Walter Kempowski - All for Nothing

Dr Wagner raised his glass and said:

You happy eyes

Whatever you saw

Whatever it was

May it be as of yore.

‘Yes,’ said Auntie. ‘That’s good … who wrote it?’

They were all sitting by the hearth, the women, the baron with the parrot and the cat, and Peter, keeping quiet. He was still too young to be allowed to join in the conversation, but he could be there, and he listened to it all. Was he proud, he was asked, to bear such a great name?

The baron read aloud from his history of his birthplace, when and by whom the city had been founded and then, getting more interesting, how the Russians had wreaked havoc when they occupied the Baltic states in 1919, stabbed the city councillors and threw their bodies down a well. He smoked a very special pipe as he told this tale, Peter had never seen a pipe like that before. Or a suit patterned with such large checks either.

Wagner the schoolmaster, wearing his third tie, his head propped on his left hand, stroking his goatee beard the wrong way with his bony fingers, listened to the baron’s stories, not exactly spellbound, but with interest. He hadn’t known how efficiently the German Freikorps fighting bands had cleared the place out. There had been no shilly-shallying; they had driven the Reds away.

Was the baron going to revise his narrative? asked Dr Wagner; he thought it needed a finishing touch here and there.

‘No,’ said the baron. ‘What I’ve written, I have written.’

Dr Wagner still had the poems of his youth in his desk in Mitkau. Why not give the company a taste of one or another of them on an evening such as this? Yes, why not?

The flames on the hearth flickered over the circle, making its members’ eyes shine. The bottle of Barolo brought out by Katharina had something to do with that. They even took the old glasses out of the cupboard for it.

The parrot put his head under his wing, the cat lay on the baron’s lap. It made you think of Boccaccio and Dante. They had sat by the fire telling stories too, hadn’t they?

Late at night they lowered their voices to a whisper. The subject of conversation was the Jews.

‘They’ll take their revenge …’

‘I don’t think much of those fellows, but …’

‘Oh well, forget it …’

Who’d have thought it could be so cosy at the Georgenhof? They’d think of that later on. A pity, really, that Eberhard wasn’t here. Where was he now? Was he thinking of the Georgenhof? Of Katharina and his son, Peter?

Finally Dr Wagner played the first movement of the ‘Moonlight Sonata’ as he had never played it before, followed by another piece of a very different kind, and his audience quite forgot to ask what it was.

Wagner with his crooked back and his third tie under his goatee beard. He had never played that piece to them before. It must come from his last happy times. Summer days in the Harz Mountains. Winter days with his mother. Autumn with the leaves turning colour. The circular walk below the town walls, a fine view of the countryside.

The baron, who usually just cleared his throat while Dr Wagner was playing the piano, asked whether he would play that piece again. But Wagner had already closed the piano lid.

The next day, the Baltic couple left. The baron told Auntie how much he admired her for her thoughtfulness and all her busy activity, addressing her by name. ‘Frau Harnisch,’ he said, ‘you are a very industrious woman,’ and he patted her on her bony back. He kissed Katharina’s hand several times, with feeling, and lightly stroked Peter, who was with them, on the cheek. ‘Look after your mother, won’t you?’ And he waved to the ancestors on the wall, whose wide eyes followed everything that was going on.

Then he went into the kitchen and spoke to the two maids at some length. Was he appealing to them? Telling them they must take good care of their dear mistress and always stick together? The conversation probably went something like that. He gave them five marks each, and they thanked him, bobbing a little curtsy.

He even drew slender Sonya close to him for a moment.

‘Lora!’ screeched the parrot. ‘You old sow!’

Dr Wagner the schoolmaster was already at the front door. And as cart after cart went by down on the road, to the background noise of guns rumbling on the horizon — Goodnight, dear mother, goodnight — the two of them shook hands, man to man. Don’t come to grief at the last moment, keep your chin up and so forth. And here’s an address in Wuppertal, commit it to memory, we can get in touch that way when all this is over.

The baron had certain plans; he knew exactly what he wanted to do, and so did his wife. They hoped to go as far west as possible. Bremen, perhaps, why not? Somewhere in the country there, maybe.

Dr Wagner had no concrete ideas yet. I surge like the sea, restlessly swaying. Lao-Tse said something like that. He would let himself drift, he wouldn’t do anything by force, he would work calmly and with composure towards his own fulfilment. With a sweeping gesture, he indicated the East Prussian countryside at his feet and the snake-like line of refugees boring into it. Mustn’t put one’s hand into the spokes of the wheel of Fortune. Thank God, he had to say, that his mother was dead already. Gone at the right time. Those dear old people had been a luckier generation.

The Baltic couple had hardly gone out into the road, rucksacks on their backs, the suitcase beside them and carrying the parrot cage, when a car swerved out of the column and stopped. Did they want a lift? They certainly did! ‘Then in you get!’ said the driver. Although that suitcase, a heavy great thing — it would surely break the axle! — would have to be left behind. ‘Sorry.’ And they had to get a move on, they didn’t have much time, couldn’t wait around in the road.

What was to be done with the heavy suitcase? All those chronicles, and the half-finished manuscript? Should they leave it at the manor house until better times came? Think of all the things that might happen … Hadn’t tanks driven by only last night on their way to the front? So the baroness dragged the case back up the bank beside the road and into the house again. Wagner, still standing in the doorway, took it into his own keeping; yes, he’d do what he could, he’d care for the suitcase like the apple of his eye, they could depend on that.

Should they extract the manuscript about the baron’s native city? Wasn’t it right at the top? But the cheerful driver was hooting his horn. The man even got out and walked round his car to help them in. Stood beside the car door until they were properly settled.

The baron waved grandly to the foreign workers standing side by side on the terrace of the Forest Lodge, following these farewells with watchful eyes. Wasn’t that like a kind of salute? And off they went.

The Globigs were sad to see the baron and his wife leave. Those quiet evenings by the fire had been so comfortable; such cultivated people, it had been like getting a new lease of life. They would happily have kept the couple here for ever. Even Auntie sighed heavily; it was true, she had indeed done a lot of hard work in her life, the baron was right about that. He had hit the nail on the head. And she put on an apron: there was a lot of dust to be removed from the tops of cupboards. Peter held the ladder steady for her. It all had to be left neat and clean if by any chance they themselves were to go away from the Georgenhof.

There was a great deal of telephoning next day. Uncle Josef in Albertsdorf said, ‘What, Baltic Germans? All those people were crazy.’ And he added, ‘A baron? Well, yes, if it was true — You’d better stay at home. We’re all staying here, leaving now is the worst thing to do.’ In addition, said Uncle Josef, he couldn’t leave, because the whole house was full of people, people from God knew where, thieving like magpies. Thank God none of them were from the Baltic.