Marianne Fritz - The Weight of Things

In the long run, however, Wilhelmine couldn’t ignore it any longer: her ambition craved a new object, and she resolved at last to take the matter of Berta in hand. Intuition called to her as she was preparing breakfast with quick and nimble gestures: “Today the matter shall be settled for good and all.”

Wilhelm had always hoped to dodge this particular turn of fate, indeed had steadfastly fought — successfully for the three years they’d been married — to prevent its ever coming to the fore. But Wilhelm was getting older, and the older he got, the more inevitable it became that, like it or not, he would one day be forced to face up to a certain fact, which he had known in his heart all along: Wilhelmine was no Berta!

“Let’s leave things be — what’s done is done! I can’t undo it!” Quite often during the past three years, this phrase would serve as the second-to-last word in each new installment of their perennial discord. His wife, the resolute Wilhelmine, saved the last word for herself, having always at hand an irrefutable riposte to whatever objection Wilhelm might offer. Convinced that every marital dispute inevitably required a winner and a loser, Wilhelm stuck to the latter role, in which he felt perfectly comfortable. Far more upsetting to him was the realization, clearer and clearer as time went on, that Wilhelmine was not satisfied simply to cling to her various judgments, but was also inclined, under certain circumstances, to actually act upon them.

“On the 13th of January, 1960, we were married.” These were the words with which Wilhelmine, determined to realize her new objective regardless of the cost, opened their breakfast conversation on the 13th of January, 1963. And with a sinister single-mindedness, she smacked the dome of her egg until it was pulp.

“And the 13th of January was Berta’s birthday,” Wilhelm countered, taking pains to give an impression of composure, of even temper, and in particular to radiate docile humility, though gloomy thoughts were now wandering like ghosts through the cells of his brain. Yet his efforts were in vain, and his gloom could not be hidden from Wilhelmine, for it had a marked effect on Wilhelm’s smile.

WILHELM, THE SMILER

Wilhelm’s smile won him extraordinary benefits. In particular, it brought in generous tips, a most welcome supplement to his salary as chauffeur and Come-hither-boy to Johannes Mueller-Rickenberg, which the Schrei household had come to rely upon as a regular addition to its income. These tips, in turn, became further incentive to Wilhelm’s talent for smiling; the smiler Wilhelm knew how to work up the proper smile-combination much as a chef, when cooking, strives for the right mix of spices. All that was needed, according to Wilhem, the chauffeur and Come-hither-boy, was a proper assessment of his rider.

Wilhelm’s smile told Johannes Mueller-Rickenberg that Wilhelm was meek and a little dumb, but also discreet, and that in his work as a chauffeur and Come-hither-boy he was quick, agile, and dependable. It reminded Johannes Mueller-Rickenberg that he could be sure of his Wilhelm seeing both everything and nothing, hearing both everything and nothing, understanding everything and grasping nothing. In a nutshell: Wilhelm was a storybook chauffeur and ideal Come-hither-boy. It was to reinforce this image of himself, in the eyes of Johannes, that Wilhelm’s smile was cultivated. He knew just when to sneak a pinch of acquiescence into the recipe and when to leaven his stupidity with a dose of wit, knew when and in what place and under which circumstances his smile should suggest presence of mind, how his smile should corroborate for this or that passenger what the passenger already knew. He had a skeptical smile, a brooding smile, a sly smile, a moronic smile and a shrewd smile, a clear-eyed and a purblind, a dutiful smile, the smile of a deferential and devoted spirit, as well as the smile of an obstreperous spirit prone to criticizing everything, and then yet another that was never indelicate or frank, always “on-the-one-hand … on-the-other,” always ready to let one or another nuance recede, dwindle, or simply vanish. Nor was the pursuit of his bonus the sole motive for Wilhelm’s really quite cunning talent for smiling. His thoughts were already inclined by nature to “ifs” and “buts,” to “it merits consideration” and “in view of the circumstances,” to “on the one hand, when you consider” and “on the other hand, you have to bear in mind,” and this reticence enriched the vast range of his smiles. He believed all and nothing, doubted all and nothing, was a born dreamer who never dreamed. In a nutshell: he was a worthy representative of his nation.

THE SMILER WILHELM AND WILHELMINE’S AMBITION

The smiler Wilhelm could clearly sense, even while exercising his smile, that somehow he had already made a wrong move. There was something too deliberate, too intricate in the way Wilhelmine spooned out the remainder of her egg. After long consideration, he couldn’t decide which was more worrisome: the sudden failure of his smile to have its accustomed effect, or the ultimatum issued by his Wilhelmine, which, though given three years ago, now came back to him violently and unexpectedly.

“If you want to marry me,” she’d said, “then it must be on January 13th.”

Reliving again the terrible anxiety of that day, Wilhelm suspected his third anniversary might begin with yet another ultimatum. Even with his “if” and “but,” his “on-the-one-hand” and his “on-the-other,” he would have to tread carefully, very carefully, given the circumstances. Of course, when you considered Wilhelmine’s irritable disposition, caution itself might here be in some sense misguided, since Wilhelmine was as likely to interpret it as weakness. Yet as he thought back further, to the days leading up to the 13th of January, 1960, he decided on caution after all. A bit more caution back then and things might have gone better than they did.

“Wilhelmine! What’s gotten into you! January 13th is Berta’s birthday! No. We’d best avoid that day.”

“So what? Berta’s birthday? Are we supposed to walk around her on tiptoes for the rest of our lives? It’s January 13th or it’s never!”

“Wilma, dear, you’re acting like a child! And it’s not only Berta’s birthday, you know, it’s also an unlucky number.”

Wilhelmine shook her head and broke out laughing, uproariously, maybe also a little perversely. “So now you’re superstitious? Just like our poor Berta — she’s superstitious, too! No, Wilhelm, no: if you’re too big a coward to take me to the registrar’s office on January 13th, then don’t bother. What I need is a man, one who’s there for me in spring, summer, fall, and winter — who’s there every single day! I’m not interested in half-measures.”

Undoubtedly he had been right not to make Berta’s birthday a point of contention before, but that did not necessarily mean — did it? — that hinting at his old objections now, three years later, was a good idea. In the end, Wilhelm forced a decision: he would wait. He would see what precisely his Wilhelmine was going to propose. It could be she was somehow in the right and he somehow in the wrong. The only compelling certainty here was that Wilhelmine was on the attack: everything else was open to doubt.

But now it came to him how last night in bed he had, in fact, gotten carried away and let slip a certain vow: “My golden girl. My little spitfire,” he’d started, sliding up beside Wilhelmine. “Tomorrow is our third anniversary. You didn’t forget that, did you? Shall I make an oath to you, my turtledove? You have my word of honor as a chauffeur — but what am I saying? You have my word as an upstanding man, who always lives up to what he says — that from this day on, even more than before, I’ll beckon to every wish that falls from your lips,” and here he planted, with great relish, a gentle kiss on the face of his golden girl. “I will fulfill your every desire, even before you’ve come out with it. Dear little Wilmerl, you busy bee, my exalted, my one and only beloved! Mark my words! Mark them well! This is what our third anniversary means to me! By God, let there be no doubt! This is what it means to me!”