Our philosopher, p.11
Our Philosopher, page 11
That’s him, he said and pointed at Herr Veilchenfeld. According to his own declaration, he is sixty-three years, eight months, two weeks and five days old today.
And three days, Herr Veilchenfeld quietly amended.
Then the two gentlemen also smiled sympathetically and placed themselves to the right and left of Herr Thiele. Then Herr Thiele became very official and laid Herr Veilchenfeld’s passport before him on the desk and folded his hands over it and in a tone, as if he was going to recite something, said more or less: Professor Bernhard Israel Veilchenfeld, by virtue of the powers conferred upon me, I hereby revoke your German citizenship and expel you forever from our national community. And then, even before Herr Veilchenfeld could have nodded, Herr Thiele, in front of the two witnesses, tore the passport in two pieces, and then tore the pieces ever further, and, because it was too stiff to tear, he cut through the cover with a paper shears, which was easier. Until there was nothing left of the passport except shreds, which Herr Thiele piled up in a small heap in front of him. There, he said.
On the bench above us, Herr Lachmann told Father and Mother, Herr Veilchenfeld said: Herr Thiele, Herr Thiele, and shook his head, but Herr Thiele simply continued to tear and cut until the passport was beyond recognition. Then one of the gentlemen from the next room said: With your permission, Herr Thiele! and got a wastepaper basket and held it out to Herr Thiele, and Herr Thiele carefully thrust the passport shreds into the wastepaper basket. Then Herr Veilchenfeld quickly had to write out, date and sign yet another form in five copies indicating that he took note he was now no longer a German.
No? Herr Veilchenfeld asked.
No, Herr Thiele said.
And what am I now, Herr Thiele, Herr Veilchenfeld asked and put down the pen.
Certainly not a German any more, Herr Thiele said, and laid his flat hands down in front of him.
And what, Herr Thiele, does one do in such a case, when after so many years one is suddenly no longer a German? Herr Veilchenfeld asked. Indeed I am nothing otherwise.
Now, what you do about that is your affair, Herr Thiele said, that you must decide for yourself.
And as Herr Veilchenfeld cannot immediately decide what is best for him to do, Herr Thiele says that in any case he cannot stand around in the Town Hall offices taking up his time, but instead must disappear, and indeed straight away. Go, go, cried Herr Thiele from behind his desk and he even hissed, in order to expel Herr Veilchenfeld from his office.
Then I am to go, asked Herr Veilchenfeld.
Yes, said Herr Thiele, to the door.
And as Herr Veilchenfeld at the door once more asks: And where does one go in such a case, Herr Thiele, when one is no longer a German, I mean in this town? Herr Thiele, who actually wanted to be in a good mood that day, shouts at him: Kindly don’t ask such stupid questions, but disappear, or I will have you and your ridiculous bag forcibly removed from this building, which you have infested long enough.
But Herr Veilchenfeld preferred to leave on his own.
•
Not for nothing does our homeland have the shape of a heart, with our town right in the middle, says Herr Lohmann and runs the pointer over the map along the edges of our homeland. This is Russdorf, this is Frohna and this is Mittweida, which keeps growing larger too. While this here is our town, he says and points at it with his stick. A point without a circle, through which, look here, a line goes, the arterial and access road. And the face of our homeland, in which for centuries coal and ores have been dug, has scars and wrinkles. Such a scar is our town, and here too there was digging. Only nothing was ever found, unfortunately, otherwise it would look different here, says Herr Lohmann, with whom we now have not only German, but also Geography, and who because of idleness—the boy stinks of idleness—hauled me out of my window corner and sat me in the front, where he could monitor me better. In terms of commerce we are excellently well placed. And, if one discounts the fog in our air from the nearby brown coal industry, we ought to have a good climate too, only the sun cannot always get through the fog. We have exactly 18,562 inhabitants; we know that because we have just been counted, and our nearest major city is Chemnitz, which is nineteen kilometres away, yet the stench reaches us. But we are independent and do as we wish. In addition to the Hindenburg and the Pestalozzi schools—we attend the Hindenburg—we have a railway station, where the express trains do not stop, however, so that it can take some time, even if you are in a hurry to leave. Then a local court for minor criminals, a public swimming pool for swimmers and a slaughterhouse, at which many animals are slaughtered. The steeple of the Lutheran church is illuminated at night. From this steeple, as we all remember, a roofer fell to his death two years ago; no one at all speaks of this any more, just us! We discuss with Herr Lohmann, whose teaching is always lively, the question: What does a roofer do if he has climbed up on the church steeple with his son, who on his advice has likewise become a roofer, and the son takes a wrong step and slips, and can just hold onto his father’s leg, and the father is holding onto the roof ridge. Answer: The father must shake the son off his legs, and give him a push, because he must figure that otherwise he himself cannot hold on much longer either and because it is better indeed if one falls than both fall at once. (Beside this son, the father actually has other children and a wife whom he must feed.) Because our town has no river, but only the stream that goes into our factories and comes out the other side again as sewage and stinks up the whole area, we may not go to Grüna any more, because we would have to cross the stream. And that is forbidden, Father says and drums his fingers on the table. It is also forbidden to go to Russdorf; that’s where all the grime is. Nevertheless, when you are sad and wander around our town, you should not immediately reach for alcohol, because you can always find a spot where you will feel somewhat better. For example, where the forest begins or would begin, if it had not been cut down, there are many benches painted green on which you can sit. The people who don’t like our town also find solace on these benches, as well as Father between house calls. Many of our workers (or unemployed), who are (or were) employed in our textile or iron factories, had earlier been unruly, yet now they are tamed, Herr Lohmann says to us and grins. But some are being eaten up. Do you know who is eating them up, Herr Lohmann asks from the blackboard, and looks at us. Well then, he says, when we nod. Therefore we hit back and drive away what is eating us. Is that understood? asks Herr Lohmann.
Yes, sir, we call out.
•
All Heidenstrasse knows that Herr Veilchenfeld is to be relocated on the weekend. Some think that he, like Herr Lilienthal, will have to be at the old depot with fifty marks in small denominations at eight o’clock in the morning; others, that, because he is a professor, he will be picked up by a limousine. Still others think that the affair can drag on until next week, because they want to wait until the festival is over and they haven’t yet gathered together enough of a load to make it worthwhile. At night? By day? At dawn? No, that no one knew. Yet there is Herr Veilchenfeld, as one of our last. Frau Heuer, who lives opposite him, knows it from her husband, but where he knows it from, Frau Heuer doesn’t know. Herr Heuer works at the waterworks and, on a bet, has Herr Veilchenfeld’s water turned off in the middle of August, in order to see what he will do. Whether he comes and complains, or whether he puts up with it. Herr Veilchenfeld, for days without water, doesn’t know what he should do. Again and again he goes over to the tap, but the water doesn’t run. Finally, when Father has once again listened to his heart and his lungs and wants to go, he says to him: Oh, yes, there is no running water here.
Why not, asks Father, haven’t you paid your bill?
I have, says Herr Veilchenfeld. Always.
Then Father goes into the kitchen, and the water really isn’t running. Wait, he says and sits Herr Veilchenfeld on the sofa. And puts on his hat and goes to the Water Bureau and, through the long corridors and anterooms gradually penetrates to Herr Heuer and confronts him and asks directly, Herr Heuer, why have you turned off Herr Veilchenfeld’s water?
Then Herr Heuer, to whom the question is embarrassing, says: Pst, not so loud! He stands up at his desk and draws Father into a corner where they can’t be heard. You know, he says, you understand me right, it was a joke.
And what kind of a joke is that, Herr Heuer? asks Father.
Well, says Herr Heuer, an idea.
Yours?
Yes.
Well then, Herr Heuer, says Father, after he has regarded Herr Heuer sternly for a while, this man on whom you have played this joke is my patient. He is very sick, he must drink a great deal, and now he no longer has running water. But you probably did not consider that, right?
No, says Herr Heuer, I didn’t consider it in that way.
Very well, says Father, if you did not consider it in that way, I would like to ask you to turn his water on again.
In short: That he was now to be relocated, everyone knew. Herr Weiss in the flat above the Heuers knew about it from the Town Hall, Herr Krappes from Pastor Lachmann, while Herr Greim, when he saw no light at Herr Veilchenfeld’s, even thought he was already relocated, and was surprised when on Saturday the light went on again. As for Frau Verhören, who, as Father says, actually is named Frau Verheuren, on Friday—the stage was then already set up, the flags were already waving—she had seen Herr Veilchenfeld still in the garden. She could only wonder when she saw him once again on Sunday evening and she no longer nodded to him. She thought in one or two days he would no longer be with us. Even Frau Uhlmann knew of his relocation, although she had not left her flat now for a year—like Herr Magirius in his house in Russdorf. When her legs failed, she had had her bed pushed to the window and now she looked out at Heidenstrasse the entire day. Father had no objections. At least, if she can’t get around any more, she sits and doesn’t lie down, he says to Mother. Just don’t lie down, Frau Uhlmann, just don’t lie down, he exclaimed every time he examined her and was leaving. Sit instead, Frau Uhlmann, he said, sit! and threatened her with his finger. Because if you lie down, he said, and wanted to add: Soon you won’t be able to stand up again, but then he let that go. At all events, Frau Uhlmann now always sat at the window and knew what was happening in our midst.
•
Perhaps Father is the last one who does not know that Herr Veilchenfeld is to be relocated. On Monday he was still examining him, on Tuesday he has to go to Berlin. On Wednesday, when we are alone, something very different happens. A raging storm slams into our last walnut tree and grabs the treetop and drags it out of our courtyard, over the town and the countryside and the universe, as I can distinctly see from my bed through our window, which is carefully closed and pulled tight by Mother. If I had known this, says Father, when he is back and, after dinner, we are standing next to one another at the window and, instead of the tree, as before, we are looking at both blocks of flats, then, he says, then . . . But then he says no more. Has he forgotten what he wants to say, or does he realise that he too, even if he had known about the relocation, could no longer have helped Herr Veilchenfeld? For now no one can help Herr Veilchenfeld any more, not even by praying, Mother says to us. Therefore we think no more about him; we’d rather think about the festival.
•
The festival takes place on Sunday; everyone is warmly welcome. There’s a lot that’s free at the festival, for example balloons. And the pancakes that are still warm and sprinkled with powdered sugar and filled with a coffee-spoonful of marmalade and are thrown down to us from the balcony of our Town Hall. You stand in the crush and raise your hand and call out: A pancake here please, Miss! and immediately one comes flying. Then unfortunately it’s always the adults who catch it; we always miss them anyway. Other pancakes fall on the ground and are trampled. One little girl who bends down for one is knocked over and is within a hair’s breadth of being trampled to death, when her father pulls her out from underfoot at the last moment. Anyway, the festival begins Sunday afternoon and lasts until Monday morning. Nothing like this has ever taken place among us before, at least not for a long time. It is a homeland festival to celebrate the founding of our town, which took place long ago; how long ago, no one knows, says Father. Therefore our founding can just as well be celebrated today as tomorrow or in five years, he says, and waves it aside. Anyway, all the adults and all the children of our town are taking part, all dressed in costumes assigned to them and in designated families. These are, according to their importance: the prince and princess, the prince’s court, the warriors, the musicians, the farmers, the linen weavers, the woodcutters and the charcoal burners, because earlier all of these were once in our town. The older people, who don’t dress up any more and can no longer get around, are given flags to wave and to put up in the house entrances. Toward the end of the festival, if it isn’t raining, there will be fireworks set up so that out from the Kellerwiese, where everything ends, our houses will be wonderfully illuminated by the rockets.
•
Then we are walking along in the festival parade, I as a woodsman, my sister as a charcoal burner, while Father has emergency service and sits in the Town Pharmacy in front of the medicine cupboard and waits for the injured that such a festival brings along. While Mother sits at home by the window and looks out at the street and hopes that the festival will soon be over and we’ll come home to tell her everything. My sister and I are in two different families and hardly see one another. I am wearing one of the woodsman’s peaked hats that arrived at our school at the last moment and were distributed and put on our heads, although no one wanted to wear them because they look ridiculous and not recognisable as woodsmen’s hats at all. Again and again people from other families, indeed even our teacher, come to us and point to our heads and ask, what kind of hats are these that you have on? Woodsmen, Herr Sperber, can’t you tell? And Herr Sperber says: No, you can’t tell. Soon I hate my woodsman’s hat and would really like to throw it away, but that’s forbidden. I hate the axe, which we woodsmen also have, even more. It is a woodsman’s or woodcutter’s axe; at least, it’s supposed to be. So that nothing will happen, its blade is a mock blade of cardboard which, because it should be of steel, glistens with iron colouring. Because the festival was so miserably organised, the blades were distributed just at the last moment; the axe handles had to be brought by us.
What, said Mother, you don’t get the handle?
No, I said, each person has to provide that.
So at the last moment, because she didn’t find a handle in our cellar, Mother went with me to Rösch the carpenter and ordered one for me. Unfortunately she was not able to tell Herr Rösch how she imagined it, and so Herr Rösch didn’t make me a normal straight handle, but instead, so that I would be favourably set apart from the other woods-men, a curved and fanciful one. When we are back home again and Mother has inserted the false cardboard blade into the handle Herr Rösch made, no one knows what it is, so that I am not only asked what I am because of my hat, but also because of my axe. That spoiled the whole festival for me, though at the same time some of it was nice. For example, the windows and the balconies under which we pass by are decorated with flowers and flags and look so festive that they’re completely unrecognisable. Yes, the whole town is so transformed, it’s hardly recognisable. Many people who always walked around silent and grumpy, smile and even laugh at the festival and throw flowers and candies down on us and are photographed doing it. But unfortunately, they always just throw the flowers and the sweets on the princely family, and when we woodsmen and farmers and charcoal burners come, there’s nothing left to be thrown. We also pass by the bay window of Herr Veilchenfeld, but here there are no flowers or flags, here there’s not even a light. There are also no window panes through which one could see a shadow, and in the end as the glazier no longer wanted to see the panes that had been broken over and over again and no longer wanted to replace them either, Herr Veilchenfeld had to have the window boarded up in order to live behind the boards without a piano and without his work. Then, as we are by his garden gate, I see Herr Veilchenfeld himself. In his black coat and hat and with a cane, he is standing in his back garden, gloomy and withdrawn, with his emergency bag, and is waiting for the relocation and doesn’t want anyone to see him. That’s why he’s stepped into the lilac bush, because no one expects him to be there, as most are just looking ahead, or above, to see whether the weather will hold. And they think Herr Veilchenfeld has already been relocated, or that he is in the back room and is having a quick nap before the limousine comes. No one suspects that he is standing in the bush by the wall, so he is not seen either. Only I see him, because I know that Herr Veilchenfeld is liable to be anywhere. I see that he is swaying somewhat and is clinging tightly to the bush and his face is completely pale, and I step out of my family and go to the garden gate. And then when I have looked around, and no one is looking at me, I go into the garden and behind the bush, where Herr Veilchenfeld is silently holding his bag and is already expecting me.
What is that? he asks and points to my axe.
My forest axe, I say. And I quickly point to my hat and say: And this is my woodsman’s hat.
And you, asks Herr Veilchenfeld, what are you?
A woodsman.
Then you don’t belong to the princely family?
No.
Well, perhaps in the next festival, in the event there is another one, says Herr Veilchenfeld. Then he emerges from the bush a little way, and while the festival parade with its brass music goes on outside, he says: Listen, Hans, do me a favour. And with his shaking white fingers he searches in his waistcoat pocket and pulls out two coins. You know that sometimes I go walking in this garden, he asks me.
Because of the fresh air, I say.
Correct, he says. And you probably also know that this year there are more vermin than usual that must go. Did you know that?
No.
Well, he says, now you know it. Beetles and snails and other things that gobble up everything and that one treads on, when one’s eyes weaken.
