Epitaph for a Working ManO (6 page)

*

He could be very sharp-tongued. Particularly when he was over in the Löwen and had already had two glasses of coffee with kirsch. He reproached Budmiger for his drinking, his card-playing and his sloth. “You let others work for you, don't you,” he teased. “Quite right. That way you don't get so tired.” Sitting at his table in the pub he called Dr Lätt an idiot, a bletherer, a rascal. Lätt wasn't a doctor, he said, he was a vet, and a rotten one at that, just about good enough to give out pills. He bought them by the hundredweight, white ones, red ones and green ones. If you took the red ones your piss turned green, if you took the green ones your piss turned red, and if you took the white ones you couldn't pee at all. Formerly they used to give out a lot of laxatives at the home, but since Dr Lätt had started coming regularly, they didn't need to anymore, he was laxative enough.

*

A three-day stubble, copper mixed with grey. Tobacco crumbs in the right-hand corner of his mouth. The small, inflamed eyes. He picked his nose with forefinger and thumb, and briefly examined what he'd dug out before flicking it down on the gravel. A hen pecked, pecked again, clucked, stood there, her head twisted up sideways. A late summer afternoon. It was hot. We were sitting in the shade. His hands in repose on the metal table. A smoking cigarette butt in the ashtray. Who would visit me one day, here or elsewhere, in some godforsaken place?

“Basically, two men are not too much at all,” she said.

“Basically?”

“Admittedly, it can be rather strenuous sometimes.”

“Strenuous because of me?”

“Strenuous taken all in all.”

“You can always give it up.”

“And who, dear man, should I give up first?”

“Me, of course.”

“You're such an idiot!”

It wasn't worth being jealous. I just had to keep hoping that Fritschi wouldn't cut any capers, and that his wife wouldn't lose her nerve. A tough woman from the Valais, as I'd found out in the meantime.

*

“Here, down on the right between my gum and my lip. The lip as well, a little bit. There's nothing there, no swelling. It just feels numb. As though it wasn't flesh, as though it was rubber.”

Father looked thoughtful as he explained.

Sophie stopped short:

“Show me where, exactly?”

She stood in front of him as, leaning on the stick in his right hand, he pulled down his lip with the fingertips of his left. Sophie craned forward.

“I can't see anything,” she said.

“No,” he said, “there's nothing to see.”

She touched his lip.

“Can you feel this? – And this? – And here, can't you feel it?”

“Like rubber,” he said.

Reassuringly she linked arms with him. “Perhaps it's from your dentures,” she said. “A pressure sore.”

“That's probably what it is,” he said.

A Saturday afternoon, pleasant, not too hot and not too cold; she had gone on ahead in the bus and had tried to find Father in the home and then in the Löwen. There the landlady had told her that she'd seen Haller go over to the woods after lunch. Half an hour later – I had followed on my moped – Mrs Budmiger gave me the same information. I saw the two of them coming toward me on the path from the woods.

A mown meadow; a field of maize.

We went straight through the orchard on our way back to the pub.

“Let me invite you two men to a dessert.”

“I'm the one who does the inviting here,” said Father.

*

Occasionally when I met a woman I thought: What would it be like with her? Why not? Sophie did it. – It's easy to think of something like that when a pretty woman starts talking to the likes of us. Why struggle against it? What's natural isn't out of the question, and anyway there's no point in trying to struggle against thoughts.

Was Father ever haunted by such feelings? I'd seldom seen him after his divorce. But if he'd started living with a woman again I'd surely have been told sooner or later. However, he might have had affairs. And why should he have chosen to tell me, of all people, about his affairs! – Then he grew older and older, and the old are not expected to have love affairs. The most old men do is keep an eye out for bosoms and legs.

“The people at the home are to be pitied if only because they live a life without endearment.” A Sophie sentence. I would never have thought of such a thing.

Nor noticed it either, incidentally. But of course she was right. I never saw any of them hold hands as they sat beside each other in the sunshine in front of the house. Usually men and women sat on separate benches, apparently the custom here. And Father had never talked about any carryings-on: should there have been any, he would have been the last to have missed such an opportunity for teasing.

I hadn't noticed it, only Sophie had. Sophie notices things like that. Not for nothing did Father like her. There must have been some reason, for she had never given him particular care and attention. She'd just shown normal interest – but he had sensed her interest.

“Just imagine, no body contact,” she said. “Except when they're cleaning your bottom because you can't do it yourself anymore.” She puffed up her cheeks and blew out: “Ugh! When I come to think that one day I myself… No, I'd rather not think about it. It's too depressing!”

“You get used to it.”

“Oh you, you might! You get used to anything.”

“No choice, have I?” I said.

“Don't make such a face.”

“What kind of face?”

“The kind that says everything's over.”

“I'll do my best.”

“Yes, do that,” she said.

*

It had started with his lower lip. Then he had pains in his shoulders and in his neck, pain urinating, a swollen scrotum. A new spot came up near his breastbone.

At the last consultation the hospital doctor had said he'd send a report to Dr Lätt. I asked Father if he'd asked Dr Lätt about it.

It was not for him to ask, said Father. Dr Lätt was sure to have received the letter from the hospital and so he must know what needed to be done. Besides, he came to the home at least three times a week. If he had a prescription to give him, well, he knew his room number, he could come and take a quick look. Or was that asking too much?

He shouldn't be so touchy, I said.

Who was being touchy, he retorted.

I argued that it would be better for him to go and show them his back at the hospital now, rather than wait until October. But for that he needed Lätt: he could only get an appointment through Lätt. And as long as Lätt knew nothing he wouldn't do anything. Why not go to see him? It was no use getting all worked up just because the man never thought of inquiring himself. Should I phone Lätt?

He could fix it himself. When he saw him – and he was bound to see him next time he came – he'd talk to him.

A week later he still hadn't said anything to the doctor.

The next time I asked he said Lätt had been in a terrible hurry, but that he'd promised to examine him.

After another week had passed without anything happening I rang the doctor.

I enumerated the symptoms. And now there seemed to be a secondary growth on his lower lip. That numb spot worried Father, although he didn't show it directly. Things are as they are, I said, but we'd be glad if Father didn't have to end up walking around with festering tumours on his mouth.

Lätt: Oh yes, he remembered. Mr Haller had spoken to him recently. Unfortunately he'd forgotten all about it. Of course, of course, he'd go and see him. Tomorrow, for sure.

I thanked him and hung up. I was sweating.

*

“He examined everything, all my little woes, the day before yesterday, in the afternoon. My back, the spot here on my chest, my lip. I didn't have to go out to Tägern to see him, he examined me here in my room, from top to bottom. I have to apply compresses to my testicles. Though what that's got to do with the other thing is a mystery to me.”

He pulled out a plastic bowl from underneath the bed, opened the door of his bedside table and showed me the supply of cloths for the compresses. “Every morning and every evening they bring me the chamomile brew. It's just an inflammation, nothing serious, I've had it before. It doesn't bother me much except when I'm walking.”

I asked him if Dr Lätt had registered him at the hospital for an earlier consultation.

“He looked at everything very thoroughly, did Lätt.” Father nodded approvingly. “And yesterday he came to see me again. He said he'd phoned the hospital. They told him the boss was on holiday at the moment, but of course I could go nevertheless. However, they thought it might be better to wait until Dr Boren was back. They said that he was the one who knew most about what had been done up to now. – So I'll go as originally planned. It's less than a fortnight now.”

*

It didn't take much to make him happy. Lätt would only have had to put his head round the door of his room once a fortnight and ask: How are you feeling, Mr Haller? That would have been enough for Mr Haller.

One afternoon, two weeks later – the day before the hospital appointment – Father wasn't in the home or in the Löwen. An employee at the home told me that Mr Estermann, the man from the builders, had asked for Haller yesterday. Perhaps he'd gone to work there. On the other hand he hadn't said he'd be out.

I rode back to Tägern.

Mrs Estermann sent me on to Fänglen. They were concreting the forecourt of the rectory. Unexpectedly they'd found some masonry work that needed doing. Her husband had asked my father to do it for him. A quick job. Just a few hours' work, no more. She told me the way. I couldn't miss the rectory.

A sunny day early in October. Pleasantly warm for a moped ride. Past autumn-coloured hedges, down through woods, then a flat stretch along a line of hills.

In Fänglen I didn't have to search for long: I saw the church from afar, and the rectory would be nearby. One of those nineteenth-century Protestant country rectories, half manor, half farmhouse, with a barn standing next to it.

Building equipment lay around. Under the roof of the barn, Father's toolbox. Stone chips were swept into a pile against the wall of the house. The three steps up to the entrance had been bush-hammered; the soft limestone had already been repaired in several places.

I rang at the door but no one came.

Down the road two women were chatting over a garden fence. I asked if any of the builders were still around. The woman in the garden said she'd heard the old man hammering just a few minutes ago. But the builders had gone, she was sure of that, the lorry had driven off quite some time ago. Perhaps the man who'd been doing the hammering had gone over to the shop for a moment. She thought she'd seen him in the road. Didn't he have a slight limp?

In the shop they knew nothing about a man with a limp. I bought a packet of cigarettes.

I returned to the rectory. Stood around in the square. Went into the graveyard. A lot of box trees, a strong smell of flowers. I sat down on a bench against the wall.

On my way back via Breiten I passed the home again. Father was in the Löwen, sitting in his usual corner.

Had I really been to Fänglen?

I described the rectory.

“In that case you know all about it,” he said. “That bottom step there, if it had been up to me I'd have got rid of it, I'd have chiseled it right off. It's only two centimetres high on the left, and not much more than ten on the right. The ground's crooked, the house is on a slope. So the best thing would be to remove the whole step, and Estermann could just make the concrete forecourt a bit higher. That would be the neatest solution. But the architect wouldn't hear of it. I explained it to him at length, I showed him that the stone's no good any more. If I mend everything on that step that needs mending it won't be made up of much more than cement anyway. I can't see the difference, cement or lime mortar; in any case it'll end up being more cast stone than natural stone. While we're about it we might as well put in a new step, make a decent job of it. But the architect didn't agree. He wants to preserve the crumbly old antique, he wants it to be restored in accordance with the rules of the art. Well, that's all right by me, let him have his patchwork!”

Besides the architect there had been two gentlemen from the Church Council standing around on the rectory forecourt. They'd listened politely, nodded assiduously. But he hadn't been able to convince them that filling up the cracks was just a botch, that it didn't make sense.

Budmiger: “You weren't in form. What you needed was a drop of my schnapps.”

“You might be right there – for once!”

*

The time had come. We were waiting again. That morning he hadn't gone to the rectory in Fänglen. It wouldn't have been worth it. Estermann would take him there tomorrow; too bad it was Saturday; the repairs had to be finished.

And again we drank tea from the vending machine. We sat on the plastic chairs in the entrance hall and watched the people coming and going.

“If I can be the first to go in I might catch the ten to four bus.” We went down to the X-ray department early.

For a long time we sat there in the corridor. We also waited a long time in the changing cubicle. Dr Boren was late. The male nurse apologised.

The doctor rummaged through the file. “Well, Mr Haller, how are things?” After he'd greeted both of us, he again spoke only to me – over my father's back.

His skin had recovered satisfactorily. The thing had responded well to the radiotherapy. Surprisingly well. In spite of that, or for that very reason, a further course of treatment was indicated. Not too strong, but it was to be assumed that there was still something left. For example, that little bump there. No, not the big one, that was just fat, that was nothing in comparison, you could forget it.

I mentioned his lower lip. Hadn't Dr Lätt said anything about it when he'd tried to get an earlier appointment for him here at the hospital? I also mentioned the spot on his breastbone.

“Let's have a look,” said the doctor.

A cursory glance, a quick touch with the fingertips: a doctor like him can see immediately at what point things have stopped being benign. Spatula into mouth – Sophie had taken a closer, more careful look at it on the path out there by the home.

He nodded reassuringly. Nothing special, a trifling matter. “But we might as well do an X-ray,” he said. “Like last summer.” He consulted the file. “Fine, that's what we'll do.” Then to Father: “Just pop on your jacket, we'll do it at once.”

*

He should have been told the truth.

While they were still busy with my father at the far end of the corridor, the doctor hurried up to me. I stood up.

“I'm sorry for him,” he said. “I'm afraid it's as we feared – the cancer has spread to his inner organs. It's in his lungs, with metastases on both sides of the diaphragm. That explains the pain, you know”

He turned his head to make sure Father hadn't come within hearing distance. “We'll still give him radiation therapy,” he said. “Only superficially of course, not the lungs, there'd be no sense in that. But his back again. Otherwise that new little nodule might break open. And that would be most unpleasant.”

Father was approaching slowly along the corridor, arguing about something or other with the male nurse.

“Have you told him?” I asked.

“No, no, he needn't know anything for the moment.”

I must have looked at him questioningly because he added,

“It's better we don't tell him. At least not for the time being.”

Then Father reached us.

“Well, Mr Haller,” said the doctor, “that's fixed. We'll give you radiotherapy. Only small doses. We'll be careful. There definitely won't be any burns this time. It would be best if we could start at once. Today is Friday. Come again on Monday. Which is better for you, the morning or the afternoon? Arrange a time with the nurse.”

Father protested. “Nothing suits me, not the morning and not the afternoon. I've got more important things to do than travel for hours through the Brühl district only to be shoved under a machine for a couple of minutes. Is it really necessary? Really, is there any use?”

The doctor laid a hand on his shoulder. “Of course it's necessary and it will certainly be of use.”

Father looked at him. “Oh, really,” he said.

“It would be nice if you could fit it in,” the doctor added. “Once we've got it over with that'll be that.”

“Whatever you say,” said Father. “But it really isn't convenient at the moment. There are a lot of things I have to get done. – Three times a week? Afternoons? Oh, all right, if I have to. You're the expert, you must know.”

“Good man,” said the doctor, and shook his hand.

No respite any more now. The friendly male nurse with the broad face was even friendlier than before. The X-ray nurse chatted for a long time with Father. We missed the ten to four bus.

*

He should have been told the truth.

*

“I've always liked stonemasoning, and it's something I know a lot about too – more than many of those young fellows today; there's not much they can show me. I even enjoy the lousy fountains I piece together at Estermann's. Guess what the material cost! One hundred and twenty francs the lot, offcuts from Späti's saw shed. I even chose the stones myself, all kinds of varieties and colours, as you saw, and mainly limestone. Some of it's from Späti's quarry – the grey sort of course; the yellow stone's useless, you've hardly started working on it and you're already having to mend the holes. Actually the grey sort is in short supply, but they recently came on a stratum that's reasonably profitable. Of course I didn't tell Gerber that we were using the stones for a fountain – that would have been competing with Späti plc – just for a little garden wall, I said. Obviously, after all Estermann runs a building firm. Gerber just said, Haller, he said, you know where our leftovers are, they're still in the same place, take whatever you need and when you've loaded up come by my office and the draughtsman can measure the quantities. I still know all the people at the quarry there, or most of them anyway. Gerber still runs around in his dusty coat, just as he used to; but he'll soon be pensioned off; he blunders around like a startled wasp – apparently he still thinks that without him rushing about and bossing everyone around, nothing would ever get done at Späti's. We drove the lorry over to the forge shed; there they pile the offcuts on pallets. I chose what I wanted and Franz – Estermann's son – loaded the pieces I selected on to the lorry. There are days when I can hardly walk for the pain in my leg, and there's no question of me hauling large rocks around. Even ten kilos is too much for me to lift by myself. It's a strange mason who has to have someone carry around even the smallest slabs! Well, that's how things are now, ever since his accident Haller can't manage without a dogsbody to help him. Chiseling, bush-hammering, broaching – those are things I'm as good at as anyone else. Just bashing the stone isn't enough, you see, it takes more than muscle; you have to have a feeling for where the stone is likely to break, you have to have a feeling for the direction and the angle at which you need to point your iron, you have to have an eye for it. Some people never manage. Gerber, for example, he never managed. I know what I'm talking about; we spent enough time wielding mallets, chisels and pneumatic hammers side by side. No one could ever teach Gerber anything; he understood all right, he's not an idiot, but understanding something in his head and then doing it himself with his hands, that was beyond him. So all he could do was become the boss.”

*

Sitting at the round table, smoking. Crossing the hall step by step, past the kiosk, past the staircase, on his way to the lift. Hooking his cap on the clothes stand down in the corridor by the X-ray room, propping his stick against the wall before pulling his left arm, then his right arm, out of his jacket, hanging his jacket up under his cap. Reaching for his stick again, turning around and limping over to one of the chairs. Sitting down, panting. Sitting there, holding his stick in his hands in front of him, between his knees.

*

He acted as though he was sure he'd be alive for a long time yet. We hadn't talked much about his illness before; now we didn't talk about it at all. It was just that his having to go to the hospital three times a week was a nuisance: on those days he couldn't go to Estermann's. The second fountain wasn't finished yet; Estermann had planned to exhibit both fountains at the Outer Brühl District Trade Fair in October. Both had already been sold, but showing them at the exhibition would bring in further orders. Then Father would have work all winter. “If only there wasn't such a draught in that shed,” he said. “Perhaps I'll move into the garage, it's a bit better there.” No, he wouldn't run out of work. And that was a good thing. “By the way, why don't you come and help me?” he suggested. I'd probably be quite a good workman, he said. He was even confident that I knew how to handle a chisel.

*

I wondered if I should talk to Estermann, tell him to be wary of accepting too many orders for new fountains. You never knew; after all, Father was sick.

Sophie was against the idea. Why should I interfere? If Estermann was left with an unfinished fountain in his shed, that was Estermann's problem. He knew Father wasn't well, he knew that he'd had to go for a third round of radiotherapy, he could draw his own conclusions. Up to now he'd always made more money out of it than Father. And if he was so keen on doing business with a sick old man let him bear the risks.

She was probably right. How could I have told Estermann something that Father himself didn't want to know?

*

Why was he so fond of working? Because it took him out of the home. He couldn't have endured spending all his time at the home. Through his work he got out, he met new people. And they made demands on him, showed him that they needed him. He had something to offer: he could clean gravestones, bush-hammer steps, mend fountain basins. And he did it all for a bit of pocket money plus beer, bread, and a cervelat sausage.

Afterwards, those same people did not turn up at the cremation, nor did they send condolence cards. Because they didn't happen to need him at the time, they didn't notice his death and departure. They only knew Haller the stonemason: Haller, stripped naked, without his toolbox and his stonemason's hammer, meant nothing to them. We never heard from any of them, not even from Estermann.

If you have nothing to offer you're worthless. And as for being worthy of affection, don't even think of it.

*

“There's someone I've been keeping waiting for ages too,” he said gesturing with his head. “Window-sills.”

The man was making his way on two sticks through the hall toward the exit. “He had a car accident last spring. He was in a bad way, several fractures. Perhaps he's also been to see Dr Boren.”