Walter Kempowski - All for Nothing

He would just like to warm up a little, he told Katharina and Auntie, who was bringing in the supper-time soup at that very moment. Could he do that? No buses, no trains, the way was heavy going in this icy wind. He came from Elbing, he said, and had made his way here on foot fromHarkunen. What a journey it was, too!Who’d have thought it? Fifteen kilometres, in this weather, and at this time of day.

He was bound for Mitkau, and had expected to find an inn along his way, the Forest Lodge; it was marked on his map as a good place for family parties out on excursions.

And he had indeed passed it, but it was closed and the doors and windows bolted. There were strange folk in those parts and he’d heard confused scraps of all kinds of languages, Czech and Romanian.

Hands in their pockets, they had watched him go.

The man’s name was Schünemann, and he had come a considerable distance by train, then he had been given a lift in a farmer’s cart from Harkunen, and he had travelled the very last part of the way here on foot. In this snow, too!

All he wanted, he said, was to warm himself and take a little rest, and then he’d be off again. He’d find shelter for the night somewhere along the way, he said, looking around him.

Why on earth had he set off through the countryside at this time of the year? Going to Mitkau, of all places?

Katharina looked at the man. A visitor at this time of day? And the man looked back at her, not without interest. Good heavens, a woman like this hidden away in the country. She belonged somewhere else by rights. Berlin, Munich, Vienna!

He walked stiffly over to her, legs swinging back and forth, said that his name was Schünemann, he was an economist by profession, a political economist, and she wasn’t to worry, he only wanted to rest and get his breath back.

‘Ah, warmth!’ he said, unhooking the briefcase from the strap over his shoulder and putting it down by the fireside seat. He unbuttoned his jacket and, now free of his crutches, went close to the fire and let his body soak up its warmth. Warmth! The dog Jago, wondering what the man might be seeing there in the fire, went to sit beside him, and wagged his tail briefly. The man might be all right.

Then the cat came along to find out what was going on.

The man sat in the chimney corner, lit a pipe and cursed the day when, at his father’s persistent urging, he had decided to study political economy.

‘If only I’d been a cabinet-maker,’ he said, turning to Auntie. ‘But a political economist, of all things!’ he cried, calling on these people to bear witness to the course his life had taken.

Peter asked him what a political economist was.

‘Hmm,’ replied the man, ‘it’s not all that easy to explain. Now if I’d been a cabinet-maker instead …’ Could he, he asked, take a quick look through that microscope? He thought that the lens wasn’t properly adjusted.

He didn’t like the silence in the east, he said — such extraordinary peace and quiet. He put his head on one side, as if listening, trying to catch some kind of sound, and because he didn’t like the silence, he said he wasn’t going on to Insterburg as he had originally intended; he would stay in Mitkau for a few days instead. And then back to Elbing as quickly as possible, and on again by way of Danzig to Hamburg, where a cousin of his lived. He was planning to take refuge with this cousin.

‘Did you see the fires burning last night?’ he asked Katharina, who put an oil lamp on the table — for there was yet another power cut — and sat down herself. After all, it was supper time.

Fires? She knew nothing about that … it was all so complicated. Anyone who ever spoke to Katharina found her a total blank. She had never heard of anything at all, she hadn’t even guessed at it. ‘She hasn’t the faintest idea,’ people said of her, ‘but she’s beautiful … very beautiful.’ She was the most striking person present at any social gathering, although she hardly ever said a word.

What else could you say about her? She shut herself up in her own rooms, and heaven only knew what she did there. She read a lot, or rather she made her way through a great many mediocre books. Her reading matter could not be said to include Goethe and Lessing. As a girl she had been a bookseller’s assistant, and since then it had been her habit to skim books; she did not attempt anything too difficult.

In any case, they had to eat now. The thermometer showed a temperature of minus sixteen degrees, and the barometer suggested that it would get even colder.

Perhaps they hesitated a little too long before asking the visitor to join them at the table, where the soup tureen was already standing, but then it was done: he was invited to take a few spoonfuls, whereupon he knocked out his pipe and came quickly closer, sat down, rubbed his hands, and repeated again and again that he only wanted to have a little rest and get his breath back.

He sat opposite Katharina and scrutinized her. A Mediterranean beauty in this bleak wilderness at the back of beyond? He thought of Anselm von Feuerbach, whose classical pictures everyone knew.

Katharina looked as if she wanted to say she couldn’t help being out of place here. She was holding a key and toying with it; it was the key to her boudoir, which she always kept locked. It was shiny from her constant nervous fidgeting with it. No one else had any business up there.

He had set out without thinking it over properly; rumour said that the major roads would be checked after tomorrow, so he had slipped through just in time. And he had thought that a cart might give him a lift on the way, but the road had looked deserted — and not an inn anywhere in sight. He had already thought of the Forest Lodge: Lord, it is good for us to be here: if thou wilt, let us make here three tabernacles. Then, at the last minute, he had seen the manor house lying low behind the wall, under the black oak trees, and he had thought he could stop and rest here, warm himself up and then go on the last few kilo metres to Mitkau.

He’d get there yet.

The Forest Lodge? Good heavens, yes, the Forest Lodge used to be a good place for an excursion; it had an outdoor café, ideal for families and school classes, the great forest was close to it, and beyond the forest the river, bordered by willows. But now the large windows offering such good views were boarded up. Now the Forest Lodge had become a hostel for foreign workers, Romanians, Czechs, Italians — folk described by the locals as scum. The Romanians never washed their feet, the Italians had already let the German people down in the First World War, and now they had gone and done it again. You couldn’t trust such folk an inch.

The two Ukrainian women occasionally went down there, and stayed longer than was seemly.

The Georgenhof: there was something mysterious about the house. Who knows, he had thought, what’s waiting for me there? And now here he was, sitting at this table with such nice, pleasant people. Best of all, although they had never set eyes on one another before, they were already on such familiar terms!

He hadn’t expected to be so well entertained; they kept the old standards of hospitality going in this house.

He took some ration coupons out of his wallet to give them to Frau von Globig, but then offered them to Auntie instead, thinking she was more likely to be responsible for such matters. Katharina, her dark hair pinned up on top of her head, put her hand to the brooch that she wore. She seemed to be thinking: ration coupons …? It was all so complicated.

‘No, no, put those away again,’ said Auntie, ladling out soup for him. Then she saw that they were coupons for men on leave and would not go out of date; they could be used anywhere and at any time, so she was happy to accept them after all.