The Tanners (28 page)

As he was thinking in this way, he’d been walking up a short but
fairly steep street and now paused before a building from which a woman’s
head was looking out at him through an open window. Looking into the woman’s
eyes, Simon thought he was gazing into a distant sunken world, but then a
wonderfully familiar voice called down to him: “Oh, Simon, it’s you! Do come
up!”

It was Klara Agappaia.

When he’d leapt up the stairs, he beheld her sitting at the window in
a heavy dark red dress. Her arms and breast were only half concealed by the
luxurious fabric. Her face had grown paler since he’d seen her last. In her eyes
a deep fire was burning, but her mouth was pressed closed. She smiled and held
out her hand to him. In her lap lay an open book, apparently a novel she’d
started reading. At first she was unable to speak. It seemed to be causing her
shame and effort to ask questions and relate things. She seemed to be struggling
to shake off the sense of alienation she now felt before her young former
friend. Her mouth appeared to weep each time it tried to open and soften. Her
beautiful, long, voluptuous hands seemed to have taken over the task of
speaking, at least until her mouth was able to shake off its
self-consciousness. She didn’t look Simon up and down the way people
examine friends they haven’t seen in a long while; instead she gazed into his
eyes, whose peaceful expression calmed her. Once more she seized his hand and
at
last said:

“Give me your hand, let me be to you what I am to my son, who
understands me as soon as he hears the rustle of my garments from the next room,
who grasps me with a single glance, to whom I needn’t say a word, not even a
whispered one, to share my secrets with him; whose sitting, coming, going,
standing and lying down tell me all his feelings exist only with the goal of
understanding his mother; before whom a person must bend down to the ground,
to
his feet, to tie his shoes better when the laces have gotten loose; to whom one
gives a kiss when he’s been courageous and good; for whom one keeps all secret
things open; from whom one wouldn’t even know how to keep a secret; to whom one
gives everything even though he’s a little traitor and has managed to neglect
his mother for a long, long time, just like you, even though he’s been able to
forget her, like you. No, you never managed to forget me. No doubt you often
tried to shake me off in defiance, but whenever a woman crossed your path who
looked even a tiny bit like me, you imagined you were seeing me, thought you’d
found me again. Didn’t this make you tremble, didn’t you feel, as you
experienced this deceptive encounter, as if suddenly above a bright regal
staircase carved in stone a pair of doors had swung open to admit you to a
chamber filled with the joy of reunion? What a joyous thing it is to see someone
again. When we’ve lost one another on the street or in the countryside and then
a year or so later find each other again, quietly, without further ado, on such
an evening when the bells are already tolling out a premonition of this reunion,
we press each other’s hands and no longer think of the separation and the cause
of this long digression. Leave your hands in mine! Your eyes are still just as
kind and beautiful. You remain identical to yourself. Now I can tell you:

“When all of us, Kaspar, I and you, had to leave the forest house last
summer, do you remember, and your brother then disappeared, and I didn’t know
where to, I rented myself an elegant room down in the city, yearning for the
two
of you and for a long time inconsolable. Toward winter everything around me
appeared suffused in a red glow, I forgot everything and hurled myself into the
maelstrom of worldly pleasures, for I still possessed part of my fortune, a
small part, but still a lot by local standards. I used them up, and received
in
exchange the realization that often one needs a bit of rapture to be able to
keep oneself more or less afloat upon the waves of life. I had a box at the
theater, but the theater interested me far less than the balls where I could
show how beautiful and spirited I was. The young men swarmed around me and I
saw
nothing that might have prevented me from feeling contempt for them all or from
subjecting them to my whims. I thought of you and your brother, and often
wished, standing at the center of all that emasculated swarming, to see your
peaceful faces and open manner. Then a dark black-haired man
approached me, a student at the polytechnical university, heavy and clumsy in
appearance, a Turk with large forceful eyes, and he danced with me. After this
dance, he possessed me body and soul, I was his. For us women, when we are
whirling about in worldly raptures, there is a particular sort of man that can
vanquish us only on the dance floor. If I’d encountered him anywhere else, I
might well have laughed at him. From the first moment on, he behaved towards
me
as though he were my master, and while I marveled at his insolence, I couldn’t
manage to defend myself against it. He commanded me: now like this, and now like
this! And I obeyed. We women can achieve stunning feats of obedience when we
feel moved. We accept everything then, and wish, perhaps out of shame and fury,
for our beloved to be even more brutal than he is. No matter how brutally he
treats us, it isn’t enough. To this man, the last bit of money I had to my name
was quite simply his property, and I agreed and gave it to him, I gave him
everything. When eventually he’d had his fill of oppressing, tyrannizing,
preying on and exploiting me, he went away, back to his native land, to Armenia.
His slave—I—did nothing to hold him back. I found all his actions appropriate.
Even if I’d loved him less than I did, I’d still have let him go, for my pride
would have prevented me from trying to detain him. And so it was simply my duty
to obey him when he ordered me to help him prepare his departure: The love in
me
was happy to obey. I wasn’t mortified to be kissing him goodbye, this man who
scarcely even deigned to look at me any longer. He gave voice to the hope that
he would later, when his circumstances allowed, bring me to his country to make
me his wife. I could tell it was a lie, but I felt no bitterness. With regard
to
this man, any unlovely feeling in me was utterly impossible. I have a child by
him, a girl, she’s sleeping there in the next room.”

Klara paused for a moment, smiled at Simon, and then went
on:

“I was forced to seek employment, and found a job working for a
photographer as his receptionist. Coming into contact with so many people there,
I was courted and even proposed to several times, but I brushed them all aside
with a smile. All men thought, looking at me: ‘There’s something so tender about
her, so domestic-motherly, she’d be a good one!’ But I didn’t become
anyone’s ‘good one.’ My position allowed me certain expenditures, at least I
was
able to keep all my lovely dresses, which has proved useful to this day. My boss
was a man I was able to respect, which made my work much easier, and I performed
my work as if caught up in a quiet pleasant dream. I’d accustomed myself to
flashing a quite particular smile when clients came in, and this made me quite
popular, everyone thought I was kind, and I attracted customers, which prompted
my employer to increase my salary. At the time I was almost happy. Everything
vanished before me in a haze of lovely sweet memories. I felt the approach of
my
labor pains, and this contributed to my melancholy-happy mood. It was
snowing, the streets were completely enveloped in flakes. And when in the
evening I walked through the snowy streets, I thought of you brothers, you and
Kaspar and a great deal of Hedwig, to whom I paid grateful homage in my thoughts
and feelings. I only allowed myself to write her a single time. She never
answered. ‘But that’s for the best,’ I thought. I found myself too for the best
when I thought such things. I was becoming more and more fulfilled by
everything, and I walked always with slow steps, feeling every footstep as an
act of human kindness. Meanwhile I gave up my elegant room in the center of town
and found lodgings here where you now see me. In the morning and evening I’d
ride the electric streetcar back and forth, always attracting the attention of
the other passengers. There was something odd about me, I myself could feel
this. Many unconsciously starting talking to me, a few wishing just to exchange
a word or two, and others to make my acquaintance. But acquaintances no longer
had much appeal for me. I thought I could tell everything in advance, and this
gave me such a decisive, rejecting but also gentle feeling that soothed me. Men!
How often they spoke to me. They resembled curious children who wanted to know
what I did, where I lived, whom I knew, where I ate lunch and how I was in the
habit of spending my evenings. They appeared to me like innocent, rather
importunate children; that’s what I was like at the time. Never did I respond
harshly to a single one of them; I had no need to, for not one man allowed
himself liberties: To them I was a lady who simultaneously attracted them and
left them cold. Once a small, clever-looking girl spoke to me, this
was Rosa, the Rosa you know. She revealed all her sufferings to me and her life
story, the two of us became friends, and now she’s gone and married, though I
advised her not to. She often visits me, me, the Queen of the Poor!” —

Again Klara fell silent for a moment, looking at Simon with childish
amusement, and then went on speaking:

“The Queen of the Poor! Yes, that’s who I am. Do you not see how
regally your Klara is dressed? This is a dress left over from my ball wardrobe:
with a low-cut back! After all, I do have to keep up appearances given
my status as regent. My adherents like to see me dressed like this, they have
a
taste for majesty, the splendor of a ball gown makes quite a singular impression
in this realm of stained gray female garments. One must stand out, dear Simon,
if one wishes to have influence, yet please do keep listening to everything in
order. What an expert, pleasant listener you are. No one listens like you! It’s
one of your good qualities. It feels so natural, so lovely to be telling you
things: When I moved here to this remote neighborhood, I slowly but surely
learned to love the poor, the ones who’ve been thrust to the other, darker side
of the world, the masses, as this entire world of longing and hardship is
dismissively called. I saw I could be needed here, and without forcing the
matter or making any fuss about it, I found a place for myself here, and now
in
fact I am needed. If I were to leave again today, these people, these womenfolk,
children and men would wail with sorrow. At the beginning I was put off,
actually repulsed by their squalor, but then I saw that this squalor was not
so
hideous when seen from close up as from a stiff grandiose distance. I taught
my
hands and even my mouth how to touch these children whose faces were not the
cleanest. I accustomed myself to shaking the rough hands of workers and
day-laborers, and quickly noticed the gentleness with which these
people took my hand. I found many things in this world that reminded me of you
two, of you and Kaspar. A great many delicate and hidden things finally enticed
me to become
the mistress of and advocate for these people. Doing so
was
simultaneously easy and difficult. The womenfolk for one thing!
How much effort it cost to convince them of their infirmities and horrific
failings such that they gradually were seized by a desire to free themselves
from their disgrace. I introduced them to the blessings and pleasures of
cleanliness and I saw that after their long, distrustful hesitation they came
to
take great pleasure in it. The men proved easier to influence: I was beautiful,
and so they obeyed me better, and were more talented in grasping my simple
lessons. Simon! If you only knew how happy it makes me to have become a secret
educator of these poor people! How little one needs to know to find people even
more impoverished in knowledge whom one can guide. No, knowledge itself is not
enough. Here one needs the courage and the desire to take a stand vigorously,
to
shore up one’s stand with clemency and pride, and to approach others with
passion. I accustomed myself to a way of speaking that explained all the
learning I possessed and could impart in a readily graspable way, using the
sorts of expressions loved by the humble and humiliated. And so I became their
ruler by adapting myself to their thoughts and feelings, though often these were
not to my taste. But with time I found them to my taste. A person who exerts
influence simultaneously has a talent for being imperceptibly influenced by
those he’s influencing. One’s heart and habits can easily bring this about. And
then one day as I lay in bed, painfully awaiting the arrival of my child who
is
asleep there in the next room, they came to me, the women and girls, they tended
and cared for me and showered me with kindnesses until I was able to get up
again. During this time, their menfolk asked after me with concern, and when
they saw me again, they seemed delighted to be finding me even more beautiful
than before. Thus did they honor their queen. This was in the springtime. Still
rather weak from giving birth, I sat in my room covered with flowers, for all
of
them brought me flowers, as many as they could manage. A wealthy young man from
the neighborhood often visited me and I allowed him to sit at my feet; I saw
this as a sort of tribute, and it was tender of him. One day he implored me to
become his wife. I pointed to the child, yet this only encouraged him to repeat
his proposals, which struck me as rather peculiar, over the following days. He
told me the whole story of his empty restless life, and I felt pity for him and
promised him my hand in marriage. A mere gesture or glance from me is enough
to
satisfy him, and he loves me in such a way that I am conscious of it at every
moment. If I say to him: ‘Artur, it’s impossible,’ he turns pale and I must fear
some calamity. He’s in a position of utter helplessness before me, and I lack
the strength to make him unhappy. Besides, he’s rich, and I need money for my
people, and he’ll give it to us. He does everything I want. He won’t allow
me to ask for things, instead he asks me to command him. That’s how it is with
him. He’s about to come now, I’ll introduce you to him. Or would you rather go?
You look as though you’re about to leave. Well, go then! Perhaps it’s better
this way. Yes, it’s better. He would be suspicious. In this regard he’s quite
awful. He’s perfectly capable of banging his head against the wall until it
bleeds if he sees me with a young man. Besides, I don’t want to have anyone else
here when you’re here. And when others are here, you shouldn’t be. I want to
have you all to myself, to myself alone. There’s so much more I must say to you
about how all of this came to be. We say so much, but are these the right
things
?
—Go now. I know you’ll come back again soon. Besides,
I’ll write to you. Leave me your address. Well then, farewell!”