Extinction (32 page)

Frankfurter Allgemeine
too. They’re talking quietly so that they can’t be heard, I thought, but I could hear every word, learning for the first time that from the passage one could hear almost everything that people said in the drawing room, even when they spoke very quietly. I was alarmed to discover this, having always believed that nothing said in the drawing room could be heard outside it. This is an important discovery, I thought; I must watch what I say in the drawing room. They’re sure they can’t be heard, but I can follow every word. All the time the wine cork manufacturer said nothing but yes or no in answer to the simplest questions. My sisters were conducting the discussion, and this partly reassured me. Then suddenly he said that the catafalque should be raised a little, whereupon I began to listen more attentively. The catafalque was too low, he said. The mourners would have the greatest difficulty in seeing the dead, and the only thing to do was to raise the catafalque. After a certain amount of to and fro they all decided to give instructions for the catafalque to be raised. They went on to talk about the gardeners, then about the huntsmen, then about how rooms had been booked for the guests, who would be coming from far and wide, at all the inns in the village, as well as in Ottnang. More than once they mentioned the Gesswagner, which was my favorite eating place whenever I wished to escape from the Wolfsegg cuisine. It had big rooms with old-fashioned beds, and the guests we accommodated there at various times had always found it comfortable. The inn is deservedly famous, as is the butcher’s shop belonging to it. The name
Gesswagner
instantly brought back memories of the many happy hours I had spent there with the local people—miners, farmers, carpenters, and roadworkers, whom I
have to thank for broadening my outlook early in life. Gesswagner is to me a magic word, for at no other inn have I experienced such natural good cheer. It is the focal point of Ottnang, a village known for its lighthearted, cheerful inhabitants, as well as for its band, which is rivaled only by our own. But naturally the name Gesswagner had no such happy associations for the others. Suddenly they were on me. They could not understand why I had not gotten in touch earlier, for they had telegraphed me as soon as they knew of the accident.
No phone call, nothing
, said Amalia. I had entered the drawing room. They stood up but could think of nothing to say. I embraced my sisters and shook hands with my brother-in-law. Without another word I accompanied Caecilia down to the Orangery. My first impression was that they respected me as the sole heir. They had no choice, and it occurred to me that I was being received like this because all their hopes were now pinned on me. It occurred to me too that they were now at my mercy, forced to rely on me for help and, above all, to heed what I said. It struck me that they could no longer exist without me and depended on my generosity, knowing that I was the natural heir and that they must rally round me, as the accident had left them helpless. The deserter who had been rejected, detested, and execrated had suddenly become the master, the provider, the deliverer. In this moment of reunion they staked everything on me, fervently hoping that I would forget everything that they and the dead had done to me, in order to save them, as I was more or less obliged to do. This was my undoubted intention, and I gave them to understand it, not in so many words but by my demeanor, which I cannot precisely describe. My brother-in-law was forced into the same position, expecting me to extend to him the protection I extended to my sisters and to consider him in my deliberations regarding the future. But I knew as little as they did about what was to happen, for the fact that Wolfsegg as a whole, with all its internal and external ramifications, now devolved upon me and upon me alone was something I had not considered, either in Rome the previous day, when I had received the fatal telegram, or between then and now, when I had been wholly preoccupied by my immediate return to Wolfsegg and had no time—or allowed myself no time—to think about the problems posed by its future. I had refused to think about them, as I did not wish to burden myself with these problems
until my parents and my brother had been buried. Moreover, the news of their death had been far too sudden. As I have said, I was not shattered by the news, terrible though it undoubtedly was, but accepted it with a kind of indifference, which I did not have the strength to abandon and was therefore unwilling to abandon. I had simply taken out the photographs, put them on my desk, and fantasized about them, I may say, more or less to distract myself from the horror of what had happened. I now saw that this was the best thing I could have done. On receiving the telegram I was controlled, not shattered. I kept a hold on myself, as they say, and my head remained clear, but naturally I did not consider the full consequences of the news in detail, as I wanted to protect myself. I had to protect myself; I could not and would not allow myself to be crushed by the fact that my parents and my brother were now dead. Caecilia led the way to the Orangery, and as I followed her I reflected that my sisters and my brother-in-law were now entirely reliant on me, that their attitude to me had completely changed. This was inevitable. Now that my parents and my elder brother were dead, I was suddenly cast in a role they could never have imagined me playing, that of provider and protector. But I’m still the same person, I thought.
I
haven’t changed, I won’t change, even if they expect me to. Yet if they were not to despair and lose their hold on everything, they had to believe that I would. The fact is that on the way to the Orangery, despite the sadness of the occasion, which affected me too, I decided that my sisters would have to be paid off, as I had no intention of letting them stay on at Wolfsegg or allowing the estate to go on being run as it had been up to now. Of course, I did not know how else it should be run, only that things could not go on as they had for centuries, right up to the present day. As she led me to the Orangery, Caecilia had the demeanor of the bereaved daughter and sister,
broken
by the sudden death of her parents and her brother, and perhaps she really was broken. Dressed in black, in a tight-fitting woolen dress and with her hair in a bun, she looked very smart. So did Amalia, I thought. She also looked good in black. If only they wouldn’t go around in those dreadful dirndls, I thought; they look so much better in black. When I first saw my brother-in-law standing beside Caecilia, he seemed quite helpless. He was no longer the triumphant though complex-ridden bridegroom of
the week before, for the accident and its immediate consequences had made it quite impossible for him to conceal his futility and ineptitude. The couple had faced me in all their depressing insignificance. Instead of supporting Caecilia, as would have been natural, he was supported by her, or so it seemed to me when I entered the drawing room and looked first at Caecilia and her husband, and then at Amalia, who seemed more composed than the others. They had seen to everything, they said. I did not know quite what this meant but assumed it meant that they had made all the necessary arrangements. Before we reached the Orangery Caecilia said that Amalia had sent a telegram to Spadolini at the same time she had sent mine. It was up to me to decide who else should be told of the tragedy in addition to those they had already informed. She had taken it for granted that Spadolini should be notified. It was clear that Caecilia knew precisely what to make of Mother’s relations with Spadolini. My sisters were always in the know, I thought. The wine cork manufacturer is nothing but a nuisance, I thought, but I can’t count him out, as I have the impression that Caecilia will make a point of pushing him forward, as her protector, so to speak. This did not worry me, as I was not afraid of the wine cork manufacturer, even though he was now my brother-in-law. He’ll remain a marginal figure of no consequence, I thought. When I entered the drawing room, Caecilia had placed herself behind him, using him as a protective shield, so to speak, and making it only too obvious that she intended to push him to the fore. This at once struck me as ludicrous, not to say tasteless; I thought it unworthy of her but did not pursue the thought. It was not important, but at the same time I found it irritating, though I was fully aware that some confusion was inevitable in the present circumstances. Given the new situation at Wolfsegg, my sisters were at pains to show me that they had changed, but they only half succeeded, as they had not really changed. They were the same as ever. At first I fancied that they had changed, but this soon proved to be an error when I said I wanted to see my dead parents and my dead brother. Before we reached the Orangery I was still convinced that what my sisters required of me was nothing short of total self-abnegation. Do your best to protect them, I told myself, but be on your guard, or you’ll come off worst. After all, they’ve been trained by your mother and know how to exploit a tragedy like this for their own ends. I loathed myself for being able to entertain such a thought, but I did not
do so without reason, and it was vital that I should. My family, including my sisters, had never recoiled from anything if it suited their designs, so why should they act differently now? I asked myself Yet at the same time it occurred to me how deep-rooted my distrust must be if I could harbor such a thought at this moment, and I loathed myself for it. Distrust has always been the rule among us; we have developed our distrust to a quite abnormal degree, to the point where it is an absolutely invariable habit to distrust everyone and everything. But my distrust was confined to Wolfsegg and my family—elsewhere I distrusted no one. No sooner was I at Wolfsegg than my distrust reemerged; it belonged to Wolfsegg, like all other supposedly
bad qualities
, which are really just the natural means we employ in order to assert ourselves and avoid being worsted. In Rome I had expected to find my sisters despondent and reacting nervously to everything, but they were utterly calm. Or perhaps I was mistaken, perceiving only their outward calm and failing to discern their inward disquiet and nervousness. In Rome I thought I would find the whole house in a state of agitation, but nobody was agitated, and I wondered how great a misfortune it would take to knock my sisters off balance, to
paralyze
them. They were not knocked off balance, they were not paralyzed. They not only had retained their composure, as they say, but were fully alert when I entered the drawing room. It did not occur to them to ask me about my journey or the reason for my late arrival, whether I had come by rail or by air, as it was absolutely self-evident that I should arrive at that very moment and no other. They haven’t asked one question, I thought, and they haven’t offered me anything. They expect me to take over, to take charge of everything, to be strong. It did not seem to occur to them that I might be incapable of taking on the task that had suddenly fallen to me. Without a moment’s hesitation they’ve loaded it all on me, I thought, yet at the time they knew more than I did. Possibly they had witnessed the accident; at least they were the first to learn of it. On the way to the Orangery I did not even know
how it had happened
, and I was inhibited from asking; I did not feel up to questioning them about it. But it can only have been a road accident, I thought. It had not occurred to my sisters to tell me about the nature of the accident; they spared themselves this ordeal in the first few minutes after my arrival, as neither of them wished to be the first to tell me the actual cause of my parents’ and my brother’s death.
They behaved as if they were sworn to silence, having reached a prior agreement on this delicate and painful matter. As they said nothing, I spoke first, saying that it had been impossible for me to come earlier. This was a lie, but they obviously believed it. They know about Italian conditions, which are always chaotic where travel is concerned. The unions see to it that there are almost daily strikes and daily chaos throughout Italy. My sisters are well aware of these chaotic conditions, as I have told them about them often enough and they read about them in the newspapers. I therefore had no qualms about saying I had been unable to come earlier, because they were bound to put it down at once to these chaotic conditions and not suspect me of lying. To my family the word
Italy
has always been synonymous with chaos; Italy is the land of chaos. They have often asked me why I choose to live in Italy of all countries, where these chaotic conditions have prevailed for decades, and I have always replied that it is precisely because of these chaotic conditions that I choose to live in Italy, and in Rome, where they are at their most chaotic, where everything is
unpredictable and impossible
. I used to tell them that I chose to live in Rome precisely because Italy was the most chaotic country in Europe, probably in the whole world, and because Rome was the center of this chaos. They did not understand, and I never felt inclined to go into further explanations of my interest in Italy.
A big city as such is not enough for me
, I would tell them:
it has to be a chaotic big city, a chaotic world city
. But they could make no sense of such notions, or of any other notions of mine. They haven’t even asked me if I’d like a cup of tea or a glass of water, I thought, but then I relented, as I felt sorry for them in their present situation. When someone has come straight from Rome to Wolfsegg, which is after all a strenuous journey, it is usual to ask him whether he is hungry or thirsty, but they did not ask me. They were having coffee when I arrived, but they did not offer me any. I should have poured myself a cup, I thought, but I did not do so, as I wanted to go down to the Orangery as soon as possible to see my dead parents and Johannes. I did not want to put off the ordeal any longer. When we arrived at the Orangery Caecilia was surprised that I did not shake hands with the gardeners or even address them. Not knowing that I had already spoken to them and inquired about their well-being half an hour or more earlier, she found it odd that I should behave like this to
the gardeners, who were still bringing large wreaths across from the Farm and stood aside to allow us, the master and mistress, as it were, to enter the Orangery. I went in while Caecilia remained by the door. I was alarmed to find that the bodies were placed at different heights, my father’s higher than my mother’s, and that while my father and brother lay in open coffins, my mother’s was closed. I turned around to Caecilia, as if for an explanation, before approaching the coffins, but the reason dawned on me at once: my mother’s body was not in a fit state to lie in an open coffin. I learned later that her body had been so mutilated in the road accident—