William Gass - Middle C

Misfortune would not leave Bruno Schulz alone. Early in World War One — eh? … many hands for World War One …? six, twelve … congratulations … his house and the family store were burned, as they say, to the basement. In the middle of the thirties, his brother-in-law suddenly died, and Schulz became responsible for the welfare of a bereft sister, son, and cousin. But let us skip the merely syrupy third movement to enjoy the finale. In 1939 Poland is eaten by the two hogs wallowing in their sties nearby. The Nazis devoured the eastern half, and the Reds swallowed what was left in the west, including a little morsel called Drohobycz. This annexation ended Schulz’s publishing career, as meager as it was, for the Soviet Union specialized in propaganda and hero worship, neither of which our writer had any talent for. Two years passed — one wonders how — and the hammer and sickle was raised to affront the dawn and claim ownership of each dismal day.

Then the Nazis invaded Russia and the Huns came. They were far worse for the Jews than the Reds had been because the Gestapo sat behind the city’s desks and made dangerous its streets and corners. Among these minions was a man with a murderous past, a man alas from Vienna, a man named Felix Landau … one of many but one to remember … Happy Landau … called by some Franz, more acceptably German, Franz is … well … how fluid names were, then as now — people, places, identities, owners — no matter … whether Franz or Felix he was a man who eliminated Jews the way he moved his bowels. For a slice of bread and a bowl of soup, Bruno Schulz painted the walls of this art lover’s villa, including the nursery … Landau had commandeered the house from another Jew … it was later known as the Villa Landau, isn’t that — as you say — a hoot … and there he had multiplied himself, imagine … now his son had a room with a crib and a wall full of happy Felix-like scenes from the brothers Grimm … actually a princess, a horse-drawn carriage (Schulz had done a lot of those), two dwarfs (a lot of misshapen souls as well) … anyway, do not let the nursery be a surprise, they always do this — barbarians do — they go forth, they occupy, they consume, they multiply. Moreover, Felix bragged among his thuggish friends about the talented little slave who colored walls for him, a miserable painter who must have wondered what it meant to be actually a submissive man rather than a dreamed and drawn one.

Political criminals require accomplices — their power is based upon obedience, obedience upon dependency, upon bribes, threats, promises, rewards — consequently: so that his sister might live, Schulz acquiesced; so that her son would survive, Schulz said sir; so that a cousin could continue, Schulz kowtowed; and so that Schulz should gain a brief reprieve for himself as well, he took care to please his captor with his painting. On walls stolen from a Jew, another Jew depicted reassuring fairy scenes for the child of a man who murdered Jews and thereby earned a smidge of notoriety; moreover a man who, not as merely an afterthought, had a nice family he considerately looked after. Meanwhile, the Polish underground had not been idle. They provided the highly valued Bruno Schulz with forged documents designed to facilitate his escape from Galicia. He was to become an Aryan. His papers so described him. He was to leave Drohobycz, where he was known, and hide away someplace — someplace elsewhere — in the guise of a person of good blood and docile character who would therefore not write or draw or dream of washing a woman’s feet. Meanwhile, a German officer — a genuine Nazi, too, another Gestapo goon, with his Luger handy at his hip, a man whose name we know as Karl Günther — unlike the GI whom the Americans hid in anonymity — had grown envious of Landau’s gifted lackey, and, during a roundup of leftover Jews on November 19, 1942, shot Schulz in the head while he was bearing home a loaf of bread.

I have heard it said: All dead are identical. Do not choose but one to mourn. Broken toys are broken toys, and useless legs aren’t legs.

Thus Bruno Schulz — born an Austrian, raised a Pole, and about to become a Gentile — though a freethinker — died a Jew. Shot in the street. Who, do you suppose, picked up, dusted, carried off, broke, greased, ate his loaf of bread? Hands? Hands now. Please show.

Cassandras have been misunderstood. They bring good news. That is why they are not believed. It is the liars who promise us salvation. We believe them.

Joseph brought his first paycheck home as if it were a turkey. He opened a bank account, acquired a credit card, and bought Miriam a shiny trowel to poke into her compacted yellow clay earth. Marjorie Bruss had recovered her equilibrium after losing it during the Portho incident, though the process was more like finding your cat in a tree than discovering your keys at the bottom of a purse. Joseph and Miss Moss had reached, he thought, good terms, and he was teaching himself how to play the piano, as if he had never had a lesson, from a small series of books he had found in the library, one that was entitled Theory and Technic for the Young Beginner . He sat in his garage of an evening and thought, This is my room, my place, my lamp and chair. And nobody knows I’m here. Which wasn’t altogether true. He was also delighted because he was driving a car without knowing how to drive and playing the piano without knowing how to play and generally living free of what others might think and see. It was true that the Bumbler was in such sad shape it sometimes drew remarks, and Joey would have to remedy that, but, on the whole, he had to applaud his degree of disappearance. His job, his car, his clothes, his room were part of a cordon sanitaire of which any diplomat might be proud. Here we go round the mulberry bush, he sang, so early in the morning.

Indeed, the air had a clean blue chill in it. Then Portho accosted him as he was turning up the walk to the library’s entrance. Mister, sir, the bogey beggar man said from beneath the bill of his red BEER cap. You strike me, sir — no, you do not strike me, sir, of course, you are a gentleman who would not raise a hand — you seem, yes, to be — to me to be — a sensible and caring person, and might have a bit of change weighing in your right pants pocket because I have observed that you are right-handed and would put a quarter now and then down there without thinking, naturally enough, where you should put it. Had it been winter, Joseph’s shoes would have frozen their soles to the bricks. Astonished, he thought: I am being panhandled. Then he thought: Beards moisten the mouths they encircle. Portho had very wet lips. His words seemed very wet. Joseph would not have recognized the voice. Though hesitant, it was clean firm smooth. He shook his head, ashamed of his flight and ashamed of his shame. He was annoyed, too, because this man had spoiled a good mood and a lovely morning.

I’ll tell you something true, something true will only cost you a quarter. Joseph might have continued on up the library steps if he hadn’t suddenly realized that Portho’s voice did not seem to be the same one that had protested his expulsion from the library. Where was the man who mumbled? That lady — your leader — that leader lady screamed, Portho said with the earnestness of a boiling pot. That lady didn’t shake me awake the time, you remember? when there was all the fuss. She’s done that before — shook me, I mean. This time she screamed me awake. She screamed in my ear. I yelled, sir, but she screamed. That’s my secret, the truth. Have you ever been screamed? Gave me an earache. Now I think, to be fair, you owe me a quarter.

The tone, the diction, the manner, the wet words, were unfamiliar. Sparrows, hidden in the boxwood hedge, continued chirping. Joseph put a quarter in a mittened paw. And how had Portho known he was right-handed? The man had seemed the opposite of anyone observant. Portho normally slipped inside the library to get warm. Then Portho slipped inside a magazine to nod off. All this was customary. But perhaps only in cold weather. It wasn’t cold, early in the fall, but to receive that quarter a mitten was extended. Miss Moss had also insisted it was the Major she had heard. Was there such a thing as supporting — cor rob bor ay ting — witnesses? This was confusing. Inside, he hung his jacket on a hook and felt hung there himself.