The Black Obelisk (42 page)

I look at the card he has thrust upon me. It is a very ancient printed notice, advertising the Prussian lottery—an empty joke in these days of the inflation. Roth must have fished it out of the wastebasket somewhere; it is addressed to a butcher named Sack, who has been dead for years. "Many thanks," I say. "This is wonderful news!"

Roth nods. "They'll soon be back from Russia, our soldiers."

"Yes, of course."

"They will all come home. It will just take time. Russia is so big."

"Your sons too, I hope."

Roth's faded eyes light up. "Yes, mine too. I've already had word."

"Once again, many thanks," I say.

Roth smiles without looking at me and moves on. At first the Post Office Department tried to keep him from his rounds and even asked that he be imprisoned; but the townspeople opposed this, and now he is left in peace. In one of the rightist inns, to be sure, some of the regular patrons recently hit on the idea of sending Roth around to their political enemies with scurrilous letters—and to unmarried women with salacious messages. They thought it a side-splitting notion. Heinrich Kroll, too, considered it robust, earthy humor. Among his equals in the inn Heinrich is, by the way, a quite different man; he is even considered a wit.

Roth has naturally long since forgotten which houses have suffered bereavement. He distributes his cards at random and, although one of the nationalistic beer drinkers went with him to point out from a distance the houses for which the abusive letters were intended, now and again mistakes occurred. So it was that a letter addressed to Lisa was delivered to Vicar Bodendiek. It contained an invitation to sexual intercourse, in exchange for a payment of ten million marks, at one o'clock in the morning in the bushes behind St. Mary's. Bodendiek crept up upon the observers like an Indian, suddenly appeared among them, seized two of them, knocked their heads together, without asking questions, and gave a fleeing third such a mighty kick that he shot into the air and barely succeeded in getting away. Only then did Bodendiek, that expert collector of penitents, put his questions to the two captives, re-enforcing them by blows on the ear with his huge peasant fist. The confessions were quickly forthcoming and since both captives were Catholic, he asked for their names and ordered them to appear next day either at confession or at the police station. Naturally they preferred confession. Bodendiek gave them the
ego te absolvo
and in doing so followed the procedure the cathedral pastor had used with me—he ordered them not to drink for a week and then to appear at confession again. Since both feared excommunication, they turned up again, and Bodendiek mercilessly ordered them to come each ensuing week and not to drink. Thus he made them into abstemious, ill-tempered, first-class Christians. He never discovered that the third sinner was Major Wolkenstein, who, as a result of the kick he received, had to undergo treatment for his prostate, and, in consequence, became more belligerent politically and finally joined the Nazis.

The doors of Knopfs house are open. The sewing machines are humming. This morning bolts of black cloth were brought home, and now mother and daughters are at work on their mourning weeds. The sergeant major is not yet dead, but the doctor has said it can only be a matter of hours or, at most, days. He has given Knopf up. Since the family would consider it a serious blow to their reputation to enter the presence of death in bright clothes, hasty preparations are under way. At the moment Knopf draws his final breath, the family will be provided with black garments, a widow's veil for Frau Knopf, thick black stockings for all four, and black hats as well. Bourgeois respectability will have its due.

Georg's bald head floats toward me like half a cheese above the window sill. He is accompanied by Weeping Oskar.

"How's the dollar doing?" I ask as they enter.

"Exactly one billion at twelve o'clock," Georg replies. "We can celebrate it as a jubilee if you like."

"So we can. And when are we going broke?"

"When we have sold out. What will you have to drink, Herr Fuchs?"

"Whatever you have. Too bad there's no vodka in Werdenbrück!"

"Vodka? Were you in Russia during the war?"

"And how! I was commandant of a cemetery there, as a matter of fact. What fine days those were!"

We stare at Oskar questioningly. "Fine days?" I ask. "You say that when you're so sensitive you can weep on request?"

"They were fine days," Weeping Oskar announces firmly, sniffing at his schnaps as though he thought we intended to poison him. "Lots to eat and drink, agreeable duties far behind the front—what more can you ask? A fellow gets used to death fast enough, the way you do to a contagious disease."

Oskar sips his schnaps in a dandified fashion. We are a little confused by the profundity of his philosophy. "Some people get used to death the way you do to a fourth man in a game of skat," I say. "Liebermann, the gravedigger, for instance. For him a job in the cemetery is like working in a garden. But an artist like you!"

Oskar smiles in a superior way. "There's a tremendous difference! Liebermann lacks true metaphysical sensitivity. Awareness of eternal death and recurrence."

Georg and I look at each other in amazement. Are we to consider Weeping Oskar a poet
manqué
?
"Do you have that all the time?" I ask. "This awareness of death and recurrence?"

"More or less. At least unconsciously. Don't you have it; gentlemen?"

"We have it rather sporadically," I reply. "Principally before meals."

"One day word came that His Majesty was going to visit us," Oskar says dreamily. "God, what excitement! Fortunately there were two other cemeteries nearby and we could trade."

"Trade what?" Georg asks. "Tombstones? Or flowers?"

"Oh, all that was taken care of. True Prussian efficiency, you know. No, corpses."

"Corpses?"

"Corpses, of course! Not because they were corpses, of course, but for what they had once been. It goes without saying that every cemetery had lots of privates as well as lance corporals, noncoms, vice sergeant majors, and lieutenants— but trouble began when it came to higher commissioned officers. My colleague at the nearest cemetery, for example, had three majors; I had none. But to make up for that I had two lieutenant colonels and one colonel. I traded him one of my lieutenant colonels for two majors. I got a fat goose out of the deal besides; my colleague felt it was such a disgrace not to have any lieutenant colonels. He didn't see how he could meet His Majesty without a single dead lieutenant colonel."

Georg hides his face in his hand. "I dare not think of it even now."

Oskar nods and lights a thin cigar. "But that was nothing compared to the other cemetery commandant," he remarks contentedly. "He didn't have any brass at all. Not even a major. Lieutenants, of course, in quantity. He was in despair. I had a well-balanced assortment but just to be obliging I finally traded him one of the majors I got for my lieutenant colonel in exchange for two captains and a full sergeant major. I had captains myself, but a full sergeant major was rare. You know those swine always sat way behind the front and almost never got killed; that's why they were such beastly slave drivers—well, I took all three to be agreeable and because it gave me joy to have a full sergeant major who couldn't shout at me."

"Didn't you have a general?" I ask.

Oskar raises his hands. "A general! A general killed in action is as rare as—" He searches for a comparison. "Are you beetle collectors?"

"No," Georg and I reply in chorus.

"Too bad," Oskar says. "Well, as the giant stag beetle, Lu-canus Cervus, or, if you are butterfly collectors, as the death's head moth. Otherwise, how could there be wars? Even my colonel died of a stroke. But this colonel—" Suddenly Weeping Oskar grins. It produces a strange effect; from so much weeping his face has acquired as many folds as a bloodhound's and usually wears the same look of sad solemnity.

"Well, the other commandant naturally had to have a staff officer. He offered me anything I wanted, but my collection was complete; I even had my full sergeant major, to whom I had given a nice corner grave in a conspicuous spot. Finally I gave in—for three dozen bottles of the best vodka. I gave him my colonel, to be sure, not my lieutenant colonel. For thirty-six bottles! Hence, gentlemen, my present taste for vodka. Of course you can't get it here."

By way of compensation Oskar pours himself another glass of schnaps. "Why did you go to so much trouble?" Georg asks. "You had to transfer all the bodies. Why didn't you simply put up a few crosses with fictitious names and let it go at that? You could even have had a lieutenant general."

Oskar is shocked. "But, Herr Kroll!" he says in mild reproof. "How could we risk that? It would have been forgery. Perhaps even desecration of the dead—"

"It would only have been desecration if you had given a dead major some lower rank," I say. "Not if you promoted a private to general for a day."

"You could have put fictitious crosses on empty graves," Georg adds. "Then it would not have been desecration of the dead at all."

"It would still have been forgery. And it might have beea discovered," Oskar replies. "Perhaps through the grave-diggers. And what then? Besides—a false general?" He shudders. "His Majesty surely knew his generals."

We let it rest at that. So does Oskar. "You know the funniest thing about the whole affair?" he asks.

We are silent. The question can only be rhetorical and requires no answer.

"On the day before the inspection the whole thing was called off. His Majesty did not come at all. We had planted a field of primroses and narcissuses."

"Did you give back the corpses?" Georg asks.

"That would have been too much work. Besides the papers had been changed. And the families had been notified that their dead had been transferred. That often happened. Cemeteries came under fire and then everything had to be rearranged. The only one who was furious was the commandant who had given me the vodka. He and his chauffeur even tried to break in and get the cases back, but I had found an excellent hiding place. An empty grave." Oskar yawns. "Yes, those were the days! I had several thousand graves under me. Today—" he takes a paper out of his pocket—"two medium-sized headstones with marble plaques, Herr Kroll, that, alas, is all."

I am walking through the darkening gardens of the asylum. Isabelle was at devotion today for the first time in a long while. I am looking for her, but can't find her. Instead, I run into Bodendiek, who smells of incense and cigars. "What are you at the moment?" he asks. "Atheist, Buddhist, skeptic, or already on the way back to God?"

"Everyone is constantly on the way to God," I reply, weary of argument. "It just depends on what you mean by that."

"Bravo," Bodendiek says. "Wernicke is looking for you, I believe. What makes you fight so stubbornly about something as simple as faith?"

"Because there is more rejoicing in heaven over one fighting skeptic than over ninety and nine vicars who have been singing hosannas since childhood," I reply.

Bodendiek looks pleased. I don't want to get into a fight with him; I remember the kick in the bushes behind St. Mary's. "When will I see you at confession?" he asks.

"Like the two sinners of St. Mary's?"

That startles him. "So, you know about them? Well, no, not like that. You will come of your own free will! Don't wait too long!"

I make no reply and we part cordially. As I walk toward Wernicke's room falling leaves flutter through the air like bats. Everywhere there is the smell of earth and autumn. What has become of the summer? I think. It was hardly here!

Wernicke pushes a pile of papers aside. "Have you seen Fraulein Terhoven?" he asks.

"In church. Not since."

He nods. "Don't meet her any more for the time being."

"Fine," I say. "Any further orders?"

"Don't be a fool! Those aren't orders. I'm doing what I consider best for my patient." He looks at me more closely. "You aren't by any chance in love?"

"In love? With whom?"

"With Fräulein Terhoven, who else? She's pretty, after all. Damn it, that's a factor in the situation I hadn't thought about."

"Neither had I. And what situation?"

"Then it's all right." He laughs. "Besides, it wouldn't have been bad for you at all."

"Really?" I reply. "Up to now I had thought that only Bodendiek was God's representative here. Now we have you as well. You know exactly what's bad and what's good, eh?"

Wernicke is silent for a moment. "So it really happened," he says presently. "Well, what does it matter? Too bad I couldn't have listened to you two! Those must have been fine mooncalf dialogues! Take a cigar. Have you noticed that it's autumn?"