“Patent leather,” I say.
As I come home I see a dark figure in the courtyard. It is actually old Knopf, who has arrived just before me and, just as though he had not already been pronounced dead, is making ready to desecrate the obelisk. “Sergeant Major,” I say, taking him by the arm, “now you have a headstone of your own for your childish necessities. Make use of it!”
I lead him over to the stone he has bought, and wait at the door so that he can’t return to the obelisk.
Knopf stares at me. “You mean my own headstone? Are you crazy? What’s it worth now?”
“According to the latest exchange, nine billion.”
“And you want me to piss on that?”
Knopf’s eye wanders about for a few seconds, then he reels muttering into his house. What no one has been able to achieve has been accomplished by the simple concept of property! The sergeant major is making use of his own toilet. Let them talk about communism! It is possessions that produce a feeling for order!
I stand for a while, reflecting on the fact that it has taken nature millions of years, from the amoeba up through fish, frog, vertebrates, and monkeys, to achieve old Knopf, a creature compound of physical and chemical marvels, with a circulatory system that is a work of genius, a heart mechanism one can only regard with awe, a liver and two kidneys by contrast with which the I.G. Farben factories are ridiculous journeyman workshops—and all this, this perfect miracle carefully elaborated over millions of years, called during his short time on earth full Sergeant Major Knopf, simply for the purpose of making life miserable for young recruits and afterward, on a moderate pension from the state, of giving itself up to drink! Truly God sometimes takes a great deal of trouble for nothing!
Shaking my head I turn on the light in my room and stare into the mirror. There I see another miracle of nature that hasn’t been able to make much of itself. I turn the light off and undress in the dark.
Chapter Twenty Two
A young lady comes toward me through the allée of chestnut trees. It is Sunday morning; I saw her earlier in church. She is wearing a light gray, beautifully tailored suit, a small gray hat, and gray suede shoes; her name is Geneviève Terhoven and she is a complete stranger to me.
Her mother was with her in church. I’ve seen them and I’ve seen Bodendiek, and Wernicke as well, visibly exuding pride at his success. I have walked around the garden and already given up hope; now all at once Isabelle is walking toward me alone between the lines of almost leafless trees. I stop. She approaches, slender and light and elegant, and suddenly all my yearning returns, heaven and the surging of the blood. I cannot speak. Wernicke has told me she is well, that the shadows have dispersed, and I realize that myself; all at once she is here, changed, but wholly here; no trace of sickness any longer stands between us; love in all its power springs from my hands and eyes, and dizziness rises like a silent whirlwind through my veins into my brain. She looks at me. “Isabelle,” I say.
She looks at me again, a small crease between her eyebrows. “Yes?” she says.
I do not understand right away. I think I must remind her. “Isabelle,” I repeat. “Don’t you know me? I am Rudolf—”
“Rudolf?” she repeats. “Rudolf—what is it, please?”
I stare at her. “We have often talked to each other,” I say then.
She nods. “Yes, I have been here a long time. But I have forgotten a great deal, please forgive me. Have you been here a long time too?”
“I? I’ve never been here! I only come to play the organ! And then—”
“Oh yes, the organ,” Geneviève Terhoven replies politely. “In the chapel. Yes, I remember now. Excuse me for letting it slip my mind. You play very well. Many thanks.”
I stand there like an idiot. I don’t know why I do not leave. Obviously Geneviève doesn’t know either. “Excuse me,” she says. “I still have a lot to do; I’m leaving soon.”
“You’re leaving soon?”
“Yes,” she replies in surprise.
“And you don’t remember anything? Not even the names that are shed at night and the flowers that have voices?”
Isabelle raises her shoulders in bewilderment. “Poems,” she exclaims presently, smiling. “I’ve always loved them. But there are so many! You can’t remember them all.”
I give up. My foreboding has come true! She is cured, and I have slipped out of her mind like a newspaper dropping from the hands of a sleepy woman. She remembers nothing any more. It is as though she has awakened from an anesthetic. The time up here has been wiped from her memory. She has forgotten everything. She is Geneviève Terhoven and she no longer knows who Isabelle was. She is not lying, I can see that. I have lost her, not as I feared I would, not because she comes from a different social world and is going back to it, but far more completely and irrevocably. She has died. She is alive and breathing and beautiful, but at the moment when the strangeness of her sickness was removed she died, drowned forever. Isabelle, whose heart flew and blossomed, is drowned in Geneviève Terhoven, a well-brought-up young lady of good family who someday will unquestionably marry a rich man and will no doubt become a good mother.
“I must go,” she says. “Many thanks again for the organ music.”
“Well?” Wernicke asks. “What have you to say?”
“To what?”
“Don’t act so dumb. Fräulein Terhoven. You must admit that in the three weeks since you last saw her she has become a quite different person. Complete success!”
“Is that what you call success?”
“What would you call it? She is going back into life, everything is in order, that earlier time has disappeared like a bad dream, she has become a human being again—what more do you want? You’ve seen her, haven’t you? Well then?”
“Yes,” I say. “Well then?”
A nurse with a red peasant face brings in a bottle and glasses. “Are we to have the additional pleasure of seeing His Reverence Vicar Bodendiek?” I ask. “I don’t know whether Fräulein Terhoven was baptized a Catholic, but since she comes from Alsace I assume so—His Reverence, too, will, then, be full of joy at having retrieved a lamb for his flock from the great chaos.”
Wernicke grins. “His Reverence has already expressed his satisfaction. Fraulein Terhoven has been attending mass daily for the past week.”
Isabelle, I think. Once she knew that God still hangs on the cross and that it was not just the unbelievers who crucified Him. “Has she been to confession too?” I ask.
“I don’t know. It’s possible. But is it necessary for someone to confess what he has done while mentally ill? That’s an interesting question for an unenlightened Protestant like me.”
“It depends on what you mean by mentally ill,” I say bitterly, watching that plumber of souls drain a glass of Schloss Reinhartshausener. “No doubt we have different views on the subject. Besides, how can one confess what he has forgotten? No doubt Fraulein Terhoven has suddenly forgotten a good deal.”
Wernicke fills his glass again. “Let’s finish this before His Reverence arrives. The smell of incense may be holy, but it ruins the bouquet of a wine like this.” He takes a sip, rolling his eyes, and says: “Suddenly forgotten? Was it so sudden? There were signs long ago.”
He is right. I, too, noticed it earlier. There were moments when Isabelle seemed not to recognize me. I remember the last occasion and drain my glass angrily. Today the wine has no flavor for me.
“It’s like an earthquake,” Wernicke explains contentedly, beaming with self-satisfaction. “A seaquake. Islands, even continents, that formerly existed disappear and others emerge.”
“What about a second seaquake? Does that have the reverse effect?”