Extinction (43 page)

immediately
and come alone as his wife was ill. He was glad to be able to walk up and down with me in front of the Orangery, as he intended to retire at once to the inn in the village that we had
allocated
to him, so that he could finish some work he had brought with him,
a petition
, he said,
that I have to send to the Belgian government and the king about my refugees
, whom the Belgian government treats like animals.
The dreamer
asked after my sisters and made a remark about the people standing next to us that amused me but was of course inaudible to them; had they heard it, they would have been deeply hurt, I thought. He did not mention our misfortune or the dead lying in state in the Orangery. Then he left, saying that he could find his own way and would be at the funeral the next day, but he would be returning to Brussels immediately, on the evening train. I did not have the chance to tell him that I had naturally wanted him to stay at the house, so that he could be near us. It was always his way to make an unceremonious exit, but on this occasion he set a new record. He hasn’t changed, I thought, he’s still my beloved
dreamer
. I now saw that the people who had been standing next to us were two families from Wiener Neustadt, relatives on my mother’s side. I naturally greeted them and even asked if they had had a
pleasant
journey, addressing them in a tone that seemed far too cordial and immediately displeased me, as they were so unlikable. They stood there as though expecting that I would now devote myself to them, as though
they were the only people present whom I had to attend to. I’ll get away from these people as fast as possible, I thought, and apologized, again too profusely, for having to leave them, as there was something I had to attend to urgently. I quite simply abandoned the party from Wiener Neustadt and went over to the Farm, then to the Huntsmen’s Lodge, without knowing what I was looking for. I went into my father’s office, which houses all the documents relating to Wolfsegg, all the estate accounts. This office has always been a nightmare to me, like everything that remotely resembles an office. It had the typical office smell, which after a very short time inevitably makes me feel I shall suffocate if I do not leave immediately. But this time I actually sat down in the office—something I had never done before. I sat down at the desk, on which the previous day’s mail was lying, addressed to my father. Bills, business letters, brochures advertising agricultural machinery. I hate brochures. I hate business mail. I pushed the pile of mail far enough away to be able to place a sheet of paper on the desk. On it I wrote in capital letters
ALEXANDER, MY DREAMER
, exactly in the middle of the sheet, without knowing why I wrote the word
ALEXANDER
at all. For no reason, it seemed to me. I was in an extreme state of nerves, as they say. Sitting in the office chair, I suddenly became aware that I was sitting in
my office
, not my father’s. Suddenly overcome by fatigue, I gazed at the walls of the office and was sickened by them. By the hundreds of three-ring binder files on the shelves, marked only with the word
Wolfsegg
and, underneath it, the relevant year. I looked at them until I thought I would go mad. Father was a pedant, I thought. I was always repelled by his neat handwriting and the primitive way in which he expressed himself. He taught himself to write a fair hand, and he retained this hand, which is typical of an insufferably pedantic person, I thought. And all his life he tried to turn Johannes into an insufferably pedantic person. He never ceased working on his successor, trying to form him in his own image. He succeeded in forming Johannes in his own image, I told myself. But such formed images are repellent. My father’s fair hand was set down on paper by an atrophied brain, I thought. By the atrophied person my father became. Sometimes he wanted to break out of his atrophy, but he did not succeed: it was too far advanced. Father’s hand was of the type favored by schoolteachers, the neat, workmanlike hand used by small-town
schoolteachers, bespeaking an anxious, suppressed character. Father was a suppressed character, I thought, relentlessly suppressed by Wolfsegg and by my mother. Nothing’s left of my father but his school-teacherly hand, I thought. These reflections were prompted by the discovery of an unfinished letter on his desk. It was addressed to a firm that produced artificial fertilizers at Lustenau in Vorarlberg, in response to an offer. But this is how a commercial assistant writes, I thought, not the master of Wolfsegg. I read my father’s unfinished letter several times; it did not get any less primitive. My father was no letter writer, but nobody should write like
this
, I thought. And the way he’s left the writing materials on the desk is depressing, I thought. This is how a schoolteacher or a commercial assistant leaves his writing materials, not a man of stature. Was my father a man of stature? I asked myself. My fatigue prompted a few more pointless questions about my father. What is stature after all? I asked myself. The sight of the three-ring binder files, going back to the early years of the century, profoundly depressed me. You escaped from this world, I thought, and now you’ve been pitched headlong into it again
by a stroke of fate
. The words
stroke of fate
, so emetic and dishonest, were all I needed. I got up and walked to the window. From the window one looked straight across at the wall of the Farm, to which was attached a picture of the Madonna and Child, painted in oils on galvanized metal. The Madonna’s neck is longer than I have seen it in any other painting, and the Christ Child is positively hydrocephalic. The picture had always amused me, and it amused me now. I could not help laughing out loud, not caring whether anyone heard me. Caecilia had appeared in the door. She had come to fetch me for an early supper—just for us, she said—separate from the buffet for the guests. I at once took her to task for putting up Alexander in the village, saying that he, of all people, should have stayed with us at the house. I asked her where she had booked him. If Spadolini stays with us, it’s obvious that Alexander should stay with us too, I told her as we left the Huntsmen’s Lodge. It was grotesque, I said, to have the wine cork manufacturer in the house, but not Alexander. She could not tell me where she had booked Alexander—she really did not know, she said. As we walked across to the house, I continued to reproach her about Alexander. I also said that the people she had put up at the house were the very people I found insufferable,
and I listed the names of a few people I had already seen at the house, who would presumably be spending the night there.
These revolting specimens
, I said,
from Mother’s side of the family
—you know how they get on my nerves, and yet you put up Alexander in the village! That’s just
beastly
. I was instantly sorry I had used the word
beastly
. I didn’t intend to hurt you, I said, but this whole funeral was getting on my nerves. I was close to losing control altogether. I may have laughed out loud over the picture of the Madonna, but it was nervous, hysterical laughter, I said, as if trying to excuse myself for using the word
beastly
. It had slipped out inadvertently and been quite out of place, as it was not only my nerves that were on edge but my sisters’ too, and when we reached the door, where a number of new arrivals were standing in the entrance hall, I told her that I was sorry I had hurt her, that I had not wanted to hurt her, but that in my present state of extreme tension I could no longer behave as people were
bound
to expect me to behave. We went into the hall and had to shake hands with the latest guests and utter the by now well-practiced phrases before escaping to the second floor for our early supper. It’s a pity, I said to my sisters, that Alexander isn’t having supper with us; he would certainly have made it much more entertaining. How can we possibly leave him to his own devices at one of the village inns? I asked. But my sisters had acted deliberately. They wished to have supper alone with me and wanted to sound me out. But they could elicit nothing from me. From below came the sound of the guests crowding into the kitchen, where the buffet awaited them, while the three of us ate more or less the same food upstairs. At my request Caecilia had locked the door to the second floor,
so that the gargoyles can’t get in
, I said. She had obediently gone to the door and locked it. I can’t stand these people, I said, and reverted to the subject of Alexander, though I was actually waiting for Spadolini, who was bound to arrive at any moment. After my last visit to Wolfsegg, I told my sisters, I
never
wanted to come back. I said
never
, though I meant
not for a long time
, but the word
never
made a greater impression, and so I repeated it several times. My home is in Rome, not here, I told them, and again I said that Alexander should have been put up at the house. Instead of sending all these revolting people from Wiener Neustadt and Wels and Munich down to the village, we’ve sent Alexander. This was a piece of unpardonable
meanness—
Alexander of all people
, I said several times. I began to wonder whether I ought not to go down to the village and fetch him back, but my sisters did not know where he was staying. It’s monstrous that we’re having a decent meal here while exposing Alexander to the garbage they dish up in the village, I said. Especially as I was always treated so well in Brussels, where he entertained and accommodated me so generously. I accused my sisters of having
deliberately
put Alexander up in the village because they disapproved of my relationship with him and wanted to spite me. This was certainly an exaggeration, and my suspicion was probably unfounded. To send an admirable person like Alexander down to the village, I said, while putting up these utterly bogus, brainless people from Wiener Neustadt and Wels here, cheek by jowl with us, as it were—it just didn’t bear thinking about. As I repeatedly upbraided my sisters for their treatment of Alexander, none of us much enjoyed our intimate supper behind closed doors. My sisters remained silent and let me go on. They knew what they were doing: they watched me putting myself more and more in the wrong, then tried to exploit the situation by asking me several questions about the immediate future and finally inundated me with questions about what was going to happen to Wolfsegg. I did not answer a single one of their questions, because I honestly did not know any of the answers; I knew as little about the future of Wolfsegg as they did. Of course we all knew what was in the will, which was deposited not only in the safe at Wolfsegg but also with our attorney at Wels. There was never any secret about the will, and so there were no problems. On the death of my parents and my brother, Wolfsegg devolved
wholly
upon me, though of course I was under an obligation to accord my sisters their proper place at Wolfsegg, the share that was due them, or else pay them off, and right from the beginning I was more inclined to pay them off than to share the estate with them. They wanted to hear about my immediate plans for Wolfsegg, but I told them nothing. I left them completely in the dark. The decision is mine, not theirs, I thought. I have to admit that as soon as I heard of my parents’ death I decided on a payoff, not a share-out. I was still holding the telegram in my hand, I recalled, when I decided in favor of paying my sisters off. Hardly had I read the telegram than I went to the window of my Roman apartment, looked down at the Piazza Minerva, then
across to the windows of Zacchi’s apartment and the dome of the Pantheon, and said to myself, Of course I’m for paying them off, not for sharing the estate with them. Paying my sisters off was the very first thought that entered my head on receiving the telegram. My sisters wanted to know what was to become of them, but I did not tell them. They did not ask in so many words, but their concern was obvious from their whole demeanor during supper. They did not say a word but let me do all the talking, as I have said. For a long time it did not strike me that my brother-in-law was absent, until I suddenly noticed that a place had been set for him. I asked where he was. Caecilia said he had gone down to the village, probably to one of the inns. In the week since the wedding he had made a habit of going down to the village instead of having supper with the family. That’s typical of people like him, I said: they don’t even honor a simple obligation like having supper with the family if it suits them to go and booze at an inn. Caecilia remained silent, and so did Amalia. It’s intolerable, I said, that this man should do just as he pleases. Why did they not stop him from going down to the village and mixing with the locals, especially on a day like this? They did not reply. He’ll get us a bad name in the village, I said. It’s just not right. It’s outrageous, I said, though I immediately added that I could understand it, as I could not stick it out with such sisters and such a family either—which in any case no longer exists. No longer exists, I repeated, whereupon my sisters looked daggers at me. My brother-in-law sits around in the inns and makes us look ridiculous, I said. I’ll give him a piece of my mind as soon as he gets back. Amalia said that her brother-in-law never got back until after midnight, when the inns closed. Caecilia said nothing. I drew my own conclusions. I could understand my brother-in-law, I said, but to behave like this today was intolerable. I asked whether he had gone down to the village in the evenings to tank up when our parents were still alive. Caecilia said he had. But she had saddled herself with the wine cork manufacturer, I said. This brought me to our aunt from Titisee. I asked whether she had arrived. I was told that she had arrived a long time ago and gone to bed. Naturally she was staying in Mother’s room. Yes, I said, in Mother’s room, naturally. But it’s grotesque, I thought, that our aunt from Titisee should spend the night in Mother’s room, of all places. I had not seen her. I haven’t seen her, I said.
An impudent woman, I added. Whereupon my sisters rounded on me and accused me of not bothering about the guests, of loading them on