The Black Obelisk (35 page)

"No!" Knopf howls, cut to the quick. It is easier for a true Teuton to lose a finger than a title. "No! No!" he whispers, raising his paws in the moonlight.

"Adjust your clothes!" I command. And suddenly I remember all the things Isabelle screamed at me, and I feel my stomach turn, and misery descends on me like a hailstorm.

Knopf has obeyed. "Only not that!" he croaks again, his head thrown back to the little, moonlit clouds above. "Not that, Lord!"

I see him standing there like the middle figure in the Laocoön group, wrestling with the invisible serpents of dishonor and demotion. That's just about the way I was standing a few hours ago, I reflect, while my stomach begins to writhe again. Unlooked-for sympathy lays hold of me; for Knopf and for myself. I become more humane. "Very well then," I whisper. "You don't deserve it, but I will give you one more chance. You will only be demoted to lance corporal on probation. If you piss like a civilized human being until the end of September, you will be repromoted to noncom; at the end of October to sergeant, at the end of November to vice sergeant major; at Christmas you will once more become a permanent company sergeant major, retired. Understand?"

"Yes, certainly, your—your—" Knopf is groping for the right term of address. I am afraid that he is hesitating between your majesty and your divinity, and I interrupt him in time. "This is my last word, Lance Corporal Knopf! And don't think, you swine, that you can begin again after Christmas! Then it will be cold and you can't wash away the traces of your misdeeds. They will freeze solid. Stand against that obelisk once more and you will get an electric shock and inflammation of the prostate that will knock you bowlegged! Now off with you, you dung heap with chevrons!"

Knopf disappears with unaccustomed speed into the darkness of his doorway. I hear subdued laughter from the office. Lisa and Georg have witnessed the performance. "Dung heap with chevrons," Lisa giggles huskily.

A chair turns over, there is a scuffle, and the door to Georg's meditation room closes. Riesenfeld once presented me with a bottle of Holland Geneva, with the message: "For trying hours." Now I get it out. The label on the square bottle says:
Friesseher Genever
van P. Bokma, Leeuwarden
.
I open it and pour a big glassful. The Geneva is strong and spicy and does not curse at me.

Wilke, the coffinmaker, looks at the woman in amazement. "Why don't you take two small ones?" he asks. "They won't cost much more." The woman shakes her head. "They must lie together."

"But after all, you can put them in a single grave," I say. "Then they will be together."

"No, that's not enough."

Wilke scratches his head. "What do you think?" he asks me.

The woman has lost two children. They died on the same day. Now she wants to have a common grave—she also wants one coffin for both, a kind of double coffin. That's why I have called Wilke into the office.

"The matter is simple enough for us," I say. "Tombstones with two inscriptions are used all the time. There are even family tombstones with six or eight inscriptions."

The woman nods. "That's how it must be! They must lie together. They were always together."

Wilke gets a carpenter's pencil out of his vest pocket. "It would look odd. The coffin would be too wide. Almost square, the children are still very small, aren't they? How old?"

"Four and a half."

Wilke draws. "Like a square box," he concludes. "Wouldn't you rather—"

"No," the woman interrupts. "They must remain together. They are twins."

"You can make very pretty little single coffins for twins in white lacquer. The shape is more attractive. A short double coffin would look squat—"

"That doesn't matter to me," the woman says stubbornly. "They had a double cradle and a double baby carriage and now they shall have a double coffin too. They must remain together."

Wilke sketches again. Nothing emerges but a square box, though this time decorated on top with leaves and ivy. In the case of grownups there would have been more opportunity for variation; but children are too short. "I don't even know whether it is allowed," he says as a last resort.

"Why shouldn't it be allowed?"

"It is unusual."

"It is also unusual for two children to die on the same day," the woman replies.

"That is true, especially when they are twins." Wilke is suddenly interested. "Did they have the same disease?"

"Yes," the woman replies sharply. "The same disease: they were born after the war when there was nothing to eat. Twins. I didn't even have enough milk for one—"

Wilke leans forward. "The same disease!" Scientific curiosity burns in his eyes. 'They say that often happens with twins. Astrologically—"

"What about the coffin?" I ask. The woman doesn't look as though she wanted to carry on a prolonged conversation on this subject which so fascinates Wilke.

"I can try," Wilke says. "But I don't know whether it's allowed. Do you know?" he asks me.

"One could ask at the cemetery."

"How about the priest? How were the children baptized?"

The woman hesitates. "One is Catholic, the other Evangelical," she says. "We agreed on that. My husband is Catholic, I am Evangelical. So we agreed that the children should be divided."

"Then you had one baptized a Catholic and the other Evangelical?" Wilke asks.

"Yes."

"On the same day?"

"On the same day."

Wilke's interest in the marvels of existence is kindled afresh. "In two different churches, of course?"

"Of course," I say impatiently. "What did you think? And now—"

"But how could you tell them apart?" Wilke interrupts me. "I mean every day. Were they identical twins?"

"Yes," the woman says. "As alike as two eggs."

"That's just what I mean! How can you tell them apart, especially when they're so small? Could you? I mean during the first days when everything is in confusion?"

The woman is silent.

"That doesn't make any difference now," I announce, motioning Wilke to stop.

But Wilke has the unsentimental curiosity of the scientist. "It does make a difference," he replies. "After all, they have to be buried! One is Catholic and the other Evangelical. Do you know which the Catholic is?"

The woman is silent. Wilke warms to his theme. "Do you think you will be allowed to bury them together? If you have a double coffin, you'll have to, of course. Then you will have to have two ministers at the grave, one Catholic, the other Evangelical! They certainly won't agree to that! They are more jealous of God than we are of our wives."

"Wilke, that's none of your business," I say, giving him a kick under the table.

"And the twins!" Wilke cries, paying no attention to me. "The Catholic twin would have to be buried with Evangelical rites and the Evangelical twin with Catholic! Just picture the confusion! No, you won't be able to get away with a double coffin! Single coffins, that's what it will have to be! Then each religion will have its own. The men of God can turn their backs on each other and thus bestow their blessings."

Wilke apparently imagines that one religion is poison to the other. "Have you spoken to the priests about it?" he asks.

"My husband is doing that," the woman says.

"You know, I'll be really curious—"

"Will you make the double coffin?" the woman asks.

"I'll make it, of course, but I tell you—"

"What will it cost?" the woman asks.

Wilke scratches his head. "When must it be ready?"

"As soon as possible."

"Then I'll have to work through the night. Overtime. It will have to be specially designed."

"What will it cost?" the woman asks.

"I'll tell you when I deliver it. Ill keep the price down, for the sake of science. Only I won't be able to take it back if you are not allowed to use it."

"I shall be allowed."

Wilke looks at the woman in amazement. "How do you know?"

"If the priests won't bestow their blessings, we'll bury them without priests," the woman says harshly. "They were always together and they shall stay together."

Wilke nods. "Well then, agreed—the coffin will definitely be delivered. But I won't be able to take it back."

The woman gets a black leather purse with a nickel clasp out of her handbag. "Do you want a deposit?"

"It's customary. For the wood."

The woman looks at Wilke. "One million," he says, somewhat embarrassed.

The woman gives him the bills. They have been folded and refolded. "The address—" she says.

"I'll go with you," Wilke announces. "To take measurements. They shall have a good coffin."

The woman nods and looks at me. "And a headstone? When will you deliver that?"

"Whenever you like. Generally people wait for a couple of months after the funeral."

"Can we have it right away?"

"Certainly. But it's better to wait. The grave sinks after a while. It's not advisable to put up the stone before that, otherwise it has to be reset."

"Yes?" the woman says. For an instant the pupils of her eyes seem to quiver. "Nevertheless, we'd like to have the stone right away. Can't you—isn't there some way of setting it so it won't sink?"

"To do that, we'd have to make a special foundation for the stone before the burial. Do you want that?"

The woman nods. "Their names must be there," she says. "They mustn't just lie there. It's better if their names are there from the beginning."

She gives me the number of the cemetery lot. "I'd like to pay right away," she says. "How much does it come to?"

She opens the black leather purse again. I tell her the price, as embarrassed as Wilke. "Nowadays everything is in the millions and billions," I add.

It is strange how you can sometimes tell whether people are decent and honorable by the way they fold their money. The woman unfolds one note after the other and lays them on the table beside the samples of granite and limestone. "We saved up this money for their schooling," she says. "Now it would not be nearly enough—but for this it will just do—"

"Out of the question!" Riesenfeld says. "Have you any idea what black Swedish granite costs? It comes from Sweden, young man, and can't be bought with German marks! You have to pay in foreign exchange! Swedish kronen! We have only a few blocks left—for friends! The last ones! They are like blue-white diamonds! I'm giving you one for the evening with Madame Watzek—but two! Have you lost your mind? I might just as well ask Von Hindenburg to become a communist."

"What a thought!"

"Well, you see! Accept this rarity and don't try to get more out of me than your boss did. Since you're office boy and general manager in one, you don't need to worry about getting ahead."

"No, I don't. I'm doing it out of pure love of granite. Platonic love, as a matter of fact. I don't even intend to sell it myself."

"You don't?" Riesenfeld asks, pouring himself a glass of schnaps.

"No," I reply. "I'm thinking of changing my profession."

"What, again?" Riesenfeld pushed his chair around so he can see Lisa's window.

"Seriously this time."

"Back to schoolteaching?"

"No," I say. "I'm no longer inexperienced enough for that. Or conceited enough either. Do you know of anything I could get? You get around a lot."

"What sort of thing?" Riesenfeld asks uninterestedly.

"Anything at all in a big city. Copy boy on a newspaper perhaps."

"Stay here," Riesenfeld says. "You fit in here. I'd miss you. Why do you want to leave?"

"I can't exactly explain. If I could, it wouldn't be so necessary. Sometimes I don't even know myself; only once in a while, but then I know damn well."

"And you know now?"

"I know now."

"My God!" Riesenfeld says. "You'll wish you were back!"

"Absolutely, that's why I intend to go."

Suddenly Riesenfeld jumps as though he had laid hold of an electric wire with a wet paw. Lisa has turned on the light in her room and has stepped to the window. She appears not to see us in the half-darkened office and she slowly takes off her blouse. She is wearing nothing under it.