Concrete (6 page)

Running through the streets!
I cried out, sitting in the iron chair and clapping my hands to my head, when I’m not capable even of walking round the outside of my own house, let alone of running through the streets of Palma. For a sick man like me to entertain such an idea isn’t just bordering on megalomania: such an idea is well beyond the border, it’s sheer madness. And I couldn’t get this madness out of my head. As I sat in the iron chair I couldn’t call a halt to the madness and didn’t even try. On the contrary, I indulged it to such an extent that I couldn’t help shouting out the word
mad.
The Melia or the Timeo, Christina or the Cañellas, the Fiat or the Mercedes, I speculated, unable to stop myself, as I sat in the iron chair, drawing refreshment from these ridiculous speculations — the Melia with all the hundreds and thousands of yachts outside the window, the cosmopolitan atmosphere of Palma — the Timeo with its bougainvillaeas flowering at the window - the Melia and the incredible sea breeze - the ancient bathroom at the Timeo — Christina or the Cañellas — the bougainvillaeas or the sea breeze — the Cathedral or the Greek theatre, I thought, sitting in the iron chair, the Mallorcans or the Sicilians — Etna or Pollensa — Ramon Llull and Ruben Dario or Pirandello. At present, I finally told myself, since I want to start my work on Mendelssohn Bartholdy, I need
a cosmopolitan atmosphere
— more people, more activity, more excitement, I thought as I sat in the iron chair, not a place with just one street — and
on a hill
at that, hence requiring
exertion
— and just one café, but a place with many busy streets - and squares! - and many cafés, and as many people around me as possible, for at present I need nothing so much as to have people around me — not that I want any dealings with them: I don’t even want to speak to them, I thought, sitting in the iron chair, but I must have them around me. And so for all these obvious reasons I decided on Palma and against Taormina, in favour of the Cañellas and against Christina, and generally in favour of a climate which would be positively beneficial to me in my condition, a summery climate such as I might expect in Palma even in February, but not in Taormina, where in February it is still wintery and rains nearly all the time. And in February, I thought, sitting in the iron chair, Etna is seldom to be seen, and even then it’s covered in snow from top to bottom, a constant and harmful reminder of the Alps, and therefore of Austria and home, which could only sicken me again and again. But suddenly this all appeared to me as senseless fantasizing, indulged in by an overwrought invalid sitting in his iron chair; it did little more than make me sadder than I already was, and ended in dejection. Yet there was no longer any way of escaping it, even though I tried to convince myself, still sitting in the iron chair, that perhaps all I needed to do was to go and call on some neighbour or other. So I got up, put on some clothes, and walked to Nie-derkreut, which is close enough even to be reached by one in my pitiful condition. Niederkreut is a four-hundred-year-old pile, damp and unprepossessing, occupied by a former cavalry officer from the First World War, who, like all such people, calls himself a baron — an old eccentric in other words. I went to call on him, not because I found him particularly interesting, but because he was of all people the one who could be reached most quickly and easily from where I lived. He is something of a curiosity. Whenever I visit him I have a cup of tea and listen to his stories about the First World War -about how he was
wounded on Monte Cimone,
how he spent
three months in hospital in Trieste
and then
got the gold medal for bravery.
In fact he always tells the same story, and he tells it to everybody who goes to see him on whatever occasion. The old man has the merit of being able to make excellent tea and also of not having bad breath, even though he is so old — getting on for eighty-five — for there is nothing that makes me dread visiting old men so much as the smell of their breath. The old man hasn’t let himself go, even though, as I say, he’s getting on for eighty-five, and he’s not in the least unappetising. He has a housekeeper who looks after him and whom he calls Muxi — nobody knows what that stands for — and who withdraws to the kitchen when he has visitors. Every half hour or so she puts her head round the door and asks the old man if there is anything he wants. No Muxi, he always says, and when she’s closed the door again he leans forward and says, 
She’s as stupid as they come!
It’s always the same. I have to admit that I went to see the old man at Niederkreut out of sheer desperation, simply to free myself from the absurd idea of going away, of going away to Palma moreover, which was probably altogether the absurdest idea possible in my situation. I was simply exploiting him, to be quite honest, in my dreadful situation. He just happened to be the person I needed to put me off the idea of going to Palma. When I pulled the bell I heard the housekeeper coming to open the door to me. The gentleman is here, she said. I went in.
I hope I’m not disturbing you
, I said on entering the old man’s room, which the housekeeper had made cosy and warm for him, and as I uttered these words I was annoyed to think that they were precisely the words which are continually being used by my sister and never fail to make me angry because they are the most hypocritical in the language. The old gentleman got up and shook hands with me. Then we both sat down. I was just going to make myself some tea, he said. He was holding a book. It’s my reading time, he said. A silly book, something about Marie-Louise. My sister sent it me, but I must say I find it very dull. What things people write, without caring one jot about the facts! What are their qualifications for writing anyway? I had no wish to engage in a conversation with the old man on this subject, but as soon as I sat down, in expectation of a cup of tea, I was aware of my travel plans receding. Life’s not all that impossible here, I said to myself, and I looked at the pictures on the wall. That’s my grandfather, who was a Field-marshal and Commander-in-Chief of the whole of the southern Adriatic front, the old man said. But you’ve heard that hundreds of times, he added as the housekeeper brought in the water and disappeared again. Wars are waged very differently today, he said, quite differently. Everything is different today. He lifted the lid of the teapot and stirred the tea. As he did this he said, Everything has turned through a hundred and eighty degrees. This is an expression he uses constantly: no sooner is one with him than he finds an occasion for saying,
Everything has turned through a hundred and eighty degrees.
There are only thirteen people still alive who received the gold medal for bravery from the Emperor himself. Only thirteen, just imagine! At first he had considered leaving his property to his daughter, who lived in England, he said, but then he realised that this was nonsense. Then he had thought of leaving it to the church. But the church had disappointed him, so then he wanted to leave it to the state welfare service. But the state welfare service also stinks, he now said. There isn’t a single institution I would leave anything to. Or a single person I know either. And so I decided to send for a London telephone directory. What do you think I did that for? He paused, poured a cup of tea for me and one for himself, and said, I opened it at random — at page two hundred and three, as I later discovered — and, with my eyes closed, I put the index finger of my right hand on a certain spot. When I opened my eyes I found that the tip of my finger was resting on the name
Sarah Slother.
I don’t care who this Sarah Slother is - her address is 128 Knightsbridge. I’m going to leave everything I have to this address, no matter who or what is concealed behind it. My dear friend, that gives me the greatest satisfaction. As a matter of fact, I’ve already settled the legal side of this curious affair. When you come to think about it carefully, we just can’t leave anything
to a single person we know
, he said. At least I can’t. I was quite fascinated by the old man: I’d never have believed him capable of a thing like this. But what he said was true. The rest of the afternoon and evening was occupied with the usual old men’s gossip, but it was all nothing compared with this revelation of his. But keep quiet about it, he told me; I haven’t told anybody about it. And it isn’t a joke. You’re the only person who I know will keep it to himself. It’s quite a relief to me. Anyhow, he said, you now know what’s coming to this Slother woman. My God, he added, how devious I am! And he quite clearly enjoyed his deviousness. When I went home, not only was I not deflected from my travelling plans but suddenly they no longer seemed absurd. On the contrary, I suddenly felt that I could do myself no better service than to leave as quickly as possible — for Palma of course. I suddenly had the refreshing idea of catapulting myself out of my morgue at the last moment, the very last moment, and I thought to myself, However much I may curse her, my sister’s had the right idea yet again. I was suddenly quite obsessed with my travel plans. Even the old man at Niederkreut had suddenly opened my eyes, which had for so long been closed. Though I had gone to see him to be deflected from my travel plans, he had on the contrary made me half crazy about them. You’ve got to clear out of this place; you mustn’t think of ways of being diverted from your plans by every possible and impossible person in the neighbourhood. You must leave, go away, as soon as possible. My sister, my confounded sister, had once again been on the right scent. But all the same I also had the choice of going to Vienna for a while. I don’t have to stay in my sister’s apartment, I told myself. I can go to the
Elisabeth
or the
Konig von Ungarn.
But much as I thought about Vienna, I was still completely dominated by the idea of Palma. What have I got in Vienna? I asked myself, and the very act of recalling the names of all the people I knew in Vienna horrified me — with very few exceptions, and these exceptions could be ruled out either because of illness or because they had died long ago. For years I had had Paul Wittgenstein, the nephew of the philosopher, as my friend, but I’m bound to say that his death, after a long and painful illness, came at exactly the right time, when Vienna had ceased to mean anything to him. He had walked the streets of Vienna for decades, and it no longer had anything to do with him. There was nobody as clever as he was, nobody as poetic and as incorruptible in all things. Now that I’ve lost him there’s nothing more for me to lose in Vienna. I lived in Vienna for twenty years without a break. It was probably the best and most enjoyable time of my life, but it can’t be repeated: by comparison everything today is a pathetic rehash which I should be ashamed to be involved in. Vienna has become a proletarian city through and through, for which no decent person can have anything but scorn and derision and the profoundest contempt. Whatever was once great or simply remarkable about it, compared with the rest of the world, has long been dead. The scene today is dominated by baseness and stupidity and by the charlatanry which makes common cause with them. My Vienna has been totally ruined by tasteless, money-grubbing politicians and become unrecognizable. There are still some days when one gets a breath of the old air, but not for long; then once more everything is engulfed by the scum that has taken over the city in recent years. In Vienna today art is nothing but a sickening farce, music a worn-out barrel organ, and literature a nightmare. I won’t speak of philosophy, for even I can’t find words to describe it, and I’m not one of the least imaginative people. For a long time I used to think of Vienna as
my
city, as my home in fact, but now I am bound to say that I don’t feel at home in a cesspit which has been filled brimful with filth by pseudo-socialists. And I am no longer as interested as I once was in hearing music performed: I prefer reading the scores by myself, though this is a vastly more expensive pleasure. But what is one offered today at these concerts in the Musikverein or the concert hall? The marvellous conductors of the past have turned into crude, sensation-seeking animal tamers, and the orchestras have become feebleminded under these tamers. I’ve seen all the museums, and the Viennese theatre is the shabbiest in the whole of Europe. The Burgtheater today is nothing but a witless, though unwitting parody of the theatre in general, in which anything to do with the intellect is totally lacking — nothing but provincialism and farce. To say nothing of the other theatres, whose daily diet of dilettantism is perfectly in tune with the utterly tedious society of today. And naturally I should find it intolerable to live under the same roof as my sister: that became clear to me when she was in Peiskam just now. She’d make life hell for me and I’d make life hell for her, and before very long one of us would kill the other. We’ve never been able to live together under one roof. However, it’s quite possible that my sister was genuinely concerned about me and my future when she invited me to stay with her in her Vienna apartment — though ultimately I find myself unable to believe this, since I know her. On the other hand, I told myself, I’m not sufficiently curious to go to Vienna just to inspect her new apartment, which probably contains any number of precious objects — and by no means tastelessly arranged either. Quite the contrary — that’s just what would make me white-hot with rage. Look, my little brother, this vase is from Upper Egypt. I can just
hear
her saying it and then waiting to see what I have to say about it, although she knows what I’m going to say. We’re an intelligent pair, and in four and a half decades we’ve been able to develop our intelligence to a high degree in our different ways, our different directions — I in mine and she in hers — up to today. If I were to go to Vienna, I should only need to take my travelling bag with me, since there would be no question of working in Vienna. Not at my sister’s anyway. And not if I stayed in a hotel either, for Vienna has always been inimical to my work: I’ve never succeeded with any work in Vienna — I’ve started a number of projects there, but I’ve never completed a single one, and this has always resulted in a terrible feeling of shame. Once, twenty-five years ago, I managed to complete something on Webern in Vienna, but as soon as I’d completed it I burned it, because it hadn’t turned out properly. Vienna has always had a paralysing effect on me, even though I would never admit it. It paralysed me in every way. The people I met in Vienna paralysed me too, with one or two exceptions. But my dear friend Paul Wittgenstein died — of his madness, I must emphasize — and my painter friend Joanna hanged herself. Anyone who goes to Vienna to stay and fails to recognize the moment when it is time to clear out becomes a senseless victim of a city which takes everything away from everybody and gives absolutely nothing in return. There are cities, for instance London or Madrid, which admittedly take something, though not much, but give almost everything. Vienna takes everything and gives nothing. That’s the difference. The city has a way of sucking dry all who get caught in its trap, and it goes on sucking until they fall down dead. I recognized this at an early stage and kept away from Vienna as far as possible. After the years when I lived almost continuously in Vienna I’ve only ever been back occasionally to visit a few people I was deeply fond of. Only a few people have the strength’to turn their backs on Vienna soon enough, before it is too late; they remain stuck to this dangerous and poisonous city until, finally, they become tired and let themselves be crushed to death by it, as by a glistening snake. And how many geniuses have been crushed to death in this city? They simply can’t be counted. But those who did manage to turn their backs on it at the right moment succeeded in everything they did, or almost everything. This is proved by history, and there is no need to insist on it. If I were to go to Vienna now, I thought, I’d make myself sick with boredom. In no time I’d destroy what little I still have left to me. So Vienna was ruled out. For a brief moment I considered Venice, but I shuddered at the thought of having to spend months sitting in this splendid but thoroughly perverse heap of masonry, even in the most perfect place. Venice is a city to be visited for only a few days, never for longer, like an elegant old lady whom one