Lothar, the repudiated brother, passed over in silence: an exile. A stranger who turned up out of nowhere.
‘The life of a saintly man consists more in receiving from God than in giving, more in desiring than possessing, more in becoming pious than being pious,’ declared Martin Luther.
Lothar Schmalker possessed nothing, and he gave in abundance of his welcome poverty.
‘We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn’t matter with me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now,’ declared Martin Luther King on the eve of his assassination.’
Pastor Lothar Benedikt Schmalker’s longevity required him to climb very slowly the dark side of the mountain.
‘I must be certain of being in the hands of God and not those of men. Then everything becomes easy, even the harshest privation … The important thing is that everything that happens to me finds faith in me …’ wrote the prisoner Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
Lothar Benedikt placed his infirmity in the empty hands of God.
Black milk of first light…
We dig in the air a grave…
‘All these years without any news of you …’ Lothar had said to Magnus.
From now on, there would be no more news of Lothar.
Fragment 23
After Lothar’s death the disquiet Magnus feels in Vienna only increases. Certainly the town is attractive, enchanting even, with its atmosphere such a subtle mixture of melancholy and hedonism, conformity and frivolity, bitterness and irony, courtesy and arrogance. It is pointless to criticize the Viennese, they do it very well themselves, their self-criticism as biting as it is subtle. But Magnus sometimes detects here and there, in the course of a conversation overheard in the street, in a café, on the tram, strains of nostalgia for the great heroic opera of Nazism. Peggy has no sense at all of this defiance, she likes living in this city, and would be willing to extend her stay here indefinitely. However, after seven years in Vienna she finally looks for a teaching post in another country, and lands one in Rome.
Magnus likes these periods of disorder and uncertainty that precede moving to a new home. Time no longer obeys the clock, familiar space is turned upside down, habits are unsettled. Day by day objects disappear into cardboard boxes and packing-cases accumulate along the walls of the apartment where footsteps and voices resonate differently. The place you are preparing to leave suddenly acquires the charm of nostalgia whilst your curiosity about the new country you are moving to increases. Opposites become tangled, desire switches between here and elsewhere, and the present quivers with gentle excitement, tugged between the past and the unknown future.
The days are still long and the evenings mild in this late summer. One afternoon about five o’clock, Magnus brings home a bottle of champagne to celebrate the completion of their packing. He spreads over some of the packing-cases the ivory damask tablecloth faintly patterned with pink and orange flower-like stain-rings and sets out two champagne glasses together with an assortment of pastries, for which Peggy has a weakness. A pearly white rose with a subtle fragrance stands in a glass vase. This variety of white rose has the lovely name of Schneewittchen, meaning Snow White; it is also sometimes called Iceberg. Teddy bear Magnus is also part of the decor, propped up against the bottle. He has aged a little, his head slightly tilts towards one shoulder, the wool of his muzzle is rough, the leather of his ears and paws is cracked, but his eyes have kept their soft buttercup gleam. He does not have a scarf round his neck any more, but a little cord with a tiny red velvet bag hanging from the end of it.
He is not merely part of the decor, he is involved in this festive occasion, as he has always been involved in his namesake’s life. As for the tablecloth, it is not there to recall the painful farewell dinner at the house in London, but for having offered a glimpse of a dream of love that has become a total reality. This is a time to look to the future, not to the past and its ghosts.
When the bottle of champagne is empty Magnus fills it with water in which he puts the Schneewittchen stem, whose petals have a pale pink hue in the light of the setting sun. He repositions the soft toy against this vase. Then he removes the velvet pocket tied round the teddy bear’s neck and offers it to Peggy. She opens the little bag and extracts a ring from it. A band of pure gold with a finely wrought zigzag inlay of red rubies. She stares at the ring lying in the hollow of her palm as if it were some unusual plant or insect, and not a piece of jewellery. Magnus takes it and puts it on her ring finger; but her finger is too thin, and so is her middle finger; so he tries it on her index finger. Only on this finger is the gold band not too loose. ‘Well,’ says Magnus, ‘a finger that is used to point to everything, even a long way off, and also to call for silence, is a very appropriate one on which to wear a perpetual engagement ring.’ Inside the band he has engraved ‘You’. Just that one word, which he often uses to address Peggy — ‘Hello, You’, ‘Goodbye, You’, is how he usually greets her, or ‘Hello, You?’ when he telephones her. You, a name reserved solely for Peggy, a personal pronoun replete with desire and lent an importance that does not, however, exclude an element of self-mockery, Magnus making fun of his own besotted happiness.
He suggests dining at a restaurant nearby, but she would rather go to the Heilgenstadt district on the other side of town, not having been there for a long time. It is quite a long journey, and by the time they get there darkness has fallen, lanterns have been lit in the courtyard of the tavern they go to, and already the long wooden tables set up under the chestnut trees are nearly all occupied. Peggy looks round and spots a small table on the far side of the courtyard that some people are just about to leave. She points out the free table with her gold-ringed index finger zigzagged with translucid red.
The lanterns cast a slightly acid light that bleaches the shadows beneath the boughs in a pale ochre haze, glistens on the faces of the diners and makes the white wine in the glasses and carafes sparkle with shimmering hues of citron, honey, or pale gold.
The wine trills in the glasses, strikes a fresh note in the mouth, and soon sings beautifully in a few joyous throats.
The diners at the table next to Magnus and Peggy are on fine musical form, interrupting their chatter punctuated with noisy laughter to break into song, moving on from ballads to lieder, and returning to some love songs. One of the singers has a deep strong voice, albeit a little husky with age. A bass baritone voice to which everyone listens with pleasure.
‘What’s wrong? Don’t you feel well?’ asks Peggy, suddenly distracted from listening. Magnus is sitting rigid on the bench opposite her, drained of colour, with staring eyes. He recovers himself and says, ‘It’s nothing … the wine, the heat … a wave of tiredness.’ He makes an effort to smile and adds, ‘Ssh, listen to the singing.’
He can no longer fight the need to look at the man whose voice dominates, eclipses everyone else’s. He slowly turns towards the next table, seeking out the baritone. He sees a man of medium build, aged about seventy. A narrow band of white hair emphasizes his suntanned scalp. He can only see him in three-quarters profile. He studies his nose: a short very straight nose. But a nose can be operated on, fixed, thinks Magnus. The man is wearing tortoiseshell-rimmed glasses with dark rectangular frames. Magnus cannot make out his eyes, or the shape of his mouth, which is half-concealed by a moustache that runs into a closely trimmed beard, forming a white oval under his nose down to his chin. So he tries to see his hands. Age has left its mark on them, the veins are prominent beneath the speckled skin, but the observer’s gaze is struck by their appearance: these hands are beefy with impeccably manicured fingernails.