Mohr Page 5

  Nagy is still talking, his mouth full, eating and talking. The incident that morning seems distant. So does the bout of nausea at the hospital yesterday. “Vacation,” Nagy is saying as Mohr’s eyes fall back into place.

  “Excuse me? I didn’t catch the last part.”

  “A vacation,” Nagy repeats.

  Slightly addled by the strong tea, the buzz of talk, Mohr reaches for his cigarettes. A stylish couple at a nearby table has attracted his attention. The woman looks very familiar, but he can’t place her. A movie actress? Perhaps. Broad-shouldered, with hat fashionably cocked on her head, confident of her effect on the room. The man is older, slightly paunchy and gray. Mohr feels oddly displaced by their presence. “Vacation?”

  A smile crests at the corners of Nagy’s mouth. “When did you last have a rest?”

  Mohr eases back in his seat. “I can tell you exactly. It was between October and December, 1934. Aboard the Saarbrücken. Seven weeks on the open sea.”

  “And since then nothing?” Nagy calls the waiter. “I’m having a whiskey soda. Will you join me?”

  He glances again at the movie couple, feeling suddenly impelled to alcohol. He hardly ever drinks anymore. “Why not?” He lights a cigarette with a nightlife flourish, inhales deeply. “May I confide something?”

  “Of course.”

  “I came here to begin a new life.”

  Nagy smiles. “Like everyone, I assure you.”

  “I also came here to earn a living. As a doctor.” He puffs on the cigarette, taps the ash into the little porcelain dish at his elbow.

  “Don’t tell me you’ve stopped writing!”

  The formulation is slightly irritating. He doesn’t quite know how to respond, except with a shrug. “It’s more basic than that; something more fundamental.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t follow.”

  “Imagine this.” Mohr rocks back on his chair as the waiter sets the drinks down. “You are trying to escape. From what, exactly, you don’t know. You lack words to describe it, are totally bewildered. You come down from your mountain and see a huge, modern city in front of you, which you recognize as the place where all your contemporaries live. You realize that you no longer belong to a natural world. But you also don’t belong to the mass of humanity that lies before you, the big, noisy city. You stop and sit down to rest, pluck a handful of thyme from the ground, rub the leaves between your fingers, sniff. You can still smell the delicate aroma. But is it the same aroma that your ancestors, or even your parents, smelled? No. It isn’t. Something has disrupted a once clear relationship. You glance back at your mountain. Should you return? Give up on this expedition to the city? You can’t. A dark, heavy Nothing lies between you and all the things of nature. You can’t escape it, and there is no turning back.”

  Nagy leans forward, taking in this flight of fancy. “Go on, go on.”

  “So, you head down to the city to see what’s going on. You decide you would rather give yourself over completely to that dark, heavy Nothing, would rather experience complete, total alienation, than deceive yourself with false connections. So, forward march!”

  “Into the city?”

  “Into today! The middle of the century!” Mohr stops and glances around, aware that his voice is carrying, but also enjoying himself.

  “So you’re saying this is a bad time for writers everywhere, not just in Germany.”

  “Who’s talking about writers? I’m talking about all of us. You, me, those people over there.”

  “But you have to admit, for writers times are especially bad,” Nagy persists. “Especially Jewish writers.”

  Mohr turns his glass in his fist. “Times are bad for everybody. What matters is whether connections still exist between people, if there is anything left linking people at all.”

  “I hope you don’t mind me asking you these personal questions.”

  “Personal?” Mohr smiles, shakes his head. “My dear Dr. Nagy, what you’re asking is far beyond personal. You’re asking me to speak to my condition. I’m not sure I can even comprehend it, much less speak to it.”

  Nagy considers this for a moment. “I don’t think you give yourself enough credit.”

  Mohr looks down into his glass. “I feel foolish talking about it.”

  “I see nothing foolish in what you are saying,” Nagy objects.

  Mohr shrugs, slips another cigarette from the pack lying on the table. “A person like me must live without the will and the shall and the future. It’s the only way.”

  “What about your work?”

  “The same thing. Without the will and the shall and the future.”

  The waiter stops by the table.

  “Another?” Nagy asks.

  “Why not?” The idea of becoming drunk has taken on a certain appeal. He stares for a moment at the glowing end of his cigarette. “I am a dilettante, Dr. Nagy.”

  “You are too hard on yourself.”

  Mohr shrugs, removes his eyeglasses and cleans them with an edge of tablecloth. “And I never could keep my mouth shut,” he says at last, taking in the fuzzy lights of the hanging lanterns strung underneath the roof awning, the laughter from the surrounding tables. “Never mind. Plenty of poets have worked for the water bureau.” He smiles, puts his glasses back on. “Let’s not take ourselves too seriously.”

  A short time later they are walking together up Nanking Road, very pleasantly drunk, ambling along in crumpled, sweat-stained linen. Mohr’s stride is a challenge for the shorter man, who skips alongside, equally drunk and singing with a strained British accent: On the way to old Nanking! Tibet and far Yunan . . .

  A jai alai game is under way at the racetrack. They weave through the evening bustle. Nagy has just told him that he came here in 1927 from Szged, and claims to be a misfit and an outsider. “Like you, Mohr. Just like you.”

  “Like me? What do you mean like me?”

  “A Jew. Just like you.”

  Mohr stops short, inspects his hands, palms up, palms down, in mock panic. “Really? Just like me?”

  Nagy laughs, a nasal honk that draws glances. Mohr keeps the pantomime up, light-headed, wisps of the schoolyard. Funny, how he finds himself recalling so much of innocent, cabbage-white boyhood lately. He is dizzy, disoriented, still thinking about the young man downstairs, how he refused help and staggered off like a beaten dog. He’s seen it so often, beaten Jews staggering off, refusing help. Suddenly he feels ashamed, and stops again. A streetcar clangs past.

  “What’s the matter?” Nagy asks.

  “I don’t much care for all this Jewish talk. Never have. The world would be so much better off if people just stopped it. All this preoccupation with identity.”

  “You may be right. But it’s hard to ignore something when it is foisted on you.”

  Mohr takes out his handkerchief, pats the perspiration from his forehead, his neck. “Do you know what it is to feel a connection? I can close my eyes and feel a connection. A real connection to everybody whom I have known and even those I never knew—whole families dead and gone. I can see their faces, as if I were looking at their photographs. When I open my eyes again they are gone, and I am all alone. I wish I could be among them always—the living as well as the dead. A true connection. It’s beautiful and horrible at the same time. I don’t know where it comes from.” He stops, wondering if what he is saying makes any sense at all. Is it the alcohol? Nagy is looking at him with baffled admiration.

  Mohr tucks the handkerchief away. “I will sign the book, Dr. Nagy. I don’t know what it means, but I will sign it.”

  Nagy nods his thanks, slightly embarrassed. They continue walking.

  “August would be a good time,” Nagy is saying as they finally arrive back at the Yates Apartments. Mohr fishes the keys from his dampened trousers pocket, feels the whiskey evaporating from his skin, smells it percolating on his breath. “There is an American doctor coming from Canton,” Nagy says. “You are free to go as soon as he gets here.”

&
nbsp; “Go? Go where?”

  Nagy shrugs. “Anyplace you like! To Ching-tao. To the seashore. It’s where everybody goes in summer.”

  The idea of going where everybody goes is not at all appealing. Mohr offers his hand. “Thank you. I enjoyed the evening.”

  Nagy clasps Mohr’s hand tightly. “You’re no dilettante,” he says, leveling. “I will remember our conversation tonight.”

  A gracious nod. Nagy’s sincerity makes Mohr feel foolish. He knows better. The smell of food cooking wafts from the building as he approaches the front door. Before going in, he turns to watch Nagy settle back on the upholstered seat of a rickshaw, then disappear with a wave into the melee of Bubbling Well Road.

  Wolfsgrub

  The drain in the kitchen isn’t working properly and Seethaler won’t be free to come until the end of the week. Käthe lifts a large pot onto the stove and lights the burner. The drainpipe collapsed yesterday. Fixing it isn’t beyond her. She’s done many and far dirtier repairs on the house by herself, but digging up a dirty old drainpipe isn’t worth the risk of a back injury—even if it means having to haul dishwater outside for a week.

  The kitchen windows are open to let in the morning air. Berghammer is cleaning the stalls next door. His cows have been grazing in the upper meadow for two days now. In another day, he’ll bring them down. She scrapes the breakfast crumbs from the kitchen table with the edge of her hand, tosses them outside for the birds. It’s Eva’s last day of school, a beautiful summer day. Hiasl came by earlier, his cart loaded with fresh plums. She bought an entire basket from him, and has just taken the cake she made from them out of the oven and set it to cool in the next room. Of course, Eva will be too excited to eat when she sees the present from Papa. It arrived just two days ago. The enclosed letter contained another surprise. Japan? A vacation? She looked in the atlas to see how far from Shanghai it was. Just a finger-width on the map. Even so, she can’t help feeling that it is too far away. Anything that increases the distance between them is too far away.

  She pins up her hair and sets to work on the dishes, listening to Berghammer’s shovel scraping next door. Her apron is smeared with plum juice and dusted with flour. Eva teases, calls her a messy cook. Amusing that a child would notice such things. Where does she get it from? Frau Daibler? There’s a woman who keeps things tidy. Sometimes Käthe slops around the kitchen on purpose just to make the point that she’s a woman with her own way of doing things. No typische Hausfrau.

  She is repairing the fence around the vegetable garden when Eva finally gets home. The heavy bicycle is maneuvered through the gate—battered old wicker basket hanging precariously low from the handlebars. She leans the bicycle against the fence, and races up the hill waving something over her head. Final grades. Käthe holds out her arms for a congratulatory hug, but Eva stops short and thrusts an envelope at her. “Is it true, Mama? Is the school closing?”

  Käthe reads the notice twice, tucks it into her apron pocket, and nods.

  “But why?”

  “They’re closing all the private schools.”

  “Who is?”

  “The government.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Is there something wrong with my school?”

  “There is nothing wrong. Your school is a fine school.”

  “Then why should they close it?”

  Käthe sits down in the grass. Eva drops down beside her and pulls up a fistful of soft turf. “Why should they close it, Mama?”

  “Because they want to control everything.”

  “Frau Waldheimer said we’ll all go to school in Bad Tölz.”

  She shakes her head. “I don’t think so.”

  “No?”

  “It’s not for Frau Waldheimer to decide where everybody goes to school.”

  A smile plays at the corner of Eva’s mouth. She knows her mother’s feelings about the woman all too well. “We’ll find you a tutor,” Käthe says.

  “To come to our house?”

  “Maybe.”

  Eva jumps up. “You mean I won’t have to go to school anymore?”

  “Why not?”

  Eva is beaming with puzzlement. Käthe smiles, gets to her feet. What a surprise. No more school! Perhaps circumstances have actually improved for a change. “We’ll see what we can do.”

  The table outside is set for lunch. As always, Käthe sits facing out into the garden. A man and woman have just emerged from the woods and are coming down the path that runs along the edge of the cow pasture. There seem to be more tourists around than usual this year. Mostly they keep to the lakeshore, but lately more and more of them have been striking out for this quiet corner of the valley. The dirt tracks that wind between the fields are busier than she can ever remember. The other day a large group of men tramped by as she was leading Minna back to the barn. She watched as they stomped by noisily and disappeared into the woods. It was a very large group, close to a hundred—and they weren’t boys but men with red faces and sagging bellies out on their Kraft durch Freude walking tour of the Tegernsee valley.

  Eva rushes through her meal. Käthe sits back to watch, astonished by her daughter’s growing appetite. “Would you like more soup?”

  “No, thank you.”

  Käthe stacks the empty bowls on a wooden tray, and slides across the bench. “Wait here. I have a surprise for you.”

  “It’s not a surprise, Mama. I saw it already. It’s right inside on the table.”

  “I’m not talking about the cake,” Käthe teases, and hurries inside. When she returns, Eva has cleared a space on the table, is squirming with delight. “Oh. I knew it, Mama. It came last week, didn’t it? On Thursday. Am I right?”

  Käthe places a small box on the table. It is wrapped in very thin red tissue that has left a slight stain on her fingers. The little box absorbs all of Eva’s attention, as does every gift that comes from China. They come in a variety of ways—Trans-Siberian Railroad, steamship though the Suez Canal. The most surprising and extravagant are always the packages that come from Captain Brehm. They are the ones that contain the real treasures of the Orient: a mahogany side table richly carved and inlaid with ivory, porcelain, silk robes and slippers, puppets, tasseled lanterns, carved figurines and fans—many, many painted fans. When Käthe objected to such extravagance, Mohr wrote back that he was wasn’t wasting money but only sending things every tourist in China buys; to make the point, he enclosed receipts.

  Eva removes the wrapping paper carefully to reveal a small black-lacquer box. She turns the dainty object over. “I think I know what it is.” She lifts the top to find a very tiny scrap of stationery atop a wad of cotton. She unfolds the note with ceremonious deliberation. “Papa can write like a flea!” she giggles, and reads out loud:

  Sieh nicht, was andre tun

  der andern sind so viel

  du kommst nur in ein spiel

  das nimmermehr wird ruhn.

  Geh einfach Gottes pfad

  lass nichts sonst Führer sein

  So gehst du rect und grad

  und gingst du ganz allein.

  Look not what others do

  too many throng around

  they draw thee in their game

  where peace is never found.

  But go the path of God

  where none may guide but he

  for straight and true it leads

  however lone thou be.

  She glances at her mother with a flush of uncertainty.

  “Let me see.” Käthe takes the note and reads it out loud once again. “I think it’s quite nice,” she says afterward, hiding her irritation. What could he have been thinking? Telling a twelve-year-old girl to go her way alone. She is alone! Has no idea how alone she is. Käthe brushes back a flying strand of hair and puts the note on the table. “Papa is just trying to say that you should always do what is best for you. Not follow behind others.”

  But Eva has already forgotten the note. “Look, Mama! A di
amond!” She holds the box for Käthe to see.

  “It’s a moonstone.” Käthe plucks the little gem from the box. “Very lovely.”

  “Does it really come from the moon?”

  “No. But sometimes I think your papa does. They’re his favorite. I have some from him, too.” She drops the stone into Eva’s outstretched palm, noting the child’s slightly muddled pride, and gets up to go into the house.

  “What should I do with it?”

  “I have been saving mine and one day I’ll have a necklace made.”

  “That’s what I want to do, too.” Eva rolls the stone in the palm of her hand, then returns it to the box, pressing it firmly into the cotton. “But not until we’re with Papa. When are we going to China, Mama?” she asks.

  It’s a question Käthe doesn’t have an answer to; she goes inside without offering one.

  THEY PARK THEIR bicycles and follow the footpath down to the lakeshore. It’s a crowded, hot afternoon. Eva races ahead to find a spot as close to the water’s edge as possible. There are long lines at the changing cabins, women tucking their hair up in rubber caps. Marie Berghammer recently told Käthe about an FKK club someplace along the lake, and they’d had a good laugh together at the idea of local farmers doffing their clothes for a rollick in the nude.

  Käthe settles down on a relatively open patch of grass and helps Eva into her swimsuit. A breeze is blowing across the lake, and though the sky is blue and clear, a front is moving in slowly over the mountains. There will be rain, possibly before nightfall. Eva squirms into her suit and races off to the water. Käthe takes her sewing from the basket, removes her shoes. The blue-green water is slightly choppy today. The little boats that ferry tourists across the lake have a hard time of it when the water is rough. Burbling, straining motors. She drops her sewing as the bells of Saint Laurentius begin to chime the hour. Their sound always brings back memories. This little beach at the southern tip of the lake was one of Mohr’s favorite spots. She thinks of him often here, remembers the old swimming pier (now gone), and Mohr with his blue-striped trunks pulled high on his waist, wet hair combed straight back, smoking his customary “après- swim” cigarette. A quick glance around at the men out here today—not one of them comes close. What secret pride she used to feel when they came down here together. His gregarious physicality was even slightly embarrassing to her, being out here with the famous doctor and writer—handsome, athletic Max Mohr.