Kathleen Spivack - Unspeakable Things

Maria wanted to stop eating. She wanted to stop going to the bathroom. She ate less and less, and although the family did not have much food, she gave half her share to little Philip. Maria’s mother, noticing this, began to scold the girl. “Can’t you see how hard I work for our food? Be grateful, you ungrateful child!” Maria held the tears back from her eyes and stared at her mother while at the same time trying to make her vanish.

“You must eat.” Irritated, Ilse steeled herself angrily for this new development in their lives. “The child does not eat.” Maria’s mother expostulated to Felix during one of their visits the following month. With frustration, she regarded her wan girl.

Felix bent down and scowled at her. “What is this, you bad girl?” His brows beetled. “Now you worry your poor mother? She has enough already to worry about. You must eat, my child! Otherwise,” he hissed, “you will go to the hospital. And do you know what they will do to you there?” Maria shrank back. She did not want to know. “Do you know what they do to little girls there, hmm? They make them into liverwurst!” he exclaimed, his voice a dramatic whisper.

Maria tried to cover her ears. “Yes,” he insisted. “Liverwurst! Do you want that?” He stepped back a pace. “So…,” he said in a low, threatening voice, “I want to hear no more of this nonsense, hmm?” He flipped a sugar cube to Schatzie. “If you do not eat, you will come to me every day.” His voice rose to a shriek. “And do you know what I will do to you?” Maria tried to shut him out, but his hot breath was close to her face and his voice at full volume. “Uncle Felix will beat you, bad girl! Ja, every day! You will come to Uncle Felix every day and he will beat you.”

Felix looked up at Maria’s mother for emphasis. Then his tone changed again. He fixed Maria’s mother with his black hypnotic eyes. “Authority, my dear madame. What this child needs is some authority! You are much too lax.” Maria’s mother unloosed the silken scarf from her neck. She looked down at Maria. Maria could see in her mother’s eyes fear and determination, as well as the sense of being utterly alone. Felix seized both Maria’s and her mother’s hands in his own. “Now,” he said, “this is better. We will be a good girl now, yes, and eat for Mutti?” He stroked Maria’s hair. “And Mutti will be happy.” Maria nodded. “And you will make your old Uncle Felix happy, heh? He does not really want to beat you.”

Maria nodded and shrank back. He took this for assent. Felix pressed her mother’s hand. “You see, dear lady, all that is needed is authority. A man’s authority.” He looked significantly at Maria’s mother. Maria despised them both, but she did not show it.

“Mutti will tell me if you do not eat,” Felix warned Maria. He took her into his office then. His hands spent a long time with her, but they were not so nice. “Remember, you promised.” He was angry with her, impatient as he pressed her against his lumpy leg. He was eager to be done with her that day. But with her mother, he took a long time. Maria sat on the couch outside, waiting, and pondering her sins. Her stomach gurgled. She felt suddenly ravenous with hunger.

Herbert walked quickly through the early-morning streets of New York, the image of David’s dear strained face in front of him. The balm of a spring morning touched Herbert with a new sense of hope. “My son,” he whispered to himself, not knowing of which son he spoke. “My son!”

The air was heavy with a perfume of early blossoms, and the sharpness of the blue harsh light cutting into the ravines between buildings was weighted with a new freshness. Herbert strode quickly now, propelled by the spring wind toward the dank-breathed mouth of the New York Public Library. He hurried up the steps past the waiting stone lions he loved, and into the entry, where the day’s work — intrigue, the sorting of refugees, the passing of false papers, false money, false promises, and false news — awaited him.

The Tolstoi Quartet was already expecting Herbert. As he approached the staircase, the four men prostrated both themselves and their instruments, the noble violoncello bowing facedown on the marble floor along with the rest. Herbert felt annoyed, but he suppressed that feeling.

“Herr Hofrat, it is a great honor to see you again,” the first violinist spoke for the other men. “Please forgive us for disturbing you.” The four men, attired in their concert costumes — trousers, black tailcoats, and carefully shined shoes — lay in front of Herbert like spokes of a Celtic cross.

“Not at all,” said Herbert mildly.

“We thought…,” began the second violinist in a higher pitch, but then silenced himself.

“Please rise, gentlemen,” said Herbert, spreading his hands, palms down, fingers open, in a gesture of peace and blessing. The men seized his hands, and before they rose, they kissed his ring passionately.

“We thought perhaps,” said the violist, “you might have news.”

The cellist added gravely, “Yes, news!”

In their jar, far away across the city, the four little fingers drummed impatiently on the glass. “News,” cried the men, their hands twitching.

“Well,” said Herbert slowly, “perhaps I do.” The instruments began to wail and clamor from within their heavy cases. “Shh,” Herbert cautioned them, “this is a library.”

The men stroked their instruments as if to gentle them. “Be still, my children.” “Tell us!” went around among the men and their instruments. “Tell us.” The soft urgency of the syllables fell on the still air.

Herbert bent forward and cleared his throat. “Nothing definite, I am afraid,” he said in a low voice. “You know my son David has been working on this….”

The first violinist cut the air with a high imperative. “Yes?”

Herbert was reluctant to say too much. “He thinks we may be closer to the solution.” There was a crashing sound from the instrument cases, discordant, in unison. Herbert put his finger to his lips. The four men looked at each wildly. Silence? A half-note rest was possible. But silence? That would mean death.

“Please, my friends, say nothing about this,” Herbert cautioned. The pause shivered before his firm note.

“We understand,” the men said in fifths.

“We must wait.” Herbert turned brusquely on his heel and left the astonished Quartet, the men, their faces slack, holding their instruments. As Herbert mounted the huge stairway, his footsteps deliberate and his back turned against all further questions, the men prostrated themselves again on the floor under the great rotunda.

“Herr Hofrat,” they whispered. There was a faint cinnamon scent in the air. If they had looked up at that moment, they would have seen how the spring sunlight, poking its way into the great rotunda, gently caressed Herbert’s large ears and liver-spotted scalp, coaxing him into the great hall and reading room. But they did not look up until Herbert had mounted the staircase and disappeared. Now they scrambled to their feet again. Straightening the tails of his waistcoat, the first violinist announced to the others, “Remember, not a word now. It is time for a slight intermission.”

Herbert’s steps were hardly audible on the expanse of stone floor as he went toward his next meeting. A whisper spread through the library. “Herr Hofrat comes.” Quick fingers rustled the pages of dusty books, and in the periodical rooms men looked up from the outspread newspapers in foreign languages. Not wanting to appear too eager, the small old eyes seemed to skim the headlines again. Then nervous hands, trembling, smoothed closed the newspapers. Books were carefully shut, the precious page numbers marked. Humbly, Herbert entered the Rose Main Reading Room, sighing to himself as he saw the dim green line of lights and the thick walls that shut out all the joyous clamor of the city streets. He drew his overcoat more closely about his shoulders. As if counting the customers, he noted all the old people waiting to talk to him, the nervous, destitute petitioners.