The Clown

  “I can’t,” he said, “I have to go to school, they’re giving us the German subjects for our exams first thing this morning.”

  “I’ll drive you there in Mother’s car,” I said.

  “I don’t like driving in that ridiculous car,” he said, “you know I hate it.” Mother had at that time got a sports car from a friend “fantastically cheap,” and Leo was very sensitive about anything that might be interpreted as showing off. There was only one way to make him lose his temper: if anyone teased him or spoiled him because of our rich parents he would get red in the face and hit out with his fists.

  “Just this once,” I said, “sit down at the piano and play. Don’t you want to know where I was?”

  He blushed, looked down at the floor and said: “No, I don’t want to know.”

  “I was with a girl,” I said, “with a woman—my wife.”

  “Were you?” he said, without looking up. “When was the wedding?” He still didn’t know what to do with his awkward hands, and he suddenly tried to walk past me with lowered head. I caught him by the sleeve.

  “It’s Marie Derkum,” I said quietly. He drew his elbow away, stepped back and said: “Oh my God, no.”

  He looked at me angrily and muttered something under his breath.

  “What?” I asked, “what was that?”

  “That I have to take the car after all—will you drive me?”

  I said yes, put my hand on his shoulder, and went with him across the living room. I wanted to spare him having to look at me. “Go and get the keys,” I said, “Mother won’t mind giving them to you—and don’t forget the papers—and Leo, I need some money—have you any left?”

  “In the bank,” he said, “can you get it yourself?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, “you’d better send it to me.”

  “Send?” he asked. “Are you going away?”

  “Yes,” I said. He nodded and went upstairs.

  It was only when he asked me that I knew I wanted to leave. I went into the kitchen, where Anna received me grumbling.

  “I thought you didn’t want any breakfast,” she said crossly.

  “I don’t,” I said, “just some coffee.” I sat down at the scrubbed table and watched Anna at the stove as she removed the filter from the coffee pot and stood it on a cup to drip. We had breakfast every morning with the maids in the kitchen as we found it too tiresome to be waited on formally in the dining room. At this hour Anna was alone in the kitchen. Noretta, the second maid, was with Mother in the bedroom, serving her breakfast and discussing her clothes and cosmetics. Probably Mother was at this moment grinding some wheat germ between her excellent teeth, while her face was covered with some stuff made of placenta and Noretta was reading the paper to her. Perhaps they had only got as far as morning prayers, consisting of quotations from Goethe and Luther and usually with an extra dash of moral rearmament, or possibly Noretta was reading to my mother from her collection of brochures on laxatives. My mother has whole files full of medical prospectuses, divided into “Digestion,” “Heart,” “Nerves,” and whenever she can lay hands on a doctor she pumps him for information on “new treatments,” so she doesn’t have to pay for a consultation. When one of the doctors sends her a physician’s sample she is blissfully happy.

  I could tell from Anna’s back that she was putting off the moment when she would have to turn round and look me in the face and talk to me. We are fond of each other, although she can never suppress the embarrassing tendency to teach me manners. She has been with us for fifteen years, Mother took her over from a cousin, a Protestant clergyman. Anna is from Potsdam, and the mere fact that, although we are Protestants, we speak the local dialect of the Rhine country, seems somehow weird, almost unnatural, to her. I believe she would think a Protestant who spoke with a Bavarian accent was the devil incarnate. She is tall, slim, and proud of the fact that she “moves like a lady.” Her father had been paymaster in something of which all I know is that it was called I.R. 9. It is useless to tell Anna that we are not in this I.R. 9; as far as bringing up children is concerned she refuses to budge from the phrase: “You couldn’t have done that in I.R. 9.” I have never quite understood what this I.R. 9 is, but have since discovered that in this mysterious educational establishment I could probably never have had a chance as a latrine cleaner even. It was chiefly my washing habits that called forth Anna’s references to I.R. 9, and “this horrible habit of staying in bed as long as possible” disgusts her as if I had leprosy. When at last she turned round and came over to the table with the coffee pot, she kept her eyes lowered like a nun serving a slightly disreputable bishop. I was sorry for her, like the girls in Marie’s group. With her nun’s instinct Anna had undoubtedly realized where I had been, while my mother, even if I were secretly married to a woman for three years, would probably never notice a thing. I took the pot from Anna’s hand, poured myself some coffee, held Anna firmly by the arm, and forced her to look at me: she did so with her pale blue eyes and fluttering eyelids, and I saw that she was actually crying. “Damn it, Anna,” I said, “look at me. Surely even in your I.R. 9 people look each other manfully in the eye.”

  “I’m not a man,” she whimpered, I let her go; she stood facing the stove, mumbling something about sin and shame, Sodom and Gomorrah, and I said: “My God, Anna, just think for a moment what they really did in Sodom and Gomorrah.” She shook my hand off her shoulder, I left the kitchen without telling her I was planning to leave home. She was the only person I sometimes talked to about Henrietta.

  Leo was already standing outside the garage, and looked anxiously at his watch. “Did Mother notice I was out?” I asked. He said, “No,” gave me the keys, and held open the garage door. I got into Mother’s car, drove out and let Leo get in. He looked strenuously at his fingernails. “I have the savings book,” he said, “I’ll get the money during break. Where shall I send it?” “Send it to old man Derkum,” I said. “Please,” he said, “let’s go, it’s getting late.” I speeded up, along our driveway, through the gates and had to wait outside at the streetcar stop where Henrietta had got on the streetcar to go and join the Flak. A few girls of Henrietta’s age got on the streetcar. As we overtook the streetcar I saw more girls of Henrietta’s age, laughing the way she had laughed, wearing blue berets and coats with fur collars. If a war came, their parents would send them off just like my parents had sent off Henrietta, they would give them some pocket money, a few sandwiches, pat them on the back and say, “Be a good girl.” I would have liked to wave to the girls, but I didn’t. Things are always taken the wrong way. When you drive a ridiculous car like that you can’t even wave at a girl. I had once given a boy in the park half a bar of chocolate and pushed his fair hair back from his dirty forehead; he was crying and had smeared the tears on his face onto his forehead, I only wanted to comfort him. There was a terrible scene with two women who nearly sent for the police, and after all their abuse I really felt like a fiend, because one of the women kept saying to me: “You filthy swine, you filthy swine.”

  It was horrible, I found the scene as perverse as I do a real sex maniac.

  As I drove along the Koblenzstrasse, much too fast, I kept my eye open for a ministerial car to scrape, Mother’s car had projecting hubs with which I could have scratched up another car, but at that early hour no cabinet minister was about. I said to Leo: “How about it? Are you really going into the army?” He colored and nodded. “We discussed it,” he said, “in the study group and came to the conclusion that it’s in the interests of democracy.” “Go ahead then,” I said, “by all means go and take a hand in this nonsense, I’m sorry I’m not liable to be called up.” Leo looked at me questioningly, but turned away his head when I tried to look at him. “Why?” he asked. “Oh,” I said, “I would like to see the major again who was billeted with us and wanted to have Mrs. Wieneken shot. I’m sure he’s a colonel by now, or a general.” I stopped at the Beethoven School to drop him off, he shook his head and said: “No, park over
there to the right behind the hostel,” I drove on, stopped, shook hands with Leo, but he smiled miserably and went on holding out his hand to me. My thoughts were already far away, I didn’t understand, and it irritated me the way Leo kept looking anxiously at his watch. It was only five to, and he had plenty of time. “You don’t really want to go into the army, do you?” I said. “Why not,” he said angrily, “give me the car key.” I gave him the car key, nodded to him, and walked off. I was thinking all the time of Henrietta and thought it was madness that Leo wanted to be a soldier. I crossed the park, past the university and on toward the market square. I felt cold, and I wanted to see Marie.

  The shop was full of kids when I arrived. The children took candies, pencils, erasers from the shelves and put down the money for Derkum on the counter. When I pushed my way through the shop to the back room he did not look up. I went over to the stove, warmed my hands on the coffee pot and thought, Marie will be coming any minute now. I was out of cigarettes, and I wondered whether I should just take some or pay for them when I asked Marie for them. I poured myself out some coffee and noticed there were three cups on the table. When it got quiet in the shop I put down my cup. I wished Marie were there. I washed my face and hands in the sink next to the stove, combed my hair with the nailbrush lying in the soap dish, smoothed down my shirt collar, pulled up my tie, and had another look at my nails: they were clean. I suddenly knew I must do all these things I never did otherwise.

  When her father came in I had just sat down, I stood up at once. He was as embarrassed as I was, and just as shy, he did not look angry, only very serious, and when he stretched out his hand toward the coffee pot I started, not much but enough to notice. He shook his head, poured himself some coffee, offered me the pot, I said no thank you, he still didn’t look at me. During the night, upstairs in Marie’s bed, in thinking it all over I had felt very confident. I would have liked a cigarette but I didn’t dare take one out of his packet lying on the table. Any other time I would have. Standing there, bent over the table, with his large bald head and the gray untidy ring of hair, I thought he looked very old. I started to say in a low voice, “Mr. Derkum, you have every right,” but he banged his hand on the table, looked at me at last, over the top of his glasses, and said: “Damn it, did you have to do that—and so that the whole neighborhood had to know about it?” I was glad he was not disappointed and didn’t start talking about honor. “Was that really necessary—you know how we’ve skimped and saved for this damned exam, and now,” he closed his hand, opened it, as if he were setting a bird free, “nothing.” “Where’s Marie?” I asked. “Gone,” he said, “gone to Cologne.” “Where is she?” I shouted, “where?” “Keep calm,” he said, “you’ll find out. I suppose you are now going to talk about love, marriage, and so on—don’t bother—go on, go. I shall be interested to see what becomes of you. Now go.” I was afraid to go past him. I said: “And her address?” “Here,” he said and pushed a piece of paper across the table. I put it in my pocket. “Anything else?” he shouted, “anything else? What are you waiting for?” “I need some money,” I said, and was relieved when he suddenly laughed, it was a curious laugh, hard and angry, like the only time I had heard him laugh before, when we talked about my father. “Money,” he said, “that’s a joke, but come along,” he said, “come on,” and he pulled me by the sleeve into the shop, went behind the counter, jerked open the cash register, and tossed out small change with both hands: dimes, nickels, and pennies, he scattered the coins over the notebooks and newspapers, I hesitated, then slowly began to pick up the coins, I was tempted to scoop them up in the palm of my hand, but then I picked them up one by one, counted them, and put them in my pocket. He watched me, nodded, took out his purse, and handed me a five-mark piece. We both blushed. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly, “I’m sorry, Oh God, I’m sorry.” He thought I was offended, but I understood him very well. I said: “May I have a pack of cigarettes too?” and he at once reached toward the shelf behind him and gave me two. He was crying. I leaned over the counter and kissed him on the cheek. He is the only man I have ever kissed.

  8

  The thought that Züpfner might be able to watch Marie getting dressed, or be allowed to see how she puts back the cap on the toothpaste, made me feel quite ill. My leg was hurting, and I began to doubt whether anyone would still have booked me even at the thirty to fifty-mark level. Besides, it was torture to think it might mean nothing to Züpfner to watch Marie put back the cap on the toothpaste: in my modest experience, Catholics have no feeling whatever for detail. I had Züpfner’s phone number on my sheet of paper, but I was not yet sufficiently fortified to dial the number. One never knows what someone will do under ideological pressure, and perhaps she had really married Züpfner, and to hear Marie’s voice on the phone saying: “Mrs. Züpfner speaking”—it would have been unbearable. In order to phone Leo I had looked in the phone book under Catholic seminaires, found nothing, and yet knew that these two places existed: Leoninum and Albertinum. At last I felt strong enough to lift the receiver and dial Information, for once it wasn’t engaged, and the girl at the other end even spoke with a Rhineland intonation. There are times when I long to hear the Rhine dialect so much that I call up a Bonn telephone service number from some hotel or other, just to hear this utterly nonmartial way of talking which barely pronounces the R’s, the very sound military discipline is based on.

  I heard the “One moment, please” only five times, then a girl answered, and I asked her about these “places where they train Catholic priests”; I told her I had looked under Catholic seminaries, found nothing, she laughed and said these “places”—she said the quotations marks very nicely—were called colleges, and she gave me the numbers of both. The girl’s voice on the phone had made one feel a bit better. It had sounded so natural, not prim, not coy, and typically Rhineland. I even managed to get through to the telegraph office and send off a wire to Karl Emonds.

  I have never been able to understand why everyone who would like to be thought intelligent tries so hard to express this compulsory hatred for Bonn. Bonn has always had certain charms, drowsy charms, just as there are women of whom I can imagine that their drowsiness has charms. Of course Bonn cannot stand up to exaggeration, and people have exaggerated this town. A town which cannot stand up to exaggeration cannot be described: a rare quality, after all. Besides, everyone knows the climate of Bonn is a climate for retired people, there is some connection between atmospheric pressure and blood pressure. The thing that doesn’t suit Bonn at all is this defensive irritability: I had plenty of opportunity at home to talk to government officials, deputies, generals—my mother is a great one for parties—and they are all in a state of irritated, sometimes almost tearful defensiveness. They all smile at Bonn with such martyred irony. I don’t understand what all the fuss is about. If a woman whose charm lay in her drowsiness suddenly began to dance a wild can-can, you would assume she had been doped—but to dope a whole town, this is beyond them. A dear old aunt can teach you how to knit sweaters, crochet little doilies, and serve sherry—but I wouldn’t expect her to make a witty and knowledgeable two-hour speech on homosexuality or to suddenly start talking like a floozy. False hopes, false modesty, false speculation on the unnatural. It wouldn’t surprise me if even the papal nuncio began complaining about the shortage of floozies. At one of our parties at home I met a politician who was on a committee for the suppression of prostitution and complained to me in a whisper about the shortage of floozies in Bonn. Bonn used really not to be so bad with all its narrow streets, book-stores, fraternities, little bakeries with a back room where you could have a cup of coffee.

  Before trying to call Leo I hobbled out onto the balcony to look out over my native town. It is really a pretty town: the cathedral, the roofs of what used to be the Elector’s Palace, the Beethoven Monument, the Little Market and the park. It is Bonn’s destiny that nobody believes in its destiny. Up there on my balcony I drew in great breaths of the Bonn air, which stra
ngely enough made me feel better: as a change of air, Bonn can work wonders, for a few hours.

  I left the balcony, went back into the room and without hesitation dialed the number of the place where Leo was a student. I was nervous. Since Leo has become a Catholic I have not seen him. He informed me of his conversion in his childishly correct manner: “My dear brother,” he wrote, “This is to inform you that after mature consideration I have reached the decision to join the Catholic church and to prepare myself for the priesthood. Doubtless we will soon have an opportunity to discuss this decisive change in my life personally. Your affectionate brother Leo.” Even the old-fashioned way he tries desperately to avoid beginning the letter with “I,” instead of I am writing to inform you, saying This is to inform you—that was typically Leo. None of the polish he brings to his piano-playing. This way of doing everything in a businesslike manner increases my depression. If he goes on like this one day he will be a noble, white-haired prelate. On this point—style of letter-writing—Father and Leo are equally at sea: they write about everything as if they were dealing in coal.

  It was a long time before someone at this place deigned to come to the phone, and I was just in the mood to start berating this ecclesiastical sloppiness with harsh words, said “Oh shit,” then someone lifted the receiver at the other end and a surprisingly hoarse voice said: “Yes?” I was disappointed. I had been expecting a gentle nun’s voice, smelling of weak coffee and dry cake, instead: a croaking old man, and it smelled of pipe tobacco and cabbage, so penetratingly that I began to cough.

  “Excuse me,” I said at last, “may I speak to Leo Schnier, a theology student?”