—much to the point for Alois—criminal smugglers with imagination enough to be something of a match for him.
So, he was not without discomfort in the new position. If, until now, his uniformed presence had been a full warning to would-be malefactors, he knew that much depended upon the rigor of his professional manner. So he took pains to present a personality of monumental official calm, a man who had set an incorruptible seal on himself. Let travelers know that he was not the fellow with whom to play games. He had studied many an upper-class Customs officer—those with university learning, some with livid, invaluable dueling scars. They were the ones to model oneself after.
Taking up his command in Passau left him feeling, however, less inside his own good Austrian skin. His tone, in consequence of being on the German side of the border, became a touch too harsh. Occasionally some trifle would provoke him unduly. Once he went into a tirade because an underling addressed him as “Herr Official” rather than “Herr Senior Official Hitler.” He could sense that his new subordinates were better educated than the ones at Braunau. Could these new faces be growing critical of him? Now and again, looking down from his post at the rush of the Danube below the Customs’ bridge, his eyes would sparkle with tears. He would find himself thinking of Braunau, and of the two women buried in the region, dear carnal-spirited Franziska, yes, and for an instant he would also mourn Anna Glassl. No beauty, but she had known what to do under the sheets.
He smoked all the time. His nickname, unknown to him, was “the Cloud of Smoke.” (Here, the German is good enough to offer: die Rauchwolke!) “And today, what is the mood of die Rauchwolke?” one young officer might ask another as he came on duty. Alois knew these juniors were resentful because he did not allow them the liberty that he enjoyed—nonetheless, the very injustice of it would enforce his authority. While a good officer had to be fair for the most part, he could still exercise a few inequalities. Done judiciously, that proved effective. One’s inferiors were reduced a notch.
Now that Klara and the children had joined him in Passau, he also became more severe with his offspring. Alois Junior and Angela soon learned not to speak to him unless they were asked a direct question. Otherwise, they were not to interrupt his thoughts. If Alois Junior happened to be outside, the father would put two fingers to his lips and whistle. It was identical to the cal
l he used to summon Luther. In turn, Alois Junior, fresh cheeked, strong, stocky, and with a face like his father’s, had driven Klara and Angela into hysterics one afternoon by picking up a monumental turd that Adi had chosen to deposit on the parlor rug. When stepmother and sister began to scream at the sight of it in Junior’s hand, dark, doughty, and as forbidding as a primeval club, he chose to stalk after them, his eyes wild. What a mischief! Klara and Angela were crying out in terror. Then Adi joined the chorus and screamed with the rest even as he chose to prance right behind Alois Junior, keeping on with it until his big brother, tiring of the sport, tore off an inch of the stuff, whirled around, and planted it on the tip of Adolf’s nose.
That evening Klara told Alois Senior. The beating that ensued was comparable to the attack on Luther. Next day, Alois Junior could just about crawl off to school. Profound, after that, was the discipline in the house. When Alois came home from his duties, the children dared at most to whisper. Klara, unwilling to upset him, was also quiet. Supper was eaten in silence. The smell of Alois’ breath, rich with meat and sour from beer, mingled with the aroma of red cabbage.
After dinner, he would take to the armchair, select one of his long-stemmed pipes, tamp his tobacco into the bowl with all the authority that is ready to ensconce itself in the thumb of a man of official importance, and then proceed to overpower the air with his own smoke. Alois Junior and Angela went to their room once permission was given. But Adi was called forward.
His father would cup the three-year-old’s head in his hand, and with a divided grin—50 percent affection, 50 percent pure meanness of spirit—proceed to blow smoke into Adolf’s face. The boy would cough. The father would chuckle.
As soon as Alois let go of his head, Adolf would smile and run off to the water closet. There, he might throw up. Sometimes, head bent over the pail, the three-year-old would remember the sounds of Alois making love to Klara, and such groans accompanied him through the lurches of his stomach. He kept asking himself why his mother never complained about the smoke.
She did not dare. She sensed that the greatest provocation to her husband would be to comment on his pipe.
Moreover, Adolf had provided her with new cause for fear. Cleaning his bottom one day (and she did not make this large discovery until he was three—such were her curious proprieties) she came to notice that he had one testicle, not two.
A town doctor reassured her that this medical phenomenon did not have to be fearsome. “Such boys often grow up to be men with large families.”
“So he will not be different from others when he goes to school?”
“Boys of his condition are sometimes active. Highly active. That is all.”
Such kind words did not soothe Klara. The missing testicle left one more stain on the Poelzl family. Her sister Johanna was not only a hunchback, but there was a first cousin—a true imbecile. Not to speak of all of Klara’s dead brothers, her dead sisters, her own dead children. There was not enough, she decided, of Alois’ strong constitution in Adolf, no, none of the strength Alois had so obviously passed on to Alois Junior. This was also her fault. She had loved her husband on the night that Adolf had been conceived, but only on that night, and in a way—was it unholy?—such a night!
But now—could it be too late?—she would say that she loved her husband again. She came to this conclusion slowly, step by step, over many months, but on one fine night in June, a year and a half after his transfer to Passau, she felt a new respect for him. For just that afternoon he had learned that in another six months, he would be transferred to Linz, the capital of the province, there to serve as Chief Customs Officer. It was the most important assignment you could find in all the Service between Salzburg and Vienna, and it came at a fine time since he would be ready to retire in a few years and this promotion would increase the size of his pension.
On that night, they conceived. Perhaps there was never an hour when she loved Alois more simply, or realized she wanted a second son so much. Little Adi with his one testicle had put a small but yearlong horror into her heart. She did not dare to think any longer that Adi might live a long life. On the contrary, they needed another child. She dared to pray for a boy. The new one, she decided, must belong to Alois as much as to herself.
8
Edmund was born on March 24, 1894, a few weeks before Adolf would be five. Klara had told him that he would soon have a brother or—if God so desired—a sister, and Adolf was ready either way. He looked forward to playing with the baby on arrival. He expected to meet a child half his age, at least as measured by size, a living creature ready to speak, but in any event, certainly able to listen. On the approach to Klara’s bed, however, he was aghast, for there he saw no more than a cloth bundle on her breast with a face inside the wrappings as wizened as an old apple.
Having been sent the night before to a neighbor’s house, where he went through the discomfort of sleeping on a small bed between Angela and Alois Junior (who kept pinching each other over his intervening body), he knew that changes were coming. This perception turned into his first large sorrow when, next day, as he rushed to his mother’s bed, the midwife put out a hand as large as his face and said, “Don’t hurt the baby.”
Klara made it worse. She put a hand on his head. But it was passing in its touch and he could feel no love. Tears came to his eyes.
“Ah, the poor little one,” said the midwife and led him out of the room. “In a few days,” she said, “you can get nearer to the new brother.”
“Will he talk to me?”
“Oh, you will be the first to understand him.” With that, she laughed and returned to the bed where his mother lay.
He rarely got near enough to Klara. Yet just a few weeks ago, he had been able each morning to enjoy the same conversation with her.
“Mommy,” Adi would ask, “are you the most beautiful woman in the world?”
She would tease his hair. “What do you think?”
“I think you are the most beautiful.”
She would hug him to her breast. The love her breasts held for him was not so complete as it used to be. Yet she would pretend that it was, even if a year had passed since she had stopped feeding him. Now he not only would gorge on the cream puffs she often prepared for dessert but would wolf them down at such a rate that Alois Junior would complain audibly if Klara was present, or, in her absence, rap a knuckle on his kid brother’s head. Klara, prey to new uneasiness at how little attention she gave to Adi these days, would defend his right to the cream puffs. “He is so little,” she would say, “he needs them more than you.”
Following the birth, Klara was often too fatigued to cook. The temporary servant made cream puffs that tasted like sour milk. Klara, in her turn, was breast-feeding Edmund all the time. So it seemed to Adolf. He experienced a new sorrow that blended with the sad undertone of the church bells in Passau, so many bells, so frequent.
Now, when he tried to ask if she was the most beautiful woman in the world, she would laugh unhappily. “Oh, I am an old worn-out girl,” she would say. “I am not beautiful, Dolfchen. But your sister Angela will be.”
Adi did not agree. Angela was undependable. Angela was always ready to pinch him. She was nice, at times, but treacherous. “No, you are more beautiful than Angela,” he would say, and his mother would shake her head.
Meanwhile, much of the time, his father was in Linz. One week after Edmund’s birth, Alois took up new and full-time duties there. Since Linz was fifty miles east of Passau, Alois did not bring back the weight of his strong voice more than twice a month. Now, when Angela and Alois Junior were away at school, Adi would be alone with his mother and the infant, yet Klara still did not have a lot of time for him. And at night, he no longer could be certain where he would sleep. Alois Junior would often take over his cot, and Adi would have to move to Angela’s bed. Sometimes she would tell him that he did not smell good. “So, Adi, your breath is rotten,” she would say. Often, he would put a blanket on the floor to escape her
.
He was also afraid to go outside. There were boys his age and older playing on the field in back of the house, and their yells were fearsome. He spent his time looking at the illustrations in a book his father had bought about the Franco-Prussian war of 1870. He decided he would like to be a brave soldier. Could he be? He was so afraid!
One afternoon, after school and much at Klara’s bidding, Alois Junior pulled Adolf out of the house and led him to the field behind the house. Yes, he had known it would be so. A dozen small boys were playing at war.
Alois Junior studied the group, then selected the leader of one army, a stout five-year-old. “This is my brother,” Alois told him, “and if you let anyone on the other side hit Adolf, you will hear from me.” He punched the boy on the arm hard enough to certify his words, and departed.
When Adolf came home that evening, Alois Junior told him, “From now on, I eat the cream puffs first. As many as I want. If you cry to your mother, mama’s boy, I will not protect you on the field.”
“I won’t cry,” said Adi, holding his breath as tightly as if he were clinging to a rope.
Next day, he went to the game by himself. He was more afraid of Alois Junior’s derision than of any blows he might take in the battle.
Actually, there had been little enough punishment on the first day. The fat boy was quick to use his own body to shield Adi from every attack. Besides, it did not take long to grasp the basic principle. Divided into two teams, the boys took turns chasing each other. It was really not a war. More like tag. Once you were touched, you were dead. And each melee lasted but a few minutes. After which, the boys, close to breathless, would count the losses, take a breath, and start up again. On the first charge across the field, somebody would always get knocked down. Once, when the fat boy whom Alois Junior had chosen was waylaid by two kids from the other team, it even happened to Adolf. A rude shove on the shoulder and he was slammed to the ground. Earth was driven up his nose.