The Prince of West End Avenue Page 16

  He seemed distracted.

  "The stethoscope, Doctor."

  "What? Oh, yes." He listened back and front while I coughed. He went through the familiar routine twice. "Take my advice and ease up some, get out more, walking's good for you. And make proper use of the siesta hour. I'm going to give you a Valium, but I want to see you again in three days. You can get dressed now." He helped me on with my undershirt.

  "You're not married, Doctor?"

  "You know I'm not."

  "A doctor should always be married. It's an old truth still valid today. It prevents loose talk."

  "Talk?" He looked at me sharply.

  "Well, in the course of his work a doctor has to examine his female patients, some of them cursed with active imaginations. He has to probe all their hidden secrets; their very sacraria must yield to his careful scrutiny."

  He laughed. "If my female patients are concerned about their sacraria, as you put it, they have more to fear from Freddy Blum than from me."

  "One reads such odd things in the papers."

  "Sacraria! Boy-o-boy!"

  "The trouble is, the gossip is all in the other direction."

  "What does that mean?"

  I shrugged. "You're the doctor."

  The blood drained from his face, and the hand on his stethoscope trembled. "They think I'm gay, is that it?"

  "In a place like this, naturally tongues wag. For some it is their only exercise."

  "They think I'm a homo, a queer!"

  "Please, Doctor, calm yourself, the last thing I wanted was to upset you. Only, a word to the wise." I buttoned my jacket and left him standing there, rooted to the spot but shaken, I think it fair to say, out of his complacency.

  Another seed is planted. May it find fertile soil.

  our old acquaintance from Zurich days, had returned to Berlin at the beginning of 1917, where he took over the reins of an incipient Dada "government." The "Dada bomb," as Arp was later to call it, had already exploded by the time I arrived, penniless, my flirtation at the skirts of Swiss literary journalism ignominiously over, my tail between my legs, obedient to my father's summons and my mother's importunings.

  With Dada in Berlin I, of course, had nothing whatever to do. In any case, the tone of Dada here had a stridency that cast the Dada of Zurich into a tame, almost cozy light. If in Zurich Dada had merely toyed childishly with politics, in Berlin it embraced politics with lascivious intent, it swallowed politics, it spewed politics. In Zurich Dada had scarcely shaken Order from its foundations; in Berlin the foundations of Order were gone. From all this I was by temperament and circumstances aloof.

  After the jubilation attending the return of the prodigal, my father took me into his study for a "serious talk, a man-toman exchange of ideas." It was time, he said, for me to take the future into my own hands. The nation faced stern times ahead, times that would demand of its sons the uttermost of their courage, more perhaps than in the war itself. Today the battleground was outside our windows. "Discordant elements" strove to tear the beloved Fatherland asunder. They must not succeed. And they would not, if only young men like me, "true patriots," would roll up our sleeves and from the fallen masonry, the rubble, of the old order build the firm foundations of the new, learning from past mistakes but always cleaving to past achievements. In my case, this noble mission required me to enter the family firm. In fact, he said, that had always been his hope, that a new generation would prepare to take over the helm. My future career, it seemed, was decided.

  Father embraced me. "Come, Otto," he said kindly, "let us seal your determination, our agreement, like gentlemen: a

  handshake and a thimbleful of cognac." We shook hands. The decanter stood ready, glinting on the sideboard. He poured; we drank. The ladies waited for us anxiously in the drawing room. "It's settled," said my father. "He's joining me in the office on Monday morning." My mother and my aunt clapped their hands, delighted; Lola hung adoringly on my arm.

  And so I entered the Korner Office Equipment and Stationery Company, moving steadily through the various departments until my father was confident I had a "firm grasp of affairs." In time I traveled abroad on the firm's business, mostly to England but also to Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, the fragments of the old empire. Despite the treacherous economic currents of those times, Korner's prospered.

  When I left for Switzerland in 1915, my cousin Meta had been a child, only ten years old, a little girl in pigtails and dirndl. When next I saw her, in 1922, what a transformation! She had blossomed into a beauty, tall, slender, with dark tresses, a creature to inspire the Pre-Raphaelites. The blush came easily to her cheeks, the smile to her lips. At once she became for me the image of maidenly purity, the obverse of Magda Damrosch, whom now I could remember only disheveled, sweating, in her kimono, Egon Selinger naked on her bed. I was ashamed of the comparison, which was, I thought, an insult to my cousin, but it came unbidden to my mind, the two young women side by side. It marked perhaps the beginning of my healing.

  We met again during a family holiday in Berchtesgaden. Only my sister and her husband were missing; the newlyweds were in Venice. I had at first been reluctant to go. Having myself ignominiously sat out the war, I was ashamed to face Meta's brother Joachim, a wounded and decorated hero. He put me at my ease at once. "As you see, Otto, like you I am beginning to lose parts of myself." He had been in the mountain sunshine for a week or more by the time I arrived and was already deeply tanned. He wore the patch over his missing eye

  with a certain dash, his badge of honor, and despite his wooden leg and cane he got about nimbly enough, masking his pain, the wince that occasionally transfigured his handsome face, as best he could. Of the bitterness that was in later years to overwhelm him there was as yet no sign.

  The three of us—Meta, Joachim, and I—got along famously. It was a halcyon time. Joachim had a powerful open touring car, specially equipped for his needs, in which he drove us at reckless speed through the mountains, scattering dust and chickens in the hamlets, the dogs barking, the peasants shaking their fists, the wind whipping Meta's hair, our laughter carried away behind us by the wind. We swam in cool, clear lakes, picnicked on their margins, talked endlessly of books, of music, of the future of the world.

  Sometimes in the evenings, the family gathered around, Meta would play the piano for us. She played well, a delightful frown of concentration on her face. My mother transferred her Schiller-reading evenings to Berchtesgaden. We all took turns with the well-loved passages, discussed the works. Once Meta embarrassed me by taking out a copy of Days of Darkness, Nights of Light and insisting on reading from it: "There are other poets, after all." My father snored gently through the recitation, a handkerchief over his face, but the applause at the end woke him up: "What? What?" Afterward Meta brought the book over to me, where I sat withdrawn in the shadows. She held it to her heart. "Inscribe it for me."

  "What shall I write?"

  She thought for a moment. " 'To my beautiful cousin Meta, Fondly, To to.' "

  "What vanity! Here," I said, scribbling. " 'To my mischievous cousin Meta, With much love, Otto.' "

  She bent and kissed me gently, a feather touch, on the cheek, snatched the book from my hands, and ran from the room. My mother and Meta's mother nodded at one another,

  smiling. They knew what they knew, but for my part I believed my feelings merely cousinly.

  Nevertheless, Meta and I were married on July 16, 1923. She was eighteen; I was twenty-seven.

  Did I love her? I was proud of her beauty, of her purity, of her culture. I was comfortable with her. It was plain that she adored me, incomprehensibly but certainly. At times her ardor embarrassed me. But as for love—well, I suspect that in such matters the balance is seldom even.

  KUNSTLER KNOWS everything!

  This morning I had an appointment with Dr. Comyns. Nothing alarming, the usual thing: constipation, headaches, and so on. The pendulum has swung back all the way. Occasionally he prescribes something that works,
it's worth a try; but "fundamentally," as Hamburger says, Comyns believes in stewed fruit. The waiting room outside the office is tiny, claustrophobic. Kunstler was there before me, reading a magazine, his legs stretched out, filling the space.

  "Come in," he said, as if he had sent for me. "Sit down. The doctors backed up, a new girl, a fresh morsel for Blum." Already he has an insider's knowing breeziness of tone. "Beautiful day, not too cold."

  "I haven't been out yet," I said.

  "Perhaps when you're finished here. We could go for a walk in the park."

  "Unfortunately, I have many things to do."

  We sat in silence for a while, listening to the muffled murmur of Dr. Comyns's voice well launched upon a flood tide of tangled sentences.

  "Have you been back?" he said.

  There could be only one meaning. "Never."

  "They have a program there, you know, to bring back

  Berliners for a visit, the refugees from Hitler's time, all expenses paid."

  "Very decent of them."

  "I went last year. It was something."

  I said nothing.

  "I was lucky, I got out just under the wire, in April 1939." He sighed. "Those were terrible times, terrible. Sometimes I think it couldn't have happened, I must have dreamed it, a nightmare. I had a cousin, on my mother's side, Sonya, my only relative. She got out herself in 'thirty-eight, right after Kristallnacht. Sonya sent for me from Mexico City. By then she was living with a Mexican film producer, Iago Colon, perhaps you've heard of him? No? In any case, we didn't stay there long. She married a Texan from Amarillo, a salesman in automobile accessories. He had one fabulous asset: he was an American citizen. People were desperate in those days, I don't have to tell you. Just the same, he got a bargain, she stuck it out with him. Sonya was a real beauty, easygoing, a wonderful cook. She sang, too, a soprano, could have become a professional. So that's how I came to America.

  "I've painted my pictures in every one of the states except Hawaii and Alaska, can you beat that? Of course, I didn't set out to make a record, but I traveled around a lot, mostly New Mexico and New York, the Taos-Greenwich Village axis, in the old heroic days. But also Colorado, Oregon, Louisiana. After I'd racked up about fourteen states, I thought what the heck, I'll try for the whole shebang. Some places—Nebraska, for example, or Georgia—I stayed maybe only a weekend. In New Mexico I owned a burro, two dogs, and a cat. Also I had a wife, but that's another story. Seen any of my work?"

  "I think not. But I can't pretend to know anything of modern art."

  He grinned. "But I bet you know what you like."

  "I am not a Philistine, Mr. Kunstler."

  "Poker not your game?"

  "No."

  "Pinochle?"

  "An occasional hand of bridge."

  "Everyone's got a story to tell, I guess."

  To this, of course, I made no reply.

  "There used to be a Korner Stationery Company on the Wilhelmine Platz, an old, old firm, from the nineteenth century at least, a giant of a place, 'By Appointment,' even. Any relation?"

  "It was my family's. My father ran it until they took it away from him. I, too, worked there."

  "So that's it! And do you by any chance remember a Klaus Kunstler, a chief clerk? He died in 1932."

  "Of course."

  "That was my father."

  So here it was at last, the past, sitting sprawled before me. In Gerhardt Kunstler I could now see the lineaments of the father. But Old Kunstler had been an erect, a punctilious man, formal in bearing and utterance, my father's highly respected right-hand man, kindly but firm in business matters, his advice—and surely correctly—always outweighing my own. And now I remembered him earlier, too, when I was a child, and his miraculous waistcoat that always had a boiled sweet in it for me.

  "Well, well, well," said Kunstler. "I know all about you. The grand doings of the Family Korner were the staple of dinner conversation in our more humble home. Your father had promised mine that there would be a place for me at Korner's. That's what my father wanted, our own family tradition of service. But I had other notions. Eight-thirty to six-thirty and nine to one on Saturdays was not my idea of how to live. 'Thank you, madam,' At your service, sir.'' :

  "Your father was very kind to me."

  "He didn't have much choice, I would say."

  "Nevertheless, I remember him fondly."

  "Fondly, yes, and with good reason. He made millionaires of you! But no, I don't really mean that. Old resentments, I suppose. I'm amazed at myself. All that is long over and done with. Forget what I said. You're not to blame for society's ills. And besides, you lost everything. . . . But you wrote, too, didn't you? After Hitler came into power? You were something of a journalist, that's right, isn't it? Every other week, I seem to remember, there was another Korner article."

  The door to Dr. Comyns' office opened. The "new girl" was as thin and bent as a twig. She wore a blond Afro-wig over her parrot's face. Dr. Comyns made the introductions, but I paid no attention to her name. It took all the strength I had simply to stand on my trembling legs.

  "Which of you fakers is next? Mr. Kunstler?"

  "Go ahead," Kunstler said to me. "I'm in no hurry."

  "Perhaps you'd better, at that," said Comyns in alarm. "Your color is far from good." He helped me into his office.

  My TROUBLES, it seems, may be solved by a Valium, a muscle relaxant, and, inevitably, stewed fruit.

  WHY DID THE MUSE no longer whisper in my ear? How was it that the flame of inspiration had died so utterly in me? The forge at which, while still a boy, I had hammered out my verse, the bellows blasting, the coal white-hot, now stood long idle, long neglected. Yes, I could with effort still shape a poem, but it was a dead thing, lacking lively heat. I turned to prose, short stories, began a novel. No use, no use. In my frustration I threw myself into my work at the Korner Company, turned my energies into ringing coin, grew thick in the middle, witnessed

  the shrinking of my soul, became what I most despised. Within, I wept. My youth was gone; I was now married, had a child. Responsibilities mounted. With a sour and envious spirit I read the publications of my friends, my heart leaping at a bad review.

  Meta knew what was wrong with me, but her early efforts to ease my inner misery served only to increase it. "Why don't you write anymore, Toto?"

  I was sitting in my study, angrily leafing through a sheaf of papers I had brought home from the office.

  She stood before my desk humbly, like a schoolgirl awaiting reprimand. "Please, Toto."

  Still I ignored her.

  "Why won't you write a little poem for me?"

  I tasted the bile on my lips and at last looked up at her. "Because, my pet, I do not write my 'little poems,' as you justly call them, on demand."

  Her cheeks reddened. She turned from me and silently left the room. How could I have treated her so! My eyes smarted, and I longed to call her back, to run after her, to fall on my knees before her. Instead, I savored the bile.

  Otto Korner in marriage was that ugliest of monsters, a sadomasochist. His wife's natural joy he perceived as a deliberate reproach to him. He began to treat her, this intelligent and blooming woman, this loving wife, as if she were a naughty and irritating child. "Really, Meta, for heaven's sake!" (tone: mild exasperation); "You will permit me to remark, Meta, that that was not exactly the wisest choice" (tone: icy politeness); "How extraordinarily witty, Meta!" (tone: sarcastic scorn). She would flinch, turn away, blush, sometimes even cry.

  My pleasure at her anguish caused me an anguish that gave me pleasure. I was, I suppose, testing her. How far could I go before she ceased to love me? Far, very far. But over time I killed something in her. No longer did she smile when I

  appeared; no longer did she seek to wrap her arms around my neck. I became Otto; Toto vanished. Decorum entered our household, at least in my presence. With her friends, with our families, signs of the old spontaneous joy could still appear, splashes of bright sunlight agains
t the enveloping gloom. With little Hugo in particular, the bubbles of happy laughter burst forth.

  The child became a battleground between us. Meta was, I told her, making Hugo effeminate; he clung too much to his mother's skirts, we would have to send him to boarding school.

  "No, no, Otto! He would be so afraid. I could not bear it!" She held Hugo to her, kissed his curly head.

  "Your brother, Joachim, went to boarding school. He came to no harm."

  "That was different. He was older."

  "Well, we shall see."

  Pure torture, nothing but torture. I did not dream of sending Hugo away; I, too, could not have borne it. Jealously, I tried to win him from her. In vain. They had a secret understanding, the two of them, a bond unspoken, almost palpable. I could not penetrate it. Hugo grew quiet in my presence.

  In time I stopped sleeping with Meta. It began as an experiment, another test. I started to stay late at the office, feigned tiredness, feigned indifference to the demands of the libido. How would she react? At first with understanding, then with tears, at last with resignation. Another turn of the screw: I began to sleep in the guestroom. She said nothing. After a while she moved my clothing there.

  In my lonely bed I relived again and again the moments of our first rapture. Meta had a strong libido; it had been her thrust on me that tore the stubborn hymen, a wild, an exultant frenzy. She had lain then beneath me, gazing into my eyes with an intensity of adoration reserved by a medieval martyr saint for a vision of the New Jerusalem. She had loved me utterly and

  unreservedly. All this I had thrown away. No matter that by then what I wanted most was to hold her once more, undo what I had done; our estrangement had gone too far.

  I managed in my madness to convince myself that she was to blame for the indifference I had carefully cultivated in her. We spoke to one another finally with distant politeness only. Before family and friends we still contrived a show of marital contentedness; alone, there was only the foul odor of our mutual irritation. She no longer loved me, but the vacuum the departure of love had left within her was not, I think, yet filled with hate. That would come later, when the musicians of the New Order began to tune their instruments for the saraband of death, when it became evident to her that I was prepared to sacrifice wife and child to the demands of my ego, the sick appetite of my pride.