Our philosopher, p.8
Our Philosopher, page 8
We said hello.
And because naturally, Herr Veilchenfeld said, I want to be back home as quickly as possible. Then he asked how we were.
Good, I said. And you?
Also good, obviously, he said and smiled.
Then he asked me how I was coming along with my drawing, whether I was now holding the pencil correctly.
Oh, I hold the pencil correctly now, I said, but I’m not much farther along yet.
The courage is lacking?
Probably. And you, are you still drawing? I asked, because nothing else occurred to me.
No, he said, I’m not drawing any more.
And why not?
But he didn’t tell me that. Instead, looking around all the time, he leaned his back against the wall of a house and said, Let’s hope no one sees us.
But there’s absolutely no one here who could see us.
I hope you’re right, he said. Has no one told you that you may not stop, when you see me on the street?
Oh, we’ve been told already.
And?
Oh, I said, it doesn’t matter at all if we stop for a bit.
And you also may not speak with me, that is also forbidden, he said. It’s better if you go on and forget whom you have seen, he said, and tried to shoo us away.
Who’ve we seen then? asked my sister.
But we haven’t seen you at all, I said.
Then Herr Veilchenfeld laughed and winked again, but then he was serious right away, came still a little closer and whispered in my ear: There is nothing that I could draw, it’s all not worth it. There’s no need to hold onto the world as it is, there’s no point in that. And he shook his shorn and, as I saw by his ears, obviously ice-cold head. Then he came still somewhat closer and said: I come from far away, even if it doesn’t look that way, from a deep infernal abyss. I’ve already been on the way for millennia, but I will not be for much longer. Then I will enter into the memory of Nature. And then, because a woman on her bicycle was riding directly toward us from the distance, Herr Veilchenfeld hurriedly thanked me for the little works that I had pushed into his letter box once, said nothing about whether he had recognised our town from the house entrances and house fronts, also said nothing of coming again or seeing us again, and wished us and our parents well, which sounded final. And, because the pavements had not been cleared of ice and snow everywhere, he walked with cautious old man steps—so that I won’t fall once more and have everything smashed up again, he said to himself—while going off again in the direction of our Town Hall.
•
What he now needs of course, and indeed very urgently, are emigration documents, said Father, who on account of the typhus, which had appeared suddenly among us and of which someone had already died, was always tired now, because they weren’t letting him sleep. In fact, Mother yawned a lot too, but she could at least lie down in the afternoons, not to sleep, but rather to brood for half an hour, she said. The Hirschs had now gone away too, soon we were completely on our own. What a fine life it is becoming, Father said to us. Only Herr Veilchenfeld had forgotten to go away, although he too was now resolved to do so. Then I went to him for a second time and brought him a prescription from Father, but whether it would help, Father didn’t know either. Suitcases were standing in the corridor; some were even standing in the cabinet.
Step over them, lad, just step over them, called Herr Veilchenfeld, who was standing in front of the bookshelves and wanted to pack up books. He just didn’t know which ones.
I’m bringing you a prescription. Here, I said and held it out to him.
Very good, just put it down, said Herr Veilchenfeld, as if he didn’t need the good medicine at all, and pointed to the overfilled middle table, on which there were already other papers lying under batches of books.
What does one take along, and what does one leave at home, asked Herr Veilchenfeld, and pulled ever more books off the shelves.
Surely you can’t take all of them with you? I asked.
No, I can’t carry them all.
Then just take the ones you need with you.
But lad, said Herr Veilchenfeld, I actually need them all. In fact, he had underlined something in all the books, whatever he needed for his new work, which he was probably writing non-stop, so that nothing would be lost. What should I do then, he asked me, but naturally I didn’t know either. We stood there side by side in front of the shelves for a long time and considered what Herr Veilchenfeld could do so that what was marked would not be lost, but nothing occurred to us.
Take this with you, at least, I said and pointed to the photograph of the quartet, so that abroad he would also see how he had once looked and who his friends had been, but he shook his head.
I would certainly like to take it, he said, but I will forget it.
Then put it in a suitcase, then you won’t forget it.
No, said Herr Veilchenfeld, I can’t put it in a suitcase.
And why can’t you put it in a suitcase?
Because I am not yet certain if I am really going.
So you’re staying?
No, Herr Veilchenfeld called out very loud, just away from here.
And he looked from his bookcase—and I looked too—through the bay window, on which big raindrops were beating, at our town, which on such rainy days is naturally very sad. Indeed for him our town was sad without rain, too, and a trap, said Herr Veilchenfeld.
And why is it a trap for him, I asked Mother, who was just going to iron.
Oh, it has happened little by little, as many things simply happen little by little, Mother said and told us everything about Herr Veilchenfeld, as far as it was known to her. He was not going to write his last book in our midst, but in Switzerland, where apparently he has found, after a long search in musician circles, a great-niece who will look after him. Yes, he will not stay much longer now, Father called out to us, as if he had just learned this through his wide-open surgery door, and he showed through the intonation of his words that he thought this for the best. Naturally it would be a loss for our town, to lose a philosopher brought here by chance, but few would notice the loss, so that one had to wonder if it was a loss at all. Anyway, for Herr Veilchenfeld, to be suddenly living in Switzerland would be a benefit. For while a philosopher both withdraws from the world and has to sit a lot with his writing, he must still have the freedom to go to the postbox whenever he wants, without having his head mangled straight away, Mother says at the ironing board. Meanwhile Father stands at the medicine cupboard and counts the boxes of medicine and wonders how he can explain to himself my interest in the small person of Herr Veilchenfeld, who can still make large difficulties for us. He cannot explain it, actually. Because really nothing ancestral or relational, no common interests or habits or background or age, nothing connects me with him, nothing. And although Father himself indeed once invited him to dinner, he calls my interest in him pathological, without knowing the pathology, and he continues to search for it. And, still in his surgery, still at the cupboard, Father comes to the conclusion, he calls out, that yes, Herr Veilchenfeld is so interesting to me because everything taught to me about the world and humanity, the entire remainder of Christendom, is shamed by the person of Herr Veilchenfeld. There we have a single case that belies all that we have taught the boy, Father calls out to Mother from his surgery, who is still ironing or already ironing again, but we too—we’re sitting under the window—can hear Father. Such contradictions must indeed interest the boy, with his intelligence, he exclaims. And after a pause, because he is still not satisfied with his explanation: Last night, when I couldn’t sleep, his reasons were clearer to me, but then I finally fell asleep, and now I can no longer think of them.
•
Sometimes, usually at night, a certain thought comes to a person, first as an obsession, then as a conviction, that doesn’t let him sleep, Father says to us. The thought is hardly in his head when sleep is no longer possible. But at least for a couple of weeks it works for the person to push aside the thought, that will now always be there in the background, or at least not let the thought come near while falling sleep, and thus create a balance between thought and sleep. But in time, the thought becomes stronger and grows in meaning, consequence and significance, until it fills the room completely, including the bed. Of course then the thought is also lying within the breast of he who has it. Then the bed gets moved around from one corner to another in the hope that in this way you’ll escape it, but the thought is everywhere. Meanwhile the strength to resist the thought diminishes and becomes weaker and finally hangs from the ceiling as a thin thread, and sleep hangs on the thread. So that the person then sleeps less and less and becomes convinced that he will never be able to sleep again, says Father to Mother and to me.
•
Later, when we are all sitting at the dinner table—Mother is also sitting with us—it turns out that it is not at all so easy for Herr Veilchenfeld to leave our town. The authorities are making difficulties, Mother says and brings the roast beef, though she may not eat any—at most taste a little piece. (But then she tastes two.) Almost every day one sees him, pale as a criminal, with hurried and determined but ever smaller little steps, moving through our side streets. To the Town Hall, Herr Veilchenfeld, but quickly! For he should have done this years ago: to try to get together his emigration papers. They’re not making it easy for him now, says Father, who because of the typhus also has to go to the Town Hall, only to a different wing. He has to go to the Health Wing, while Herr Veilchenfeld must go to the Travel Wing.
But at the time, when he first came, he had not wanted to go away at all, I said to Father.
Based on mistaken assumptions, Father says and, like us too, he hasn’t much appetite for the roast beef. So that we all sit there and smell our plates and, instead of eating, remind each other how after his arrival, on the basis of mistaken assumptions, he walked through our town for days, greeting everyone on all sides, in order to settle in amongst us. How idyllic, if sooty, our area was! How splendidly situated! How here he will finally be left in peace and allowed to breathe freely! Soon he knew all the houses and when they had been built or had collapsed. A methodical head, said Father, who knew Herr Veilchenfeld at that time only from a distance, but considered him the methodical one. If he continues in this manner, he will soon be better informed about us than we ourselves, Father had said. It was a mistake for him to come, Father later said. He should have climbed into the next train after his arrival, he says now, and gone away again, because now they won’t let him any more.
•
This winter Herr Veilchenfeld has a notebook, in which he records every visit to our Town Hall in long, all-inclusive sentences, which then become ever shorter and finally are comprised of only single words. So that one day, when all this has been blown away from the face of the earth like an evil nightmare, he will still remember everything, says Father to us. He once walked over to the window at Herr Veilchenfeld’s, with the notebook in his hand, in order to browse through it. A little black book with gold trim and thin black lines and some space after each day that had been completely filled with phrases like: Violet clouds, but also remarkable beneath. Our Town Hall from within. As supplicant over creaking floor-boards to Room 6. Dizziness at entering, must lean against the wall, which thank God is just behind me. Or: Again at the Town Hall, this time in the room opposite. Wait for a long time beside one ancient Frau Estreicher, who, when I tell her who I am, strokes my hand. Had already heard of me, has the same fate. Because of the fuss that she makes, she is sent home. Or: Passport office, a clerical worker leads me inside. The clerical worker: What is your name? I tell it to him. The clerical worker: Yes, well, maybe you will receive a passport, one never knows. A staff member: Herr Thiele decides that, there is no need to discuss it. Yet another: No, Herr Thiele does not decide that, he only communicates the decision. One morning it arrives for him in the post; Herr Thiele then passes it on. At the entry to Herr Thiele’s room, accordingly: A new delivery, Herr Thiele, one Veilchenfeld. But Herr Thiele is not there, nor in the adjoining room. When I want to go out again, I may not, I must step into a corner. I, joking: Am I arrested, but no one can tell me that. Dizziness again, sweating. Suddenly from the adjoining room the question, where are my documents. My documents? Where are my documents? In any case many of the documents that he needs for his emigration are not to be found, they must have been mislaid in the office or lost between offices, says Father, whose documents have not been lost and who can travel abroad at any time. And now in return for high fees collected from Herr Veilchenfeld the documents must be sought out, but none will be found, Father says. And when he wants to ask Herr Thiele about the documents, he must, so that he can even be admitted to his presence, pay a large sum to a charitable fund, although there is absolutely no connection between the charitable fund and his documents, says Father, as Mother steps toward us, one time, in front of the house. Sometimes they leave him standing in the corridor for two hours without taking any notice of him. He doesn’t know whether they have seen him, whether he is even permitted to wait. Or when he is finally at the counter, they hang the sign “Closed” in front of his nose. Then in the notebook there is: The counter. The sign. The eyes behind the sign. My humiliation. My lowliness. Which of course doesn’t help your heart, but indeed I don’t need to tell you that, Father says to Herr Veilchenfeld, when he is examining him again one day. Yes, you are right, if I still want to go away, I will really have to get up earlier, Herr Veilchenfeld says to Father, when by chance—both have slowly descended from their wings—they bump into one another in front of the Town Hall and go home together. Though not through Helenenstrasse, which now is called something else, although we also still say Helenenstrasse, but instead through the narrow back streets, which our town also has, even if people don’t use them, apart from Herr Veilchenfeld and Father and Mother and us.
•
Then he put on a fresh white shirt and his dark holiday suit with two buttons and one stay button, affixed a starched collar, which was not sewn onto the shirt, but was instead fastened on, and a tie, and he had to leave his flat before eight with a collapsible stool or emergency seat under his arm, which he would have been better off leaving at home, recounted Father, who, because it’s nice weather, has seated himself in front of the house between the jelly and the coffee and, because his phantom foot is hurting again, has stretched out his false leg. And these flies, these flies! Although it is raining lightly, Herr Veilchenfeld goes without a hat, a little bent because of the wind, up to Hellmann the barber’s, where the rainwater divides. The left stream flows downhill, the right disappears in the drain. Here he leaves the asphalted street and walks with his stool over Reichmann’s Field along the backs of the houses. He also takes the roundabout way through Wikingergasse, just to avoid people. But that doesn’t help at all, he’s seen anyway. Frau Hudalik, who recently moved from Bohemia, sees him; Herr Maurer, who is shaving right by the window, sees him; the Limberg brothers, who because of their automobile, which is parked below, always have to keep an eye on the street anyway, see him; everyone in this poor neighbourhood, where everyone is coughing and there is still consumption, sees him, Father tells us, while he drinks his coffee. Herr Maurer even sticks his head out the window and calls out: Hey, where did you get that?
Do you mean me? asks Herr Veilchenfeld and he stops for a moment.
Yes, you, Herr Maurer calls out. That wasn’t something lying around here?
No, it belongs to me, Herr Veilchenfeld says and raises his folding seat high up.
Well, if it’s yours, then keep going, Herr Maurer says and waves him past his house.
If he had gone the usual way through Helenenstrasse, Father says, he would have attracted less attention with his stool. Because now, naturally, they wondered what he was up to with a stool in that rough district of our town at that hour. And then, my God, his walk! He must have developed it in his rear garden, since he has no space to exercise there, and instead always just crawls around the beanpoles. That has so spoiled the way he walks, Mother once said about Herr Veilchenfeld’s walk. From pure fear of arousing displeasure—he never knows exactly how far he may go—there has been for some time something somewhat skulking and furtive and, when he has no hat on, criminal, about his walk, that must make people distrustful, she says. And everyone wonders what someone with such a walk is doing around here. It’s his unhealthy life—the many sleepless nights, the crooked back, the pale skin because he gets no sun, as well as weak eyes, lungs, heart and so forth—that in the course of an unnatural scholarly existence a person is bent under, Father once said, for thankfully his profession takes him into the fresh air and amongst people. Naturally, because of the way he walks, Herr Veilchenfeld also attracts the attention of the people waiting in front of the Town Hall. What does a man, with desperation in his head and a folding seat under his arm, say when, in front of the Town Hall so early in the morning, he bumps into people, amongst whom of course there can also be the thugs from the summer? Does he say: Nice weather? Does he wish them good day? Herr Veilchenfeld, at least, doesn’t say anything at all. Nor does he mingle with them, but instead positions himself silently at a safe distance of three or four metres along the Town Hall wall, against which he then also leans, because I have advised him against this standing for hours without holding on to anything, Father tells Mother and us. When the Town Hall door opens, he lets everyone go before him and goes in last, climbs to the Travel Documents wing and stands in front of the passport office door at the back. And, because now come the hours of waiting, he opens his stool and sits on it, while the others, none of whom has brought along a stool, have to stand. And they look down at him disapprovingly, but at first they say nothing. After all, he is probably the oldest of them, he’s also frail, his knees were already trembling while he was climbing, and after climbing he was sweating too. But then in the passport office room someone must have complained about him, for then Seifert, the public official, suddenly walks out, plants himself in front of him—yes, that’s what they say now—says Father, and asks him what this is all about. (Why he must sit, when everyone else is standing.) Herr Veilchenfeld is so alarmed by the tone of the question that at first he does not understand it at all. Then Herr Seifert says, has he indeed not noticed then that he is sitting in the way here and hindering the entire movement of Citizen Enquiries? And as Herr Veilchenfeld moves over to the wall with the stool, Herr Seifert waves him away and calls out: No, not there either, there you’ll just scratch the wall. And he simply takes away the folding seat and carries it into his room, where Herr Veilchenfeld may pick it up again when he goes home. So that, after he has stood uselessly the entire morning and waited for news about his documents, he must request his stool upon leaving and must carry it across Reichmann’s Field again on the way home. Father tells us Herr Veilchenfeld is sorry that he also can no longer let me come to him for drawing.
