The End of Days

1

The week Frau Hoffmann is going to die, the day after her ninetieth birthday, Sister Renate has the early shift.

The week Frau Hoffmann is going to die, the day after her ninetieth birthday, she is sharing a room — just as she’s done for seven months now — with Frau Buschwitz, whose habit it is to scratch and slap anyone who comes within three feet of her. The day Frau Buschwitz moved into Frau Hoffmann’s room, Frau Hoffmann fought her first and only battle with her new roommate, she’d approached Frau Buschwitz intending a friendly greeting, whereupon Frau Buschwitz took a swipe at her, as was her wont, prompting Frau Hoffmann in her surprise to hunt for the nearest object within reach that she might use to defend herself, and what she found was a piece of zwieback lying on the table. She scraped this zwieback right across Frau Buschwitz’s face, whereupon Frau Buschwitz retreated. From then on, Frau Hoffmann has never gone within three feet of her roommate.

This week, too — the week she is going to die, the day after her ninetieth birthday — begins with a Monday, just like every other week, and this Monday, too, begins with breakfast at eight, just like every other day. Breakfast begins, as always, with the attendant on duty pushing her in her wheelchair from her room to the breakfast room, giving Frau Buschwitz a wide berth.

What is a Monday? Frau Hoffmann sits at the long table, as always, between Frau Schröder and Frau Millner, who are still able to sit in chairs. Between the chairs of Frau Schröder and Frau Millner, a place, as always, has been left empty for her wheelchair. Frau Hoffmann’s red hair is now gray as well, such that a person who knew her before would have a hard time picking her out from among all the many nodding, tilted, dozing, or bent gray- and white-haired heads. When Frau Hoffmann speaks at breakfast, it disturbs no one here, for the ears of all these ladies and gentlemen are really quite old. And if jam falls on her blouse, it disturbs no one, for the eyes of all these ladies and gentlemen are old as well. After a few bites she pushes her breakfast plate away and refuses to eat anything more.

Thousands have been invited here for this meal, from many different levels. But this I cannot eat.

Sister Renate, who is pouring tea, says:

But Frau Hoffmann, there really aren’t thousands of us here.

Yes — thousands! And I don’t know why these people have assembled here, I cannot determine the cause, the purpose of this meeting — but it must have a purpose!

Frau Hoffmann, please eat your breakfast.

It’s so paltry! There ought to be more selection. Why are all these thousands eating this mess that is served here?

Fresh rolls straight from the bakery, Frau Hoffmann.

There’ll have to be a discussion of this some time, this food and the purpose of everyone having only this paltry mess to eat — but I haven’t yet been able to speak with anyone about this.

But, but, Frau Hoffmann.

I can’t eat it. First I must determine what sort of development — developments of all different sorts! — these individuals have gone through, what motivates them, what might win them over, and what not.

*

Between 8:30 and 9:30, after the breakfast has been cleared away, it isn’t worth having yourself wheeled back into your room. You sit where you are. At 9:30 everyone in wheelchairs goes to the exercise room, where the fingers, hands, feet and heads of those who can no longer get up, or at least not on their own, are worked over, and at 11:00 it’s back to the day room. From 11:00 until 11:30 everyone sits there. The TV is on. On the wall is a large clock. Some are asleep in their wheelchairs, wrapped up in blankets.

She would like to read. If she held the book close to her eyes, she would even be able to decipher the letters, but her arms and hands aren’t strong enough to hold the book.

Frau Zeisig was an excellent skier.

Down we go! I so wish I could go whizzing down the slope just once more, but it’s not possible.

Herr Behrendt was a pastor.

I so wish I could write something down sometimes, but my head won’t cooperate.

Frau Braun walked all the way from Heydekrug on the Memel to Berlin after the war, with three children.

No one can quite imagine what that means anymore.

And all of them survived.

All three of them proper, lovely children.

From the kitchen, the clinking of plates can be heard.

My oldest recently celebrated his own golden anniversary.

It smells of stew. The staff sets the table. The day room is full of desires. At 11:30 lunch is served.

Frau Hoffmann says to Frau Millner, who is hard of hearing:

We have to organize our group. A few of them will show up early, others late — we have to coordinate all of that and then await orders from leadership.

Frau Millner doesn’t look at Frau Hoffmann, she is trying to spear the little shreds of chicken in her fricassee on her fork.

We cannot under any circumstances take action until the orders have reached us.

Frau Millner nods, but not because she agrees with Frau Hoffmann; she nods because the fricassee tastes good.

I’ve been waiting for my husband, Frau Hoffmann says. I always stood there on the corner, waiting. I’ve spent my whole life standing on the corner, waiting.

Frau Hoffmann, Sister Renate says in passing, you’ve got to eat something, too.

If I start eating, Frau Hoffmann says, it’ll make me feel awful.

But, but, says Sister Renate.

I can’t.

Just one spoonful at least, Frau Hoffmann.

It would be good if I could eat something, that would make life more stable somehow.

Precisely, Frau Hoffmann.

But I can’t.

After lunch she tries pushing the wheels of her wheelchair herself to return to her room, but she doesn’t get anywhere because she doesn’t have the strength in her hands.

Oh, Frau Hoffmann, let me give you a hand, Sister Renate says, helping her.

On the way to her room, Frau Hoffmann looks down the corridor and at its end she sees the young attendant coming out of one of the many doors, she calls: Hey there, hey! And lifts one hand to wave, but he appears to be in a hurry or perhaps he didn’t hear her shout, already he’s vanished behind one of the many other doors.

He doesn’t have time for you right now, Frau Hoffmann, maybe later.

Frau Hoffmann nods. We’ve got to be a little bit patient, don’t we?

Precisely, Frau Hoffmann.

For our struggle.

Of course.

But that’s not such an easy thing to do.

No, you’re certainly right.

The nurse pushes the wheelchair into the room, giving a wide berth to the bed of Frau Buschwitz, who has lain down for an after-lunch nap.

Next to the window, Frau Hoffmann?

Yes, please.

When the nurse has locked the wheels and is about to leave, Frau Hoffmann grabs her by the sleeve:

What should I do now?

That’s not something I can tell you, Frau Hoffmann, the nurse says and brushes the elderly hand from her sleeve — the hand is cold — lays Frau Hoffmann’s cold hand back in her lap and leaves. The doors in this place shut so softly, Frau Hoffmann doesn’t hear that the nurse is already gone.

Why and what? she inquires of the early afternoon silence, but receives no answer.

Her body is a city. Her heart is a large shady square, her fingers pedestrians, her hair the light of streetlamps, her knees two rows of buildings. She tries to give people footpaths. She tries to open up her cheeks and her towers. She didn’t know streets hurt so much, nor that there were so many streets in her to begin with. She wants to take her body on a stroll, out of her body, but she doesn’t know where the key is. I’m afraid of losing my head. Afraid someone might take the key of my head away from me.

At 3 p.m. there’s coffee along with a little bowl of ice cream. Frau Buschwitz had someone wheel her out of the room, but Frau Hoffmann stays where she is, drinking the coffee and stirring the ice cream around until it melts, then she slurps it up spoonful by spoonful. There’s a knock at the door. It’s Herr Zabel from Residential Area III, who sometimes stops by for a visit when he can’t find his wife, she died twelve years ago.

Frau Hoffmann, do you happen to know where my wife is?

What does she look like?

She has curly brown hair down to her shoulders and likes to laugh.

No, she hasn’t been here, but if she shows up, I’ll tell her you’re looking for her.

That’s very kind of you, Frau Hoffmann.

Herr Zabel has forgotten many times now that his wife is dead, and so again and again the horrific news of her death comes crashing down on him with all its weight whenever someone who hasn’t been paying attention replies:

Your wife? But she’s been dead for years!

He’s had to mourn his wife’s loss all over again many times now, but Frau Hoffmann — and for this she has his eternal gratitude — always promises to let him know if his wife passes by. Herr Zabel also enjoys sitting down to chat with Frau Hoffmann for a little while. She is courteous, and he can speak with her about anything that troubles him. He might say, for example:

I am slowly but sickly beginning to be an animal.

And Frau Hoffmann says:

I’m afraid of gradually becoming transparent in both directions.

And Herr Zabel says:

The sick are beginning to abandon their honor.

And Frau Hoffmann says:

It is so difficult to bear all of this.

And Herr Zabel:

Why don’t we try biting open our illnesses?

This reminds Frau Hoffmann of a verse from her childhood:

God our Father whom we love, you gave us teeth, now give us food.

And Herr Zabel adds:

God our Father whom we love, if we’re all one, make us all good.

Strange, isn’t it, Frau Hoffmann says, the way one word can find its way through the thicket of all the words.

Yes, it certainly is strange, Herr Zabel says, and he remains silent for a while.

At some point he gets up, makes a little bow in Frau Hoffmann’s direction and goes back to his room in Residential Area III; after all, his wife might be on her way there herself by now.

At 5:30, all those who are able to walk or can be pushed in wheelchairs are summoned to the dining room. At six, dinner is served. Frau Hoffmann still uses the Viennese word Nachtmahl or “night meal,” even though it’s been a lifetime since she lived there. The space for her wheelchair is between Frau Schröder and Frau Millner.

What a fuss people make about eating, Frau Hoffmann says to Sister Katrin, who is cutting an open-face sandwich into little squares for her.

People go out for fine dining, she says with a little bleat of laughter.

It’s nice to go out, Sister Katrin says, candlelight dinners, don’t you agree, Frau Hoffmann?

And really you’re only eating so you won’t die.

Goodness, Frau Hoffmann. Bon appétit!

Without eating, you die, that’s all there is to it, Frau Hoffmann says.

But Sister Katrin isn’t listening any longer, she’s moved on to one of the other tables, where she’s busy tying a bib around a woman’s neck.

It’s just because you have to eat that people make such a fuss about it, Frau Hoffmann says.

But neither Frau Schröder nor Frau Millner can hear what her neighbor is saying.

It’s just to keep people from getting bored, she says.

*

Then the evening comes.

Frau Buschwitz has put on her headphones and begun to listen to the radio. Sister Katrin helped Frau Hoffmann change into her nightgown and held the drinking glass for her while she sat on the edge of her bed and swallowed her pills. Then Sister Katrin left.

Frau Hoffman can see quite clearly that someone has meanwhile taken a seat in her armchair next to the window. And although it’s been a long time since she last saw her, she recognizes this visitor at once. Against the yellow evening sky she looks like a silhouette.

I find myself in a transitional stage, Frau Hoffmann says.

Her mother is silent.

And I don’t know what to do, Frau Hoffmann says.

Her mother is silent.

The question is whether I’ll be able to hold out against him. He’s very powerful, and he’s very cruel to me. I’d have asked for a bit more kindness. But he doesn’t know anything about kindness. He’s rough with me, and cruel.

Her mother is silent.

It’s going to be a goddamn fight. I’m not the one attacking. It’s him attacking me — him or her. He or she is attacking me, from all sides. But I don’t want — I still have so many, so many possibilities. There are many things I don’t remember, but still something.

Oh, meydele, her mother says all at once, and her voice doesn’t really sound old.

I would like to take steps against this gentleman, or this lady, don’t you know, Frau Hoffmann says. Before now, there was no one — no one! — who would have dared to fight me.

Not even me, her mother says and smiles.

Not even you, Frau Hoffmann says.

At the beginning of the week when she is going to die, the day after her ninetieth birthday, Frau Hoffman smiles together with her mother for the first time in her life.

There’s one thing you should know, child, her mother says. You can actually put a scare into him with a handful of snow.

Really? Frau Hoffmann says, relieved.

Then she remembers it’s May.

2

Oh come, dear May, and let

The trees all bud again.

And let us to the brook

To see violets blow again.

How dearly I am longing

To see their tiny blooms

O May, how I am longing

To stroll about again.

They were five years old, or six, or seven when they learned this song. Now they sit here singing it with voices that have grown old, locked up in old age as if in a prison, they’re still the same ones who were once five, six, and seven, but they’re also irredeemably removed from this age, perhaps they won’t even live to see the end of the month they’re singing about, perhaps by the time the gardener is raking the autumn leaves of the trees that are just now starting to bud, they’ll be lying in the ground. On Tuesday from ten to eleven, they have singing group. That’s all there is on Tuesday, there’s no Herr Zabel stopping by in the afternoon, and her son doesn’t come either, he said he’ll pick her up on Saturday and take her on an outing. What is a Tuesday? For lunch, poached eggs, and a piece of cake with whipped cream is served with the coffee, outside it begins to drizzle and keeps on into the evening. At some point Frau Hoffmann asks Sister Katrin to open the window and stays there drawing in the damp, warm air in deep breaths, it smells of leaves, just like the night she slept out in the open beside the Danube with her girlfriend. Frau Buschwitz goes to sleep with her headphones on, as she does so often.

We set out to, we’ll take care of everything.

And then it all became so shabby.

We tried to take care of everything, but we went about it wrong.

If Frau Hoffmann died tonight, these would be her last words, but there wouldn’t be anyone there to hear them.

On Wednesday Frau Millner says to Sister Renate at breakfast that she always eats two slices of toast. I know, Sister Renate says, loud enough for even Frau Millner, who is hard of hearing, to hear. Frau Millner says: One with jam and one with honey. I know, says Sister Renate. Her husband, though, only used to eat one. Well, if he wasn’t hungrier than that, Sister Renate says. Yes, but that was a mistake, Frau Millner says, otherwise he might still be alive today. Eating keeps body and soul together, Sister Renate says. Exactly, Frau Millner says.

What is a Wednesday?

Beside Frau Millner, Frau Hoffman sits with her eyes shut, counting the seconds, because she knows that the executions start at eight o’clock. Every minute a group of ten prisoners is shot. She silently counts to ten, nodding along with the numbers, and then waits for the next minute to begin. She doesn’t have to look at the clock to know when a minute is over. Finally she has grown old enough to be able to move freely in time.

One. Two. Three.

Frau Schmidt: The Russians blew up Strassmannstrasse 2 because we didn’t clear away the tank barricades quickly enough. We couldn’t move any faster, we were at the end of our strength.

Four. Five. Six.

Frau Podbielski: Sometimes I would mix the insides of plum pits into the dough for the honey cake, did you know you can crack open the pits of plums just like nuts?

Seven. Eight. Nine.

Frau Giesecke: When it was subbotnik, my children always helped gather the pieces of balled-up paper from the bushes.

The day room is full of stories not being told.

Ten.

Even during the week when Frau Hoffmann is going to die, the day after her ninetieth birthday, time is a porridge made of time, it’s rubbery, refuses to pass, has to be killed, spent, served, and still keeps dragging on. What is a Thursday, a Friday? Sometimes in the afternoon this person comes by, this one or that one, and sits, and holds her hand — why? — takes her by the bony shoulder and says: Keep your chin up! Or did no one come at all? The days when someone comes and the days when she just sits there all collapse into a single day, time is a porridge made of time. Who are you? All that remains of life now is what’s left at the very bottom when all the other reserves have been used up: Then the iron reserves make their appearance.

Knit one, purl one, the instructor is helping her.

I’m such an awful sheep.

But you’re doing very well, Frau Hoffmann.

I never understood how it works.

Stick the needle in here and then pull the yarn through.

Oh, I see.

Bravo, Frau Hoffmann.

You know, it’s not that I’m a — what’s the word — a daydreamer. It’s not that. It’s something else: fear.

The iron reserves, fear.

Fear of doing something wrong again.

Fear of the day, fear of the night, fear of the storm and strangers coming to visit, fear of the poison in her food and the nurse who acts friendly but in truth is out to steal her gold bracelet, fear of where the wheelchair she’s sitting in is being pushed, and by whom? Fear of the doctor and of the pain, fear of her son who brought her here, fear of life and fear of death, fear of all the time she still has to live through.

But Frau Hoffmann, there’s nothing to be afraid of.

I have such a great fear of doing something wrong that I always do something wrong.

But look, you’ve already knitted an entire row perfectly, Frau Hoffmann.

No, no, something is always wrong. I know that, there’s no changing it.

Here, now you turn the whole thing over and start again from the beginning.

Is this the right way?

As right as right can be.

It’ll hold together?

Of course, why shouldn’t it?

Approximately eighty years ago, an arts and crafts teacher in Vienna declared the work of one of her pupils sloppy and shoddy. Is it possible that this pupil was given so long a life for the sole purpose of having the sentence uttered by that loathsome Viennese woman finally canceled out, buried by a new sentence uttered by a new teacher? Has she been in the world all these many years just so these two sentences — to give just one example — can confront each other within her, and the good one defeat the bad? Might everything that’s ever been said and that will be said everywhere in the world constitute a living whole, growing sometimes in one direction, sometimes in another, always balancing out in the end? So was this the end?

Knit one, purl one.

I see.

Now turn it over and start again from the beginning.

That’s all there is to it?

That’s all there is to it.

3

A man sits in Vienna at the Café Museum over a glass of mineral water, trying to think what he might bring back for his mother to give her pleasure, his mother who was a child in Vienna. Should he buy her a little bronze St. Stephen’s Cathedral, or a real Sacher torte from Hotel Sacher, or just bring her a twig from a tree on Arenbergplatz, not far from the apartment where she used to live? He can’t imagine that his mother was once a child. A year and a half ago, when he came to bring her to the Home and found her already waiting for him in her hat and coat on a chair in the vestibule, she introduced herself to him as a major in the Imperial and Royal army, ready to march off into battle. Beside her stood a small, dark-blue suitcase, and in her lap she held the little box with the gold buttons. He knew the box well, he’d used these buttons in Ufa to buy two or sometimes even three kilograms of air from his niania; he’d polished them when he was bored waiting for his mother, often staring at the double-headed eagle. Here in Vienna this eagle spread its wings not only atop the Hofburg, it was everywhere in the city, glancing at the same time to the right and the left: on cast-iron railings, on fountains, above the entryways to buildings, and even on the shop sign of the Trafik where he’d just bought himself a pack of cigarettes — and this although the Kaiser had been dead for three-quarters of a century now. Everywhere here this eagle was still spreading its wings above its two heads, as if to hold them together.

Did time in Vienna really pass so slowly?

Or not at all?

In the Eastern part of Germany, a state had been founded and had remained a state for forty years, had been a quotidian reality for forty years, with new buildings springing up, schoolchildren, the victory of Socialism, please wait to be seated, Heroes of Labor, 10-pfennig streetcar tickets, I’ll petition the authorities, run down to the Konsum and get yourself an ice cream, Karl-Marx-Allee at the corner of Andreasstrasse, the gathering place for May 1, picking cherries in Werder, Ernst Busch singing of the Peasant’s War, the lift is stuck again, Socialist sister countries, dear Comrades — and at some point, after an entire lifetime of life, everyday reality and state had broken apart, had disappeared, been stamped into the ground, wiped off the map, crumbled, been swept aside by the People — but in Vienna, it seemed to him, everything that had always been there had simply endured. Bombs falling on Vienna at the end of the war, as his mother always insisted — this is something he cannot for the life of him imagine, since all the buildings he’s seen here are so vast, so unscathed.

Although he’s traveled to Frankfurt am Main many times since the opening of the border, and also to London, Trieste, and once even to New York with his wife and children to see the Statue of Liberty, the man still privately thinks of Vienna as “the West.” Like it or not, the scent of coffee at Café Museum reminds him of the packages his first girlfriend used to receive from her relatives in the Federal Republic; he can’t stop calling the current era Age of the Winners, and again and again finds himself marveling at how so-called modernity appears to derive its superiority solely from the fact that it’s been around for a good hundred and fifty years now. Like it or not, when he looks at the people here, he sees they are used to driving fast cars, that they know what a tax return is, and have no cause to hesitate before ordering a glass of prosecco with their breakfast. Just the way they let the door slam behind them when they walk in shows him how sure they are of being in the right world everywhere in the world. Now he too is sitting in this right world, he even has the right money in his wallet, although he’s drinking water to conserve his “West money.” No dogs allowed. The signs with the images of the dogs prohibited from entering butcher shops, restaurants and swimming pools existed in East Germany as well, and probably they existed everywhere in the world. The border that used to separate him from the West has long since fallen — but now it seems to have slipped inside him, separating the person he used to be from the one he’s supposed to be now, or allowed to be. I don’t know how you recognize a human being, his mother said to him last time he visited. He doesn’t want prosecco with his breakfast, like it or not. And he couldn’t care less if the others can tell by his way of looking around, by his hair and cheeks, that he comes from the land that has finally, rightly so, thank God, high time now, been wiped off the face of the earth, the land of — what madness — publicly owned enterprises, red carnations for your lapel on May 1, rigged elections, old men wearing berets left over from the Spanish Civil War, and dialectics taught at school. A Man — how proud that sounds. Getting off the night train at six in the morning, he saw people sleeping on pieces of cardboard in the station. In what world had he spent the last forty years? What happened to that world? Will he have the heart of a dog now for the rest of his life?

Later he leaves the café in his own company, meaning to stroll for a little while before his appointment that isn’t until the afternoon, they’re selling horse meat at the Naschmarkt, herbs, apples, and flowers; he promenades across the square then strolls across to the Rechte Wienzeile; it’s still too early in the day for the porn cinema there, he has no desire to desire anything, blindly he strolls down a side street, makes a right turn without a plan, and onward: streetcar tracks, the entryways of the buildings giving off a smell of quicklime and dust as though it were summer already, he passes grimy shop windows, walking ever farther down this street. He’s happy not to have to go look at anything a foreigner in Vienna is supposed to see, he likes walking like this through everyday reality. In a spot where a very long time ago an angel kept watch over a building’s front entrance, the low building no longer stands, instead there’s a modern five-story hotel. Indeed, the building where his great-grandmother once lived fell victim to one of the few bombs dropped in the final days of the war, in March 1945, but by then his great-grandmother had already been dead for more than four years, her apartment had been emptied out and passed on to others. But he knows neither who his great-grandmother was, nor where she lived, he steps to one side when the revolving door deposits a group of tourists onto the sidewalk. As far as this descendent of a Viennese resident is concerned, Vienna has been washed clean of stories, it took less than a human lifetime for the city to lose all connection to him. Less than a human lifetime for homeland and origins to diverge. He is free, doubly free; he carries around within him a vast dark land: all the stories his mother never told him or that she hid from him; perhaps he carries with him even those stories his mother never knew or heard of, he can’t get rid of them, but he can’t lose them either, since he doesn’t even know them, since all of this lies buried deep within him; for when he slipped from his mother’s womb, he was already filled with interior spaces that didn’t belong to him, and he can’t just look inside to inspect his own interior. His father once spent three weeks in Berlin almost forty years ago, but he didn’t know about it, how could he have? His father later spent an eternity living in Vorkuta, and twelve years ago he died there, but the son knows neither of these things. The son can make his home anywhere in the world, in Berlin for example. If he knew what questions to ask, knew what, where, and to whom, then an official of the Jewish Community of Vienna would surely be able to dig up one or the other list and inform him that his great-grandmother was brought to Opole in the district of Lublin with the first transport of February ’41, that his grandmother moved six times within Vienna and then was sent via Minsk to Maly Trostenets in July ’42, and that his aunt spent many months hiding in a friend’s apartment and then was sent in ’44 to Auschwitz. But given what he knows, he finds Vienna just as dusty as any other metropolis. Kettenbrückengasse, Mariahilfer Strasse, Siebensterngasse, Mondscheingasse. There on the otherer side, as his mother would say, is a second-hand shop; who knows, maybe he’ll find something here that he can bring her.

The miniature grandfather clock, standing on a shelf beside the entryway, is just striking ten with tinny strokes, although he knows it has to be at least 11:30 by now. All around he sees tables and cabinets, chairs with woven seats, stools and ottomans, glass cases with jewelry tangled in old silverware; lamps dangle from the ceiling, and the walls are hung with oil paintings, mirrors, barometers, crucifixes, and trays that once held movable type; shelves bear candelabras, plates, books, and glasses, and under the tables are wooden buckets and baskets filled with linens. Everything is squeezed in tightly together, each object casting its shadow on the next, so that, even on this bright May day, the room lies in its own twilight. At first the man cannot make out a seller, and no one speaks to him in greeting; only after his eyes have become accustomed to the low light does he see a man sitting in an armchair off in the back, immersed in a book.

What might please his mother? His mother who didn’t want to take anything when she moved to the rest home but the yellow wall hanging with its Uzbek sun, the small dark-blue suitcase, whose contents are unknown to him, and the little box with the gold buttons. He wouldn’t mind acquiring this set of Goethe’s writings for his own use — the final authorized edition, surprisingly complete with all its volumes — that no doubt costs less here than at an antiquarian bookshop. At random he pulls out Volume 9, the spine of which is a bit scraped, and leafs through it; he reads “Farewell,” then puts the book back in its place. How can he carry an entire Goethe edition on the train to Berlin? A brooch set with amethysts might be nice, or a silver spoon with the Vienna city arms, but he doesn’t feel like asking the shopkeeper to open the glass case. Finally he sees a miniature double portrait leaning up against a Meissen soup tureen, a double portrait of Prussian Kaiser Wilhelm II and Kaiser Franz Joseph as allies, In Steadfast Loyalty is written on the picture, and since his Viennese mother has wound up in Prussia, he thinks it might work, the piece’s political context now lying far in the past; he takes the picture from the shelf, approaches the man and asks: Excuse me, how much?

4

The owner of the Goethe edition and the clock is already nearly eighty when she has to leave everything behind, and in February ’41, leaning on her cousin’s arm, she begins her journey to the Jewish Home for the Aged on Malzgasse, which, for the sake of convenience, has been designated the first collection point for deportations to the East. The clock strikes eleven, the clock strikes twelve, Morning wind wings about the shady bay, then her cousin returns to the empty apartment. He sits for a while at the table, where a moment ago he shared a last cup of tea with the old woman. Es vert mir finster in di oygn, everything’s going black before my eyes. Then the clock strikes one. The old woman was forced to turn in her seven-armed candelabra the year before, for the metal collection. It’s surely long since been melted down. But the Goethe edition at least: the man now packs it up, grabbing three or four volumes at a time, in the very suitcase in which he transported it twenty years before on his cart. He removes the pendulum from the clock, wrapping the clock in a pillowcase and tying it up to make a package that he can put in a coal sack and hang over his shoulder. With suitcase and sack he leaves the apartment, which has grown completely cold, a thin sheet of ice has already formed on top of the water in the bucket. If he hadn’t slipped the clock’s pendulum into the breast pocket of his jacket, he’d think he was still hearing the clock ticking right through the sack and the soft fabric, as though he were hearing it through snow, he could swear the clock’s hands were still moving behind his back. After all, before the old lady started on her journey to Malzgasse, she had wound the clock one last time, just as she had done every morning for the last fifty years. With the stopped clock on his back, the old woman’s cousin walks through the February cold, the pendulum peeking out of his breast pocket with its delicate little hook, and the key to wind it is in his trouser pocket, where it is slowly growing warm. The cousin walks to the neighborhood around Arenbergplatz, rings a doorbell, speaks with someone, nods, then takes the streetcar to Mariahilfer Strasse 117, rings the bell, speaks, nods, then heads to Linzer Strasse 439, rings, speaks; Haidgasse 4, and finally he finds himself standing on Dampfschiffstrasse 10/6 in District II before a door, he rings the bell, speaks, and here he is finally relieved of his burden that has now become an inheritance, a reminder to the woman answering of something she doesn’t want to be reminded of, objects speak without speaking, and the woman now knows something she didn’t want to know: that there is a moment when it is forever too late. Last of all, the now-warm key from the cousin’s trouser pocket — oh, right — and the pendulum. The woman takes the key, pendulum, suitcase, and the coal sack, and carries them to a room belonging to her only in part, strangers are sitting there on beds, strange children playing under the table, strangers quarreling, and here — as if all these things had nothing to do with her — she takes the packet out of the sack, unwraps it, places the clock on the table, hooks the pendulum in its place, and already the clockwork begins ticking again, her mother’s life is still there in the tightly wound spring; she shoos a few children away, sits down in front of the clock, and watches as time — which is now forever too late — passes. Time is like a briar that has gotten caught in wool, you tear it out with all your strength and throw it over your shoulder. Minutes pass that no longer matter, cleanly divided by the minute hand one from the next.

Yet again, the suitcase and coal sack with the clock wrapped in its pillowcase are transported by the woman through the streets of Vienna, for a new official directive has ordered her to move from Dampfschiffstrasse to Obere Donaustrasse, and three months later from Obere Donaustrasse to Hammer-Purgstall-Gasse 3/12. Although the woman finds these moves quite burdensome, she nonetheless lugs the Complete Works of Goethe along with her, as well as the clock, these last two remaining possessions of her mother, who has long since been deported. And when she arrives at one or the other location, she unwraps the clock, winds it, then lays the key beside it, just as her mother always used to. Perhaps there’s secretly something magical about these inherited belongings, just like in the fairy tale, where, in time of need, a comb thrown over your shoulder can grow into a forest.

But no forest has grown as of August 13, 1942, when she boards the train at the Aspang Station in Vienna that will take her to Minsk. Forcing the doors, clearing out the shared apartment that served as a transit station for Jews at Hammer-Purgstall-Gasse 3/12, and making an inventory takes the Gestapo’s Division for the Processing of Jewish Personal Effects two and a half days. The clock has meanwhile come to a stop. The key for winding it lies, as always, beside it. Chaim Safir sticks the key through the little oval opening, through which you can see the pendulum, and into the clock case, then he puts the clock in a laundry basket, in which a stack of plates, a vase made of porcelain, several glasses and a crystal carafe are already awaiting deportation. To keep things from breaking, Chaim Safir stuffs some items of clothing between them, then he picks up the basket, carries it downstairs, and says to Herr Gschwandtner: All that’s left now is the furniture. Herr Gschwandtner follows him to do a check, looking around the room, he opens the cabinet doors, looks under the beds, pushes a little footstool aside, deftly pulling the suitcase out from behind it, saying: It’s probably full of jewels, you idiot. Chaim Safir says: I’m sorry, I overlooked the suitcase. Herr Gschwandtner says, The thing weighs a ton. At first the lid refuses to open, but then it does, such a mazl, Herr Gschwandtner says to Chaim Safir, nothing but books, just look what’s on the back of them: nothing but Goethe; he slams the suitcase shut again. To be or not to be, he says, grinning, as he gets to his feet. Chaim Safir nods without meeting Herr Gschwandtner’s eyes. Herr Gschwandtner pokes at the suitcase with his shoe-tip and says: This one goes downstairs too.

Suitcase and clock spend the weekend in the depot along with all the other items. On Monday morning the assessor comes and sorts the new arrivals according to value: the basket with the clock, carafe, and dishes is sent to Krummbaumgasse, ground floor, for private sale; since the suitcase looks so shabby, he doesn’t even open it before saying: That too. On the ground floor of Krummbaumgasse, shabby suitcases like this one — packed and then abandoned — sell for 2 reichsmark a piece (a pig in a poke, you take your chances, part and parcel, lock, stock, and barrel, blind man’s bluff, who doesn’t like a surprise), each is sold along with its contents, but opening the lid beforehand is not allowed. The newspaper prints a notice announcing the arrival of a new assortment of furniture and accessories for sale; a young wartime bride applies for an invitation to view the goods, enclosing her pay slip, she’s certainly poor enough and has a husband on the Eastern front, making ends meet isn’t easy for her. If she receives an invitation, she’ll be allowed to bring two friends or relatives when she comes, and she does receive one, so she brings her mother and a girlfriend — oh just look at that, isn’t that adorable, and really it’s not expensive. A vase, a carafe made of crystal, a set of sheets, or a plate. Just look at the clock, you can see its pendulum through the hole, maybe it doesn’t work, oh I’m sure it does, what’s that rattling around inside? look, the key, I’ll fish it out, careful, let’s wind it up, my goodness, look at the size of this platter, why are you surprised? they’re the ones who carve up babies, what nonsense, it’s really beautiful, and I’m going to take this suitcase, it’s such a good deal, go ahead, who knows what’s inside, Jesus it’s heavy, maybe stones, maybe treasure, could I possibly have just a tiny peek inside first? Madame, a peek would cost more, all right, if you insist, how bad can it be, I’ll take it as is, maybe it’ll be the surprise of my life, but let’s not open it till we get home, why not? I want to see what’s inside, why do you always have to be so impatient. The clock strikes three, even though it’s only just after nine-thirty. What a pretty chime, I wouldn’t like it myself, it sounds annoying, not to me, I’ll fix it to show the right time, I think it’s pretty, so do I, what do you want with a clock? everyone needs a clock. And I’ll take the platter. The Jewish platter? Why not? I’ll baptize it this Saturday: I’m making ham hocks.

Two years later when the war finally comes to an end, the wartime bride has a daughter, but her husband fell in Russia. The miniature grandfather clock strikes with tinny strokes all the hours that a life contains in peacetime, it strikes from one to twelve, one to twelve, and the next day the same thing, twice from one to twelve, it strikes at the crack of dawn when the janitor’s broom bumps against the front door from the outside, it strikes in the empty apartment all morning long while the girl is at school and the woman is at her office, strikes in the afternoon during the hour for coffee and cake, and in the evening during the lullaby The moon is arisen, it even strikes late at night when the war widow lets down her hair without a man to hang his belt over the back of the chair. It strikes from one to twelve for all the length of a peaceful Aryan life.

When the war widow approaches her fiftieth birthday, her elderly mother dies, and she dissolves her mother’s household with her daughter, who is meanwhile grown; in the basement, she finds the old Goethe edition: the surprise of her life back then, the pig in the poke; the volumes smell of the cellar but are not mildewed. The man in the antique shop next door, who’s always sitting around reading, pays her a respectable sum for the bit of rubbish. The shabby valise that in its day cost her mother a mere 2 reichsmark, even full, also contains an assortment of patches in different colors, and these she might still have use for herself.

For over twenty years more, this clock goes on striking its tinny hours in this chance Vienna household, each day from one to twelve and then again, until day after day comes to an end; her daughter has her own life now, and when her grandchildren come to visit, they peer through the oval hole to see the clock’s pendulum swing back and forth without ever getting tired, but they aren’t allowed to touch, the clock needs dusting, the woman already needs reading glasses, and walking is starting to be difficult for her; her daughter visits far too seldom, alas, but what can you do? The woman sometimes falls asleep in front of the television, not waking up until the clock strikes twelve in the middle of the night; her grandchildren are fairly spoiled; the woman eats a crescent-shaped Kipferl for breakfast each morning; she goes on living and living and winding the clock, always placing the key beside it. And finally, when her final hour has tolled, the woman dies a peaceful Aryan death.

Her daughter doesn’t like all the old clutter one bit; an apartment should be empty and bright, and she already has more than enough in her own household; good Lord, all the things her mother kept squirreled away: the shabby valise with the patches is the first to go, and as for the rest — just look, that same old antique shop dealer is still sitting right there in his shop reading! Might he have use for a clock, really a very special piece from Grandmother’s era? Yes, the key is still there, and when the clock strikes the hour, it has such a bright, friendly chime it really warms the heart to hear it.

5

The salesman glances up from his book only briefly, 280 shillings, he says, and goes on reading. And so the man buys his mother the miniature In Steadfast Loyalty as a souvenir from Vienna, and since the time he’s spent in the shop, though considerable, is less than an hour, he doesn’t hear the next striking of the miniature grandfather clock that displayed the wrong time when he entered. On his trip back to Berlin, he thinks briefly of the Goethe edition — there’s an empty couchette on the night train where he might have stowed it — but the spine of Volume 9 was damaged, and besides, who knows whether he’d still have time to read an edition of collected works, he isn’t getting any younger.

6

Saturday is Frau Hoffmann’s ninetieth birthday. Her place at the table between Frau Millner and Frau Schröder is set with a bouquet of flowers from the Home’s administration and a little bottle of sparkling wine. When she sits down, all those who are still in a position to sing begin singing when Sister Renate gives the signal: How glad we are that you were born, your bir-ir-irthday is today. Frau Hoffmann takes note of the fact that it’s her birthday and thanks everyone. Frau Millner nods to her, or maybe she’s just nodding because her toast with honey tastes so good, while Frau Schröder is concentrating exclusively on not spilling her coffee. On the way back to her room, Sister Renate says: Today your son’s coming to take you on an outing, isn’t that right, Frau Hoffmann? Oh, I didn’t realize that, Frau Hoffmann says. But then before her son arrives she wants to comb her hair and wipe the jam stain off her jacket. But even just raising her arm to the level of her head is difficult for her, my own body is already too large for me, she says to Sister Renate; don’t worry, the nurse says, I’ll pretty you up, she takes the comb from Frau Hoffmann’s hand, draws it a couple of times through her sparse gray hair saying, at eleven I’ll come back and bring you downstairs, all right? Sure, Frau Hoffman says, I’m sure that will be fine.

And then she is sitting beside her son in who knows what sunshine, beneath who knows what blue sky with plenty of good fresh air, in the middle of the world.

It’s so wonderful you’re here, she says.

I’m glad to see you, too.

It’s such a great help to me, but you don’t know anything about it, and it’s good you don’t know, it isn’t good to know more.

Her son is silent.

Tell me, was your trip nice?

Her son tells her about Vienna, the Naschmarkt and Café Museum.

I have such a longing.

Her son says: I brought you something.

Pretty, she says, inspecting Kaiser William II and Kaiser Franz Joseph.

It’s from a shop on Mondscheingasse, do you know it?

You know, I want to live and I cannot. When I die, a place will be empty, that’s all, and a new place will be occupied.

I love you, her son says, taking his mother’s hand,

Really? That’s nice, she says.

Her hand lies cold and bony in his large, warm hand.

You know, she says, I am afraid that everything will be lost — that the trace will be lost.

What trace? her son asks.

I don’t know anymore: from where or to where.

Her son is silent.

A few clouds are crossing the broad sky. Two airplanes flying high in the air have made trails up there that are gradually turning back into sky. The son recalls that until only a few years ago there would sometimes be an earsplitting crack in the middle of a silence like this when supersonic aircraft broke the sound barrier during a military maneuver. Now the Russians — generally referred to as our friends — have long since gone home, and the training grounds of the National People’s Army have been relocated; and probably it is no longer legal to break through the sound barrier just as part of some drill. Now everything is quiet, and the sky is almost as empty as it was in the age of the hunter-gatherers.

I think that if we try playing, it will be a peculiar sort of game, his mother says.

Four weeks before the Berlin Wall fell, his mother received the National Prize First Class for her life’s work. She walked to the front of the auditorium on his arm to receive the certificate and the little box. Now he is sitting with her on a bench at the edge of the woods, the leaves rustle behind them, and before them lies a wide, gently sloping field, upon which the blue-green wheat is still only knee high. When the wind sweeps across it, it looks almost like water.

I just wanted to tell you, his mother says, this is my good, good lovely farewell.

Oh, mother, he says, stroking her back.

My fear of the future, she says, has not yet failed.

A couple of his mother’s friends wanted to come to celebrate her birthday, but he told them no. Because he was ashamed for his mother? Or because he was of the opinion that his mother should be preserved in her friends’ memories just as she used to be? Whom was he doing a favor: her, her friends, or himself?

It sinks down over you from above to below — you don’t know what side it’s coming from. I don’t know, and you probably don’t know either.

No, I don’t know.

Never has he known as little as he does now. The only thing he knows is that his not-knowing is of a very different sort than hers. His mother’s not-knowing is as deep as a river on whose distant shore there must be a very different sort of world than the one he lives in.

I don’t know how you recognize a human being.

I don’t know from whom I can demand everything.

Do they come to us or from us?

I don’t know what is coming.

I don’t know anything.

I don’t know when big is. When is little?

I don’t know what to do.

I don’t know where I was at home.

There is so much I don’t know.

I don’t know what is happening.

It begins slowly, and then it ends slowly. I don’t know which I like better.

I don’t know if my heart will beat again.

I don’t know the big difference.

I don’t know.

I don’t know and I don’t understand either.

I know what I know — but it isn’t all tied up with names.

I think this is all make-believe.

I think that’s it.

In this land to which his mother is crossing over, no longer able to understand anything she once understood, she will no longer need any words, this much he understands. For one brief, sharp, clear moment, he understands what it would be like if he could arrive there along with her: The wheat field would be there right from the start, just like the rustling of the leaves at his back, the silence would be filled to the brim — that deafening crack living only in his memory, absent now — and the memory that filled out this silence would be just as real as the footsteps of all the human beings walking upon the earth at this moment, along with their falling down, their jumping, crawling, and sleeping at this very moment, just as real as all that mutely lay or flowed within the earth: the springs, the roots, and the dead; the cry of the cuckoo off to one side would be just as real as the stones crunching beneath the sole of his shoe, as the coolness of the evening and the light falling through the leaves to the ground before him, as his hand that he is using to stroke his mother’s back, feeling her bones beneath her thin, old skin, bones that will soon be laid bare — briefly, sharply, clearly, he knows for one instant what it would feel like if the audible and the inaudible, things distant and near, the inner and outer, the dead and the living were simultaneously there, nothing would be above anything else, and this moment when everything was simultaneously there would last forever. But because he is a human being — a middle-aged man, with a wife, two children, a profession — because he still has some time ahead of him, time during which he can look up something he doesn’t know in an encyclopedia or ask one of his colleagues, this knowing free of language passes from him just as suddenly as it arrived. He’ll be prevented from seeing this other world with the eyes of his mother for a good earthly time, by the absence of the most crucial thing: the going away.

I dreamed that I was dreaming.

And suddenly it was no longer a dream.

7

Frau Buschwitz is already asleep when the son brings his mother back to her room that evening. On the table at his mother’s bedside is a rinsed-out glass soda bottle with modeling clay stuck to it. The clay has been shaped into a red “90,” surrounded by a yellow ring, outside the ring are sausage-shaped green and blue rays. The bottle holds a single rose, and leaning up against it is a birthday card with the words Happy Birthday! — from Herr Zander and his wife. Who are Herr Zander and his wife? her son asks. Good friends, his mother replies. Aha, her son says. Before he leaves, he takes the miniature and leans it against the bottle, too. In Steadfast Loyalty.

Lately, his mother says, I find myself wanting to address the burden with its proper title, the burden title.

Will you be all right? her son asks.

Oh yes, his mother says. I forced a century to its arms. For the moment, I mean.

I’ll let the nurse know it’s time to help you change and go to bed, all right?

I don’t know, his mother says, what it can mean that we are so sad.

I’ll be going then, Mother, her son says.

Of course, Son, his mother says, go ahead, and put your hat on.

At 52.58867 degrees latitude north, 13.39529 degrees longitude east.

When the phone rings at six in the morning, the son knows it can only be for him. Between four and five in the morning, unfortunately, it must be so difficult for him, but perhaps better this way for his mother, all of us in the hand of God.

For one week more he will awaken every morning at precisely 4:17 a.m., every morning, precisely at the moment of the greatest silence, just before the birds begin to sing. For the first time in his life, he will have dreams during these nights that he still remembers when he wakes up.

His mother is lying there just barely underground, her head is still sticking out: Are you the one who was with me in Ufa, she asks. Yes, he answers and lifts up the ten centimeters of earth like a blanket to place a photograph of his two children upon her breast.

And then he wakes up, it’s perfectly quiet, and then all at once the birds begin to sing, it is 4:17 a.m.

Many mornings he will get up at this early hour that belongs only to him and go into the kitchen, and there he will weep bitterly as he has never wept before, and still, as his nose runs and he swallows his own tears, he will ask himself whether these strange sounds and spasms are really all that humankind has been given to mourn with.