The Clown (13 page)

I turned off the bathwater, took off my jacket, pulled my shirt and undershirt over my head and threw them in the corner, and I was just getting into the tub when the phone rang. I know only one person who can make the phone ring with such a vigorous, virile sound: Zohnerer, my agent. He speaks so closely and intimately into the telephone that I am afraid every time of getting his spit in my face. When he wants to say something nice to me he begins the conversation with: “You were magnificent yesterday”; he just says that, without
knowing whether I was really magnificent or not; when he wants to say something unpleasant, he begins with: “Now listen, Schnier, you’re not Chaplin, you know”; this doesn’t mean at all that I am not as good a clown as Chaplin, but merely that I am not famous enough to be able to afford to do something which has annoyed Zohnerer. Today he would not even say anything unpleasant, nor would he announce the imminent end of the world, the way he always did when I canceled a performance. He would not even accuse me of a “mania for canceling.” Probably Offenbach, Bamberg, and Nuremberg had canceled too, and he would add up over the phone all the expenses accumulating on my account. The phone went on ringing, manly, vigorous, virile, I was just about to throw a sofa cushion over it—but I pulled on my bathrobe, went into the living room, and stopped in front of the ringing telephone. Managers have strong nerves, persistence, words like “sensitiveness of the artistic soul” are to them words like “Lager Beer,” and any attempt to talk seriously to them about art and artists would be just waste of breath. They also know perfectly well that even an unscrupulous artist has a thousand times more conscience than a scrupulous manager, and they possess one all-conquering weapon: the sheer knowledge of the fact that an artist simply cannot help doing what he does: painting pictures, traveling up and down the country as a clown, singing songs, carving something “enduring” out of stone or granite. An artist is like a woman who can do nothing but love, and who succumbs to every stray male jackass. The easiest people to exploit are artists and women, and every manager is from one to ninety-nine per cent a pimp. The ringing of the phone was absolutely a pimp’s ringing. He had found out from Kostert, of course, when I left Bochum, and knew for certain that I was at home. I tied the belt to my bathrobe and lifted the receiver. Immediately his beery breath hit me in the face. “Damn it all, Schnier,” he said, “what’s the big idea, letting me wait so long.”

“I was just making the modest attempt of taking a bath,” I said, “is that against my contract?”

“Your sense of humor can only be of the gallows variety,” he said.

“Where is the rope,” I said, “is it dangling already?”

“Cut out the symbolism,” he said, “let’s talk business.”

“It wasn’t me who started talking about symbols,” I said.

“Never mind who started talking about what,” he said, “so you seem to have made up your mind to commit artistic suicide.”

“My dear Mr. Zohnerer,” I said gently, “would you mind very much turning your face away a little from the receiver—I get your beery breath right in my face.”

He swore under his breath in dialect, and then laughed: “Your impudence evidently hasn’t suffered. What were we talking about?”

“Art,” I said, “but if you don’t mind I’d rather we talked business.”

“In that case we wouldn’t have much to talk about,” he said, “now listen, I’m not giving you up. Understand?” I was too surprised to answer.

“We’ll take you out of circulation for six months and then I’ll build you up again. I hope that slimy bastard in Bochum didn’t upset you seriously?”

“He did as a matter of fact,” I said, “he cheated me—out of a bottle of cognac and the difference between a first and second-class ticket to Bonn.”

“You were crazy to let them beat you down over the fee. A contract is a contract—and your quitting was justified because of your accident.”

“Zohnerer,” I said quietly, “are you really so human or.…”

“Rubbish,” he said, “I like you. If you haven’t noticed that, you are stupider than I thought, and besides, there is still a financial asset left in you. Why don’t you give up this childish drinking.”

He was right. Childish was the right word for it. I said: “But it has helped.”

“In what way?” he asked.

“In my soul,” I said.

“Rubbish,” he said, “forget about your soul. We could, of course, sue Mainz for breach of contract and we would probably win—but I wouldn’t advise it. Six months’ break—and I’ll build you up again.”

“And what am I supposed to live on?” I asked.

“Well,” he said, “surely your father will fork out something.”

“And if he doesn’t?”

“Then try and find a nice girl friend who’ll help you out.”

“I’d rather do the rounds of the villages and small towns,” I said, “on a bike.”

“You’re wrong,” he said, “in villages and small towns they read newspapers too, and at the moment I couldn’t find a job for you at twenty marks a night in a youth club.”

“Have you tried?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said, “I’ve been on the phone all day on your account. Not a hope. There’s nothing more depressing for people than a clown they feel sorry for. It’s like a waiter coming up in a wheelchair to bring you your beer. Don’t kid yourself.”

“What about yourself?” I asked. He was silent, and I said: “I mean, thinking I could have another try in six months’ time.”

“Maybe,” he said, “but it’s your only chance. It would be even better to wait a full year.”

“A year,” I said, “do you know how long a year is?” “Three hundred and sixty-five days,” he said, inconsiderately turning his face toward me again. His beery breath nauseated me.

“Supposing I tried under another name,” I said, “with a new nose and different turns. Songs to the guitar and a bit of juggling.”

“Nothing doing,” he said, “your singing is terrible and your juggling downright amateurish. Forget it. You have the
makings of quite a good clown, possibly even a good one, and don’t show up again until you have practiced eight hours a day for at least three months. Then I’ll come and have a look at your new turns—or old ones, but practice, give up this stupid drinking.”

I said nothing. I could hear him breathing heavily, drawing on his cigarette. “Try and find another faithful soul,” he said, “like the girl who traveled around with you.”

“Faithful soul,” I said.

“Yes,” he said, “forget about the rest. And don’t imagine you can get along without me and clown around in lousy clubs. That’s all right for three weeks, Schnier, you can do a bit of nonsense at fire brigade anniversary dinners and go round with a hat. As soon as I find out about it I’ll cut it right off.”

“You bastard,” I said.

“Yes,” he said, “I’m the best bastard you can find, and if you start going round on your own you’ll be completely washed up in two months at the outside. I know this business. Do you hear?”

I was silent. “I said, Do you hear?” he asked quietly.

“Yes,” I said.

“I like you. Schnier,” he said, “I’ve liked working with you—or I wouldn’t be spending all this money on a phone call.”

“It’s after six,” I said, “and I’d say it’s costing you about two marks fifty.”

“Yes,” he said, “maybe three marks, but at the moment no agent would invest that much in you. So: I’ll see you in three months’ time and with at least six first-class turns. Squeeze as much as you can out of your old man. Goodbye now.”

He actually hung up. I went on holding the receiver, heard the buzzing tone, waited, finally replaced it after a long pause. He had cheated me on a few occasions but he had never lied to me. At a time when I had probably been worth two hundred and fifty marks a night he had got hundred and eighty mark contracts for me—and probably made quite a nice profit out of
me. It was only after I had put back the receiver that I realized he was the first person I would have liked to go on talking to on the phone. He ought to give me some other chance—than to wait six months. Perhaps that was a group of artistes who needed someone like me, I was not heavy, I never got dizzy and after some training I could join in a bit of acrobatics quite nicely, or work out some skits with another clown. Marie had always said I need an “opposite number,” then I wouldn’t get so bored with the turns. I was sure Zohnerer hadn’t considered all the angles. I decided to call him up later, went back to the bathroom, took off my bathrobe and threw the rest of my clothes onto the floor, and got into the tub. A hot bath is almost as good as sleep. When we were on the road I had always taken a room with bath, even when we were still short of money. Marie always said my background was responsible for this extravagance, but that’s not so. At home they had been stingy with hot water as they were with everything else. A cold shower, that was something we could have any time, but a hot bath was considered an extravagance at home too, and even Anna, who otherwise often closed one eye, was not to be budged over this. At her I.R. 9 a hot bath had evidently been considered a kind of deadly sin.

Even in the bathtub I missed Marie. She had sometimes read aloud to me as I lay in the tub, from the bed, once from the Old Testament the whole story of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, another time the war of the Maccabees, and now and again from Thomas Wolfe’s
Look Homeward, Angel
. Here I was, lying completely deserted in this stupid terra cotta bathtub, the bathroom was done in black tiles, but the tub, soapdish, shower handle and toilet seat were terra cotta. I missed Marie’s voice. Come to think of it, she couldn’t even read the Bible with Züpfner without feeling like a traitor or a whore. She would be bound to think of the hotel in Düsseldorf where she had read aloud to me about Solomon and the Queen of Sheba till I fell asleep in the tub from exhaustion. The green carpeting in the
hotel room, Marie’s dark hair, her voice, then she brought me a lighted cigarette, and I kissed her.

I lay in foam up to my neck and thought about her. She couldn’t do a thing with him or near him without thinking of me. She couldn’t even screw the top on the toothpaste when he was around. How many times we had had breakfast together, skimpy or luxurious, hurried or leisurely, very early in the morning or almost at noon, with plenty of jam or none at all. The idea of her having breakfast with Züpfner every morning at the same time, before he got into his car and drove off to his Catholic office, almost made me religious. I prayed it might never happen: breakfast with Züpfner. I tried to picture Züpfner: his brown hair, fair skin, straight build, a kind of Alcibiades of German Catholicism, only not so mercurial. According to Kinkel his position was “in the center but still somewhat more Right than Left.” This Left-and-Right business was one of their chief topics of conversation. To be honest, I had to add Züpfner to the four people who seemed to me to be authentic Catholics: Pope John, Alec Guinness, Marie, Gregory—and Züpfner. No doubt he too, however much he might be in love, was influenced by the fact that he had saved Marie from a sinful situation and placed her in a sinless one. Obviously his holding hands with Marie hadn’t meant anything serious. I had spoken to Marie about it afterwards, she had blushed, but nicely, and told me, “there were many things involved” in this friendship: that their fathers had both been persecuted by the Nazis, and Catholicism, and “his manner, you know. I am still fond of him.”

I let out some of the bathwater, lukewarm by this time, ran in some hot, and shook some more of the bath stuff into the water. I thought of my father, who has an interest in this bath stuff factory too. Whether I buy cigarettes, soap, writing paper, popsicles or wieners: my father has an interest. I imagine he even has an interest in the inch of toothpaste I use now and again. But at home no one was allowed to talk about
money. When Anna wanted to do the accounts with my mother and show her the books, my mother always said “Money—what a disagreeable topic.” We got very little pocket money. Luckily we had a great many relatives, when the whole bunch got together there were fifty or sixty uncles and aunts, and some of them were nice and gave us a little money from time to time, my mother’s stinginess being proverbial. To cap it all, my mother’s mother was an aristocrat, a Von Hohenbrode, and to this day my father feels like a graciously accepted son-in-law, although his father-in-law was called Tuhler, only his mother-in-law had been a Von Hohenbrode. Germans today are even more infatuated with titles than in 1910. Even people who are considered intelligent will do anything to get to know an aristocrat. One day I ought to draw the attention of Mother’s Executive Committee to this fact. It is a racial matter. Even a sensible man like my grandfather can’t get over the fact that in the summer of 1918 the Schniers were supposed to be raised to the nobility, that the papers were “so to speak” all ready, but then at the critical moment the Kaiser, who was supposed to sign the document, hopped it—he probably had other things on his mind—if he ever had anything on his mind at all. This story of the “near aristocracy” of the Schniers is still told today on every possible occasion, after almost fifty years. “They found the papers on His Majesty’s desk,” my father always says. I am surprised no one went to Doorn and had the thing signed. I would have sent off a messenger on horseback, then at least the matter would have been settled in proper style.

I thought of how Marie used to unpack the suitcases while I was already in the bath. How she would stand in front of the mirror, take off her gloves, smooth her hair; how she would take the hangers out of the wardrobe, hang up her dresses on them and put the hangers back in the wardrobe; they would squeak on the brass rod. Then the shoes, the faint click of the heels, the shuffling sound of the soles, and the way she set out her tubes, bottles and jars on the glass top of the dressing
table; the big jar of cold cream, or the slim bottle of nail polish, the box of powder and the hard metallic sound of the lipstick being stood on end.

I suddenly realized I had begun to cry in the bathtub, and I made a surprising physical discovery: my tears felt cold. At other times they had always felt hot, and during the past few months I had wept hot tears several times when I was drunk. I also thought of Henrietta, of my father, of Leo who had converted, and was surprised I hadn’t heard from him yet.