Panorama (7 page)

Fräulein Jedlitschka is very good at it, she has a lot of patience, but the grandmother is not pleased and says to the mother, “Mella, in my day it was different. Then the nanny would do some knitting or sewing while the child played on his own, and she just kept an eye on him.” The mother replies, “Mama, please, let me worry about it. If you have something to say to me, please don’t say it in front of Josef!” Then Josef responds, “The nanny plays really well. She doesn’t just let me win at fishing, because she likes to win herself.” Then the mother and the grandmother are angry with each other, the mother looking hard at the grandmother and sending Josef away and into the kitchen. Outside is Anna, who speaks warmly of her previous position, where she had spent eight years, the people there having been very good to her, there being no son to take care of, but rather a little girl named Angela, who is already grown, Anna still having a picture of her when she was very little, with two thick braids. She didn’t have short hair like Kitti, who always cried when someone pulled her hair. “I’m gonna tell Tata! Bubi, you’re so mean!” But Angela had been so well behaved, Anna always says, even to the mother, and she still gets letters from her, as well as colorful postcards at Christmas and Easter that are even more beautiful than those in Aunt Betti’s collection, the mother saying, “Nothing is so precious as gratitude. See, Josef, you should take after Angela.” But then Anna says, “Josef is also a sweet child, madam. God willing, he will also be a fine man.”

The father also has a garden plot, because there is always less and less to eat. It’s a large garden located on the edge of the city next to a brickworks,
the father hacking away at the earth, though it takes too much out of him, and so he takes along Wenzel, a helper from the store, who also stays there the whole day through, the father also bringing along Josef and Bubi. The two of them have a large bed to themselves. There they grow pumpkins and radishes, potatoes and kohlrabi, lettuce and tomatoes, as well as poppies and strawberries and pretty flowers, though just a few, both of them liking to be out in the garden, because they like Wenzel, who is nice and lets them do what pleases them. They water the beds with a little watering can, then they yank out weeds, then Wenzel brings them coffee and something to eat, though they don’t have to wash their hands.

Lots of people come to the garden on Sundays, Aunt Gusti saying, “There’s hardly anywhere to go anymore. It’s a blessing to be in God’s nature and breathe a bit of fresh air. Josef, your father is so handy. We have him to thank for such splendor.” Only the mother rarely comes, because she has to work, after which she’s tired and needs rest, and she’s happy to be home alone, though everyone else is there, sometimes Bubi’s family as well, Wenzel, too, even though he doesn’t have to be on Sundays, but he’s gotten so used to being there that he wants to, yet Aunt Gusti says, “He only comes because he gets something from it as well, but your father takes good care of his people.” Aunt Betti adds, “Wenzel also does most of the work, he deserves at least a couple of potatoes.” This upsets Aunt Gusti, who says, “You never think of the family’s interests, Betti. You’re so strange.” And when Bubi’s father hears this he says, “Now let’s not fight on such a beautiful Sunday. We should just enjoy the lovely sun instead. Who knows what next year will bring?” Then the grandmother says, “I agree completely. One never knows what will happen. Times change. In 1866, war was everywhere, and yet it wasn’t as bad as it is today. Back then the Prussians invaded, yet there were far fewer dead than now, when the battlefields are much farther off.” Bubi’s father replies, “Yes, yes, that was quite a little war back then. Yet everything came out all right.” But Aunt Gusti adds, “No, there’s no way it was that pleasant. War is war.” But Bubi’s father counters, “We mustn’t fight. What I once heard in Vienna is true. Whenever we’ve had enough of peace, then it’s war, and that’s a horror.”

Then the quarreling is over, and Bubi’s mother and Tata propose, “Now let’s go and see how the cauliflower is doing.” They head off, and the usual
crowd lies down on extra blankets that were brought along, Bubi and Josef running around, though the father follows after the two women and shows them the beds, how everything is growing, how many potatoes can be planted, after which he cuts a couple of heads of cabbage and cauliflower for Bubi’s mother, then pulls a pair of carrots out of the earth because they are so healthy, yet Josef doesn’t eat them, except when raw, while Bubi wants nothing to do with spinach, because he thinks it’s as disgusting as chicken shit, no one can eat it, though he does like carrots, his mother cooking them like nobody else, and if Josef doesn’t want any it’s only because no one knows how to cook at his house. But Josef says that’s not true, Anna is a very good cook, she worked for Angela’s parents for eight years and cooked everything there, and everyone liked it so much that they still wrote her letters, but nonetheless carrots are really awful, they can only be eaten raw, and for that they need to be fresh and tender and young, otherwise they turn your stomach, Josef’s father not liking them at all. Then Bubi gets mad and continues complaining about spinach, wanting to rip it all out of the ground and throw it away, but Josef says, “Throwing stuff away is a sin. You should make use of everything. During war nothing should be thrown away, for the poor people are glad to have whatever they can get. That’s what my Aunt Gusti told me.”—“Okay, don’t throw it away, just give it to the chickens or the geese, but the carrots I eat myself.” Josef and Bubi argue loudly, and when Aunt Gusti notices she comes over and yells, “You two should be ashamed, arguing about food when there’s a war on! Our brave recruits in the field would be thrilled to have fresh vegetables to eat for lunch. They often have to be satisfied with just a tiny bite of goulash out of a can.”

Then Bubi becomes quite serious and says that he will become an officer, for then you have a servant and a horse and can order soldiers around. Bubi also has a lot of toys befitting an officer, such as tin soldiers, a helmet, a sword and sword belt, and a warship to play with in the bath. Josef has none of this, because his mother wants to spare children from the war as much as possible, they grow wild enough as it is, and if you raise them in the shadow of the war nothing good can come of it. But Josef doesn’t care if he has war toys or not, though he likes to play with Bubi’s weapons, and when Bubi is the general Josef is the adjutant and Kitti is the princess who needs to be saved, and so Kitti has to stay in the bedroom as Bubi and Josef initially
storm the dining room, where there are trenches and barbed wire, the large table serving as a fortress that they carefully creep around, and even though there is no enemy to be found hiding out there, Bubi whispers, “Stinking foreigners,” and very slowly crawls on his belly to the bedroom door, opening it just a bit at first, then ripping it wide open, though the enemy doesn’t notice the heroes as Kitti lies on the sofa before the courageous warriors and screams, “Help! Help!” Then the heroes attack with mighty war cries, the sofa a dungeon where the unfortunate princess languishes. Quickly she is freed, and she is so thankful that she decorates her rescuers with laurels made of paper, but before they know it Tata is before them and says, “You can’t keep playing war forever. Too much hellish noise! Who can stand it?”

Fräulein Jedlitschka can stand only quiet games, for everything else gets on her nerves, frightening her and making her skittish, so that Aunt Gusti says, “The nanny is very good, but she’s too squeamish. A child needs to romp around, so he doesn’t turn into a dormouse.” But Aunt Gusti herself is afraid of thunderstorms because they crackle so. She just doesn’t show it, for one has to control oneself and serve as a good example for the young ones growing up, and she wants to break Josef of the habit of indulging himself in so many silly fears. It’s especially ridiculous in regard to dogs, especially when Josef wanders off on his own, and yet ends up afraid of every dog he encounters, even if it’s muzzled and on a leash, his aunt saying, “A dog is man’s best friend, remaining at his side no matter the danger. There’s no reason to be afraid, dogs don’t like it when you are. That’s when they’ll bite you.” But Josef doesn’t believe his aunt, because dogs have evil eyes, they bark so loudly, and their howls cause fear, at which Aunt Gusti laughs, for it’s all in his imagination. One day she goes for a walk with Josef, and on the street there’s a little wagon with a dog harnessed to it, a large brown mutt, and the aunt goes up to him because she wants to demonstrate how good-natured he is, she rubbing his neck and saying to the animal, “You beastie, you, you precious, sweet beastie, isn’t that so? You wouldn’t hurt anyone, would you?” Then she looks at Josef and prods him, saying, “Don’t you see how obedient he is? He loves to be petted. Try it!” He tries to get his courage up, he wants to try to pet it and stretches his hand toward the mutt, but the dog growls and snaps at him. “That’s only because you’re afraid. He
senses it, and that’s why he snaps.”—“I didn’t tell the dog I was afraid. He also wouldn’t know if I’m lying, for I didn’t say anything that would cause my nose to grow long.” Then the aunt is upset and she says, “You are an incorrigible child. It’s a nasty dog, but almost all dogs are good.”

Otherwise Josef is interested in animals and has a natural-history book with many pictures, which he loves more than many of his other books, his mother having given it to him so that he wouldn’t always be asking about the carp and the earthworms or whatever. Bubi, however, isn’t really interested in animals, because they are dumb, only the horse being clever and the elephant, though it’s a shame there are so few elephants here, but Tata says it’s only because such large animals have to eat such incredible amounts, and it’s nearly impossible to fill them up, and everything is so precarious, so many poor people who can hardly buy enough for themselves. The grandmother adds that there have always been poor people, her blessed father having to worry about nine children, all of them having grown up to be people of good standing, though they are now gone, but at least they never had to see how terrible the world has become. Hard work and honor used to mean something, but now there are war speculators everywhere who hoard everything and then sell it on the black market and get rich, while others keep on the straight and narrow and yet pay the price, not being long for this life.

That’s why the mother likes Frau Machleidt, a dear widow with two boys, Egon and Helmut, who lives in a single room with a kitchen that is dark and in which you can’t even turn around. But Aunt Betti says that it’s a model of cleanliness and tidiness, everything laid out in perfect order, such that one can appreciate the saying “Cleanliness is next to godliness.” Aunt Betti loves this saying so much that she has often embroidered it and given it to the mother and to Aunt Gusti, as well as to many others, it also adorning the wall of Frau Machleidt’s kitchen. There one can just barely read it when there’s enough light, there also being a towel that is embroidered with red letters, the script lovelier than either the father or Fräulein Reimann can do, as it says:

And behind it there really are brooms, right in the middle of the kitchen, though properly concealed, while Anna always sticks the brooms in the closet, because the mother says that brooms don’t belong in the kitchen, where everything should be clean and bright, especially the oilcloth, white and ready for washing, there being no need for soap. And there are lovely porcelain canisters in the kitchen, the mother very fond of them, though Anna says that they create dust, while the contents are printed on each, be it rice, cornmeal, breadcrumbs, flour, coffee, beans, even though there is nothing in them, the canisters there only for decoration, while small amounts of spices are indeed inside them, and there’s salt in the salt shaker. The nicest thing in the kitchen was the mortar, all shiny and glowing, Anna grinding away with the white pestle for an hour, filling little packets, the mortar spick and span and bright as gold, though now it is gone, anything made of copper or brass having been confiscated and taken away, the same being true of the entire building. All the fixtures in the hallway, as well as the red furnace in the bathroom, have been taken away for the benefit of the emperor and the war, because brass is needed for the cannons, and everything the soldiers need has to be there for them. As a result the family has to give up many things, now a mortar made of iron standing in the kitchen, all black and unable to be polished to a sheen, as the mother looks at it sadly, though Fräulein Reimann says that is their duty to the fatherland, and after the war is over and won everything will be right again.

Frau Machleidt comes for a day or two each month to do the sewing, and she also goes to Ludwig’s mother and others, so that she has enough work in general, sewing shirts and underwear and repairing most anything, since one has to scrimp these days, and one rarely buys new clothes. Frau Machleidt doesn’t go to Bubi’s house, for Tata sews everything there, making clothes for Kitti and for Bubi’s mother and herself that Frau Machleidt doesn’t know how to make, though the latter sews faster than Tata, everyone ending up happy with the situation, for Frau Machleidt doesn’t take breaks, Anna placing the midmorning snack and coffee on the sewing machine, where Frau Machleidt eats with one hand and sews with the other. Josef likes to go in and watch her, for Frau Machleidt likes to talk with him and explains how the sewing machine works, a thread running down from above and up from below in order to hold everything togther nice and tight.

Josef always wants to see what it looks like when the machine turns, because he likes to see the thread wind onto the shuttle since it’s so wonderful to see, and Frau Machleidt does just that. Her life had once been happier, when her husband, who was as good as Josef’s own father, was alive, everyone liking Herr Machleidt, but when Helmut was one his father became very sick, and several doctors were consulted, each of them shaking his head and saying, Dear Frau Machleidt, you must prepare yourself for the worst, though she continued to hope, because her husband had been so strong, and she loved him very much, and prayed to God above to make Herr Machleidt healthy again, but it did no good, as the sickness got worse and worse, and the doctors could do no more. Then Herr Machleidt died peacefully in his sleep, and she was alone with the children amid dire need, thus Josef should be thankful because he still had his dear parents, or so said Frau Machleidt, for you have only one set of parents, otherwise there are only stepparents, though Frau Machleidt never wanted to marry again, not wanting a stepfather for the children, because she didn’t think it was good for them, at which Aunt Gusti grew annoyed and said, “Even complete strangers are sometimes better than your own parents. Frau Machleidt is unreasonable, and not everyone has such good parents as you do, Josef.” Frau Machleidt didn’t take it well when Josef told her what Aunt Gusti had said. “Child, that is mean of you. You shouldn’t just spit out anything that you hear.” Josef doesn’t know why he shouldn’t do that, because the mother always says that you shouldn’t keep secrets, especially a child, nor does Josef want others to do so, because he wants to know everything.