I said I would probably spend only one night at the inn, I’d suddenly felt the need to visit Traich one more time and thus spend the night in her inn, did she recall the name Glenn Gould, I asked her, yes, she answered, the world-famous one. He made it past fifty like Wertheimer, I said, the piano virtuoso, the best in the whole world, who was once in Traich twenty-eight years ago, I said, which she probably didn’t recall but she immediately contradicted this by saying she distinctly recalled this American. But this Glenn Gould didn’t kill himself, I said, he had a stroke, fell over dead at the piano, I said, I was conscious of the helplessness with which I said it, but I was less embarrassed before the innkeeper than before myself, I heard myself say fell over dead again as the innkeeper went to the open window to confirm that the stench from the paper factory was fouling the air, as it always did in windy weather, she said. Wertheimer killed himself, I said, this Glenn Gould didn’t, he died a natural death, I’ve never said anything so stilted in my life, I thought. Perhaps Wertheimer killed himself because this Glenn Gould had died. A stroke was a wonderful way to go, said the innkeeper, everybody wants to have a stroke, a fatal one. A sudden end. I’m going to Traich immediately, I said, did the innkeeper know whether someone was in Traich, who was guarding the house now. She didn’t know, but surely the woodsmen were in Traich. In her opinion nothing had changed in Traich since Wertheimer’s death. Wertheimer’s sister, who without doubt had inherited Traich, hadn’t even put in an appearance here, nor had any other heir, as she said. Whether I cared to eat something that evening in her inn, she asked, I said I couldn’t say now what I would want this evening, naturally I would eat one of her sausage and onion salads, I can’t get them anywhere else, I thought, but I didn’t say that, I only thought it. Business was as usual, the workers in the paper factory kept it going, they all came in the evening, hardly ever for lunch, that’s the way it always was. If anybody, it was the beer-truck drivers and woodsmen who came to the restaurant for some liverwurst, she said. But she had enough to do. That she was once married to a paper worker, I thought, whom she lived with for three years until he fell into one of the dreaded paper mills and was ground to death by this paper mill, and that she never married afterward. My husband has been dead for nine years, she said spontaneously, and sat down on the bench by the window. Marriage was out of the question now, she said, it’s better to be alone. But at first you risk everything for it, to get married, to find a husband; she didn’t say, and then I was happy he was gone, which she certainly was thinking, she said the accident didn’t have to happen,
Herr Wertheimer was a great help to me in the period after the funeral. The moment she couldn’t stand living with her husband, I thought while watching her, he fell into the paper mill and was gone, left her at least a proper, if not sufficient, pension. My husband was a good person, she said, you knew him of course, although I could barely remember this husband, only that he always wore the same felt overalls from the paper factory, sat at a table in the restaurant with a felt cap from the paper factory on his head, putting away tremendous quantities of smoked meat that his wife placed in front of him. My husband was a good man, she repeated several times, looking out the window and straightening her hair. Being alone also has its advantages, she said. I had surely been at the funeral, she said and instantly wanted to know everything about Wertheimer’s funeral, she already knew it had taken place in Chur, but she wasn’t familiar with the immediate circumstances that had led to Wertheimer’s funeral, and so I sat down on the bed and gave a report. Naturally I could only give her a fragmentary report, I started by saying I’d been in Vienna, occupied with the sale of my apartment, a large apartment I said, much too big for one person and completely unnecessary for someone who has taken up residence in Madrid, that most wonderful of cities, I said. But I didn’t sell the apartment, I said, just as I have no intention of selling Desselbrunn, which she knew. For she once visited Desselbrunn with her husband, many years ago, when the dairy farm burned down, I said, with the economic crisis we have today it would be crazy to sell a piece of realty, I said, purposely repeating the word realty several times, it was crucial for my report. The state is bankrupt, I said, at that she shook her head, the government is sleazy, I said, the socialists who have been in power now for almost thirteen years have exploited their power to the hilt and completely ruined the state. As I spoke the innkeeper nodded her head, alternately looking at me and out the window. They all wanted a socialist government, I said, but now they see that precisely this socialist government has squandered everything, I purposely pronounced the word squandered