H. Adler - Panorama

Then the doorbell rings again and Anna comes in saying that Frau Wetzler’s nanny is there and Paul must head home already, as Aunt Betti says, “Yes indeed, it’s getting late, but the nanny should wait a minute. We’re almost through here.” And then the aunt says that it’s time for the biggest surprise of all, one that will certainly please everybody, with something the children will never forget. Then Josef recites the poem that Aunt Betti has written, as she also opens the door to the next room, right at the conclusion of the final line, “Reel in the best thing that you can!” while Josef makes an inviting gesture with his hand, pointing to the door, just as he and Aunt Betti had rehearsed in order that it look really elegant, it having taken a long time to get right. Then everyone goes into the next room, each child getting a turn with the pole as he is blindfolded and has to fish for a packet, while outside the bell rings more and more often, the foyer grows full, as well as the entire apartment, more and more people arriving, all of the children needing to head home, such that they give up on the blindfold in order to wrap up the magic pond more quickly, though it still takes too long, and the father says, “Whoever doesn’t have a present yet should just grab one, though please, one at a time!” Then all the children do indeed have a present, though there are some left over, since there had been so many, and more children had been invited than had come. Now the last guests finally leave, but the foyer is still full of people looking for the children’s coats, until everything is sorted out and the last step down the stairs is heard.

And once all the guests have left, how tired everyone is, the entire apartment a shambles, the place hardly recognizable, several things having been broken, not just the chair that Wenzel will have to fix but also two glasses that Wenzel can do nothing with. Then the aunts also say goodbye, Aunt Gusti telling the mother, “Mella, you need to finally get that piano tuned.” Then there is only the mother and the father, Anna off in the kitchen, washing lots of silverware, though the mother soon joins her, saying that she’ll help, as she thanks Anna for being such a dear, for there couldn’t have been any party without her. Anna says that she was happy to do it, she also had fun, but back when things were better, when Anna lived with Angela, one could hire an extra maid to help out, something that will happen only when there is finally peace once again, though Anna cannot believe that life will ever be as good as it was before the war. The father is simply dead tired and says, “If the only trouble is that one can’t have a children’s birthday party, then as far as I’m concerned the war can go on forever. Unfortunately, that’s not the case.” Josef is also very tired, but he looks to see what presents are left in the magic pond, since now they are his, then he sits down in the rocking chair, slowly rocking back and forth for a while, it feeling like when he rides along in a streetcar or on a train, and he rides along until his eyes close and he falls asleep.

HERR NEUMANN IN UMLOWITZ IS NOT TOO TALL, SOMEWHAT FAT, AND has seven children whose names are Rudolf, Adolf, Arthur, Erwin, Fritz, Otto, and Herma, though now he also has a foster son named Josef. Rudolf is already an engineer, but he doesn’t have a job and spends most of his time at home. Adolf is younger, yet already married, having married a maidservant, which angered Herr Neumann, because the girl had no money and was common, which is why Adolf did not stay in Umlowitz but instead left with his wife and opened his own business in Kaplitz, which apparently is doing well, for he handles flour and other farm products, traveling with his wagon throughout the district and knowing how to bargain with the farmers, who are happy to sell to him because he pays so quickly, while sometimes he even ends up competing with his father, though that doesn’t bother Herr Neumann all that much. Herma, meanwhile, is very sweet and very busy, for she runs the entire household, Frau Neumann having died when Otto was just a baby, after which Herma had taken over all duties, including the cooking and the washing, as well as keeping an eye on what’s going on with the business, making sure all the male and female servants were kept in line, everyone fond of her, the people of Umlowitz saying what a good person Herma is, while Josef thinks of her as a second mother, though she’s quite young. Then there’s Arthur, who has just completed business school and is living again at home in order to help Herr Neumann. Meanwhile Erwin visits only during school breaks from his high school, and Fritz also takes courses at the vocational school in Budweis, staying there the whole week when classes are on, and returning home on Saturdays only to head out again early Monday morning.

The smallest is Otto, who is much smaller than Josef, for even though he’s three years older he’s a sickly child who has to be dressed each morning and undressed each evening because he can’t do it himself, Herma most often doing it for him, and when she doesn’t have enough time Poldi does it, or one of the brothers. Everyone says of Otto that he’s a little slow, a sweet child nonetheless, but because he wets the bed each night one has to place a diaper beneath his bedsheet, as if he were a baby, though he can’t help it, and it’s just something unfortunate you have to put up with. He also has a very high voice, like a little girl, and he talks through his nose, so you have to listen carefully in order to understand what he’s saying, though he can say a lot and he talks a lot, and he understands what you say to him, in addition to being able to sing many songs without ever making a mistake, even if his voice isn’t too lovely, because he sings through his nose as well. He has gone to school for many years, but he’s still in the first grade, as he doesn’t advance with the other children and can only say “one and one is two,” while in the reader he knows little more than the difference between a printed “i” and a written “i,” for though he can point to a printed “i” and a written “i” with his finger, among the other letters he knows only the “n” and sometimes the “e” and “m” as well, but he doesn’t know any of the other letters, even if you continually show him, Herma or Fritz having spent half an hour with him each day in an effort to teach him something. But Otto can only write the “i,” and when he has written one he’s happy and shows it to everyone, and everyone says how wonderful it is that he has written such a beautiful “i.” But Rudolf often says that it would be best for Otto to be placed in an institution, to which Herma says nothing or simply that he is Mother’s youngest son, while Herr Neumann says that not even his worst enemy could accuse him of being a bad father who would kick his own flesh and blood out of the house just because he’s a helpless creature forced to go through the world lost and alone, though he hopes that one day Otto will be better. But if that does not happen, then Herr Neumann believes there will always be enough left over for him, and that the other six children will be kind enough to take in Otto, to which all of them say they certainly will, even if he remains the child that he is now.

Josef is to stay an entire year with Herr Neumann in Umlowitz as part of an exchange whereby Erwin will stay with his parents in the city, for Josef has become too anxious, his parents not knowing what to do with him, though when they proposed this exchange Josef was happy to take it. He now goes to school in Umlowitz, and though he should be in the fifth grade, in this school with six grades in total they didn’t want to start him in the fifth. Principal Bolek had made sure that he didn’t, he wanted to show the coddled city child a thing or two, namely that the farm children know a lot more than the educated people of the city think, which is why Principal Bolek made Josef take an entrance exam, although none was required, and Josef had good grades from the fourth grade back home already, almost all of them A’s. Principal Bolek had made Josef write something in ink on paper, and Josef had done a beautiful job, but Principal Bolek was not pleased with how he held his pen. Which is why he pointed to a large picture that hung on his office wall, nothing else on it but a hand that is writing and, beneath it, “The Proper Way to Hold a Pen.”—“Look, Josef, that’s the way to hold a pen when you write, just like you see in the picture!” But Josef can’t write with outstretched fingers, only with fingers curled around, which is why he doesn’t like to write all that much, for he still remembers how he once cried in first grade, many others crying as well, when the teacher wanted him to hold the pencil in the right hand and not the left, because you are supposed to write only with the right hand, not the left, though it was always hard for Josef, and that’s why he’d grown used to writing with a strongly curled index finger. But Principal Bolek had said, “No, this way of writing is not encouraged here in Umlowitz. You need to write the way the picture shows in order to write properly!” Yet as Josef tried to write with outstretched fingers all he could produce was an unreadable scrawl, Principal Bolek laughing that one couldn’t be allowed to write that way in Umlowitz. “All the children here learn how to write properly. If you want to study with us here in Umlowitz, you’ll have to learn it as well!” Then the principal had asked Josef some more questions that he didn’t know the answers to, though the principal had constantly replied that all the children of Umlowitz knew the answer, since this was the best school in the district, while at the close he had asked, “Tell me, what color is water?” Josef thought for a while, and because he believed water had no color he answered, “Water doesn’t have any color!” But the principal said, “Water does indeed have a color.” Then Josef recalled that the sea is blue, so he said, “Water is blue.” Yet the principal had immediately responded, “That’s wrong. Water is not blue. Water is green. When you look at clear water on a mirror, you will observe that water has a green coloring.” Since then Josef knows that water is green, Principal Bolek having declared, “If you want to go to school here in Umlowitz, you’ll have to be in the fourth grade, where you’ll learn what you need to learn. The children in the fifth grade know all of that already. You just wouldn’t be able to keep up.”