Death in Rome (22 page)

He squeezed between the stools, he barged against me, I was sitting at the bar, talking to the American poet, we were discussing the concert again, which had affected him deeply, and he was telling me about Homer and Virgil, and how he was weaving references to Homer and Virgil into the sonnet he was working on, and that now, having listened to my symphony, Homer and Virgil seemed to him an embodiment of a solitude he kept wanting to run away from, which was what led him to barstools and chitchat, and I turned round and saw Judejahn forcing his way between the barstools. I was surprised, and he seemed to be surprised too, we stared at each other, and then I should have dropped my gaze, but I thought it was funny, seeing Judejahn in the homosexual bar, in the circle of my damnation, and I felt like taunting him, and I said: 'Are you queer then, Uncle Judejahn?' His face contorted itself and he looked around, and only then did it dawn on him that this was a homosexual hang-out, and he hissed at me: 'I always guessed you were one of those perverts!' Had he always guessed it? And could he guess why? Did he think of the Teutonic castle, the boys in their soldiers' uniforms, how beautiful they were when they took off their battle jackets, how they stopped being little ranks and became boys again once they were naked, lads yearning for love and tenderness, and their young bodies full of longing? Judejahn didn't offend me. Why did I do it? Why did I do it? Did I hate him? I didn't even hate him. It was over. I didn't want to be reminded of it. The Judejahn of my boyhood had been a terror. The Party man had inspired fear. The General had been fearsome. Now I thought he was just an old scarecrow. Why didn't I let him be? I was free, after all! But he had made me a Junker type, and I knew some Junker expressions, and I was very tempted to tell him he was a prize shit, but now I was being intemperate, the family made me intemperate, I was intemperate in the Pfaffrath manner, I hated myself, and I was intemperate in an inverted way, I hated myself, and I told him: 'Adolf is here, too!' And he followed my glance, and we saw Adolf sitting alone at his table, conspicuous in his priestly robes, all on his own among the cooing and bickering queens, and he saw him gazing at Laura, and I said to Judejahn: 'He's going to spend that money you gave him on a girl.' And then I saw that Judejahn's face was apoplectic, it was puffed up and purple, and I thought: Are you having a stroke? And I thought: Don't have it here. And I thought: It would be funny if Judejahn had a stroke at the violet bar. Was it a triumph? It was no triumph. I felt flat. I didn't care whether Judejahn suffered a stroke or not. His hand trembled as he gave the barman a coupon. I thought: He's an old fool. And I sensed: He's a ghost. I felt something almost like pity for Judejahn. It was strange. Maybe I was getting sentimental.

He knocked back his cognac, a river of fire flooded his guts, little tributaries spread into his belly, rage rage rage and pain were in him, all that stood in the way of an explosion of rage was little Gottlieb with his respect for swanky surroundings, even if it was just a squalid palace of venal lust. It was bad enough, Siegfried's impertinence. Judejahn still felt capable of smacking the cissy in his unpatriotic intellectual face. But a new foe had risen up against him, crept into position, a foe of whose approach he had not managed to hear in the time of his power and who could not be discerned from the barracks in the desert either, because even there he had had power, though it was power of smaller dimensions, he had given orders, issued commands, he hadn't faced rivalry, but now the enemy was at hand, he showed his face, he launched himself to strike—it was age! Judejahn was not enraged to find his son among homosexuals. Nor did it occur to him to be amused to find his son, the deacon, seated among queers. He only saw that his son, the hypocrite, had snatched the whore from him, and Judejahn wasn't so much embittered about being cheated of his fornication, as surprised, surprised and incredulous to find himself losing out to this weakling in the womanish dress of a priest, whom he had so despised that he didn't even properly hate him, he felt ashamed of him as of some disfigurement, a funny hunchback making him ridiculous, and the boy was preferred to him. Judejahn kept looking across at the strangely empty table at which Adolf was sitting alone in Laura's lovely smile. Judejahn felt as though he were seeing an evil and dangerous fata morgana, a sand phantom, untouchable, impregnable, cruel, grotesque and deadly.

But in fact it was his arch-enemy, it was no ghost, and yet it was a ghost, the arch-deceiver, who had disguised himself as a priest to deceive the foolish father. It was youth rising up against
Judejahn,
green youth had betrayed him. One lot of youth had died,
Judejahn
had gobbled them up in the war, they were all right, they hadn't deceived him, they were in no position to deceive and betray him, they were safely in the grave. But a new generation had betrayed him, and went on betraying him, and now it was robbing him, took away his chance of victory, stole his woman, the woman who at all times was the property of the victor, the overpowerer, and whose possession was a sexual emblem of victory, a warming sense of power and subjugation. Was
Judejahn
now the old stag who had lost his doe to the young buck, left to crawl into the undergrowth to die? Not yet he wasn't. That was priests' ruses. He'd been duped.
Judejahn
wasn't the old stag losing his horns and crawling off, not by a long chalk he wasn't. He was the better man. His deeds spoke for him; but how could he tell Laura of his deeds, his victories, his campaigns of devastation? The whole world had witnessed Judejahn's doings, no one seemed to want to remember them. Was it just a matter of eloquence now, the tongues of venal cowards, while the deeds of the brave had already been forgotten, were already a zero in the hole of the past, where even rivers of blood dried up, and atrocity mildewed and crumbled away? What could
Judejahn
do? He could have the bar cleared. Nonsense, he could not have the bar cleared. He couldn't even go to the cashier to get a token for another cognac. He felt giddy, and he feared ridicule, he feared the ridiculous scene of a meeting with his priest son.
Judejahn
gripped the brass rail of the bar as though he had to hold it in order not to collapse, not to drop dead or blindly lash out from a position of utter hopelessness. Ah, delivered unto the enemy's hands.

I saw his hand clutching the brass rail, I saw him longing for another drink and not daring to let go of the rail, and I told the barman to give Judejahn a cognac, and the barman poured the cognac because he had me down for a queer and so he trusted me to pay for the cognac later. Judejahn took the glass. Did he know it came from me? He knocked it back with an upward thrust of his buttocks as though he were doing a knee-lift. For a moment his eyes were glassy. But then his eyelids narrowed again to sly pig's slits. The sly pig's eyes were looking at me. They looked round the bar. They looked at Adolf, they rested on Laura, and I was amazed to see him so agitated. Why was it such a terrible blow for him to see Adolf here? Was he such an over-protective father? I hardly thought so. Judejahn didn't want to protect anyone. And since he hated his son's priest's robes, it should have amused him to find the hated cassock in such unsavoury company. Now he left the counter and walked through the bar. He squeezed past Adolf and the cash-desk, and I kept an eye on him so that I could intervene if he started yelling at Adolf. But Judejahn walked right past him without appearing to notice him, and Adolf appeared not to see him either, he had forgotten about me too, he was sitting in Laura's smile as under a giant sun, the wonderful sun of an innocent paradise.

They sat on the pavement in front of the bar, the night streamed past them, rich Rome, elegant Rome, the Rome of the magnates and ostentatious foreigners, the Via Veneto paraded past the rows of chairs belonging to cafés, bars, hotels and pricey clubs, and lights glittered everywhere, the chestnuts flowered and rustled, and stars shone over the great city. To begin with, they had been impressed by everything, even the waiters in violet tails, but then an aura of disrepute spread over the chairs, the twittery voices, the jangling bracelets, the scent of curled hair and womanishly manicured hands that rested on the acquiescent hips of others. Friedrich Wilhelm Pfaffrath was aghast. He dared not give a name to what he suspected, and he thought under no circumstances should Judejahn have brought Anna his wife to such a place. Dietrich also was indignant, but outrage and indignation about morals and seediness had a positive effect too, they stiffened the spine, they made a man hold his head high, decency was sitting among Mediterranean licentiousness, and the Goths would prevail. Dietrich was tormented by curiosity and desire. Curiosity asked him what might have caused Judejahn to seek out this establishment. He wasn't a queer. But maybe he had some secret contacts here, underworld informers, since spies and informers often came from corrupt backgrounds; one exploited them and, having gained power, eliminated one's despicable if useful helpers. Lust cried out for the passing girls. On high heels they teetered past, in tight skirts that exposed their thighs, they were as bred and spirited as circus horses, expensive mounts, talented tricks. Dietrich imagined it for himself, but he knew how to count, and he reckoned that it would come expensive, at any rate it would cost more than he was willing to shell out, and so he hated the girls instead, he found them shamelessly provocative and their walking the public street at night was a scandal, and he thought greedily and bitterly of the publication in his suitcase, the illustrated magazine with the disclosures that brought about relief and slumber. Finally Judejahn emerged from the strange aviary. Something must have angered him, because his breathing was laboured, the veins on his brow stood out, and his hand trembled as he reached for the wine bottle. And then he insulted them, he called them names, because Germany had not yet awoken, because young people were not yet marching, because young people were insolent to their superiors and were going to the dogs. How could they defend themselves? They had never been able to defend themselves against Judejahn. Friedrich Wilhelm Pfaffrath was pathetically vulnerable to any loud-mouth who banged on about the nation, because the nation was an idol, a Moloch to whom one sacrificed reason and life and even property. The Roman chestnuts rustled in the balmy spring night. When would flags start to rustle again? Fervently Friedrich Wilhelm Pfaffrath wished for it, flags were lofty symbols, they were the nation surging ahead, but now perhaps he was growing old. When he heard Judejahn's tirade against himself and the nation, he was seized by a peculiar mild disgust for Judejahn's flags that were soon to rustle again, and he felt as though the mild Roman chestnuts were tittering like old ladies. He thought of his mother, the vicar's wife, who had been left cold by National Socialism. Perhaps she was now watching him from the starry firmament. She had been a firm believer in the hereafter. Rationally, Pfaffrath rejected such a possibility. Even so—if his mother was looking down on him, if she had found him and was watching him, would she feel sorry for him? Judejahn was accusing Pfaffrath of cowardice and disloyalty. At this transfigured moment of the night, tired, exhausted, full of elevating and strange impressions, Pfaffrath accepted his reproaches. He had been cowardly and disloyal, but not in the way his raging brother-in-law had in mind. It now seemed to Pfaffrath as though he had lost his way in his early years, as though there had been another road for Germany and for himself than the military road that Pfaffrath had gone down; another German possibility, which he had disregarded for years, now lay before him in the landscape of youth clarified by a trick of memory, and it was this other possibility that he had betrayed, and the other Germany had been lost for ever. The chestnuts were whispering to one another of his cowardice, his treachery, his failure, as the lindens were at home. But for men the reproachful voice of the night passes with the nocturnal trembling of trees, and after a refreshing night's sleep Pfaffrath will once more feel without stain, an upright German man and an Oberbürgermeister, free from guilt, guiltless towards his ancestors, guiltless towards his children, guiltless towards his own soul. But now, in this transfiguring hour of the night, he asked himself whether Siegfried and his symphony hadn't sought the better home, and whether the notes jarring in Pfaffrath's ear hadn't held a dialogue with his own youthful soul.

I disturbed him in his reverie, I disturbed him in his devotion to Laura's smile. Once more I was moved by Adolf. I put my hand on his arm, my hand on the sleeve of his black cassock, but he pulled back his arm and said: 'You don't understand.' I said: 'Yes I do, you've discovered a new pain in yourself.' He asked: 'Do you really know?' I said: 'Yes.' I had ordered him a glass of vermouth, and he had his vermouth and he asked: 'Do we have to go now?' I said: 'Her name's Laura. We'll leave with her.' He looked at me, and his mouth quivered, and he said: 'You don't understand me.' I said: 'I do understand you.' And I thought: He thinks it will be enough to look, and he's right, looking is bliss, and if he remains resolute, and doesn't go to bed with her, then he'll have gained something. I thought: He will have gained something, but he will think he's lost everything. I thought: What would have happened to him if the Teutonic castle hadn't collapsed along with the Nazis? I thought: Would he even have seen Laura then? I thought: He is on a difficult path. I didn't know whether he would carry on on that path. Carry on to where? There are many
viae dolorosae
, a whole bewildering street map of them.

He observed them secretly from his car. They left the bar. They walked down the Via Veneto, below its gradually extinguishing lights, under the rustling trees, the girl in the middle. Judejahn's car followed them, a black shadow that slowly crept up, came level with them, and then slipped back again. They passed Judejahn's great hotel, and behind the American embassy they turned left, down the Via Venti Settembre. Judejahn gave up the pursuit. He had wanted to be sure. He had certainty—his son had ousted him with that whore. His son was sleeping with a Judaeo-Roman whore. It was ridiculous to be indignant about it. He was aware of that. He thought: Well, what if he is. It would suit him fine if Adolf slept with a girl, might make a man of him. But he had been defeated, he, the great Judejahn had been beaten, had been repulsed, his writ did not run, the world was in rebellion! That was what stirred up a flood of pointless oaths in him. His son sleeping with a girl didn't bother him. He didn't see why it should. He thought all priests were hypocrites and randy goats. He would avenge himself. He would avenge himself on all priests and all whores. He had himself driven up to his hotel. He went up to his luxurious room. Little Gottlieb was very pleased with the room. Benito the cat yowled a greeting to Judejahn. He was hungry. Judejahn was furious that the beast had been given nothing to eat. He stroked the cat, ran his fingers through its mangy fur, and said: 'Poor Benito!' He rang for room service, swore at the waiter, he ordered raw mincemeat for the cat, and champagne for himself. It had to be champagne. Little Gottlieb had always drunk champagne in the officers' mess. Little Gottlieb had toasted his victories with champagne. He had drunk champagne in Paris, in Rome, in Warsaw. In Moscow he had drunk no champagne.