Charles Lewinsky - Melnitz

‘She isn’t ill any more,’ said Arthur.

I see, said Fräulein Württemberger and searched for escapees from her bun, I see, she had recently sometimes had the impression that the girl was significantly better, but on the other hand…

‘She is quite well again.’

How he claimed to know that without even having seen the child.

‘Under your good care it could hardly be otherwise,’ said Arthur.

And then such scenes as there were — in Fräulein Württemberger’s personal office! — scenes were played out, with shouting and hugs and kisses and tears, scenes that simply had no room in a children’s home run on scientific principles. And this Dr Meijer, who was somehow to blame for it all, she would find out what sort of a game he was playing, this Dr Meijer stood there with his arms folded and looked as if he’d won a prize. And let the children kiss him too, even the girl, a grown man. Uncouth it was, yes, that was the word: uncouth.

And then, when the children’s things were to be packed away, right now, because they were going to take them away, just take them away, just like that without further ado, when any references to rules and duties were simply swept away, Fräulein Württemberger gave in surprisingly quickly. She just insisted that Dr Meijer confirm in writing that he had now assumed full and complete responsibility for the two children. You had to cover your back, whatever happened. Whatever might have been behind this matter, she was glad she no longer had anything to do with it. Yes, she was glad. Good riddance to bad rubbish, as they say.

She even sent Köbeli and his handcart with them to the station, just to be sure that they were really leaving.

On the train the children fought about who was going to be allowed to sit on Rosa’s lap. She decided, with the Wisdom of Solomon, that they should switch at each stop; whoever’s turn it wasn’t had to sit on Arthur’s lap instead. When Irma pressed up against him for the first time and put her thin arms around his neck, he had to take off his glasses and rub the bridge of his nose. His eyes were inflamed after the long journey, he explained.

Since her mother had been there, Irma seemed to have got younger. It was probably because she was able to shed her responsibilities.

‘I did that,’ she whispered in Arthur’s ear. ‘Because I was so good at being sick.’

When they changed in Rorschach Arthur bought four bags of sherbet powder at the kiosk, strawberry flavour, of course, and Irma showed them both how to spit blood. Moses was frightened of the game at first, until Arthur explained to him that sherbet powder was the best medicine there was. Then he joined in enthusiastically and slobbered it all over his pullover with great delight.

An elderly gentleman irritably folded his paper and complained to Arthur about his children making so much noise in the train compartment, where they were not, after all, alone. ‘And we’re not even his children,’ said Moses.

When they arrived at last it was already evening. They had to take a taxi, so many suitcases had come with them from Kassel and Heiden. Moses wanted to know why Arthur’s suitcase had such a big hole in it, and Rosa said, ‘So that the fresh air can get at his things.’

There weren’t enough beds in the flat. Arthur was a bachelor with no practical sense, and hadn’t thought of such things. But they put mattresses on the floor and dug out some blankets. Arthur retreated to his bedroom and Rosa and the children slept side by side on the floor, as if they were at a holiday camp. It was probably the best solution; Irma and Moses wouldn’t have let go of their mother in any case.

To be able to have breakfast the following day, they first had to go shopping together. Irma was very proud that she was able to explain Swiss money to her mother.

Arthur put the good Sarreguemines plates on the table and they all ate whatever came to hand, bread and honey and peaches and chocolate. Because they had forgotten to get cocoa when they were out shopping, the children had a little bit of coffee poured into their milk and felt very grown-up.

At that breakfast Arthur discovered a little foible of his wife’s: every time she took a bite she licked the corner of her mouth clean with the tip of her tongue. He stared at her with such fascination that she asked him, ‘What are you learning by heart this time?’

Afterwards the children explored the flat. Moses discovered the drawing that he had made for Arthur, and was very proud of it. Then he wanted to count the books on the shelf, but there were too many. ‘Are they all full of stories?’ he asked. His sister explained to him from the superiority of her twelve years that Arthur was a doctor, so he only had books that you could learn things from.

‘You can learn things from novels as well,’ said Arthur and winked at her. Irma would have liked to perform her trick again, but there was no sherbet powder left.

The children found the bronze-covered oak-leaf wreath particularly interesting. When Arthur announced that he had won it as a wrestler, Irma squinted at him dubiously, but it seemed quite straightforward to Moses that a Goliath should win every battle.

They also tried in vain to liberate the bottle locked in the Tantalus, in which a darkened residue of the golden fluid still sloshed back and forth. Irma refused to believe that no one had managed to drink a drop of it in nearly a hundred years. ‘I’d just have broken the lock,’ she said.

‘And what if the stuff didn’t taste nice?’

‘I wouldn’t care,’ said Irma. ‘At least I’d know.’

Arthur had decided not really to be there that day, and not to call anybody. Tomorrow or the day after it would still be soon enough to inform his family about all the surprising changes in his life. By tomorrow or the day after, he had tried to persuade himself, he could certainly have found the correct form for that communication.

But then there was a ring at the flat doorbell, and when he opened up, Hinda was standing there and handed him a big bouquet.

‘Where’s your wife?’ she asked.

He must have looked stupid, with his startled facial expression, because she said very pityingly, ‘Arthur!’ just as she had, as the older sister, always said ‘Arthur!’ when her little brother didn’t understand the world. ‘When someone from Zurich gets married, here or elsewhere, the banns are posted at the city hall for four weeks. Didn’t you think about that?’

No, he hadn’t thought about that.

‘The whole community’s talking about it. Zalman says, “If he wants to make a secret of it, then let him have his secret.” But now that it’s happened… I’m just too curious. Where is she?’

They knew everything.

They knew nothing at all, because there hadn’t been anything about the two children in the banns.

‘Otherwise I’d have brought presents for them!’ Hinda was very disappointed.

‘That doesn’t matter,’ said Irma. ‘We’ll take them later, too.’ Then they all talked at the same time, couldn’t find any words and therefore used a lot, had to look at each other and hug and look again, and Arthur for once didn’t stand aside, but was right in the middle, awkwardly proud and proudly awkward.

‘You’re a lucky chap,’ Hinda whispered in his ear. ‘Where did you actually meet her?’

‘At the register office, of course,’ said Arthur. ‘Where else does one meet one’s wife?’

Chanele’s death was as orderly as her life.

Even in her confusion, at the home she never forgot to lay out the things she needed for the next day; she had always done it, so that the following morning you could get dressed and go to the shop without wasting any time. But she didn’t get up, she just lay there and was no longer in a hurry. Her body displayed no unpleasant outward signs of death, as if she had given practical thought to that as well, and wanted to make the chevra’s work easier. Only her thin white hair lay tangled on the pillow, a disorderly sight that she would have not have allowed anyone to see during her lifetime. The dark sheitel by which she was known waited on its stand and was no longer needed.