Death in Rome (16 page)

through the slit in the wall, Adolf saw Judejahn step into the lowest dungeon. He saw who it was. He recognized his father. He started, and wanted to rush up to him, and then he was paralysed, frozen, able to watch but no more

Judejahn had wandered through the Angels' Castle, he had seen weapons and armour and military equipment, and little Gottlieb had felt a quiver at so much history, but Judejahn had actually been bored as he went through the rooms, nothing new from the olden days there, he'd seen it all before, no surprises there. He felt confirmed in his calling, and he strolled casually, like someone returning to his house after a long absence, down into the dungeons. In the lowest cellar he placidly went up to the shaft in the rock, the grave for the living dead. There had always been wars and prisons, captivity and death, Peter had died on the cross, and his successors had done their enemies to death in the torture chamber, and so it would continue, and lo, it was good. It was human. Who said it was inhuman? Judejahn listened for a while, and hearing no noise, no footfall, he answered the call and relieved himself into the hole for the poorest prisoner

Adolf saw his father's nakedness, as Ham had seen Noah's, but, like Shem and Japhet, he covered his face with his hands

Eva his mother covered her face with her hands, she didn't want to see the sparkling blue sky nor the shining Roman sun. She stood in black, the ghost from the foggy northland fetched up in Rome, the vengeful Fury, her thoughts on dreadful retribution, the true preserver of the myth of the twentieth century, the Führers mourner, the true believer in the Third Reich and in its resurrection, she stood by the window, and before her was the yard of the hotel frequented by Germans, and in the yard was a pile of empty bottles. In their hurry to reach Monte Cassino in good time for their picnic, the Pfaffraths hadn't troubled to tell Eva how their meeting with Judejahn had passed off. She had had no message from him. She was alone. In the yard, the kitchen boys and kitchen maids were singing nigger songs whose meaning she didn't understand and whose rhythm troubled her. In the corridor outside Eva's door, a chambermaid said to the room-service waiter, 'That old witch never goes out, why did she come to Rome?' The waiter didn't know why the old witch had come to Rome, either. He shouted some obscenity to the girl. The girl screeched and looked in rapture at the white back of the departing white-clad waiter. Then the girl knocked on Eva's door, went in, and grumpily started sweeping the floor. Eva got in the way of the broom, she stood in the sweepings; she didn't know where to put herself. The girl opened the window, and the nigger songs were louder; the nigger songs were wilder, the nigger songs got into the room, they advanced into the corner which Eva occupied

Adolf wept

I climbed up from the river, up the worn flight of steps, I felt happy to be coming from the water, to be coming from the old and friendly sluggish and sluggardly Tiber; up on the embankment time had stood still. The coachman was asleep, his mouth gaped open, the insect buzzed around the gates of hell, the horse was looking bitterly and thoughtfully at the ground, the guide was reading
Avanti
and still spitting between his highly polished shoes. Only the large black automobile with the Arabic plates had driven away. I was pleased it had driven away; I didn't have to see the martial chauffeur any more, not stand in range of his cold, watchful eye. The Devil must have done his business in the papal fortress; the angels on the angels' bridge still couldn't fly, but they seemed less heavy to me now, less downhearted, they seemed light and floating. The brown water of the ancient god-beholden river which I had now after all bathed in, the clammy embrace of the mythical element, had refreshed me and made me euphoric.

He stepped out of the castle gates, and the sun seemed to dazzle him, because he didn't see me. He was pale, and for a moment I thought it was my own pallor I could identify in his face. Adolf wasn't my mirror-image, or maybe he was, a blind mirror in which one sees oneself darkly. When he saw me, he walked sharply up to me. His angry stride seemed to want to tear his priest's robes. Clouds of dust and material billowed up behind him, and his shoes, clod-hopping country shoes, looked rough and out of place on the Roman pavement. He called out, 'I've seen him,' as though the Devil incarnate had appeared to the priest. He pointed to the gate. 'He was here,' he cried. I understood: he had seen
Judejahn,
his terrible father. Had he spoken to him? I asked. His face burned. He was embarrassed. So he hadn't spoken to him, he had hidden, and I thought: He's afraid of his father, an analyst would say he hid from the face of God the Father, the Old Testament god of vengeance, he isn't free. I didn't care about Adolf, he was a drag on me, he was a link in the family chain I had slipped off, but his agitation moved me, his effort, his search for a way; only his way didn't lead to freedom. I would have liked to help Adolf, I would have liked to lead him to freedom. But did he want to be free? I made us go on to the bridge. He was dejected, and I pressed against his dejection, crying out, 'Isn't Rome beautiful!' I pointed down to the river and its banks, as though they were mine. I cried, 'Look at the Tiber, isn't it beautiful, beautiful and ancient and beneficial? I've just bathed in the Tiber, touch my hair, it's wet with the good Tiber water!' My hair hung down in strands. He only just remarked it. 'See the angels here,' I cried, 'and imagine them take to the air, flap their black marble wings, fly up to the Capitol and dance with the old gods. Can you hear Pan playing the saxophone, Orpheus strumming the banjo and singing little jungle songs?' Truly, I suddenly found the heavy angels beautiful; truly I could imagine them flying, I could see them dancing a boogie-woogie; I hailed them, even the angels were my friends, I rejoiced, I was free. The sky was bright, a lofty blue dome. It was I who was populating the sky with angels and gods; the heavens were graciously inhabited by angels and gods on my say-so, because it amused me, because I imagined it to myself; I had the celestial jazz band playing on the Capitoline Hill, I dreamed the music, I dreamed the dancing; maybe the sky was black, as pilots say it is, a thin veil, no more, in front of an icy void surrounding our foolish planet – I rejoiced in my dreams because I was free, free to dream, I had permission from myself. I would have liked to throw Adolf into the Tiber, I wanted to baptize him in joy, but as he didn't say anything, but walked silently beside me, buffeting the bridge stones with his tough deacon's shoes, and only looked at me now and then with a strange fixity, inquiringly, searchingly, demandingly, and as I wanted to do something for him, I offered to buy him an ice-cream.

He drank only milk, milk like a child, pasteurized milk, carefully heated to precisely udder temperature. A nursemaid looked after him, plumped the cushions in his indoor wheelchair, tested the flavour of the milk with a doubtful expression, herself smelling of milk in her blue-and-white-striped nurse's dress, of suckling, of sterilized nappies and baby powder, while he carefully brought the glass to his parchment-coloured face with his parchment-coloured hands, carefully moistened his razor-slash lips with the bland liquid. The sun was shining, but the room was in shadow, and powerful electric heaters produced an insufferable heat which, together with the dull blanketing milk-odour, deadened every visitor's senses. He called himself Austerlitz, and perhaps his name really was Austerlitz, but one hardly thought of him as having a real name at all; no one knew which metal works he owned, or which majority shareholdings, or which manufacturer he represented, perhaps he owned every weapons factory there was, every majority shareholding, or at least he represented them; it remained his closely guarded secret where his stores were, how he delivered was his affair, but the guns got there, and the shells arrived punctually in port. Austerlitz was dependable and businesslike, and his contacts with governments and rebel groups all over the world were as proverbial as his credit. Like
Judejahn,
Austerlitz was wearing dark glasses, so that the two of them glinted at one another like a pair of silly secretive spectres. They looked like sinister homunculi. The nursemaid had parked a trolley in front of
Judejahn
freighted with strong alcoholic drinks, ice and mixing-beakers, and he listened happily, his pleasure diminished only by the heat and the milk-fumes, to the list of toys the big boys were making over to the little boys. Quite an array of death-bringing gear, in good nick, was to be had for astonishingly reasonable prices, and it looked as though there were some anonymous donors, shy benefactors of humanity or discreet friends of Death, who were prepared to dip into their pockets so that plucky little tribes, less well-off nations, might be supplied with weapons to keep the threat of war alive in these out-of-the-way places. The embers of war kept glowing. Maybe one day a spark would fly and reignite the world. It was a good investment, Death paid his debts.
Judejahn
made a careful and informed selection of equipment that would be useful in the desert. His fiduciary standing was acknowledged. But fuelled by the whisky he was drinking against the heat and the gaggy milk-fumes, he grew angry that he was only able to buy for his bunch of Arabs and Yids, for the men he was drilling in the desert fort, and he longed for his homeland, for German forests, for wider responsibilities and a change of scene, which would permit him to go to Austerlitz with far bigger orders. Austerlitz, with a little moustache of milk on the parchment skin over the slash of his upper lip, was of course fully apprised of developments on the important German market. Should he tell
Judejahn
about the current market sentiment?
Judejahn
was an old customer. But Austerlitz could wait. Possibilities matured, and since he thought of
Judejahn
as a man of the second rank, whose time had not yet come, and of whom one didn't know when and where he would make his decisive move, he didn't tell him everything he knew. But he did mention one General
von Teufelshammer
as belonging to the faithful few, busying himself once more, and he mentioned the little doctor who had formerly reported to the Great Doctor, and now, with idealistic eyes wanted to play the part of the Doctor in the nationalist politics.
Judejahn
was familiar with both of them, he could imagine them in front of him, the general with his studious expression, pebble glasses, bat ears and little yapping mouth, he could see him as he danced round the
Führer,
completely straight back, excellent pupil, and prepared to hold the front till the death of the last
Volkssturm
reservist, and he knew the other fellow too, the little doctor, who was prepared to hold the front till the death of the youngest
Hitlerjugend
boy. The doctor had visited him in his office with messages from the Great Doctor, a smart alec with a ratty mouth, the mouth of a beaming
rat, Judejahn
hadn't liked him, not because he looked like a rat but because he'd been to university and was supposed to be a pushy intellectual—well, well, so those two had got together, or they were doing a number, and it was unlikely that they were doing it for his benefit, to prepare the Reich for him. Maybe he'd been dead for too long, he would have to go there himself, put in an appearance in Germany in order to remain a player in the German game, he would have to keep an eye on those prize pupils, which meant that he would have to let Pfaffrath fix it for him, the quashing of the verdict, a formal or tacit pardon.
Judejahn
no longer needed to be afraid of any jury, they would sympathize with him and be mindful of their own future, but it irked
Judejahn
that he would have to stick by Pfaffrath and snuggle up to Pfaffrath. He smashed his fist between the glasses. It sounded as though the phials for homunculus production were being smashed. The nursemaid came running up, but Austerlitz waved her away again. He showed
Judejahn
one last exhibit, which he produced from a little suede pouch, a new pistol with silencer, just on the market.
Judejahn
fell in love with it—little Gottlieb used to stand and gaze longingly at the window displays of gunshops—he fell in love with the deft little death-bringer, and was loath to part with it. Austerlitz, well versed in the law, duly informed
Judejahn
that it was against Italian law to sell, buy or carry weapons, but he left
Judejahn
the pistol as a sample, perhaps in advance of some larger order from the desert. 'And where,' asked Austerlitz with his quiet voice, his infantile grin, drooling at the milky mouth, 'where is there no desert, no jungle?' He didn't ask where there was no death.

The
gelateria
had set tables and chairs in the courtyard; it was pleasant there in the shade, away from the noise of the traffic, and Siegfried and Adolf sat together as though for a Socratic dialogue, in a loggia decorated in the old Roman fashion; around them were broken pillars, ramping ivy, the bruised masks of domestic lares, a little fountain tinkled away, there was the friendly outline of a palm tree, and the plaster busts of gods, poets and philosophers, and the heads of satyrs, statesmen and Caesars, the pretty heads of ephebes and nymphs looked on with battered noses, missing ears and blind eyes, as they chipped away at their granite-hard Sicilian ices. In Adolf, the dejected deacon, who had followed Siegfried with reluctance at first, the ice cooled the burning sensation of shame, he liked it, and with a healthy eagerness he savoured the dissolving of the zestful and aromatic artificial winter fruit on his tongue, and it was Siegfried who was now the pensive one, dipping his spoon and chipping away at the ice, leaving it to melt to a reddish mush on his plate. Feeling refreshed, and finding everything more natural, more innocent, and easier to resolve in the setting of their bower, Adolf turned to Siegfried and asked whether they shouldn't see their parents. Adolf suggested a visit, a personal appearance to say to them, well, this is the way we are now, not perhaps what you had in mind, but quite able to justify the kind of life they were leading. Siegfried exclaimed, 'You must be crazy! I don't want to justify my life! Why should I justify myself to my parents? I wouldn't dream of it!' To which Adolf replied that one always had to justify oneself, whatever the life one was living, to God and to one's fellow-men, and hence why not to one's parents as well. 'Do you think your father's a god, do you think he's even a human being?' asked Siegfried. He was malicious. And Adolf grew excited. 'Those are just words,' he cried, 'you're trapped in clichés just like all the people you think you're superior to because what you say is negative, cynical and hard, but it's empty, and all it tells me is that you're frustrated!' Siegfried: 'Is that what they teach you at your seminary, to diagnose frustration in others as a prelude to their possible conversion?' Adolf: 'I'm not talking about my seminary. I'm talking about you.' Siegfried: 'You can leave me out of it. I live as I please. I don't need anyone.' Adolf: 'Very well, you live for yourself. You think you've found the way. That's all you want. So why are you so prickly? Our parents could just as well say the same thing, that they had lived their lives, gone their own way, and it had all been fun.' Siegfried: 'That's just what they will say.' Adolf: 'But you don't approve of their lives, do you?' Siegfried: 'No, because they inflicted their ideas on others, because they condemned me to a military upbringing, because they started a war, because they brought suffering, and created devastation, because they turned our country into a land of intolerance, stupidity, megalomania, prisons, chopping-blocks and gallows. Because they were murderers, or else they stayed cosily at home knowing full well that people were being murdered.' Adolf: 'And do you think that can't happen again?' Siegfried: 'You bet I do! In my daydreams and nightmares I see the Browns and the nationalist idiocy on the march again. And that's why I want to get on with my own life, while the nationalist god is too weak to stop me. It's my only chance.' Adolf:
'And why don't you try to do something to prevent this development that seems so threatening to you?' Siegfried: 'How am I to prevent it?' Adolf: 'By trying to change people!' Siegfried: 'That's impossible.' Adolf: 'You have to try!' Siegfried: 'You try it! Your Church has been trying to do that for two thousand years.' Adolf said nothing. Did he despair? Did he see there was no hope? But then he came back: 'And what about your music? Isn't that your way of trying to change the world?' Siegfried said: 'No. You're mistaken.' But Adolf persisted and asked again: 'Why do you make music, why are you a composer?' Siegfried: 'I don't know'