Walter Kempowski - All for Nothing

But this was not a mild midsummer’s night, lit by glow-worms, with a bowl of punch and singing in unison. It was winter now, eighteen degrees below zero, with ice-cold stars sparkling in the black sky.

Was Katharina thinking of that midsummer’s night herself? Was she remembering how it had been said of her that she was no real good for anything, never lent a hand, didn’t see where there was work to be done? Auntie had even told the two maids in the kitchen that Katharina had two left hands and lived only for the day. Lothar Sarkander had come over from Mitkau. He had been standing behind her that warm night, with one hand on her shoulder.

Katharina had stepped into the summer drawing room with him; the doors had been open, there had been climbing roses bearing a profusion of flowers on the fence to left and right. And Lothar Sarkander, mayor of Mitkau, had pointed to the little group outside on the lawn, saying, ‘What a picture that is!’

He had a stiff leg, and duelling scars on one cheek.

Eberhard had been standing on the outskirts of the wood, grave and silent.

Fräulein Strietzel wondered aloud, lowering her instrument, whether she should stop. No, no, it was delightful, said Katharina, and took a cigarette. Fräulein Strietzel understood Katharina’s present mood. Immensee , ‘Bee Lake’, based on Theodor Storm’s story, and the water lilies in it. The film had just been shown at the Mitkau cinema. She raised her violin again and found her way back into the melodies; you should finish what you have begun.

Auntie, too, thought her own thoughts. She got to her feet and went back and forth; there were things lying about everywhere. Music was certainly beautiful, but she might as well take the opportunity of tidying up a bit. When was that Christmas tree going to be taken away? Was it to stand here for ever? Honestly, wasn’t it enough to make you despair?

And since there were candles burning, surely she could put out the oil lamp.

*

Fräulein Strietzel played piece after piece: Handel’s Largo , Heicken’s Serenade . Now and then she went to the window and looked out into the dark night. After all, she had been told she would be collected and taken to Allenstein. She should have been there long ago. They were waiting for her.

Not a car on the road, nothing moving. What you promise, you should see through. She couldn’t go on playing the violin here for ever.

The dark field outside was like a lake in the night.

It was quite late when there was knocking at the door. Not the car — never mind culture, petrol costs money, after all — but a soldier on foot, a lance corporal from the Mitkau field hospital. He hadn’t shrunk from walking such a long way through the night to tell Fräulein Strietzel that she wouldn’t be able to go any further tonight. Maybe tomorrow; they’d see. He had been going to phone, but there was no connection, so he had just come himself. He came from Bavaria, his name was Alfons Hofer, and he addressed the young woman standing in front of the fire on the hearth, violin in hand, as Fräulein Gisela. Looking at her like Jago when he was waiting to be fed. It was a miracle, he said, that he had found the manor house at all in the darkness. Nothing could freeze any worse now, he said, they’d have to let time take its course and see what happened.

Auntie heated some mulled wine for the man, made him liver sausage sandwiches, and the soldier told them how wonderful the variety show in the field hospital had been. They were all still talking about it, about the conjuror, of course, and the stand-up girl comics telling jokes — their act had been on the vulgar side, and why you had to wear such short skirts for telling jokes he didn’t understand. The juggler tossing plates into the air, and then the high spot, of course — he addressed this part of his account to the Globigs — ‘was her playing, Fräulein Gisela playing the violin’. The medical director of the hospital had emphasized that in his speech, he said, and all his comrades had been talking about it, saying again and again that they had never heard anything so delightful, they all agreed, they had all said the same. And it had been really special for him, he added, that he had been allowed to accompany her.

He sat down at the piano, and began to play something very lively, and although they had just been listening to serious classical music it turned out that Fräulein Strietzel had pieces quite different from serenades in her repertory. She played hits, old and new, sensitively accompanied by Alfons. They played all kinds of things, whatever came into their heads. ‘Do you know this one?’ ‘How about this?’

The young man accompanied her, and the remarkable thing was that he played only with his left hand. His right arm had been amputated.

With you it was always so good,

It’s incredibly hard to go now …

They played this song again and again, and then Auntie had an idea. She went into the billiards room, came back with a gramophone, and started it up. It immediately played the waltz song:

I’m dancing to heaven with you,

To the seventh heaven of love.

The young people couldn’t resist. They danced round the table, followed by the dog, round and round it, dancing sometimes to the left, sometimes to the right, always just missing the Christmas tree. The lance corporal took the gentleman’s part, and Fräulein Gisela, enchanted, danced in the circle of his arm — to think she could do that too, dance, and wasn’t entirely devoted to melancholy. That was what she conveyed as they danced round and round. A Lovely Night at the Ball: The Life and Loves of Tchaikovsky — they knew that film, starring Zarah Leander. The fire on the hearth cast the shadows of the young people over the ancestral portraits on the wall, flickering over His Nibs of Nibs Castle, and Auntie poured more and more mulled wine until Fräulein Gisela’s face was flushed red.

Then they danced over to the summer drawing room and its wide but ice-cold expanses, all white and gold. The windows looking out on the park were frozen, and against the wall stood a row of crates roughly cobbled together and containing all the worldly goods of the cousins in Berlin, who didn’t want to lose their table linen and clothes at the last minute. In fact there was more room here for turning right and left.

Peter was asked if he had ever danced. ‘Come here!’ said Fräulein Strietzel, showing her bad teeth, and she grabbed the boy and gave him his orders: left, two, three; right, two, three. The boy took hold of her, very clumsily, and felt himself pressed close to her body, which was flat as a board with some protuberances, quite different from his mother’s soft, warm body.

But it really was very cold in the drawing room, and then the air suddenly went out of the whole thing, like a balloon deflating, and they sat down by the fireside again. The gramophone was turned off.

Peter said he could go and get his microscope. What about looking at flies’ legs under it? But no one pursued that idea any further.

Suddenly the ceiling light came on, and they rubbed their eyes. Where were they? What were they doing here?

‘Bong!’ went the grandfather clock. ‘Bong!’ And the clock in the billiards room went, ‘Ding-ding-ding.’

Time for bed. ‘Come along, Peter, it’s late,’ said Katharina. She took the boy’s hand and said goodnight. Peter longed to know what had become of the soldier’s amputated arm. Did you simply throw such things away?

Auntie sat where she was. Because now the question arose that it would soon be midnight. Could the soldier simply spend the night here?

Spend the night here? Two young people, full of life and energy, under the same roof? No, of course not, decided Auntie. And she began bustling about the place, putting chairs straight and waiting for someone to make a move.