The Loser (16 page)

named Wertheimer
the loser
, I want to call him, Glenn, the
refuser
, I thought. I have to call the year 1953 the
fateful
one for Wertheimer, for in 1953 Glenn Gould played the
Goldberg Variations
in our sculptor’s house for no one else but Wertheimer and me, years before he became world famous overnight, as they say, with these same
Goldberg Variations
. In 1953 Glenn Gould destroyed Wertheimer, I thought. In 1954 we hadn’t had any news from him, in 1955 he played the
Goldberg Variations
in the Festspielhaus, Wertheimer and I listened to him from the catwalk together with a group of stagehands who otherwise had never heard a piano concert but were crazy about Glenn’s playing. Glenn, who always
broke into a sweat
, Glenn, the Canadian-American who without embarrassment called Wertheimer the
loser
, Glenn, who laughed in the
Ganshof
the way I never before and never again heard anyone laugh, I thought, comparing him to Wertheimer, who was the exact opposite of Glenn Gould, even though I can’t describe this opposite, but I’ll make an attempt, I thought, when I start again my
Essay on Glenn
. I’ll lock myself in my apartment in the Calle del Prado and write about Glenn and all by itself the Wertheimer problem will become clear to me, I thought. By writing about Glenn Gould I’ll put my thoughts about Wertheimer in order, I thought on my way to Traich. I was walking much too fast and during my walk had trouble breathing, the old lung illness which has plagued me now for over two decades. By writing about the one (Glenn Gould), I will order my thoughts about the other (Wertheimer), I thought, by listening again and again to the
Goldberg Variations
(and the
Art of the Fugue)
of the one (Glenn), in order to write about them, I will know more and more about the art (or the nonart!) of the other (Wertheimer) and be able to write it down, I thought, and all at once I longed to be in Madrid and my Calle del Prado, in my Spanish home, as I had never longed to be anywhere else before. Basically my walk to Traich was depressing and, as I thought again and again, will prove futile. Or won’t be
completely futile
, as I thought at the moment, I thought, and went faster toward Traich. I knew the hunting lodge, my first impression was that nothing had changed, my second that it had to be an ideal structure for a person like Wertheimer but then never was the ideal structure for him, quite the contrary. As my Desselbrunn also never was and still isn’t the ideal structure for me, but the opposite, as I thought, even if everything gave the impression that Desselbrunn was ideal for me (and people like me). We see a structure and believe it is ideal for us (and for people like us) and it’s absolutely not ideal for our purposes and for the purposes of people like us, I thought. Just as we see a person as the ideal one for us, whereas he is everything but ideal for us, I thought. My assumption that Traich was locked up turned out to be false, the garden gate was open, even the front door was open as I saw from afar and I went right through the garden and in the front door. The woodsman Franz (Kohlroser), whom I knew, greeted me. He had just heard about Wertheimer’s suicide that morning, everybody was horrified, he said. Wertheimer’s sister had announced she would be coming in the next few days, he said, the Duttweiler woman. I should come inside, in the meantime he had opened all the windows to air out the house, he said, unfortunately his co-worker had gone to Linz for three days, he was alone in Traich,
a stroke of luck that you came
, he said. Whether I wanted a drink of water, he asked, he recalled immediately that I’m a water drinker. No, I said, not now, I’d had tea at the inn in Wankham where I planned to spend the night. As always Wertheimer had gone away for two or three days, of course he had
said
that he was going to Chur to visit his sister, said Franz. He hadn’t noticed anything striking or odd about Wertheimer when the latter left Traich in the chauffeured car, Franz said, he took to Attnang-Puchheim, the car was certainly still parked in the lot in front of the station. Franz calculated that twelve days had passed since his master had left for Switzerland and that, as he first learned from me, the latter had already been dead for eleven days.
Hanged
, I said to Franz. He, Franz, feared that now, after the death of Wertheimer, of his provider, everything in Traich might change, especially since this Frau Duttweiler was a
strange person
, he hadn’t said that he now feared the appearance of Frau Duttweiler, but he did suggest he was frightened that, under the influence of her Swiss husband, she would completely change things in Traich, maybe she’ll sell Traich, Franz said, for what should she do with Traich now that she’s married herself off to Switzerland, and to such a wealthy part of Switzerland. For Traich had been completely her brother’s house, had been added on to and remodeled and equipped completely for his needs and in such a way that it actually was contrary to everybody else’s nature, as I thought, in a truly Wertheimerian way it was only for him. Wertheimer’s sister never felt comfortable in Traich and her brother, as Franz said, had never let her
develop
in Traich, he’d never granted any of her wishes concerning Traich, he, Wertheimer, always quashed her plans to adapt Traich to her taste, incidentally he always
tormented the poor woman
, as Franz expressed himself. The Duttweiler woman must almost hate Traich, he claimed, for she hadn’t spent a single happy day in Traich, Franz said. He recalled that once, without asking him whether her brother would mind, she’d opened the curtains in his room, at which point he drove her out of his room, furious. If she wanted to invite guests he wouldn’t allow it, said Franz, she also wasn’t permitted to dress the way she wanted, had always had to wear the clothes that
he
wanted to see on her, even during the coldest weather she was never allowed to put on her Tyrolian hat, for her brother hated Tyrolian hats and hated, as I also know, everything connected with Tyrolian folk costume, as of course he himself never wore anything that even vaguely recalled Tyrolian folk costume, thus here, in this region, he naturally always stood out, for here everybody always wears Tyrolian folk costume, above all clothes that are made from coarse loden wool, which is actually ideally suited for the quite dreadful climatic conditions in the lower Alps, I thought, he found Tyrolian folk costume, like anything that even reminded him of Tyrolian folk costume, deeply repugnant. When his sister once asked him for permission to go to the so-called
Bäckerberg
to a May Day dance with a woman from the neighborhood, he wouldn’t allow it, said Franz. And of course they had to do without the priest’s company, for Wertheimer hated Catholicism, which his sister, as I also know, had completely fallen prey to in the last years. One of his habits had been to ask his sister, in the middle of the night, to come to his room to play something by Handel on the old harmonium he had standing in his room, Franz actually said
Handel
. The sister had had to get up at one or two in the morning and put on her dressing gown and go to his room and sit down at the harmonium in the unheated room and play Handel, Franz said, which naturally resulted, he said, in her getting a cold and constantly suffering from colds in Traich. He, Wertheimer, hadn’t taken good care of his sister, Franz said. He would have her play Handel for an hour on the old harmonium, said Franz, and then the next morning at breakfast, which they took together in the kitchen, he would tell her that her harmonium playing had been unbearable. He would have her play him something in order to fall back to sleep, said Franz, for Herr Wertheimer always suffered from his
insomnia
, and then would tell her the next morning that she had played
like a pig
. Wertheimer had always had to force his sister to come to Traich, he, Franz, even believed that Wertheimer had hated his sister but hadn’t been able to get along in Traich without her, and I thought that Wertheimer always spoke of solitude without ever actually being able to be alone, he was no
solitude type
, I thought, and so on his visits to Traich he always took along his sister, whom he loved by the way, although he hated her like no one else in the world, in order to
misuse
her in his way. When it got cold, as Franz said, he would have his sister heat his room, whereas she wasn’t allowed to heat her room. She always had to take her walks in the direction prescribed by her brother and also only for the duration prescribed by her brother and had to observe precisely the time he had determined for her walks, as Franz said. Mostly she would sit in her room, as Franz said, but she wasn’t allowed to listen to music, her brother couldn’t stand her listening to a record, which she would have liked to do. He, Franz, still distinctly recalled the two Wertheimers’ childhood when the two would arrive eagerly in Traich, fun-loving children who were ready for anything, as Franz said. The hunting lodge had been the favorite playground of the two Wertheimer children. When the Wertheimer family was in England, during the Nazi period, as Franz said, when a Nazi administrator had lodged in Traich, it had been frightfully quiet in Traich, everything went to seed in that period, nothing was repaired, everything left to itself, for the administrator hadn’t taken care of anything, a decrepit Nazi count had lived in Traich but didn’t understand a thing, as Franz said, the Nazi count
almost ruined
Traich. After the Wertheimers came back from England, at first to Vienna, only much later to Traich, as Franz said, they had kept to themselves, hadn’t wanted any contact with their neighbors. He, Franz, had come back into their service, they had always paid him well and
always credited him
for having remained faithful to them even during Nazi rule and during their entire England period, as he put it. The fact that he took better care of Traich in the so-called Nazi period than the Nazis would have liked, as Franz put it, not only got him a warning from the Nazi authorities, it also landed him in jail in Wels for two months, since then he hated Wels, wouldn’t go there anymore, even for the local carnival.
Herr Wertheimer hadn’t wanted to let his sister go to church
, said Franz, but she went
to evening mass in secret
. The parents of the young Wertheimers hadn’t gotten much enjoyment out of Traich anymore, said Franz, with whom I was standing in the kitchen, they died in an accident much too early. They were on their way to Merano, said Franz. Herr Wertheimer senior didn’t want to go to Merano, but
she
wanted to, he said. They only found the car two weeks after it had fallen over a cliff in Bressanone, he said. The Wertheimers had relatives in Merano, I thought. Wertheimer’s great-grandfather had hired him, Franz, in Traich. Even his father had spent his life working for the Wertheimers. Their employers had always been good to all of them, hadn’t let any debts pile up, and so in return they quite naturally never had any complaints, as Franz put it. He couldn’t imagine what would happen now with Traich. What I thought of Herr Duttweiler, Franz wanted to know, to which I only shook my head. Perhaps, as Franz put it, Wertheimer’s sister will come to Traich to sell Traich. I don’t think so, I said, I absolutely couldn’t imagine that the Duttweiler woman would sell Traich, although I thought it perfectly possible that she was thinking of selling Traich, but I didn’t tell Franz what I was thinking, I said very clearly, no, I don’t think the Duttweiler woman will sell Traich, I really don’t think so. I wanted to calm Franz, who was naturally worried about losing his lifelong employment. It’s of course quite possible that the Duttweiler woman, Wertheimer’s sister, will come to Traich and sell Traich, perhaps as soon as possible, I thought, but I said to Franz I was convinced that Wertheimer’s sister,
the sister of my friend
, I expressly emphasized, wouldn’t sell Traich, they have so much money, the Duttweilers, I said to Franz, that they don’t need to sell Traich, while I was thinking that precisely because the Duttweilers have so much money they’re perhaps thinking of simply getting rid of Traich as soon as possible, they certainly won’t sell Traich, I said, and was thinking, they may well sell Traich immediately, and I said to Franz, he could be certain that here in Traich nothing would change, while I was thinking that perhaps everything will change in Traich. The Duttweiler woman will come here and take care of everything that has to be taken care of, I said to Franz, will take the estate in hand, I said, and I asked Franz whether Frau Duttweiler was coming to Traich alone or with her husband. He didn’t know, she hadn’t told him that. I drank a glass of water and thought while I was drinking that in Traich I have always drunk the best water of my life. Before Wertheimer went to Switzerland, he invited a crowd of people to Traich for two weeks, it took days for him, Franz, and his co-worker to get everything back in shape, they came from Vienna, said Franz, had never been in Traich before but were quite obviously good friends of his master. I’ve already heard about these people from the innkeeper, I said, that these people traipsed through town, artists, I said, probably musicians, and I wondered whether these people weren’t artists and musicians with whom Wertheimer once went to school, conservatory colleagues as it were from his time at the conservatories in Salzburg and Vienna. In the end we remember all the students we’ve gone to school with and invite them to our homes only to find out that we no longer have the least thing in common with them, I thought. Wertheimer also invited me to his house, I thought at that moment, and with what relentlessness; I thought of his letters and above all the last card he sent to me in Madrid, naturally I now had a guilty conscience, for I realized I was connected with these
artist invitations
on his part, but he hadn’t mentioned these people, I thought, and I would never have come to Traich to see all these people, I said to myself. What Wertheimer must have gone through that he, who never invited anyone to Traich, suddenly invited dozens of people to Traich, even if they were former conservatory colleagues, whom otherwise he always detested; there was always at least a hint of scorn in his voice when he spoke of his former conservatory colleagues, I thought. What the innkeeper only alluded to and what she of course couldn’t know more about than that they traipsed through town, laughing and finally kicking up a row in their gaudy artist costumes, in their gaudy artist parade, suddenly became clear to me: Wertheimer invited his former conservatory colleagues to Traich and didn’t chase them away immediately but let them run wild