Group Portrait with Lady (50 page)

She had—and this was where she had been mainly at fault—if not exactly falsified the image of the father killed in the war, belittled the historical background against which he had been killed by vulgarly representing it all as crap. “Even such whiz-kids as we must have been were bound one day to demand some image of their father.” That had not been denied them, their father had been represented to them as a kind and sensitive man who in some way had been a failure, certainly professionally, nor could there ever have been any doubt of their mother’s love for their father Wilhelm, nevertheless their father’s image had been systematically, if perhaps not deliberately, destroyed by the continual use of the word crap in every historical context; and even worse was the fact that she had had lovers. Gruyten, well, that had not been too bad, though the irregularity of the relationship had earned them derision and annoyance, but then she had “even” had Russians in her bed, and also from time to time one of “that dreadful woman Margret’s discarded Yanks”; and thirdly, her antireligious and antichurch pose—not at all the same thing, as he no doubt knew—had had devastating consequences; in her case both poses had “coincided disastrously”; she had insisted on their attending a nondenominational school that had been
most inconveniently located, she had grown steadily more morose and embittered after “Grandpa Gruyten’s” accident, and what had been lacking was the counterbalance; this—the counterbalance—he had to admit it, and to this day held it greatly to her credit—was something they had found in Aunt Leni, who had always been warm and kind and generous, had sung them songs, told them fairy tales, and the image of her deceased—well, one might after all say—husband, even though he had been a soldier in the Red Army, this image had remained undefiled, and Leni had refused to participate in the countless interpretations of history as garbage or crap; for years, yes literally for years, she had sat with them and Lev in the evening beside the Rhine, “her hands badly pricked by rose thorns”; and it was Lev who had been baptized, not Kurt, he had been seven years old before the nuns had baptized him when Grandfather Otto had succeeded, “thank God,” in rescuing them from “those surroundings,” and the reason he said thank God was that Aunt Leni was marvelous for small children but a disaster for adolescents; she sang too much, spoke too little, although it was soothing and had had a soothing effect that Aunt Leni “never ever carried on with men, while with our mother we were never sure, and that dreadful woman Margret carried on as if in a cathouse.” Marja van Doorn also came in for praise from Werner Hoyser, and he even found a kind word for Bogakov, “though he sometimes sang a bit too much too.”

Well, in the end they had got onto the right track, had entered upon a Christian way of life, had been raised to standards of achievement and responsibility, had gone to university, he studying law, Kurt political economy, “while Grandfather was carrying on what can only be called the inspired management of his fortune, which enabled us to apply our expertise immediately to our own enterprises.” He could understand
that some people might regard the operation of a betting office, which to him was merely a sideline, as a less than serious undertaking, but the fact was, it was his hobby, a business enterprise designed to indulge his gambling urge. But in the final analysis it must be realized that Aunt Leni was more of a menace than his mother, whom he described as “simply a frustrated pseudosocialist” who could do no harm. Aunt Leni, on the other hand, he regarded as being reactionary in the truest sense of the word: it was inhuman, one might even say monstrous, the way she instinctively, stubbornly, inarticulately, but consistently, refused—not only rejected, that presupposed articulation—every manifestation of the profit motive, simply refused to have anything to do with it. She emitted destruction and self-destruction, it must be a Gruyten element, for it had also been inherent in her brother and to an even stronger degree in her father. Personally, Werner Hoyser said in conclusion, he was not a monster, he was broad-minded, liberal to the utmost limits taught him by his education; he was an open supporter of the pill and the sex-wave, yet considered himself a Christian, he was, if you like, a “fresh-air fiend,” and that was what had to be done with Aunt Leni, she needed some fresh air. She was the inhuman one, not he, for a wholesome striving after profit and property—as had been demonstrated by theology and was being increasingly acknowledged even by Marxist philosophers—was part of human nature.

Finally, and this was what he found it hardest to forgive, Leni had on her conscience a human being whom he not only
had
loved but still loved: Lev Borisovich Gruyten, his godson, “who was entrusted to me under such dramatic circumstances that I look on it as a mission, though I may for a time have regarded that mission somewhat cynically, but it so happens that I
am
his godfather, and that is not merely a metaphysical or socioreligious status, it is also a legal status that I intend to observe.” It had been interpreted as hatred that he and his
brother had laid charges against Lev which had resulted in his being sent to jail, on account of “a few foolish actions that were, after all, of doubtful legality,” but to tell the truth this had been an act of affection calculated to bring him to his senses and purge him of what “is surely regarded as the worst of all sins: his pride, his arrogance.” He still remembered Lev’s father very well, a kind, sensitive, quiet man, and he was convinced that he also would not have liked to see his son become what he had, by a circuitous route, eventually become: a garbage-truck driver. He certainly had no wish to dispute the fact that garbage collecting should be regarded as of great significance and a social function of prime importance, but Lev—there was no arguing about this—was “destined for higher things.” (The quotation marks are the Au.’s, who could not be quite sure in listening to Werner Hoyser’s words whether he was citing, reciting, or merely citing as his own the words of someone else; it must remain an open question whether the quotation marks are justified. They are to be regarded as merely tentative.)

It must be realized that up to this point almost three hours, from four until seven, had elapsed. So much had happened, so much had been said. Girl Friday had not reappeared, the tea in the Thermos jug had turned bitter from concentration; the cheese pastries had lost their freshness and turned leathery in what was, frankly, a somewhat overheated room and although Werner Hoyser had called himself a fresh-air fiend he made no move to introduce some fresh air into the room, filled to capacity as it was with various types of tobacco smoke (Werner Hoyser: pipe, Kurt Hoyser: cigar, the Au.: cigarette); an attempt by the Au. to open the center section of the window (indicated as openable by a separate brass rim and a handle) was frustrated by Kurt Hoyser with a smile and gentle firmness, not without an allusion to the complex air-conditioning system that only permitted “spontaneous individual
airing” at the lighting up of a certain signal that regulated the “climatological system” in the building; this being the hour—thus Kurt Hoyser in a kindly voice—at which the offices and editorial rooms were closing and which might be called the critical hour, one must expect it to be another hour and a half before the magic eye set into the window would light up and give permission to let in fresh air; at the same time the air-conditioning system was so overloaded that it was incapable of introducing sufficient fresh air. “This building, you must remember, is a building unit of forty-eight—twelve times four—individual structural units which at this time, with letters being dictated, vital telephone calls being made, important conferences taking place, are all considerably overloaded. Figure forty-eight units at four rooms each, figure for each room an average of two and a half smokers—shown by statistics to consist of an average of one chain cigarette smoker, half a pipe smoker, approximately three quarters of a cigar smoker—and you will see that at this hour of the day this building contains an average of four hundred and seventy-five smokers—but I interrupted my brother, and I feel we should finish up now for I am sure your time is limited too.”

Yes, now it was Werner Hoyser’s turn again (greatly condensed here): this was not a matter—as merely superficial observers (by which he on no account meant the Au.) might suppose—of money. Aunt Leni had been offered a rent-free apartment in an excellent location,
rent free
, offers had been made to enable Lev, whose release was imminent, to matriculate at night school and go on to university, but all this had been refused because, so it seemed, one felt at home in the society of garbage collectors, because, so it seemed, one refused to make even the most minimal adjustment; no amenity could tempt her or tempt her away, one was attached, so it seemed, to one’s old-fashioned range, to one’s stoves, to one’s habits—there was no doubt about who was the reactionary party here.
It was a matter of—and he was using the word, he said, in his dual capacity as a Christian leading the Christian way of life and as a tolerant political economist and jurist who was familiar with constitutional principles—it was a matter of progress, and “in striding forward one must leave many a person behind in one’s stride. It’s all over with that romantic stuff, ‘When we’re marching side by side,’ the song our mother used to sing to us ad nauseam.
We
can’t do whatever we like, either—we are not even permitted to open the windows in our own building whenever we like.” Needless to say, it would not be possible to offer Aunt Leni two hundred and eleven square yards in one of the new Hoyser building complexes, that would represent a revenue-loss of almost two thousand marks, nor would it be possible to permit stoves, and windows “that can be flung open at will,” and naturally, as far as her tenants, subtenants, and lovers were concerned, certain “very minor social” restrictions would have to be imposed. “But damn it all,” and here for the first time Werner Hoyser became, although only momentarily, aggressive, “I wouldn’t mind Aunt Leni’s easy life myself for a change.” For this and other reasons, but mainly on account of higher interests, it was necessary for what seemed like relentless machinery to go into action.

At this juncture the Au. would have dearly liked to speak a few simple and conciliatory words, he would even have been prepared to admit the relative unimportance of the annoyance over the jacket in view of the weighty problems of these tormented people who were not even allowed to fling open the windows in their own building; when one got right down to it, it was not as important as he had first thought. The person who prevented him from speaking these simple words which, if not conciliatory (for there really had been no quarrel between him and the two informants), would at least have been sympathetic, was—Kurt Hoyser. He it was who delivered a kind of summing-up as he blocked the exit in a manner that,
far from being threatening, might rather be called pleading, when the Au., topcoat over his arm and cap in hand, briefly took his leave and walked toward the door.

As for the Au., he had had to correct a great many prejudices, for, after all the details he had been given about Kurt Hoyser, he had imagined him to be a blend of hyena and wolf, a ruthless financial baron; yet on closer inspection Kurt H.’s eyes turned out to be downright gentle, only resembling his mother’s in their shape, not in their expression; certainly Lotte’s mocking asperity and almost lachrymose bitterness were softened in those round, gentle, brown—one might safely say—doe’s eyes by elements that could only have come from his father Wilhelm, or at any rate from that side of the family, although not from the latter’s father, Kurt’s grandfather. When we consider that all the genes of the numerous people directly associated with Leni originated in the geographical triangle of Werpen-Tolzem-Lyssemich, perhaps we must spare a word of praise for those sugar-beet fields after all, despite the fact of their having also produced the Pfeiffers. There was no doubt about it: Kurt Hoyser was a sensitive person and, although time was getting on, he must be given a chance to express this.

He even went so far as to place his hands on the Au.’s shoulders, and here again this gesture contained nothing of familiarity or condescension, merely a certain brotherly affection that no one should be denied. “Look,” he said in a low voice, “you mustn’t go away with the impression that, as far as Aunt Leni’s concerned, some brutal socio-historical process of automation is under way, a relentless process that destroys obsolete structures and to which we too are subject; certainly that would be the case if we allowed this eviction to proceed without consciousness, without reflection, and entirely without scruple. But that’s not how it is. We are doing this consciously and not unscrupulously, at any rate not without having examined
our consciences. I will not dispute the pressure being exerted on us by adjacent property-owners and real-estate groups. But we would be powerful enough to shake that off, or at least to get a postponement. Nor will I dispute that our grandfather is motivated by powerful emotional pressures, but those too we could deal with; we could continue, as we have been doing for years, indeed almost for decades, to make up Aunt Leni’s rental account out of our own pockets, thus acting as peacemakers and conciliators. When all’s said and done we love her, we owe a great deal to her, and we find her whims and fancies endearing rather than unpleasant. I will make you the following promise, and I authorize you to pass on the content of this promise: if by tomorrow the eviction has gone forward, the apartment has been vacated, we, Kurt and I, will immediately settle all accounts, see that all threats of seizure are discontinued; a most attractive apartment in one of our building complexes is already at her disposal, though not, I should say, one in which she can accommodate ten subtenants. Not quite. But there is room enough for her son and possibly her lover, from whom we have no wish to separate her.

“Our action is something I am not ashamed to call a corrective measure, an affectionate guidance, that unfortunately has had to make use of somewhat brutal means of execution. There is simply no such thing as private means of execution. So it will all happen swiftly and painlessly, by noon it will all be over, and if she doesn’t get all wrought up over it—which in her case, I am sorry to say, is liable to happen—by evening she will be installed in the apartment that has been readied for her. All preparations have been made to redeem or buy back her beloved old pieces of furniture. The action we are taking is based upon corrective, affectionately corrective, principles.