H. Adler - Panorama

Schebesta sits in the foyer, as well as Josef with his block of tickets, Schebesta asking him, since it’s now quiet, whether he could again see the Fräulein who had the pendant with the fly agaric on it, but before Josef can reply they hear the voices of Rumpler and Horn calling, “Staff meeting! Staff meeting!” Josef says he cannot do anything for him right now, but he accepts a copy of Schebesta’s manuscript as he renews his offer of fifty percent and says he’d like to have a response in the next week. Josef takes his two blocks of tickets, as well as the materials with which to stamp them, and the manuscript on fungi into the administrative offices, where Rumpler sits at his desk, his left hand on the crown of the bust of Goethe, Horn and Schrimpl, as well as Grenadier, Maus, and Auer all there, the others not, which bothers Rumpler, who says, “How rude to keep me waiting. My young doctor, we’ll see what this means. What did you get done today? Now show me what you’ve got there! Stamping tickets? Now, isn’t it a shame that an academic should be reduced to doing that? I didn’t even have to do that when I was in elementary school. Who gave them to you? It must have been Krupka. Indeed, I should have guessed, the blocks of tickets need to be monitored. What gave Krupka the idea to turn over the blocks to you? Did you know about this, Dr. Horn? I see, you knew nothing at all. Dash it all, Dr. Horn, I leave the building and everything goes to pieces. Where is everyone? Doctor, what else do you have there? Show it to me, that doesn’t belong to you! Schrimpl, what is that? A radio talk, something important, make a note right away, someone should speak to Zenkl, something to do with agriculture, ‘On the Growing of Fungi from Seeds or Spores, with Special Concern for Poisonous Fungi, by Lothar Schebesta,’ a new discovery, Schrimpl, read it right away, Fräulein Grenadier, for the next staff meeting, Dr. Horn as well. Doctor, run around quick and fetch everyone and tell them they should come to the staff meeting!”

As Josef walks into the main office, the telephone rings and he reaches for the receiver, but he doesn’t know how to work the system, so he sets the receiver down again and it stops ringing as he hurries off to the business office, where Krupka sits unconcerned. “Herr Krupka, here are your ticket blocks. I didn’t stamp all of them. I will continue with it tomorrow, but today it was impossible to finish.” Krupka looks at the tickets and notices that only half of one block has been stamped. “That took a little while, Herr Doctor. You should be able to finish two blocks inside an hour. But haste makes waste. Auer often doesn’t do more than one block per day.”—“Herr Krupka, you should come to the staff meeting!” The bookkeeper agrees, he’ll be there shortly. At this Josef heads back to the administrative offices and is asked where everyone is hiding. Josef answers that there is no one in the main office, though in the business office Herr Krupka said that he’d be right there, but then Rumpler yells out, “Doctor, I already told you I have no work for you! Dash it all, don’t you want to make yourself useful? What can you do? Nothing at all! Just saunter around the office and the entire building! I’m afraid I have to be candid with you, for at the Cultural Center we value candidness, and of course Herr Dr. Horn will forgive me, but he is very dissatisfied with your performance and capabilities thus far. I, of course, don’t want to say anything, for you’re just beginning, but you have been warned. Dash it all, you can’t be my private secretary, for that I need a man, a lover of truth, discretion, honesty, true humanity, but no bloody beginner. There’s nothing you know how to do, be it typing, stenography, the epidiascope, they are all Greek to you. Michel, the jackass outside, can stamp tickets. But where is everyone? Doctor, skip downstairs, Klinger should be there, I need Klinger right now!”

Josef leaves the office, but before he looks for Klinger he takes his hat and coat out of the main office, then he slowly and quietly walks down the steps, the entire building quiet, as he approaches the concierge’s booth, Puttrich sitting there comfortably with a cigarette as he reads the evening paper. Josef wants to ask about Klinger, but Puttrich speaks up first, saying, “Had enough already for today or for good?” Josef replies that he wants to think about it, but it’s enough for today, yet he still has an assignment, the Professor wanting to see Herr Klinger upstairs in the staff meeting, but at this Puttrich laughs heartily and says, “Didn’t I tell you? Only the films are worth anything here, nothing else. Everything else is a waste of time. The old man can wait. Herr Klinger already said good night and is long gone.” At this Josef also wishes him good night and heads out through the vestibule, the ticket booth dark and closed, Frau Lawetzer also having left, everything still, the quiet whir of the projector the only thing audible, Josef curious whether Herr Krönert had indeed picked up his loge seats. Then Josef looks over the notices in the vestibule, the lecture by Herr Rosensaft posted, other curious photos present there, as well as some photos of the lecturers next to a poster that says THE HISTORY AND MISSION OF THE RED CROSS, Josef also looking over the notice for the talk by Dr. Auchlicht on the role of hormones in human life, as he considers what Rumpler would say about it, whether it will draw or not draw. Then Josef thinks about the Minister of Health, who came too early to the lecture by Hauptmann and was thrown out by Ignaz from the loge, though Rumpler was there to save culture, he standing at the edge of the pool of humanity with his net as he snags the deaf fish, who is then thrown back into the watery film, though he sinks beneath the weight of the bell, ascension, dash it all, never taking place.

Josef is now on the street, standing under the blue neon lights that spell out CULTURAL CENTER in large letters, everything exuding the feel of culture, a place of Goethean calm and the pure human spirit, but all of it destroyed through stamped tickets, lectures churned out with accompanying photos, an epidiascope that is not run for free, radio talks trilled by canaries, it’ll draw, all tickets sold out, a panorama of culture, people needing to be nourished by true intellect, though Josef is not a useful member of society, for he doesn’t know how to properly stamp tickets, while others make epochal discoveries, Frau Michalik having selected beautiful passages from new writers about mixed marriages between red shirts and brown, and now everything on the street is still, the culture of the times concentrated inside this building, the conflicts between right and left resolved through the love of animals, Professor Rumpler raising poisonous mushrooms in the face of today’s nihilism. Above, on the second floor, are the offices, lights on everywhere, even the drinking glasses and coffee cups of the employees visible on the windowsill, but not a single employee, while the curtains are closed at three of the windows, which must be the Director’s office, everyone except the circus man Klinger gathered at the staff meeting, Rumpler and Goethe, Thomas Mann and Gerhart Hauptmann, Dr. Horn and Sven Hedin, Schrimpl and Krupka, as well as the four women, all of them deliberating, and Goethe speaking to them, patting Rumpler on the shoulder and saying, make a note, write a report, indeed, dash it all, of course, important, and everyone bearing up under it, nothing bad is meant by it at all. But Josef doesn’t know what will proceed from what is going on up above, perhaps more ideas for Schnitzler, the subvention from the Ministry of Education, Kummerhackl’s book, Klebinder’s charity work, Eckermann or the President’s office — Josef will never know, for he has decided not to return tomorrow, wanting to look elsewhere for someplace where he is needed, everything closed and silent, a thick mugginess hovering in the air above the pool.