Kaltenburg (34 page)

“I suspect fear behind it, in an unpredictable, highly dangerous form.”

“But here they are, parading liberated prisoners before us, the ones that came back, they're showing us survivors at the very moment they have surmounted their fear of death. They're triumphant. And then you think of the Kochs.”

“Not that fear, Klara, that's not what I mean,” said Ludwig Kaltenburg. “We're dealing here with the kind of fear you use to intimidate others.”

Kaltenburg was thinking a lot at that time about his relationship with animals, one evening I even heard him wondering out loud whether it wasn't time for a fundamental reconsideration of the relationship between man and animal. He got Martin to show him the drawings he had made at the back of the laboratory in Leipzig, when Matzke had leaned over him as if to devour the artist along with his drawing pad and folding stool. Although at first sight the professor didn't recognize either marten or rabbit, he was resolved to fathom Martin's concept of the animal, he wanted to reconstruct how you could approach animals without the analytical eye of a scientist.

I believe that at some point Martin, who had gradually come to have confidence in Kaltenburg, even brought to Loschwitz the studies that had evolved from his hyena series, the last works based on his zoo sketches: not portraits at this stage, but a rough pattern of black and rust-brown marks, although you could make out individual backs, flanks, and legs among them. However, the viewer couldn't tell what limb belonged to which animal. Here and there a muzzle appeared, and then a pair of round ears—nothing but a compact block of piebald, quivering fur.

It was a while before the professor could grasp Martin's approach, accept his way of seeing: “So what you do is you make yourself acquainted with the hyena.”

“Acquainted? I wouldn't call it that. The more I studied the hyena, the more I doubted anyone's ability to become acquainted with it.”

“You give your impression of it. No, hold on.” Ludwig Kaltenburg corrected himself. “By making it practically disappear, you've captured one of its traits: a hyena seems to know, like the rest of its kind, that it can make itself virtually invisible.”

They exchanged ideas about color perception. They spent hours in front of the Old Masters, wondering about the source of the songbirds depicted in great still-life paintings: Kaltenburg was convinced they were fresh provender intended for that day's table, while Martin thought that from one composition to the next painters would make use of the same particularly well-drawn specimens. They also discussed at length the remarkable shyness that affects young crows practically overnight if the person they relate to is not careful to maintain continuous contact with the nestlings.

“You go away for three days, and by the time you get back the whole brood is lost to you, no further use for observational purposes.”

Martin's way of framing questions and formulating his own theories impressed Kaltenburg so much at the time that—how often could he say this of anyone?—he noted with respect that he had actually learned something from their conversation about shyness in crows.

It was the high point of the Loschwitz Institute. I would be hard-pressed to name all the research projects that were going on in that phase of its life, the feed kitchen was a hive of activity at all times. Martin was lending me a hand, helping with the drawings for my study of titmice, Etzel von Isisdorf was devoting himself to his rhesus monkeys, Knut was squatting in his garage working on film commentaries after a year of roaming through the Congo with a camera. Reinhold regularly sat in the garden with the professor, negotiations with the Academy of Sciences over the new research establishment were progressing—and Kaltenburg was not only fulfilling his many duties, but for about a month he entertained the idea of writing a book in his old age about the representation of animals in contemporary art. He was buoyed up by boundless energy and enthusiasm, he would like to have started collecting material straightaway, why hadn't he thought right at the beginning of noting down the key points of his conversations with Martin?

And then Ludwig Kaltenburg lost his head. One day it was all over. The professor banned Martin Spengler from the Institute grounds. Whether he specifically barred him from the house, whether he drove him away or just left him standing, I couldn't say, because I wasn't present at the crucial moment.

“Surely you don't mean it.”

“Hermann, don't annoy me even more, can't you see I'm beside myself.”

“Martin was equally beside himself.”

“That man may be a thoroughly good person, but he shouldn't be allowed anywhere near animals.”

“You've got to speak to him.”

“Enough.”

N
OT ONLY THE PERSON
of Martin but his very name was taboo in Loschwitz from then on. Unfortunately, you sense all too precisely when a name must not be uttered, a subject must not be mentioned, so that you can't blithely ignore the prohibition: I never found the courage to break the taboo. Professor Kaltenburg, I noticed, gave me a look if I so much as thought of Martin in his presence. Fits of irritability: he sent me out of the room to perform tasks that could just as easily have been carried out by an animal keeper, the cleaning lady, or his driver, Krause. Or, as quick as lightning, he came up with a theory that he knew would have me enthralled.

Later, in letters—sometimes containing acute analyses of Martin's work—or in interviews when asked about his early acquaintance with the now famous Martin Spengler, Ludwig Kaltenburg readily talked about their time together in Loschwitz, not holding back—he could laugh about it now—from saying that this man had made him furious.

He recalled how he had hit the roof when Martin appeared at the Institute wrapped in a loden coat. All he needed was the knee breeches and a chamois tuft stuck in a little hat to look like a Bavarian hunter. I believe to this day that Martin meant it when he said he thought he was appearing as a herdsman; never in his wildest dreams would it have occurred to him that he was dressed as a huntsman.

I asked him later whether he had ever wondered why it was that nobody at the Institute wore green loden, be it a jacket, a coat, or just a hat, even though he must know how many loden-lovers there were among animal lovers? No, he hadn't noticed. Yes, he could see that now—it was probably a matter of fashion, pure chance, maybe? No, absolutely not. The catalog of commandments, rules of conduct, and—not to put too fine a point on it—laws established at the Institute under Kaltenburg's regime actually did include a ban on loden, albeit an unspoken one. Now Martin had found out at first hand why this was so.

I was on my way to fetch some straw, I was doing a favor for a Romanian guest who had come to Loschwitz to study dwarf pigs, I had just opened the door to the garage where bales of straw and replacement panes of glass were kept next to the limousine, when I heard the sound of the northern raven, one of Kaltenburg's oldest animals. I hadn't reckoned on Martin being at the Institute that day, and I was expecting to witness a confrontation between animals as I moved cautiously past the bushes to the corner, quietly, so that the raven wouldn't notice me. Instead of a weasel or a cockerel or some other animal the raven might have picked a fight with, I saw Martin standing there with his back to me, and quite near me the big black bird that had the man in the green coat in its sights: unawares, he was holding an outdoor broom, no doubt with a view to making himself useful by sweeping the narrow path that ran behind the Institute.

A long, elegantly cut loden coat with staghorn buttons sufficed to upset, if not Kaltenburg directly, then certainly the tame raven and consequently its old friend the professor. “I'm sorry, we can't have this anymore,” he said—you might have thought it was the animals that made the laws at the Institute—“There's nothing I can do about it.” Ludwig Kaltenburg's hands were tied, he claimed, his animals had simply entrusted him with the responsibility of enforcing the unalterable rules.

Of course, I could distinguish between the raven's combative note or other harmless noises and its attacking cry, but Martin couldn't. And of course I also knew that a raven always launches its attack from behind, because it believes it has achieved a victory, or at least the best precondition for a victory, if it can land on its victim's back. I don't know whether it was too late, but I failed to alert Martin or to distract the bird. The raven hopped sideways, its head down, toward the loden-clad man, its wings spread in order to take off quickly if its opponent should turn around suddenly. But it didn't occur to Martin to do so, he wasn't aware of the situation. Animal cries, birds calling, you heard them everywhere, and part of the attraction of Loschwitz for Martin was surely the opportunity to immerse himself in a restless world of animal noises.

And of course I knew that the raven was allergic to the sight of anyone resembling a huntsman, even from a distance. The robust dark-green material, and then for good measure—the ill-fated combination of two characteristics—a broom: Martin jerked, felt the claws in his neck, fell to his knees, turned around, shook off his assailant, and saw the creature crouching on the ground with wings still spread. Involuntarily Martin had brought the broom up to head height, his eyes dilated with fear, his neck bleeding, he kept his gaze fixed on the bird. Martin was in a state of shock, but the raven gave him no time to recover, it tried to get past the huntsman figure with the leveled gun in order to attack again. Martin didn't understand, whirled around, coattails flying. By the time I had regained my presence of mind and warned Martin that it was far from over, the raven mounted its third attack.

I shouted, “Throw the broom away, take the coat off,” but it was no use, the more fervently I urged him on, the less self-control he had. Martin waved the broom handle wildly, hit the raven on the wing, the raven struck at his temple, pulling his hair out, then hacked at the back of Martin's hand.

I shouted, “Hand in front of your eyes,” but Martin did exactly the opposite, he put his hands behind his back, making the broomstick describe a wild arc, which took the raven with it and hurled it quite some distance toward the garage. No sooner had the bird pulled itself together than it launched the next attack. Suddenly Kaltenburg was standing between the two opponents. I don't know how he got there so quickly, presumably my shouting and the hoarse croaking of his raven had alerted him.

I heard the broom handle splintering across Kaltenburg's knee, followed by more wood splintering. Kaltenburg didn't utter a sound as he threw the broken bits into the shrubbery, grabbed the bewildered Martin by the upper arm, and dragged him behind the house. Then I heard him roaring: “Coat,” I heard, “lab coat,” as if this “coat” and “lab coat” were the most crucial words in the language.

The raven flew a little way, up into the oak tree, it took some time to calm down. It preened itself, putting its feathers in order, looking down into the bushes as though it still couldn't quite believe that the broom handle rested there smashed to pieces. At some point it stopped croaking, squatted silently, and surveyed the strip of grass below, casting an eye over a battlefield from which it had emerged victorious, or as leader of an invincible army, albeit one consisting only of a single foot soldier.

I didn't see Kaltenburg again for about an hour. In the meantime I had delivered straw to the dwarf pigs. The professor was still agitated.

“So careless,” he burst out. “He could have lost an eye.”

I thought he meant Martin.

“Martin?” he snapped back. “Martin could have broken his wing.”

I wanted to know where Martin was, but that name had already ceased to exist.

“The raven lost primary feathers,” he said, “and as for your friend, I never want to see him on these premises again.”

E
VEN LUDWIG KALTENBURG
can sometimes misjudge people.”

No one could persuade the professor to lift the ban. We certainly wouldn't have dared to raise the topic at the usual morning meeting, but I know that many members of the Institute tried to change Kaltenburg's mind. Admittedly, Martin Spengler had been a nuisance occasionally, pushing his way into an observational setup, for example, or asking questions about what was going on in front of his very eyes rather than relying on his own observation. And hadn't the professor always said that anyone bothered by him should personally take steps to shake him off? But by now everybody regarded the outcast entirely as an asset to the Loschwitz Institute and was not inclined to be judgmental about those moments when Martin had been insensitive in his dealings with animals, or, as Kaltenburg once put it rather bluntly, he had assaulted an animal.

The scientists, keepers, craftsmen, even the feed manager—they all sprang to Martin's defense, although they took good care to avoid touching on the delicate subject of the friendship between the two of them. They left that part to Knut and me. Needless to say, we had no intention of giving in, always thinking of new arguments, and I was almost locked in combat with Ludwig Kaltenburg. I talked about the deep understanding of animals that had inspired Martin. Certainly he didn't see them with the same eyes as the professor, but Kaltenburg must concede that it was precisely this difference that had first aroused his interest in Martin.

“But how is he supposed to gain what you call a deep understanding of animals without observing them closely? That's a complete contradiction,” Kaltenburg objected.

Martin simply did not possess with the same research drive as a trained zoologist, he didn't observe in order to establish functional relations, he let impressions work on him.

“Do you know what? I've long suspected that your friend finds animals—how shall I put it—cute. No trace of deeper understanding there.”