Walter Kempowski - All for Nothing

‘Are you a professor?’ she asked.

‘No, not a professor. I’m a political economist.’ And he would rather have been a cabinet-maker, or a graphic artist.

*

The guest put the letter back and apologized for his indiscretion: when he saw stamps, he said, he forgot everything around him. He was a collector himself, he explained, his passion was philately, and this stamp, if he was not much mistaken …

Reaching for his leather bag, he took out a stamp album packed among his underwear and his shirts. Leafing through it, he said he collected only the finest, only the best. Old German stamps were his special field. And he had bought this album in Harkunen yesterday morning. Now what’s this, he had thought …

He took a pair of tweezers out of his waistcoat pocket and explained the old-fashioned stamps in the album to the boy, most of them with numbers on them, but some with crowns and coats of arms. You could live well for a good month on the proceeds of selling this stamp, he said, pointing the tweezers at a stamp showing John of Saxony.

Mecklenburg, Prussia, Saxony: how pleasant it had been in the Germany of the past, and he spoke of when measurements were in ells, feet and miles, he spoke of post-coaches in which you travelled from country to country without needing a passport or visa, he spoke of kreuzers, guilders and shillings. And he even imitated the signal of the post-horn.

But sad to say, the Prussians had eliminated that wonderful variety, insisting on unity, unity, unity! That stamp with the head of Germania — could there be anything less imaginative? Germania in armour? Iron plates covering her breasts!

People would surely still be interested in the old colonial stamps after the war, he said, they would probably be worth a mint of money. A German New Guinea stamp. ‘After the war,’ he said, leafing through the album and sighing.

When you thought that the British had even considered giving the German colonies lost after Versailles back to Hitler… but no.

*

Peter ran up to his room, fetched his Schaubek stamp album, held it out to the guest and pointed to individual stamps. Were these worth anything too? That made the gentleman laugh heartily: good heavens, my dear boy.

How old was Peter? Twelve? Just the age for it, you couldn’t begin collecting too early. But really, these stamps were worth hardly anything.

‘You have a great many stamps showing Hitler, my boy.’ If the Russians came and saw those stamps, what would they say? Nothing but little portraits of Hitler. He wasn’t so sure, he said, suddenly turning to Katharina, but ‘Mightn’t they burn the house down over your heads, dear lady?’

Then he told Peter, ‘Go and get your paint box.’ He asked for a basin of water, and set to work on the Hitler stamps, dabbing a spot of black paint on every face of Hitler. Peter had only to dab all those Hitler stamps with black paint and wash it off again after the war, then there would be no problems. But leaving the stamps as they were … Suppose a Russian opens the album and sees the Führer grinning back at him a hundred times over?

The Russians? Would they be coming here? asked Auntie, putting the cups back in the cabinet neatly. At that moment it may indeed have occurred to her that such a thing was possible. After all, it was during the last war that she herself had come to the Georgenhof.

But the war of 1914–18 had been very different. Mankind had not been so excitable in those days. The outcome would probably be less civilized this time.

‘We Germans are not children of melancholy,’ said Schünemann, raising his eyebrows, hinting at things that no one in the house understood. But all fell silent, and the fire crackled.

*

Now the gentleman had an idea. He took the album that he had just bought cheap in Harkunen, weighed it up in his hand — and it was quite a heavy weight — and asked for an envelope. Then he took the stamps out of the album one by one, working very carefully, and put them in the envelope. ‘There was I dragging that heavy album about with me, and this is much simpler.’ Although, he added, it was a pity really.

Finally, holding a small brown stamp in his tweezers, he showed it to them, placed it on the table, held a magnifying glass above it and called the boy over. ‘See that?’ What did he mean, see that? What was there to see? He asked for an electric torch and held it over the indentations at the bottom left-hand corner of the stamp. ‘Don’t you see anything?’

Then he showed Peter how the indentations had been repaired. A single missing tooth had been completed. The paper, thin as it was already, had been planed down, and a tiny tooth from an entirely different stamp stuck in place. At this even the two women moved forward, Auntie on the left and Katharina on the right, saying that they would like to see it. And they urged Peter to fetch his microscope, saying that maybe the repair could be seen even more clearly under its lens.

This opportunity allowed the gentleman to notice that Katharina’s breath smelt sweet, which was more than could be said of Auntie’s.

The political economist, laughing quietly, talked about the skill of humanity in forging banknotes. Imitation ink, specially prepared paper … he still remembered how, as a child, he had once forged his father’s signature on a ‘blue letter’ — one of those informing his parents that his work was not up to scratch, which had to be signed by a parent to show that it had been received. The signature had been accepted and no one had noticed anything wrong. And he was still alive to tell the tale. He had passed his final school examination, the Abitur, he had studied at university, all with great success. Sometimes he thought that perhaps some day he would be disgraced, just for forging his father’s signature as a child.

It was a crazy notion of his father’s for him to become a political economist. ‘I ought to have been a cabinet-maker. Or a wood-turner … or something of that sort.’

Now he had put all the stamps in the envelope. What should he do with the empty album? It had an eagle with wings spread wide on the front cover. Put it on the fire? He went over to the hearth and looked at the logs that were crackling as they gave off their warmth.

He placed the empty album on top of them, and watched as the eagle slowly caught fire and then sank into ashes. Watching it disappear, like the Germany of the good old days.

After that, he put the envelope full of stamps in his briefcase, and said, ‘Well, then …’

He had a great many banknotes in his briefcase.

The political economist prepared to leave, but they urged him to stay. Was he going away through the dark at this hour? Out of the question, they were not going to push him out into the darkness and the cold. The wind was howling round the house. And somewhere or other a solitary aeroplane could be heard. He could easily spend the night here on the sofa, they told him. That was only ordinary hospitality. How many people had spent a night in this house already? Or there was Elfie’s room up on the first floor? But that was cold as ice just now.

Peter asked Herr Schünemann whether he could swing himself through the hall on his crutches — ‘You must say Dr Schünemann, Peter,’ said Auntie, ‘ Dr Schünemann.’ Then the gentleman made himself comfortable on the sofa. Katharina brought blankets for him, and pillows that he put under his head. The family stood around, asking whether he felt comfortable, and was there anything else that he needed? They said goodnight, and when he was alone at last the man wrapped himself in the blankets, and watched the fire on the hearth slowly dying down.

Was there a shop in Mitkau, he had asked, selling stamps to collectors? Yes, said Auntie, so far as she knew.