Group Portrait with Lady (48 page)

It may be that the Au. has not measured up here; he should have intervened, he should have climbed over the wall in Gerselen, possibly supported by the bald-headed B.H.T., should have mobilized Leni, at least picked a few roses for her and delivered them at her door; they might well have been a most fitting adornment to her ambitious painting “Part of the Retina of the Left Eye of the Virgin Mary alias Rahel.” But just at this moment events came thick and fast, becoming so involved that the Au. had no time to yield to a private nostalgia that was pulling him toward Rome. Duty called, it called in the form of Herwig Schirtenstein, who had set up a kind of “Leni Needs You—Help Leni Committee” and was planning
to round up everyone to give her support, both moral and financial, against increasing pressure from the Hoysers, and possibly even to contemplate political measures.

Over the telephone Schirtenstein sounded agitated yet determined, the sensitive huskiness of his voice, whose vibrations in previous conversations had sounded as thin as veneer, now sounded metallic. He asked for the addresses of all “persons interested in this astounding woman,” was given them, and called a meeting for the evening. This gave the Au. time finally—for the sake of objectivity, justice, and truth, and to avoid as far as possible adopting a purely emotional stance, also from a sense of duty to obtain information—to invade the headquarters of the opposition. The Hoysers, likewise interested in presenting their point of view in this unfortunate affair, probably also from fear of certain planned actions, were at once prepared “to put aside some very urgent business.” The only difficulty turned out to be the choice of a meeting place. The choice was between: the apartment of old Mr. Hoyser in that combination of luxury hotel, retirement home, and sanatorium already described; the office or apartment of his grandson Werner, the proprietor of the betting office; the office or apartment of the “Building Development Manager” (title is an exact quotation from his own definition. Au.), Kurt Hoyser; and the conference room of Hoyser, Inc., a corporation in which “we jointly represent our various interests and investments.” (All quotations as given over the telephone by Kurt Hoyser.)

It was not entirely without self-interest that the Au. suggested the conference room of Hoyser, Inc., situated on the twelfth floor of a high-rise building beside the Rhine and, as initiates know but the Au. had not yet discovered, offering a fantastic view over both landscape and cityscape. On the way there the Au. felt some qualms: when confronted by the truly prestigious, his lower-middle-class nature always reacts with trepidation; his extremely lower-middle-class background
causes him to enjoy being there yet to feel out of place. With a quaking heart he entered the lobby of that exclusive building whose penthouse apartments are so popular. A doorman, not exactly in uniform, nor even in livery, yet somehow giving the impression of being in both uniform and livery, eyed him not exactly disdainfully, merely appraisingly, and the definite impression was given: his footwear did not pass muster. Silent elevator: familiar enough. In the elevator a brass plate inscribed with the words “Floor Directory,” a quick glance—an intensive and detailed study was not possible owing to the disconcertingly silent speed of the elevator—revealed that the forces at work in this building were almost exclusively creative: architects, editorial offices, fashion agencies, one plate—because of its width—being particularly noticeable:
ERWIN KELF, CONTACTS WITH CREATIVE PEOPLE
.

Still mulling over the question of whether these contacts were physical or intellectual, or possibly merely social (without obligation), or whether the allusion was to a camouflaged callman or call-girl ring, he found himself already at the twelfth floor where the door slid silently open and a pleasant-looking fellow awaited him, introducing himself simply with the words: “I’m Kurt Hoyser.” Without the slightest sign of familiarity, condescension, let alone contempt, with an agreeable neutral friendliness by no means exclusive of cordiality, in fact presupposing it, Kurt Hoyser led him into the conference room which was strongly reminiscent of the one in which, two days before, he had been sitting opposite Klementina: marble, metal doors and windows, leather Morris chairs—and a view, not exactly of the gold-red city of Rome, merely of the Rhine and some of the little places along its banks, at the precise geographical point where the still majestic river enters upon its very, very filthiest state, approximately thirty to forty miles upriver from the point where the whole filthy river, or river filth, is discharged onto the innocent Dutch towns of Arnhem and Nijmegen.

The room, which, apart from the furniture, seemed unexpectedly pleasant, was shaped like the segment of a circle and contained nothing but a few tables and those very Morris chairs that were directly related to the ones at the Order’s motherhouse in Rome. The reader will no doubt concede that the Au. found new nourishment here for his nostalgia, and will understand why he was momentarily so taken aback that he paused on the threshold. He was assigned the best seat, by the window with the view of the Rhine and right across half a dozen bridges; arranged on the table, whose graceful curves corresponded to the sweep of the picture window, were: a variety of alcoholic drinks, fruit juice, tea in a Thermos jug; there were also cigars and cigarettes, their quantity and selection being far from vulgarly nouveau riche, on the contrary, in sensible moderation. Here one may with propriety use the words “quiet elegance.”

Both old Mr. Hoyser and his grandson Werner seemed much more likable than he had remembered them; as befitted his situation, the Au. hastened to correct and lay aside his prejudices and to assume the ominous Kurt Hoyser, whom he was meeting for the first time, to be a likable, quiet, modest fellow who had endowed his otherwise carefully chosen apparel with that soupcon of casualness that suited his quiet baritone voice. He bore a striking resemblance to his mother Lotte: the hairline, the round eyes. Had this man once really been the infant born under such dramatic circumstances who at the insistence of his mother had not been baptized; born in the very room where a Portuguese family of five now slept, and had he really, together with the far tougher-looking Werner (now thirty-five), rolled Pelzer’s own cigarette butts in new cigarette paper when they were all living in the Soviet paradise in the vaults, subsequently palming them off as “regulars” on the still resentful Pelzer?

A few moments of embarrassment ensued, it being obvious that the Au. was regarded as some kind of emissary, and some
unavoidable explanation on the part of the Au. was needed in order to explain his visit. To
obtain information
, to obtain
facts
. There was no question—thus the Au. in his concise explanation—of sympathies, partisanship, offers, counteroffers. Only the actual state of affairs was of interest here, no ideology, no proxy, of any kind; he—the Au.—had been in no way empowered, nor was he interested in being empowered; the “person under discussion” had never once been introduced to him, he had merely seen her two or three times on the street, had never exchanged a single word with her, his desire was to conduct a research into her life, a piecemeal research perhaps, but no more piecemeal than necessary, his mission emanated from neither a terrestrial nor a celestial authority, it was
existential:
and noting for the first time on the faces of all three Hoysers, who had barely managed to listen to his discourse with polite attention, something approaching interest because, as was quite obvious, they appeared to sense in the word “existential” a purely material interest, the Au. felt obliged to present
all
aspects of the existential elements in the matter. Then, asked by Kurt Hoyser whether he was an idealist, he vigorously denied it; asked whether in that case he was a materialist, a realist, he denied this with equal vigor; all at once he found himself the target of a kind of cross-examination being conducted in turn by old Mr. Hoyser, Kurt, and Werner: they asked him whether he was an intellectual, a Catholic, a Protestant, a Rhinelander, a Socialist, a Marxist, liberal, for or against the sex-wave, the pill, the Pope, Barzel, a free economy, a planned economy; and finally, since—it being a sort of vocal barrage that forced him constantly to swivel his head in the direction of each questioner—he consistently and categorically answered all these questions in the negative, a secretary emerged without warning from a hitherto invisible door, poured him some tea, moved the cheese biscuits closer to him, opened a cigarette box and, by pressing a button, caused one of the apparently
seamless walls to slide back; from the aperture she extracted three file folders and placed them on the table in front of Kurt Hoyser, with notepad, paper, and pipe beside them, before—a person of neutral prettiness who reminded the Au. of the businesslike efficiency with which in certain movies the requirements of bordello customers are attended to—she vanished, blond, medium-bosomed, once again through the door.

Finally old Mr. Hoyser was the first to break the silence: he lightly tapped the files with his crook-handled cane, letting it lie on the files to enable him to supply periodic rhythmic punctuation. “This means,” he said, and his voice held an undeniable note of wistfulness, “this means the end of a link, an association, an era that for seventy-five years has seen me closely associated with the Gruyten family. As you know, I was fifteen when I became Hubert Gruyten’s godfather—and now I, and with me my grandsons, am severing all ties, destroying the whole fabric.”

For once, a certain condensation is called for, since old Hoyser dilated a good deal—beginning roughly with the apples he used to pick at the age of six (ca. 1890) in the garden of Leni’s parents’ house, proceeding to a fairly minute description of two world wars (emphasizing his basically democratic stance), describing Leni’s various (political, moral, financial) mistakes and stupidities, and the lives of virtually all the characters presented here—a discourse lasting approximately an hour and a half that the Au. found somewhat tiring in view of the fact that he was already in possession, although via other channels, of most of the information. Leni’s mother, Leni’s father, the young architect with whom she had once gone away for the weekend, her brother, her cousin, the Dead Souls, everything, the lot—and it seemed to the Au. that not even the grandsons were listening with undivided attention—also “certain transactions that had been one hundred percent legal”—was hashed over with aggressiveness that was defensive rather
than one-dimensional, almost in the style of Mr. Exalted; the piece of land given to Kurt in his infancy—here the Au. pricked up his ears—“when Mrs. Gruyten’s grandfather acquired it in 1870 from an emigrating farmer, had cost ten pfennigs a square yard in those days, and that was a charitable price, he could have got it for four pfennigs, but of course
they
always had to be the generous ones and, being a lunatic, he even rounded the price upward and instead of some five thousand marks planked down six thousand, which meant he was paying twelve pfennigs a square yard. Is it our fault if today each square yard is worth three hundred and fifty marks? If we take into consideration certain—as I believe—temporary inflationary trends, you might say the figure was actually five hundred, not counting the value of the building, which you can safely take as being equal to the value of the land. And believe me, if you brought me a buyer tomorrow who offered me five million, cash on the nail, I—we wouldn’t part with it, and now come here and look out the window.”

At this point he calmly used his cane as a grappling iron, hooking it into the loosely buttoned jacket of the Au., who at the best of times is in a constant state of anxiety over his loose buttons, and pulled him, not without unwarranted force and—it is only fair to say—not without a shake of the head from his grandsons, brusquely toward him, thus compelling the Au. to look out at the surrounding buildings which, with their nine, eight, and seven floors, were stacked around the twelve-story building. “Do you know,” this in an ominously soft voice, “do you know what they call this part of the city?” Head shake from the Au., who is not that observant of topographical changes. “They call this part of the city Hoyseringen—and it stands on land that for seventy years was simply allowed to lie fallow, until someone was good enough to present it to that young gentleman over there” (cane waved in Kurt’s direction, voice now mocking) “when he was an infant, and it was I, I, I
who saw to it that it didn’t continue to lie fallow, in accordance with the saying that used to be preached to our forefathers: ‘Replenish the earth, and subdue it.’ ”

It was at this juncture that the old gentleman, who was, after all, of a venerable age, began to show signs of senility; although now openly aggressive himself, he interpreted the Au.’s attempts to disengage himself from the walking cane/grappling iron as aggressiveness on the
Au.’s
part, although the latter proceeded gingerly enough and, out of his concern for his buttons, with great restraint. Hoyser, Sr., suddenly turned brick-red and actually ripped off the button, thereby putting paid to a sizable fragment of well-worn tweed, and brandished his cane menacingly over the Au.’s head. Although the Au. is at all times prepared to turn the other cheek, this seemed to be an occasion calling for self-defense: he ducked out of reach and barely managed to weather the situation with dignity. Meanwhile, Kurt and Werner intervened appeasingly and, apparently summoned by the pressing of an invisible button, the blond, medium-bosomed efficiency-machine went into action: with a sangfroid both indescribable and inimitable she lured the old gentleman out of the office by whispering something into his ear, a procedure that prompted both grandsons to remark in one voice: “Trude, you’re the perfect Girl Friday!” Before leaving the sanctum (the Au. is not going to risk using the word “room” in this context for fear it might lead to libel charges), the old gentleman called back over his shoulder: “Hubert, that laugh of yours is going to cost you a pretty penny, and he who laughs last laughs longest.”