Extinction (38 page)

have occurred to them to talk to the gardeners about anything unconnected with their work, and for this reason, if for no other, I went on talking to the gardener. Keeping my eye on my sisters and at the same time ignoring them, I asked him when
his
father had died. (Ages ago, when I was five or six, his father had made me a recorder out of hazel-wood.) Two years ago, he said. But I was not really interested in when his father had died. My question was only a device to distract myself from my obscene thoughts about my mother’s coffin and at the same time to distance myself from my sisters, to punish them for some quite unspecified offense. I went on talking to the gardener, unable to stop thinking of opening my mother’s coffin, ignoring my sisters and prolonging my conversation with the gardener. It was astonishing that he had worked at Wolfsegg for so many years under conditions that were far from easy, I said, knowing that this would get home to my sisters. Conditions at Wolfsegg were always extremely difficult, I said, without being more specific. There was no need to be specific, for my tone of voice conveyed what I meant about the conditions at Wolfsegg, and the gardener at once understood what I meant—that for decades, if not for centuries, the owners had always made life difficult. On the other hand, I told myself, it’s fortunate for us—and by
us
I meant my family as a whole—that we have good workers like him. My sisters listened attentively, though they had their backs to us, pretending that there was no reason to pay any attention to me and the gardener. Caecilia pressed the toe of one shoe into the ground at the side of the path, as though to trace a letter in the soil. This was a habit she had had as a child. She said something to Amalia that I did not catch, but this was only pretense, as they were both absorbed by what I was saying to the gardener. In this way we were all three playing games, all spying and eavesdropping on one another. It struck me that just as I was exploiting the gardener, simply in order to take my mind off my obscene thoughts about my mother’s coffin, so they were exploiting each other in order to spy on me. I stopped talking to the gardener and joined my sisters, thinking that they would be able to stifle my obscene thoughts, that their almost incessant chatter, which was doubtless a reaction to the terrible situation created by the accident, would provide the distraction I sought. I suggested that we go over to the Children’s Villa. I have no idea what prompted
this suggestion. We all three walked over to the Children’s Villa. On the way I remembered how Schermaier had never spoken about the time he spent in the prisons, the penitentiaries, and the concentration camp in Holland, and decided that if he did not speak about it I would one day write about it. In
Extinction
, the book I’m planning, I’ll write about Schermaier, about the injustice he suffered and the crimes committed against him, I thought. His wife still wept when forced to think of those bitter years that had brought them both such unhappiness, but she too never said why she wept. It’s my duty, I thought, to write about them in my
Extinction
, to cite them as representatives of so many others who never speak about what they suffered during the Nazi period and permit themselves only to weep now and then—all the victims whom the National Socialists have on their conscience, the National Socialist criminals whose crimes are never mentioned today, having been hushed up for so many years. I’ll say quite simply that our National Socialist society was able, with impunity, to destroy him for the rest of his life, even though it could not annihilate him. On the way to the Children’s Villa I promised myself that in my
Extinction
I would find a way of drawing attention to him, even if I could not restore to him the rights of which the Nazis had deprived him. My
Extinction
will provide the best opportunity to do this, I thought, if I ever manage to get it down on paper. Thinking about the Schermaiers made me forget the monstrous idea of having my mother’s coffin opened. When we arrived at the Children’s Villa and my sisters were unlocking the door, I began to talk to them about the Schermaiers, whom they knew well, as I reminded them. I told them that I could not get the Schermaiers out of my mind. I had no hesitation, I said, in describing them as the best people I knew, yet it was on these people that the full horror of National Socialism had been visited. His best friend informed against him, I said, as Caecilia unlocked the door. His best friend was base enough to denounce him and have him sent to a concentration camp. I could not get it out of my mind, I said. In Rome I often lay on my bed, unable to stop thinking of how our nation was guilty of thousands, tens of thousands, of such heinous crimes, yet remained silent about them. The fact that it keeps quiet about these thousands and tens of thousands of crimes is the greatest crime of all, I told my sisters. It’s this silence that’s so sinister, I said. It’s
the nation’s silence that’s so terrible, even more terrible than the crimes themselves, I said. And to think that I have to receive these murderers! I’ll refuse to shake hands with them, I said. I can’t exclude them from the funeral, but I won’t shake their hands. If I did, I too would be guilty of a crime. It was in the Children’s Villa, I said, the building I loved best as a child, that our parents hid these common criminals and provided them with a life of luxury at a time of the greatest hardship. And they were never ashamed of it, I said. On the contrary, they boasted of their base behavior, I said. All this time my sisters did not say a word. Our parents made themselves guilty, I said, by harboring and sheltering these loathsome people, who should have been tried and sentenced. And executed, of course. What must people like the Schermaiers think, I said, when they see how these murderers are treated, when they see mass murderers going around scot-free, leading a life of luxury, while they themselves are forgotten and live in the most miserable conditions? This state is like my family, devoted to Nazi criminality. And the Catholic Church, I went on, is no better. The Church only ever seeks its own advantage, keeping quiet when it ought to speak out and taking cover, when things get too dangerous, behind Jesus Christ, whom it has exploited for two thousand years. I’m nauseated by these people, I said, who will follow the coffins tomorrow, heads bowed, with nothing to fear, all of them highly esteemed members of our society. In my own way, I said, I’ll distance myself from all these people whom I’ve always hated. I won’t let them near me. I’m not Father, I’m not Mother, I said. The Children’s Villa was almost completely bare. What’s happened to the beautiful pictures, I wondered, that I saw here only a year ago in the entrance hall, one on each side, and on the walls of the downstairs rooms? I was told that my mother had sold these pictures, painted by early ancestors of ours, to an antique dealer from Wels,
for a knockdown price
. I always despised my mother’s lack of appreciation for exceptional works of art. My father had no time at all for pictures, unless he was told that they were valuable. This used to impress my mother too; nothing else did. Neither had an eye for art. The walls of the downstairs rooms were now cold and unwelcoming, I thought, though only a year ago they had been so attractive. But the Children’s Villa has in any case been degraded by having accommodated two mass murderers for so long, I thought. That has
made it intolerable. On the other hand, I had earlier considered restoring the Children’s Villa, and this now seemed a good idea. I was instantly taken with the idea and said to my sisters, No matter what took place here, the Children’s Villa is the first building I’ll have restored, from top to bottom. It’ll be as it was before its degradation. The Children’s Villa is the most beautiful building at Wolfsegg, I said. And summer is the best time for restoration work. The Wolfsegg money should be spread around, I said. It’s madness to let it molder in banks. My sisters did not understand me. In any case the place must be aired, I told them. I said we should open all the windows. It’s frightfully stuffy in here, I said. As it was a fine, warm day, we opened all the windows one after another, first in the ground-floor rooms and then upstairs. This was done in complete silence; even my sisters did not speak to each other. I recalled that only three or four days earlier I had described the Children’s Villa to Gambetti, and now, as we opened the windows, I had proof of how accurate my description had been. The windows really were as big as I had described them, taller than any others at Wolfsegg except those in the main house, taller than any in the Huntsmen’s Lodge or the Gardeners’ House. And on the ceilings were the plaster moldings that I had tried to describe to Gambetti, representing scenes from German classical plays—Lessing’s
Nathan
, Schiller’s
Robbers
, Goethe’s
Faust
. No one knows whose work they are, but I think they were done by itinerant artists, of whom there were many in the last century. These artists would settle in a place for months or even years on end and create works of art like these in return for a good meal and a pair of shoes. There are big cracks running through the moldings—it’s high time they were repaired, I thought. My sisters had no idea of the subjects represented by the moldings. From
Nathan
, I said, but I could see that this meant nothing to them. They knew about
Faust
, of course, but they did not know the scene represented on the ceiling. They had naturally heard about
The Robbers
at school, as I had, but they had forgotten the play itself; they remembered only the title and the fact that it was
something classical
. I tried to tell them something about
The Robbers
but immediately gave up trying to explain anything, realizing that it was pointless. I could now see that I had given Gambetti a fairly exact description of these moldings. He had listened with great attention. The influence of the Roman
school on this anonymous art is unmistakable, I had told him. In all such moldings north of the Alps, I said, we at once see the Italian influence. The Italians have always been the best stucco artists. I now remembered everything I had told him about the stucco artists who had decorated the Children’s Villa. I now have proof, I told myself, that when once I’ve seen a picture or a molding I can remember it with absolute precision for years, indeed for decades, and if required I can describe it so accurately that my description corresponds exactly with what I once saw. I need to see and study a picture or a molding only once in order to retain a precise image of it for years, even for decades, as I now see. When I told my sisters that I had just made an interesting discovery—that I was able to remember pictures I had once seen and give an account of them years later—they did not understand. In the first place they could not follow my thoughts, and in the second place they did not know Gambetti. They had heard me speak of him in passing now and then, but largely because of their hostility to me they had no time for anything Roman, which I naturally loved, having been fascinated by it before I had ever been to Italy and visited Rome. They did not understand me at all. They’re determined not to understand me, I thought—it’s become a principle with them, a lifetime habit, not to understand me. They’ve never wanted to understand me, and they still don’t want to. The Children’s Villa meant almost everything to me, but to them it meant practically nothing. They were thus fairly indifferent to what I had just said about the Children’s Villa and the Gauleiters, feeling that it was directed only against the family, and our parents in particular. And they found it especially odious that I should accuse our parents just now, when they had been dead scarcely two days. They did not appreciate how painful it was to me to see the Children’s Villa, my favorite building at Wolfsegg, my favorite work of architecture, besmirched once more by the National Socialist Gauleiters. Such thought processes are completely alien to them and impossible to follow. When we had opened all the windows and a welcome draft of fresh air flowed in, I told my sisters that I wanted to leave the windows open so that the fresh air could
flow freely into the Children’s Villa for several days
. Exhausted by the absurd task I had set them, as it must have seemed to them, they sat side by side on a seat covered with green velvet in the left-hand room of the attic. Once again
I saw the mocking faces so familiar from the photo I kept in my desk in Rome. For a moment they showed me these mocking faces in the afternoon light, then they turned and looked out the window, across the village and toward the mountains. Slavishly, they both turned their heads simultaneously in the direction of the mountains. Like two puppets, I thought, they turned to face the distant mountains. I could now order them to do anything and they would obey. I had them entirely in my hands. Yet I felt this to be not a triumph but an intolerable burden. I was saddled with them. You’re in for a surprise with these two, I thought. And what if there’s a storm? Amalia asked. What do you mean, a storm? I said. What if a storm comes up and smashes all the windows? There’ll be no storm, I said, not for days. Seeing my sisters sitting exhausted on the seat, I had a strong urge to lecture them, to say something Roman, something offensive, as it were, that would enable me to endure their presence, as I felt I could endure it no longer. But I abandoned the idea. It won’t do any good, I told myself—it’ll only make matters worse. My attention was fixed mainly on Caecilia, who seemed to have forgotten about her wine cork manufacturer. If only my brother-in-law were not so helpless, I said. Caecilia did not answer, and Amalia pretended not to hear. Beastliness has its limits, I said, meaning that one should not pursue one’s hatred of someone—meaning our mother—to the point of marrying an idiot just to punish the person one hates. I naturally did not say this but kept it to myself. What I did say was: You must give your husband something to occupy him. It’s not fair to leave him entirely alone, in every sense of the word. Since I’ve been here he’s done more or less nothing but hang around the park and get on people’s nerves. Caecilia stood up and went out of the room, down the stairs, through the entrance hall, and into the open. Amalia had also stood up, and we both watched Caecilia walk away from the villa. She’s running away from us, I thought, the silly goose, having messed up her life. The words