Extinction (27 page)

and because you never quite know
. Weddings and births too are celebrated according to a preordained plan. My sisters know, for instance, that a funeral requires not just one but two laurel branches from the Orangery to be placed behind the lamps on the left and right of the entrance hall and two cypresses to be placed on the balcony, one on the far left and one on the far right; these must be of equal height, but not tall enough to reach up to the dining-room windows. Wolfsegg has precise plans for every kind of solemnity, and all these plans are kept in the top right-hand drawer of my mother’s writing desk. My father did not have to force her to comply with these strict procedures, as she quickly developed a passion for them. And she always had a passion for funerals, though she certainly did not envisage her own, or at least she never envisaged its taking place so soon, I told myself. It occurred to me as I stood by the wall that she would have taken charge of her own funeral if this had been possible. I imagined my sisters carrying out my mother’s wishes regarding her funeral. The word
eagerness
came to mind. To anyone else but me it would have been natural to have the taxi drive up the avenue to the main entrance. Having recognized me, the taxi driver was somewhat surprised that I got out where I did, between the two inns, and no one would understand why I walked through the village and across the square, I thought. But I wanted to walk up to Wolfsegg, and the deserted village square suited my purpose ideally. I not only felt I was unobserved, I
was
unobserved. And after all I had no luggage, which in itself was unusual, given that I had come from Rome. Moreover, having no luggage, I could walk with
my hands in my trouser pockets. I entered the avenue with my hands in my pockets, thus evincing a monstrous insolence that not even the village people would have understood. At the age of forty-eight I arrive from Rome for the funeral of my parents and my brother and walk up to the house with my hands in my pockets, I thought, pressing myself against the wall to avoid being seen by the gardeners as they crossed from the Farm to the Orangery with their wreaths. A lying in state is always a great spectacle, I thought, a work of art that takes shape little by little under many hands that are adept at creating such a work of art. Repressing all thoughts of my parents and my brother lying in state in the Orangery, I reflected not on the tragedy itself but on the work of art that accompanied it, on the splendor attendant upon a lying in state, not on the terror. Since I had always been a keen watcher and an even keener observer, having made watching and observing one of my chief virtues, it was natural that I should stand by the wall, watching and observing. The gardeners afforded a perfect opportunity. I had always enjoyed watching and observing them, and during these moments, which I deliberately spun out into hundreds and thousands, I was able, from my present vantage point, to enjoy this experience once again. Such observation is of course a forbidden art, but we cannot forgo it once we have acquired the taste. Another huntsman arrived from the Farm, carrying a long candlestick, which he handed to a gardener who emerged from the Orangery, presumably in order to receive it. These candlesticks, about ten feet in height, are placed at each end of the catafalque in order to throw the most favorable light on the body lying in state. Four in all are placed by the catafalque. I recalled that they had all been given a fresh coat of gold paint many years earlier. This had intrigued me at the time, for I fancied that they were being painted and polished for a particular funeral and that it was already known whose it was to be. I was mistaken, for decades had elapsed since the last funeral, my paternal grandfather’s. When there has been no funeral in a family for a long time it is commonly supposed that several will take place in rapid succession. This has been proved correct at Wolfsegg, I thought, which means that there will now be a lull. Misfortunes seldom come alone, they say; hence funerals seldom come alone. They come in threes, one after another, just as misfortunes proverbially come in threes. Yet this time, I thought, one misfortune
has brought three sudden deaths but led to only one funeral—one times three, three times one. I now heard, wafting up from the village through the trees and shrubs on the hillside, the strains of a familiar piece by Haydn played by a wind band. They’re probably rehearsing the music for tomorrow’s funeral in the
Music House
, I thought, the Music House being an old building next to the school. After a few bars the music stopped and there was total silence. Then the band struck up again, starting from the beginning, went on a few bars longer than before, and stopped again. As usual during rehearsal, they started several times, played a few bars, each time a few more than before, then stopped. Always the same piece by Haydn. As a child I loved to listen to the villagers’ music making, especially the wind band, and I still do. I rate it as highly as so-called serious music, in many cases more highly, knowing that so-called serious music would be inconceivable without popular music, especially the music played at country weddings and funerals. What would weddings and funerals be without such music? I wondered. Village musicians usually have a perfect ear for what they are playing, and when they are good they are nearly always a match for professional musicians. They also have the advantage of being amateurs, of playing for love, not professional ambition, which as we know can amount to a professional disease. How differently they played at my sister’s wedding, I thought—briskly and cheerfully! Their music is now slow and melancholy, though also by Haydn. Haydn is the composer I revere most, along with Mozart, and whose music I most enjoy, next to Mozart’s. Perhaps Haydn should be rated much higher, as he has always been overshadowed in the history of music by the universally loved Mozart. I love both, but Haydn is the greater of the two, I thought. This music by Haydn was in tune with the noontide atmosphere, with the shimmering air and the movements of the gardeners, carefully carrying their wreaths and bouquets from the Farm to the Orangery, unflustered and unfaltering. I was reminded of the many afternoons in my childhood when the sound of the band, playing the same piece, probably in the same scoring, had wafted up to my room from the village. But whereas they normally play only simple pieces, I thought, they’re now playing something complicated, something
quite demanding
, as they say. For Wolfsegg it had to be something fairly complicated, a more demanding kind of music for a
better class of people, for those now lying in state in the Orangery were their betters. It must have been a shock for the village people when they learned of the deaths. For as far back as anyone can remember, I thought, Wolfsegg has never known such a calamity, and at that moment I was sorry that I could not be down in the village and hear what the local people were saying, what they were thinking and feeling. I was sorry that I could not visit their houses and share their undoubtedly genuine grief. My father had their respect, if not their affection, I thought, though he enjoyed the affection of some. My brother enjoyed nearly everyone’s affection. My mother was respected but not loved. All in all, they must have been greatly affected by the tragedy, I thought. But what do they really think? This was a question I could not answer. For centuries the village has depended on us, I thought, and even today the villagers owe their livelihood to us, especially the miners, the brickworkers, and the farmworkers. Directly or indirectly everybody in the village depended on Wolfsegg, around which it clustered, as if for protection, some three hundred feet below. In a village like this, in a region like this, a single moment can change everything. And in a family like mine, I thought. For a long time, I told myself, still standing by the wall, I’ve acted in a quite
unpardonable
manner, or at least in one that contravenes all normal standards of decency, by delaying my entrance. But I was probably too much of a coward to go straight into the park, let alone to walk across to the Orangery, if only to the entrance, too much of a coward even to approach the entrance, let alone to go in and see my parents and my brother lying in state. I would have found it quite impossible; I would not have had the strength. I was capable of standing by the wall and looking through the gateway toward the Orangery, but certainly not of signaling my arrival right away. I lack the nonchalance that would have enabled me to walk directly and unhesitatingly into such a dreadful scene. But who would have the strength to do that? I asked myself, watching the gardeners pushing a handcart with a number of planks across from the Farm and unloading them in front of the Orangery. I know their names, I thought, watching them intently as they unloaded the planks, and not only their names but their families and where they come from. I went to school with one of them; we were in the same class. He was better than I was at everything, especially arithmetic; he also had a neater hand, though that’s not saying much. One of
them lives on the outskirts of the village, on the boundary between Wolfsegg and Ottnang. His father worked for the council as a gravedigger, I recalled. He was a respected figure, and the children loved him, though one wouldn’t expect them to love a gravedigger. Country children have a natural attitude to death and are not afraid of it, whereas town children are afraid of anything connected with death. The second was destined for the priesthood and sent by the parish to the monastery at Kremsmünster, where he was a complete failure, though at school he had been an excellent pupil and was regarded as the most gifted. So he came back to Wolfsegg and served an apprenticeship with a carpenter. But after a time he tired of carpentry and applied to us for a job as gardener. Having served his apprenticeship as a gardener with us, he is now a qualified carpenter and a qualified gardener. My mother often spoke of this stroke of luck. It was a clever move on her part to have him train as a gardener at her expense, with full board, as it saved her the expense of employing another man as a carpenter. My mother thought of everything, especially such practical matters and practical advantages. The third comes from a miner’s family. He too went to the village school with me and immediately became an apprentice gardener, but not at Wolfsegg. He served his apprenticeship at Vöcklabruck, where an aunt took him under her wing and supported him until he had completed his training. The three of them and I used to play together as children, I thought. We used to run into the woods and over the hills together. Their houses probably haven’t changed to this day, I thought, unlike most of the houses, which I imagine have been modernized and to some extent disfigured by their owners. None of them was keen on modern furniture. They attached importance to quality, and so their houses are likely to have remained almost unchanged. Each has three children, about as old as I was then, I thought, and hence all the problems that children bring, which I don’t have. It would have been a simple matter for anyone else to go up to the gardeners, shake hands with them, and stand and talk to them for a while, but I could not, although I wanted to. I’ve traveled half the world, I told myself as I watched the gardeners, I have the world more or less in my pocket, I can conduct myself with the utmost naturalness, not to say the utmost sophistication and assurance, anywhere in the world and in all strata of society, as they say. Yet I could not go up to the gardeners, shake hands with them, and
talk to them briefly. I should have gone straight up to them, I thought, as soon as I arrived at the gate and saw them in front of the Orangery. Yet instead of resolutely going across and speaking to them, which would have been the obvious thing to do, I shied away from them and pressed myself against the wall, more or less out of shame and timidity, lest they should see me. It would have been far better to start off by greeting the gardeners, I told myself. But I missed the chance, I let it slip by. With the huntsmen it would have been a different matter, I thought, but how could I behave like this with the gardeners, for whom I have the highest respect and both liking and affection? On the other hand, this dillydallying by the wall was typical of me, I told myself. I’m not the sort of person who can walk straight into any scene and make an unrehearsed entrance. It’s in my nature to hold back and withdraw to a suitable observation post. What suits me best is the indirect approach. Once a year the gardeners’ families are invited to tea at the Children’s Villa. This is an age-old tradition. The gardeners come up to Wolfsegg with their families to be entertained at the Children’s Villa, in my time by my mother and father. It was always a great event. At the end, when dusk had fallen, the gardeners’ children were given presents. I cannot recall that Johannes and I were ever included in this touching presentation ceremony. On such occasions my mother was in her element. As she solemnly distributed the presents, everyone felt that it came from the heart and that for once she was not acting. Maybe the gardeners’ lifestyle had a beneficent effect on her, I thought, for when she was with them at these tea parties she was a quite different person and showed none of the traits that normally made her so unappealing. With the huntsmen I found her unappealing, but not with the gardeners. The gardeners at Wolfsegg always had a salutary influence. It was not for nothing that as soon as I could walk I was always going over to see them. Even in Rome I often think of them. Lying awake in bed, unable to sleep, I often imagine that I am with them, and I am always happy. I now felt as though I had sneaked in, as though the gardeners I was observing were
pure beings
, while I was an
impure being
and destined to remain so for the rest of my life. I don’t belong here anymore, I thought, and certainly not among them. Yet all my life my dearest wish was to be one of them. It was an absurd idea, a preposterous idea that only a madman like me could entertain.
All my life I have tried to form ties with simple people, but of course I have never succeeded. Now and then I believed I had, and for a long time I clung to this mistaken belief, especially when I was with the gardeners and the miners, to whom I was always attracted, but it was an illusion that invariably ended painfully. The more my family kept me away from so-called simple people and tried to alienate me from them, the more I longed to be with them. For years I was aware of a perverse craving for their company and sought to rid myself of it, knowing it to be senseless, but I did not have the strength to free myself, and I still suffer from it. While our supposed inferiors always strove upward to our level, I always strove downward to theirs. Our inferiors were always unhappy in their station, while I, their better, was unhappy in mine. I suffered from being their better, they from being my inferior. All my life I have wanted to insinuate myself into the company of simple people, who are really anything but simple, I thought as I pressed myself against the wall. I’ve tried many tricks in the hope of taking them in, but they’ve always seen through me and blocked my way, just as my family blocked their way, having seen through them. In my Roman apartment I often imagine myself among them, I thought as I stood pressed against the wall, mixing with them, starting to speak their language, to think their thoughts, to adopt their habits. But I succeed only in dreams, not in reality. What I long for is quite illusory. I am not simple, I have to tell myself at such times, and they are not complicated. I am not like them and they are not like me. It is wrong to say that my family, their supposed betters, are mendacious and that they are not, for they, our inferiors, are just as mendacious in their own way as my family are in theirs. I may say that our inferiors are good people, that they are not greedy and overweening, but the truth is that in their own way they are equally greedy and equally overweening. All the same, I can honestly say that I am happier among simple people than among my own kind, yet I have always shuddered at the thought that I am wrong about them and guilty of betraying my own kind and myself. We always betray ourselves when we favor others and make them out to be better than they really are, I thought. We misuse them by pretending to belong to their kind, yet at the same time we misuse ourselves even more heinously, to their advantage and our own detriment. But we never succeed entirely in remaining