She was unlike the rest of her family; light and cheerful in disposition, she let nothing come to confrontation. One took her for an obedient and authority-respecting child. She kissed everyone who offered a cheek for her to kiss. Generally speaking, it was believed that she could tolerate anyone.
By the time she was fourteen years old many young men were in love with her. But around then she loved her history teacher. At that time she also had the best grades in history. The next year she loved her literature teacher and forgot everything about history. She learned to play the piano but was quite unmusical. She trilled melodies loudly and tunelessly all morning long.
Later she met a young socialist and gave herself with ardour to the party secretary. Every Sunday she went in wooden sandals into the forest with the workers’ children. She taught the children to sing, and all of them sang off-key, too.
Under the influence of another young man, who gave lectures at the community college, she immersed herself in Steiner and Nietzsche. She understood not a word of either. But she was proud that she was so cultivated.
When someone told her that it was abominable for a woman to be idle she applied for a job as a stenographer in a bank. Over ten poor candidates who needed the job Margarete was victorious. For she was Perlefter’s daughter. She even received bonuses while the other girls were dismissed.
Margarete was pale and thin, and she could not stand the air in the office or the typewriter. Thus she gave the position up and became a kindergarten teacher without pay. But she understood nothing about kindergarten, and they dispensed with her assistance.
After that she arranged charity balls, surrendering herself to the duties of a committee member.
Next she dreamed of having a salon with poets, artists and scholars. Her husband should not play a role in this venture but should have money.
Frau Kempen went in search of such a man.
Eventually she found one.
In the meantime, however, something important happened in the Perlefter household. All other things of importance faded into the background before one particular event: Henriette got married. Henriette was thirty years old and had been with the household for twelve years. I remember how she looked when she arrived. She came direct from the country, eighteen years old with red crackling hair, and she smelled of laundry soap bars. One could hear her stiff undergarments rustling.
I loved her.
She was the product of a random adventure when the police sergeant connected with her mother eighteen years earlier as he patrolled his route alone. Her mother brought hens, eggs, bread and radishes into the city.
I went once with Henriette to her village. She wore a hat with glass cherries and held her shoes and stockings in her hand, since the road was muddy. We walked through the fields, the crickets chirping and the glass cherries clinking. Henriette told me all sorts of things that Perlefter’s wife and the porter’s wife said – for example, that Henriette would be better off in a position with a childless couple. But Henriette feared her mother. Under another employer she might perhaps go astray. It seemed to me it was Henriette herself who was most afraid she would go astray.
She was red and flushed, and we were both hot. Then Henriette took off her hat, and it seemed to me that her hair was fragrant. Yes, it smelled very much like hay, meadows and dew. We stood still, and the wind caressed us. It was late spring, and one could already hear summer’s gallop.
Then Henriette told me that a new constable had arrived in the village when she was fourteen years old. He had been a handsome officer, fearless and with shiny buttons. So, I thought, Henriette loves a policeman.
But in the course of the conversation it turned out that this constable was a pretty despicable fellow. He had seduced three fourteen-year-old girls, taken their cash and disappeared.
I don’t know whether Henriette was one of those fourteen-year-olds. But I am practically convinced of it.
In the woods a solitary bird was warbling, and we argued about its type. I was two years younger than Henriette, yet she debated with me as if I had been the same age as she. She was the only person who had respect for me. I was a man.
I said it was a goldfinch. Henriette suggested an oriole.
I began to quarrel with her. But even though it really was an oriole and Henriette was right, I did not yield.
Finally she hit me, and I pushed her back, but I bumped into her soft breast, and my anger dissipated. I protested no longer and smiled as Henriette threw me to the ground and pounced on me.
We lay together in the woods, the wind was warm and fresh, and the oriole warbled. And we got carried away.
I was determined to marry her, but she cheated on me with a chimney-sweep, yet loved me still. The older I got the more she loved me. When I took leave of Perlefter she kissed me, and sometimes she came to me ‘just for a quick hello’.
Henriette could not marry the chimney-sweep, for she could not let go of the Perlefter family. She had announced her intentions and was already making preparations for the wedding. Then Frau Perlefter became sick. She had a weak heart. So Henriette stayed.
After that she chased after a man from the gas works. He even came into the kitchen on Sundays. But the reason for this was a suddenly flaring love for the two maids.
After that a policeman, a tailor and a mason came on to the scene. All of them wanted to marry Henriette. But she hesitated for quite a while, for she could not leave Perlefter’s house. The policeman died of pleurisy, the tailor disappeared from the picture and the mason fell off a table in his house and broke a leg. It was quite remarkable that the mason fell off a table despite having the chance to plunge from respectably high scaffolding on a daily basis. He made a fool of himself and fell off a table. Perhaps he had, at that moment, been thinking of Henriette. Henriette visited him once in the hospital, but she could not tolerate the smell of iodoform. She fainted and never returned.
Yet I knew she would come to me if I were bandaged and reeking of iodoform in the hospital. For Henriette had not forgotten me. She loved me more maternally, and the older I got the younger I appeared in her eyes.
I accompanied her more often to her native village. I carried her hat and, when it was wet, also her shoes and stockings. Once when her mother was sick, a second time when her stepfather died and a third when her uncle married his third wife. But we argued no more over the species of twittering birds. We consistently agreed about all things. We spoke about all our concerns, and sometimes I even related something from books I had read. Henriette was very proud of me and prophesized a great future.
We abstained but loved each other none the less.
I would have done anything for Henriette. But we didn’t use the familiar form of ‘you’ in front of others.
She suggested that I should turn my attention to Margarete.
I then had much money. Surely I was worth much more than those young men who came to the house.
‘I don’t need money,’ I said.
‘You’re a foolish boy!’ said Henriette.
So we walked peaceably next to each other and arrived at the village. I ate cheese and sour milk and porridge that Henriette cooked for me. Porridge was usually eaten only by the sick and by new mothers. Before I went to sleep Henriette squeezed my hand.
It was just around that time, when Fredy’s engagement party was to take place and when Perlefter had returned home from his bold flight, that a rich and widowed farmer courted Henriette.
When Perlefter heard about it, he said, ‘We cannot and must not stand in the way of their happiness!’ Frau Perlefter began to cry. She even began to feel ill and took bromide. But this time Henriette stuck by her decision to marry. She was attracted by the large farm and the role she would play in her village.
It was ambition.
The Perlefter family decided that Henriette could go off immediately after Fredy’s official engagement.
But Fredy’s official engagement depended on the engagement of his sister. Henri
ette, meanwhile, worked on sewing her trousseau. Every Sunday she went to the village. She brought back milk, butter, radishes, sauer-kraut and country bread.
She looked almost like her mother did many years before. One had to look at Henriette’s face for a long time to realize that she was once pretty.
By this time Henriette had a pale yellow face. Neither the joy of surprise, nor heat from the kitchen, nor a winter’s storm and wind could turn her cheeks red. They were emaciated cheeks. Her forehead jutted out and shaded her face, and deep within, like bay windows, lay her triangular-shaped blue, pale and hard-looking eyes.
And yet I still loved Henriette, and every day I was ready to marry her just as she was with her strong bony hands and skin that was like leather.
When Perlefter found out about my love he took me for crazy. He was speechless.
Perlefter was already two weeks at home. But he was still recounting stories of his travels. If one should believe him he had journeyed across the entire world. Yes, he was even rich in new artistic impressions. He had visited museums and studied paintings.
He appreciated only the dimensions of a painting. Perlefter liked to say, ‘Colossal! Such a painting!’ He was actually only describing its size. His highest praise was ‘As large as the wall!’
He sought to discover how long the painter of such a work had worked on it. Since returning home from his travels he read the art news for two hours a day. One time he went to an auction. He brought back to the house a painting of a dark-green sea on which a boat with two sailors rocked. He hung the painting in the salon and showed it to all his guests. ‘When I’m weary,’ he said, ‘I place a chair in front of the painting, sit myself down and study it. I could look at it for hours. This is art!’
Meanwhile, his daughter Karoline, the one they called Line, was annoyed. Yes, she was bold and said, ‘You don’t understand anything, Father!’ Then Frau Perlefter began to weep. She could not tolerate it when someone was offended.
But Perlefter didn’t concern himself with his daughter’s criticism. He regarded her as the least worthy of his children. ‘If someone has studied,’ said Perlefter, quite correctly, ‘one knows what one wants. God knows what will come of this Line! Frau Kempen hasn’t been around?’
Exactly! Frau Kempen came after a few days. As a precaution she had a list with her, but with her glassy and blind eyes she could not decipher a single name and refused to wear glasses. Herr Perlefter took the list from her hand and read, ‘Albert Koch, officer of Goldlust and Co., thirty-five years old; John Mitterwald, born in America, very rich; Alex Warjuschin, from Moscow, fled from the Bolsheviks.’
Perlefter interrupted the list and said reproachfully, ‘Nothing but strangers! Nobody knows who their parents are! If I’m going to give my child to someone I must know who, what and how he is!’
‘First we should hear more!’ urged Frau Perlefter, for she was afraid that Frau Kempen would be offended.
But Frau Kempen once again knew nothing of the parents.
‘Come with very precise information,’ said Herr Perlefter. ‘You need to treat this like a business. If someone offers me something …’ At this point Perlefter broke off. He was embarrassed to admit that he looked at his sons-in-law from a business perspective.
However, Karoline had proceeded with a significant change. She dressed herself carefully, she wore flowers on her chest and flowers stood ever in her room in various drinking glasses that had disappeared from their normal place in the household. I watched as Line blossomed and was young again, and once I ran into her on the outskirts of the city where there was a decent railway station but also pretty meadows. She sat on a bench with a young man. She rose and asked me not to mention this.
‘Naturally!’ I said.
Then something surprising happened. Karoline gave me a kiss. Oh! If only she had given me this kiss when she still wore a braid and swayed her hips.
The young man was a poor chemist. He had one arm in a sling and had shoddy boots and a battered hat. He was certain he wanted to be an inventor. So Karoline went her own way. I later learned that they had a small apartment, Karoline and the young man. One day I was invited over to celebrate the birthday of the young man (his name was Rudolf). We sat, the three of us, and drank and ate moderate but festive things. A purple silk tie lay on the table wrapped in thin paper. Karoline had purchased it. Karoline and Rudolf kissed constantly. Rudolf had injuries on all his fingers – he was quite diligent in his experiments. He wanted to marry as soon as he succeeded with his invention.
But, after three months passed and still no success, Karoline took the household by surprise one peaceful evening, while everyone was shelling nuts and said, ‘I’m engaged to be married!’
A great confusion arose. Herr Perlefter pulled himself together first and said, ‘One shouldn’t make bad jokes about serious matters.’ Then Karoline started to cry, and it was the first time in her life that she wept like that, such that everyone could see and hear her.
Perlefter let a long time of pleading pass before he consented. For a few days there was a mournful air in the Perlefter house, as if someone had suddenly been snatched away from them.
Perlefter took the occasion of this mood to eat at the club. After a few days he said to Karoline, ‘Bring the young man!’ It was as if he had ordered her to bring him a nutcracker.
Ultimately, a poor chemist was better than nothing. Now Fredy’s engagement could also be officially announced. The young chemist was very depressed when in the family circles. He bowed to everyone and sat stiffly at the table like a schoolboy at his desk.
Nobody knew who his parents were either. Perlefter said to all his friends, ‘A quiet young man! He will certainly be a great inventor. One can also earn a lot with inventions.’
Thus Fredy’s engagement was celebrated, and the young chemist got a couple of new suits. The wounds on his fingers finally healed and did not reappear. Had he decided not to invent any more?
One party chased the other.
After some weeks it was Henriette’s turn. I accompanied her once again and this time had a heavy suitcase to carry. Henriette sobbed the whole way. I attended her wedding. I gave her a gramophone and was held in high esteem.
‘He’s like my own son!’ said Henriette.
I danced with her, and then we went outside to cool off. Henriette said, ‘When the old man dies, you’ll be my heir!’
The old man, however, will live until Judgement Day. He is hardy, taciturn, and his face looks like it was hewn from the brown earth. He is never angry, never friendly, always alert; his tiny little eyes are forever wide open as if they have no lids and never require sleep.
Henriette is a brave wife, and she waits in vain for his death.
VI
Herr Perlefter had much to sigh about in those days. The demands of his wife and his engaged children escalated. Herr Perlefter revelled in complaining. It sickened him a bit that the family no longer had time to deal with him. From the delightful centre, in which he had lived year after year, highly visible, respected and pitied, he had slipped more and more to the periphery. His son, his daughter and his son-in-law lived like distinguished guests in his house, and there were days when lunch was served without waiting for Perlefter, even though he was only five minutes late. When he arrived the family said they had assumed he would be at the club that day.
The family took up irritating habits. The old order was no longer maintained. Once Henriette had left the house the maids changed quickly, and Perlefter could tolerate no new faces or new names. He called all the girls Henriette – whether their names were Anna, Klementine or Susanne. Usually their name was Anna.
One prepared for the ‘quiet weddings’. Invitation lists were assembled. The household trembled with joyful agitation. ‘We’re getting old!’ said Perlefter.
He feared age. He thought about his father who had lived to the age of ninety-two and become a revered burden to his children, even an obstacle. Perlefter did not wish
to live that long. He would have completely given in to this miserable mood had his son’s party not compensated for all the trouble through which he had to suffer for the celebration. It was a magnificent party that Fredy threw, so much so that one could even forget about the poor chemist whom the inept Karoline – and it had taken long enough – had selected.
It was a magnificent party. Alexander Perlefter could not have wished for a better one. Fredy had married into one of the richest families: his father-in-law was the leather-goods manufacturer Kofritz, the same Kofritz from whom all the pocket mirrors, fashion accessories, sport jackets, dog muzzles, horse saddles and travel-manicure sets originated; the same Kofritz who produced the best leather armchairs in the world, wonderful seats and recliners that were customized to the size of their users, whether wide or thin, short, average height or tall. It was the very same Kofritz whose initials could be seen on the most distinguished luggage of the most distinguished travellers, whose crest was a lion pelt with the printed motto ‘Respect the Trademark’. Herr Leopold Kofritz was a self-made man, just like Herr Perlefter. But in the most important things these two wealthy men were different from each other. Above all, it was how they spent their money. If one could say that earning money is a talent, so one could say with even more certainty that spending money requires a certain character. In this regard, I should note that knowing both fathers well Perlefter had only talent, while Kofritz also had character.
Leopold Kofritz was known as a ‘generous businessman’. He did not seek to elicit compassion from those around him as Perlefter did but, rather, envy and admiration. He didn’t wish to be loved but feared. He didn’t want to win over his fellow men he wanted to amaze them. He was more brutal and less fearful in nature but by no means decisive. His hesitation always wore the mask of determination. When he still didn’t know what he wanted after a long time it seemed to others that he knew for certain. One said of him that from the first moment of his career he knew that he would produce the best leather goods in central Europe. He liked to tell of his beginnings, and he assured all those who believed him anyway that even as an errand boy in the steel industry he already had a great interest in suitcases. If one heard him speak this way one had to believe that the true merchants and manufacturers, those with very particular talents for their specific industries, were blessed by God Himself, just as was the case for sculptors, painters and musicians. One had no doubt that the young Friedrich Kofritz had an inner voice calling him to the great showcases of the leather industry. Fate had chosen him to produce leather goods under a trademark that was, in truth, not original but ingenious.