Unspeakable Things (18 page)

Gently, although he did not wish to do so, Felix smoothed Anna’s dress once more over her body.

She lay curved like a fishhook and concealed before him. “I have come as a supplicant,” she murmured. “It is I who beg of you.” She reached in a small convulsive movement toward the built-up toe of Felix’s heavy reinforced shoe to press her lips against the leather. She now desperately wanted him to seize her in his arms.

“No!” cried Felix, dragging her to her feet. “I am a doctor. I am a scientist,” he cried. It was enough. He recalled the kitchen, his laboratory, the specimens. They needed tending; he must not forget responsibilities. “It is enough. Enough for one night.” He half carried the Countess into the entryway.

Anna blinked, seemed to come to her senses. She allowed Felix to find her coat. He wrapped the mousy fur about her shoulder, found the armholes, the sleeves, closed the lapels, and buttoned them tenderly. She did not resist. “Come, dear lady, the night air. It is not good. I shall see you home.”

Out on the street, the cold wind hit them both, reviving them. A taxi darted toward them, a winged dragonfly in the night, and stopped, quivering, at Felix’s call. Then it bore both passengers away.

Felix held her little hand in his own, patting it from time to time.

“May I come to you again? Another time?” the Countess asked timidly.

Felix’s body swelled with pride. He squeezed her hand, then kissed it in answer. “We shall manage. Come to me again next week. Without the child.”

“B
less me, Little Father,” Anna murmured to Herbert. She hadn’t slept all that night. Now, still in her best dress, her temples throbbing, she stood at the threshold. She handed him a cup, his morning tea, milky and sweet. In her other hand was a crumpled wad of papers.

“Perhaps you would like to come with me today,” Herbert suggested. He was going to the Automat. His normal routine. He found Anna’s mouse-fur coat and put it around her.

Maria, waking lazily on her side of the small cot, lying in the still-warm imprint of the Rat, watched sleepily. What were they whispering about, those two old people? She stretched, sighing, the length of her body falling back into sleep like the scent of apples. In that sleep, she felt kisses on her face, like apple blossoms. “Sleep, my little girl,” the Rat whispered. And she bent also to kiss Philip.

Herbert waited, watching. They walked outside, and the fresh morning air hit them, waking Anna and soothing her headache. Anna turned to him. “You know what I am going to say to you,” she began. “It is my time.” She looked at him deeply. “I am ready. Thank you for saving my life,” she continued, looking at him firmly. Herbert tried to avoid her gaze, but met it finally. “Yes, you saved my life,” repeated Anna. “But now it is enough.”

She turned to him, unable to say more. Her velvet gaze looked long and deeply into his rheumy eyes. “Here, my oldest, dearest friend,” she said. “This is for you.” And she handed him the packet of papers, the scratchy marks on yellow lined paper, the codes and false names and numbers she had stolen back from Felix, who had taken them from under Herbert’s mattress long ago. “Here, this will tell you everything. It is my last gift to you. Act quickly.”

“My dear little Rat,” Herbert said, pocketing the papers immediately. And he knew he must let her go. He recognized her desperation, had seen such cases before. People, rescued from the jaws of death, so to speak, rescued from the most horrible suffering, would, after a time, find it unbearable to live in a halfway normal manner again. Survival affected particularly the women. They would manage heroically, despite all loss and deprivation. The men might perish right away. But the women, living on, were broken forever. No matter what might happen. They could not later survive the ordeals they had undergone in a numbed dream.

“Can you not at least wait a little bit longer?” Herbert asked mildly, taking her arm as the two rounded a corner. The wind shook them and they staggered toward each other. “Can you not wait just a bit more?” Anna looked at her friend but did not answer. There was no need. In her eyes he already saw resolve and clarity.

“I understand,” said Herbert. And that was all. The Rat released her cramped breath with gratitude. She squeezed Herbert’s arm, “I won’t ask any questions,” he said. The two old friends walked in companionable silence.

“And Adeline? How is she?” asked the Rat finally.

“Improving,” replied Herbert without much conviction. Adeline had refused to see anyone not of the immediate family. Would the Rat’s visit help her at all? Herbert doubted it. “She thinks now only of her music.”

The Rat drew in a breath. “But that is good.”

“That I cannot say,” Herbert confessed. “She is determined to play again with the Tolstoi Quartet. And unfortunately, I was stupid enough to promise her a concert in Carnegie Hall if she recovers quickly.”

“Oh, I see,” Anna said thoughtfully. “But that is marvelous. And the Tolstoi Quartet?” she inquired.

“Yes,” Herbert said. “They are here.”

“Here? In New York?”

Herbert nodded again.

Anna said nothing to this news, though she began to turn it over in her mind. But of course. Why not? Why shouldn’t the Tolstoi Quartet be here in New York under the aegis of Herbert? “All of them?” she asked. “All four?”

“Well,” said Herbert, “Not quite all of them. You see, my dear Countess, something is missing, it appears.” He took her arm firmly, steering her toward the doorway of the Automat. When they were both seated, watery coffee in front of each, he leaned forward and explained the situation.

“The little fingers of each of them?” The Rat pondered this. “I see.”

“Yes,” said Herbert, sinking deeper into his chair. “They are here in New York. And the fingers, it appears, are also here somewhere in New York.” His eyes hooded over and he appeared to be staring not at the Rat but through her into faraway scenes. Then he came to himself. “You see, my dearest Anna, this time I am truly worried. This time I cannot work the miracle. My power is leaving me.”

“Power?” asked Anna.

Herbert did not answer for a long time. Finally he said, “Countess, this is my curse. I can help everybody. But I cannot help my own family.”

“It is often so,” agreed the Rat, touching his hand gently. “It is usually that way, my friend.”

Herbert looked away. “Yes, it is often so.”

Anna touched his tattered coat sleeve. “My cousin, do you not know how we all love you? Do you think that we do not see what you do? Who you are?”

“Aah.” Herbert sighed, a groan from his oak depths.

The procession of those he had not been able to save marched across a background. Herbert thought of Manfred, the Romany king, and of his failure to help there as well. He saw the Romany, their sad, wild eyes, their quick, dark bodies caged by the closing doors of railroad cars. “I can do nothing,” he said. “Forgive me, Your Highness. I have tried.”

Manfred, hawklike, proud, and silent, did not answer. His imperious gaze held Herbert’s in its own, challenging.

“The President has refused,” said Herbert in self-justification. “What else can I do?”

“Yes,” answered Manfred’s gaze. “But it is my peoples who will be exterminated. You have not done enough, my friend.”

“Forgive me,” said Herbert, closing his eyes.

“Father, I forgive you,” whispered the wraith of Michael from the shadows. His cavernous eyes watched his father with dispassion. Michael at least was calm now. Or was he?

“Forgive me,” Herbert sighed to Anna, who stroked his hand.

“Shh, Little Father.”

The guards closed the doors of the railroad cars, beating back the prisoners who pressed their emaciated bodies against the aperture for a last desperate attempt at freedom. “Father, help me!” cried Michael. Where were they taking him?

“You, with all your connections. You could have done something!” Adeline’s silence reproached Herbert.

“I have tried everything.” But it was too late. Herbert was doomed to live forever now with these memories. Why had it not been he who had been chosen? The “Chosen People.” Yes, he had been chosen to live the hardest life of all: that of the survivor, the savior. Who could not save those whom he loved most.

“It was Michael whom I loved most,” Adeline cried silently to Herbert. “It was never you!”

For this, Herbert was condemned for the rest of his life. Condemned to hear the petitions of others, to ransom everything—his remaining family, his health, his life—to assist others in escaping their fates. Only in this way could Herbert expiate his own sense of helplessness. And he had connections—that, too. He had been accustomed to power: the manipulation of it. But even power had its limits. There were others more powerful. “Bless your people,” Herbert said to Manfred silently. “I pray for them.”

Manfred regarded his old friend with scorn. “You are worthless in this, Herr Hofrat. Worthless. I believed when I came to you.”

“What?” cried Herbert. “What did you believe?”

“In you, in your philosophy.”

“In my philosophy?”

“The Romany knows only his horses. But the Jew seeks to question further.”

“Better to stick with the horses.”

“Ah yes, there you are right.” And a glint of humor flashed in the king’s steely eyes. “But the Romany believes in more than just the horses. The Romany believes in freedom. Must have it. Will die without it.”

“Freedom. The right to sleep under the open sky.”

“You, with your ideals. Your Esperanto. What have you accomplished?” challenged Manfred.

Tired of being chided like a child, Herbert gathered himself together. “I have helped many. And there many more yet who will be helped.”

“But not my own,” replied Manfred sadly. “And not your own, either, old man.”

Herbert bowed his head under the burden.

“And I also,” said Manfred more softly. “I also am unable to save, even with all my connections. I am also now a useless old man, do you not see?”

Herbert saw the eyes of the Romany king regarding his steadily. Within the dark wild pupils he saw terror and sadness. “How can we live with this knowledge?” Herbert murmured sadly. The Gypsy was silent, contained in his own grief.

To Anna now, Herbert said softly, “How can we live with this knowledge?” She pressed her benefactor’s hand. “Tell me, my dearest Countess, how can we support such sadness?”

“I do not want to add to your burden of grief.”

Herbert raised Anna’s hand to his lips. “My dearest Countess, it was always you I loved,” he whispered to her. “Forgive me! It was always you. I should have married you; I always loved you.”

“Don’t say such things,” Anna soothed. From the darkly circled eyes, from their furrows, arose the slight faint odor of brimstone. The after-scent of ashes. “We have suffered enough.”

“Yes, it is true, it was always you whom I loved.” Herbert sighed. The two old friends regarded each other. Was this true? “You are the only one I could ever write to,” said Herbert. “The only one who was interested in Esperanto.”

“It is true,” whispered Anna, and she laughed.

Herbert, too, began to smile. “Is this not true?”

“Yes.” The Rat nodded.

“That cursed Esperanto,” said Herbert. “It never did a goddamn thing.” His smile broadened. “And worst of all, it never got me the girl.”

“Of course it got you the girl,” whispered the little Rat. “I am here now, aren’t I?”

“Yes, but not for long.” Herbert sighed.

“But here I am just the same.”

“It is Felix who has the fingers,” Herbert burst out suddenly. Now, gathering himself together, he leaned forward across the table, grasping her two hands in his. “I know you have seen him. Has he told you anything?”

“Felix?” Anna asked, brought sharply out of her gentle, foggy, romantic moment.

“Yes, the Tolstoi Quartet. Their fingers. I am sure of it now,” Herbert said, his eyes focusing away from his own concerns to the job at hand.

“But…” Anna was confused. She would have much preferred to continue on, the two of them, in their nostalgic daze, the love not shared, the romance not expressed, and so forth.

“David told me. And I see now that he is right. Has to be right. There is only one person in New York. As far as we know…” Herbert paused, looking thoughtful.

“Felix?” repeated Anna stupidly.

“Yes. Now I see. We want you to help us.”

“You can ask anything of me. You saved my life. Ask anything, my cousin. It is yours. What is it you want me to do?” The queen, protecting the king.

T
he Rat hurried onto the street and darted into a taxi. Soon she stood once again outside Felix’s heavy oak door, her head bent, spine curved, as always. Her little heart was beating quickly.

It was early in the afternoon. Not the appointed day. But she knew it was his Wednesday afternoon off, that sacred afternoon Felix reserved for himself and for his research. An immediate resolution brought her here a few days after her talk with Herbert. She was ready: the Rat knew what she must do. She hoped Felix would be ready, too.

Back at the apartment, nothing had been prepared. She would have liked to have left a moment or two for the children, but that didn’t matter now. She would have liked to have spoken some final words to Ilse. Too late. She must seize the opportunity that had presented itself, and act quickly. What was most important: her words with Herbert. “I love you,” uttered in Esperanto. The most important words in any language. “Farewell. It has always been you I loved best.”

Crashing music thundered against the big door and penetrated, through its cracks, the entire building. The Rat pressed her hand on the bell and rang again, firmly.

But there was no answer. Within, the music swelled, like a river of hot lava, throbbing through her concave chest as well. It was Wednesday afternoon, a respite from the time when Felix saw his little patients. His time, his own private time to do as he wished. Felix did not emerge.

“Yes, it is Strauss,” thought Anna, listening. “The naughty one.” The music, demonic in its energy, beat against the door, desperate to be let out. “I never liked the Strausses. Neither one of them.”

The Rat preferred the throbbing passion of Brahms. Her hands, trembling under the weight of so much sound, nervously smoothed the front of her coat. She patted her hair and then, once again with all her force, leaned into the doorbell.

“Aha!” The door swung open suddenly, to present a surprised Felix. The music rushed out in a great draft and hit the Rat with full force. She recoiled but stood her ground. “Aha!” cried Felix again.

Felix was wearing a frilly apron, and on his head sat a conical birthday party hat, held in place by an elastic under his chin. Beside him, the silent but enthusiastic Schatzie waddled, wriggling her wrinkled hindquarters and tail. Schatzie, too, was wearing a hat—a birthday hat—also fastened with elastic under her immense jowls. Both dog and master looked surprisingly alike.

“My dear Countess,” said Felix, hesitating at the door. He had not expected any visitors. When he saw it was her, hope rose in his chest. But he had no right to hope, did he? He stepped aside to allow Anna to enter. “Please, I beg you. Won’t you come in? To what do I owe…” He cast a hasty glance backward toward his laboratory.

Anna held out her hands, clasping the doctor’s between them. “My dear Felix,” she murmured, “I know you do not expect me today. I hope I am not intruding. I have come to tell you something important. I count upon your understanding.” Her voice quavered a little as she said these words.

Felix and Schatzie cocked their heads together and regarded her. They looked surprisingly like twin wizards, with their conical little hats. Above the crashing of the music, Felix said, “Schatzie and I, we were just having a little celebration, just the two of us. Weren’t we, Schatzie?” The dog wagged its body in response. Felix made an apologetic gesture, as if to begin to remove the hat.

“No,” said Anna. “I don’t want to disturb…” But she allowed Felix to take her coat. She entered. The faint smell of sulfur rose from her body, now in contact with the warmth of Felix’s rooms. With a faint swoon of warmth and delight, he caught the dusty, deliciously nose-wrinkling odor that rose from her skirts. But the Rat seemed unaware of all this, her spine bent, hands primly folded, her eyes on the floor. She willed her twitching thighs to be still.

“Come in, my dear Countess.” Felix said a bit belatedly over the music. He spread his hands. “The music, you see. It is the waltzes I miss. They help me concentrate. Sometimes I play them. When we are alone, just the two of us.”

Anna sighed.

“Do you dance, my dear Countess?”

“I used to. No longer.”

“Ah,” said Felix, wrinkling his brow. Tactfully, he went across the room and lifted the needle from the phonograph. The protesting silence screeched just once, loudly, and then
Don Quixote
fell on the floor between them, shattering into broken shards. Felix smiled as if he had willed it. The subservient silence awaited their words. “This is better,
nein
?” he said. “Now we can have our little talk.”

“Tell me,” he said when he had settled Anna, now with a cup of tea. “What is it that I can do for you?” Felix sensed the Rat’s distress.

Gratefully, she raised her head, her eyes brimming, the whiskers at the corner of her mouth trembling. Her little nose twitched, and she sighed as she looked at him. She said imploringly, “My dear Doktor, it is only to you that I have come. You were so kind to me last week. And I felt…I felt…” Something was guiding her speech. She looked at him with her most melting smile. She wanted to tell him that time was running out. “I could not stop thinking about you,” she said instead. And with that, in a most helpless wave of her little paws, she gestured toward her lap, now overspread with skirt and petticoat. “You have seen?” she asked.

“Yes.” Felix nodded. “I know now.”

“And can you…” The Rat did not finish the sentence, but, holding her breath, she looked meltingly into Felix’s eyes.

Felix’s eyes took in her entire body.

“Perhaps you would like to see more, my friend. Would you like to see everything?” she asked.

Felix could hardly breathe. He leaned forward and took one little hand in his. “Yes,” he replied gently. “Yes, I would.” Then, mustering confidence, he jumped to his feet, the birthday hat still on his head. Schatzie, as if in alarm, also stood up heavily. “First of all,” said the doctor, assuming heartiness, “perhaps you would like to visit my laboratory.”

The Rat, still in the throes of mustering her courage, did not seem to hear. Felix held out his hand to her. “Come, my Countess,” he said. Trembling, Anna allowed herself to be drawn to her feet.

Within her bowed breast, conflicting emotions struggled. “Felix,” she thought. “So it has been Felix all along.” The laboratory: so it was true. Everything she had heard. “For you, my old friend,” she thought. Then, as she willed her thought waves to be transmitted, she quickly translated her thoughts into Esperanto and sent them through the clear, bright, winging air to Herbert: “It is true. It is Felix.” Did Herbert hear? He didn’t need to. “Pay attention,” Anna told herself sharply. But to Felix, she allowed only the misted, vague emotion of her lovely eyes and little twitching nose. Her iron will she would conceal; she focused on getting her way.

“Then,” she forced herself to say gaily, “perhaps you will show me your ‘everything’ first.”

“Schatzie, come!” cried Felix. “We show our friend the laboratory,
nein
?” Schatzie didn’t want to follow, however. The minute the Rat and Felix left the room, she climbed laboriously back onto Felix’s couch behind the screen and, sighing softly, curling her tail end toward her mouth, lay down, looked after them indulgently—play, my children, play—and closed her eyes. “Schatzie!”

“Oh, leave me alone,” thought Schatzie. “Isn’t it enough that I wear this ridiculous hat?” The elastic was bothering her, and she scratched herself. The hat lay at an angle, and Schatzie’s breath came in even snores as she sank more deeply into the faded brown velour of the cushions.

“This is my laboratory,” Felix said as he guided Anna into the small closet-like space. He had his hand on her shoulder, and he could almost reach the place where her spine had finally curved, bowing forever her little neck. A sudden urge to touch her hump came over him. But he suppressed it.

“Look,” he said as he opened the curtain that covered the labeled shelves. “Here is the secret of life, my dear Countess. This is where life begins. You,” he said, addressing her, articulating each word slowly and carefully, as if this presentation had been planned, the one he had been preparing for all these years, “you are looking at the very creation of life. Matter into matter.” He stood back, his arm on her shoulder, surveying his life’s work. “And God said, ‘Let there be light.’ ”

Together, they regarded the jars. A strange phosphorescent greenish glow rose from the shelves, and there was a gentle vibrating humming about them. Inside each jar, pale green liquid swirled, dreamily, in a counterclockwise direction. Anna stared, mesmerized.

“It is a time of rest,” explained Felix. “All life must take its rest.” The waters swirled, and an even pitch became discernible to the Rat, one single vibrating note, the note of A, held and reiterated from each jar. A, the tone of the universe. A, the tone that instruments tuned to. A, the alpha, the alpha-bet—the universal A.

“Listen!”

From the closed refrigerator, also, came the sound of A, loud and clear, piercing, as the severed quartet fingers cried out from their concealment. “Aleph. We Are Alive!” All of New York was sounding to the tone of A: the skyscrapers, the trumpets, the solemn shafts of sunlight piercing, as in the inside of a cathedral, the dark streets.

Anna shivered. The kitchen pulsed with eerie light and sound. The sweetish odor of the fluid enveloped her. It was sickish, like ether, or violets, dying ones, mixed with formaldehyde and other meaty odors. Liverwurst.

Inside the jars she could discern small hairy fragments of things, floating, diaphanous, in cloudy fluid.

“Look carefully, my Countess.” Felix’s voice was warning her. It pierced the odor. “Look. Here you will see my miracles.”

Anna leaned forward, her dark eyes straining to read the fragments within. But she could not.

“Look,” urged Felix in a whisper. And he began to point out the specimens within. “Schatzie,” he whispered reverently, indicating the jar. “It’s a piece of her tail.” Slowly, he enumerated his favorite specimens and his plans for them. “Schnitzler. The genius Hombrisch. The famous beauty Frau Knoect. And others. Why should genius and beauty be allowed to leave the world?” He began to explain his theories to the Rat. “I decided to consecrate my life to the continuance of what is great and beautiful,” he explained. “My whole life. But I think I have found the secret now.” Modestly, he pointed out to Anna the jar that held a fragment of his own scrotum. “Man at his best. The culmination of desire. The preservation of the species.

“It is we who have been forced to leave, who are the best that Europe has to offer,” he continued. “We cannot be allowed to die.” He explained how he had studied, waited, and collected. How he had brought nothing with him when he left but his precious specimens and jars. And notes, too, of course. His friendship with Helmut. The chain of suppliers who could be trusted to send him fresh specimens, smuggled every few months. The correspondence. The careful observations and the recording of them. “Just the fact that these cells have survived, are still living, might already be enough. But look, they are growing.” Felix explained how he had found their proper nourishment. “The staple German diet, modified.” How his specimens were thriving. “Someday humanity will thank me,” he said. He paused. “But that will take a while.”

His mood shifted quickly. “Mankind is stupid, don’t you agree, dear lady?” He threw back his head and uttered a few quick sardonic barks, which somewhat approximated laughter as onstage. “Hah. Hah. Mankind is so stupid. Stupid!” he hissed. His fingers tightened on her shoulder and he suddenly crooked his head, peering into her face. “My dear lady, we must save mankind from itself.”

Anna felt faint. She was trying to comprehend, trying to gather this information as quickly as possible, thinking, “I must tell Herbert.” “But this is remarkable,” she said.

“Yes, isn’t it,” replied Felix, satisfied, spreading his hands. He started to take down his notebooks, the painstaking observations, timed and dated, and opened them to show her. “My records. It is so important to keep careful records.” Anna looked, uncomprehending. “You see, it is perhaps a secret now. But one day, people will want to know. It is important to make no mistakes.”

Felix bent toward Anna. She was looking carefully at everything in a kind of trance, hardly breathing, only her nose and the whiskers twitching. In a few minutes, he would have her entirely convinced. In a lavish, generous gesture, he flung open the refrigerator door, and the hum of A increased perceptibly. “Here, my dear Countess. This will explain it all to you. My pride and joy! My most recent acquisitions, and look how well they are doing.”

There was a jagged screech as the severed fingers of the Quartet protested against this invasion of their privacy. But it was momentary, that sound, and they immediately returned to their peaceful circling. “The Tolstoi Quartet,” Felix announced. “But we are going to make of them a new Quartet. A better Quartet. A more tasteful, less offensive Quartet.” He bent down to the jar. “Aren’t we, my boys?” he said. “Eh?”

There was again a momentary spasm of protest, as if a moment of Alban Berg had crossed the peaceful rumination in A. But then the fingers were passive again.

“Bad boys!” Felix said, leaning toward them. “
Schrecklich!
Are you being bad boys for our lady here? You should be ashamed of yourselves! Please, may I remind you of your manners!” The severed joints continued to float languidly. “Bad boys!” he hissed again. Felix shut the refrigerator door. “It will take them a while to get used to it. But they will.” He was confident.

He ushered Anna back into the main room. He felt expansive, happy. “This is the first time I have told anyone about this, dear lady. But I wanted you to know, to see what your old rascal Felix has been up to all these years.”

Anna leaned on his arm, dizzy. “Felix?” she asked anxiously. “Does anyone else know about this?”

“My friend Helmut in Germany. And yes, I have other friends. In high places,” he said significantly. “They have, perhaps, an idea.” Modestly, he added, “Perhaps one day you will even read my name in the papers. They might even establish a special Schweitzer Prize for me. But”—he waved a finger—“it is too soon, my dear lady. For we must have definitive results. But I have hopes.”