The Boxer (13 page)

O
ne of the conversations with Mark
as an example
.

“Are you cold?”

“No.”

“Still, pull the blanket higher, we don’t need you to get the flu now. What did you eat for breakfast?”

“Bread and jam and butter and an egg.”

“Very good, and what did you drink?”

“Milk and cod-liver oil. But they forced me.”

“They have to, you won’t get healthy without codliver oil. Do you want to know what cod-liver oil is good for?”

“No. It tastes bad and the others don’t have to drink any.”

“Because they don’t have it. Do you know how hard it is to get cod-liver oil these days?”

“The others will also get healthy again.”

“But not as fast as you.”

“That’s not true. Just yesterday they released Hermann. He didn’t drink any cod-liver oil.”

“Then he wasn’t that sick. Should I tell you where cod-liver oil comes from? It’s a really crazy story, you’ll be surprised.”

“All right.”

“But let’s take a little walk. Lean on me and I’ll tell you. Up to the tree over there and back.”

They set off, and Aron began the story. “The biggest fish on earth are called whales. They are so big that all the rivers are too small for them. They would constantly hit against the shore. That is why the whales live in the sea.”

“How big are they?”

“At least a hundred feet long. That is from here to the wall and as tall as a house.”

“And where do they live?”

“In the ocean. Have you already heard that word?”

“No. But my legs hurt.”

“That’s all right, we’re almost halfway there. And now listen to what an ocean is.”

Quite by chance, in one of the children’s books Aron had given him there was a picture of a whale.

H
owever, Aron told himself that the explanation of wonders, like whales and oceans, would not suffice in the long run; they were just a small part of the big picture. More urgently, Mark needed a goal and a role model, because he must become healthy
from the inside out
, he must want to be healthy, and Aron decided that he must find a way to stimulate this wish.

The issue of the goal was hardly a problem; he is still convinced today that no goal is
more senseless
than that which lies in a nebulous distance. To give Mark courage, he says, the only goal that could work was: get healthy so that you can come home. Aron portrayed the near future as colorful, told him of visits to the zoo, of ice-cream parlors and cinemas, intentionally inflating the time dedicated to pleasures. But he also spoke of school, which awaited him; he described it as a fun kind of institution, the only one that could open the door to the greatest happiness, namely the joy of knowing.

On the other hand, the role model was more of a problem for Aron. For a long time he wavered. Which circle of people should he choose from? It must be a man. An imposing figure, but one that didn’t exceed Mark’s imagination — there was no one like that in Mark’s entourage. Two candidates, from which Aron had to choose, elbowed themselves clearly into the foreground. One was a made-up person called Anatol. Aron could easily credit him with all sorts of characteristics and merits that he felt were desirable, according to his educational purpose. Courageous like Anatol, he could say, friendly like Anatol, clever like Anatol. Anatol had been an old acquaintance he lost track of during the war. The second candidate was Aron himself, and in the end the choice fell on him, though he realized that it was more convenient for role models to dwell in remote places, where their true nature could not easily be verified. Mark, however, would be able to keep an eye on him constantly, especially when he would come home from the sanatorium. This was clear to Aron — he knew what he was letting himself in for. Yet the risk was smaller than I may think at first, because it wasn’t actually he who was the candidate, but the man that he could have been once upon a time. And this man was naturally far beyond Mark’s reach.

In short, Aron decided that all the talent, all the skills he would otherwise have bestowed on an Anatol looked just as good on him. Furthermore, he was convinced that the constant presence of a role model could only be an advantage and would have a positive effect on Mark. (He expressly emphasizes that it wasn’t vanity that made him come to this decision, though he concedes that, in a way unknown to him at the time, vanity may have played a small part. First and foremost, however, his starting point had been cool calculation.)

The first story he told, in his new job as role model, concerned how he had overcome a terrible illness when he was a boy of barely thirteen, with tenacity and great energy. How he had followed to the letter both the doctor’s and his parents’ instructions, understanding the urgency and not in fear of punishment. How he had told himself that this was only about him, about nobody else, because it wasn’t other people’s health that was at stake. It was his own time that he frittered away in bed, denied of all pleasure — visits to the zoo, ice-cream parlors, and cinemas. Aron didn’t expect to change Mark with a flick of the wrist, he rather hoped for gradual changes. So his joy was all the greater when during his following visit the nurses told him that lately his son swallowed his cod-liver oil without grumbling. He doubted that his old acquaintance Anatol would have been capable of producing such surprisingly speedy results.

*  *  *

O
ne afternoon in February, Aron remembers exactly, he was working on the books when Paula came home. This was surprising — she usually appeared two hours later; Aron immediately knew that something was wrong. She sat down at the table with her coat on and didn’t kiss him as she usually did in greeting. He waited patiently for a word of explanation, yet Paula was silent,
like someone who doesn’t know where to start
. “What happened?” he asked.

Paula remained silent; he thought that the premature return home had something to do with her health. The mysterious pills came to mind; he stood up to get a glass of water. At that she finally said, “Stay here, I’ve resigned.”

Not an alarming novelty, Aron found, rather pleasant in fact, even though Paula, according to her face and posture, seemed to think differently. “No harm done,” he would have liked to have said and taken her chin in his hand, yet she was silent again in such a peculiarly embarrassed way that he preferred to sigh as a sign of solidarity. Financial problems absolutely did not arise, he told himself, the only problem they could face now was: what would Paula do with all her free time? She would have more time for him, time, too, for Mark, whose arrival was imminent; she would follow her passions or discover new ones; in the worst case she would be a little bored. Perhaps she would finally warm up to the idea of a family, of being a housewife and a stepmother; her momentary mood would soon vanish into a bright picture of the future. A daring thought shot through Aron’s head:
to have a child with Paula
. “At least take your coat off,” he said.

Paula went out and didn’t come back; he found her in the kitchen, where she was making coffee. He sat next to her and asked, “Why did you resign? What kind of trouble was there? Come on, tell me.”

“There was no trouble,” she said, “only joy.”

“Then why do you look so upset?”

“Rescue found Walter.”

I
hardly know anything about this Walter. I asked her ten, twenty times, but she acted as if she couldn’t hear me. She was in a state similar to that of a woman I had seen before the war in a vaudeville show — a magician had hypnotized her. She began to pack, her packing went on till evening, she forgot half her things and took half of mine, all I could understand was what she let slip.”

Aron, downing another cognac, wanders from the subject; he talks about the vaudeville show and the hypnotized woman. I see that the memory of Paula’s last day affects him. Perhaps he regrets having mentioned this part of the story; he could have said, One day Paula didn’t come home for reasons unknown to me.

“So what did you find out?” I ask.

“Yes, what did I find out?” Aron says and works his face into a funny grimace, as if this question forces him into extreme concentration. “This Walter was a man she had known for a long time, that’s for sure. Her boyfriend or fiancé, certainly not her husband. They had lost track of each other during the war, just like Anatol and me. After the war she had started looking for him. That’s why she went to Rescue in the first place; she wanted to be right there at the source. With time she had given up hope but kept her job anyway. Then I came along and she must have decided to start a new life, that’s all. And then this damned Rescue has to find her Walter.”

T
he first days after Paula left were
unbearable
. All duties became tedious — at first just the books, then the messenger who delivered the bundled accounts, and then Tennenbaum himself, with his cold gaze. Aron’s mood led to an unjustified abuse of Kenik. Even the trips to Mark’s home were suddenly more problematic; he went less than before, and when he went he stayed only briefly. The bed was his preferred haunt — open the door to no one, do nothing, think of nothing, but how does one do that, think of nothing? Again, out of bed, Aron clung to the conviction that no person is irreplaceable, so Paula couldn’t be either. Hundreds of Paulas, he told himself, were running around. Thousands, in a city like this. Aron moved through the city and looked for them, in an angry action of self-defense. Until the evening when he found a
poor
woman whose willingness, he says, and poverty, must have ben one and the same. He took her home with him. But it took only a couple of minutes before he noticed the differences between this woman and Paula; Aron paid the full price and sent her away. He paid the full price out of a sense of justice, he says, because she was not to blame for his change of heart.

He went to the Hessischen Weinstuben, to get drunk. He could have done it at home too, but he felt that in his state it would be better if he stayedamong people.

People greeted him and treated him with respect; his role in Tennenbaum’s business was well known. Someone told him that his friend Kenik was sick and bedridden for a while, kidney problems.

Aron sat in the backroom, which was reserved for Tennenbaum’s men, but he soon felt irritated by the curious looks and pointless questions. In fact, the
whole backroom
looked silly to him; this sitting around was nothing more than the ostentation of belonging to a clan. He went back to the front room, the common bar, where people played billiards and where the ordinary customers would stay. The people from the backroom thought he was an eccentric and shrugged.

Aron had to come to an agreement with the barman; drinks were far cheaper in the back, and the barman was scared stiff of jealous customers: why him and not me? But Aron didn’t want to give up on cognac; they agreed on camouflaged glasses.

Paula looked at him from the cognac glasses; only rarely did he recognize Lydia,
actually as good as ever
. Most of the time Paula was laughing; although at their actual parting she had looked quite serious, she laughed because she was looking forward to seeing her Walter. Or she turned her back on Aron and repeatedly went away. Once a glass full of cognac broke in the process. The barman appeared, cleaned up, and said, “What a shame.”

Another time the barman, in a whisper, brought Aron’s attention to the fact that he was talking to himself, clearly audible monologues, and that he was mentioning details that surely were not meant for the ears of others. Aron quickly paid and went home for the day — he heard giggling behind him all the way to the revolving door.

Later on, he worked on his books or went to visit Mark. Yet he came again, the following day; consistently, for months, he was one of the first guests in the afternoon and one of the last in the evening;
they
noticed that. A paper was handed to him; he should, as soon as he could, go to see Tennenbaum.

“I was told,” Tennenbaum said, “that you spend entire days in the Weinstuben.”

“Is that forbidden?”

Tennenbaum’s reproach seemed impudent to Aron, just like the
summons
. He had timed it well so that he would be sober when he got to Tennenbaum’s and now he was regretting it.

“It’s not forbidden,” Tennenbaum said. “But you must allow me to be worried.”

“About me or the accounting?”

“About both, Mr. Blank, about both.”

Aron asked Tennenbaum to spare him his worries; he was mature and old enough to organize his private life his own way. Business was another issue entirely; he would be happy to talk about it any time. “Did you notice any inaccuracies?”

“Not yet, Mr. Blank, not yet. But I fear that I soon will, if you keep behaving this way.”

“I’ll make a suggestion,” Aron said. “When it comes to that point, have me sent for again. Okay?”

Then he thought about whether or not he should look for another bar, but in the meantime he kept going to the Weinstuben. Cognac was a scarce commodity everywhere. Besides, a change implied that he recognized Tennenbaum’s authority and was hiding from him. So he sat again in the front bar, with the firm intention of avoiding monologues in the future. Paula laughed anew or went away. Aron found a further explanation for her strange reticence: she had never talked about her job at Rescue, though he was sure that this job hadn’t been indifferent to her. Had that been the case, he would have noticed it at their very first meeting, when he stood in front of Paula like any other person in need. Furthermore, it was as if Paula were
made for
sympathy; in the blink of an eye she made every client’s concern her own, that was her nature. Nevertheless, not a word.

Then, Aron says, Ostwald had come to his table.

Aron looked up when a stranger spoke to him. “What you’re drinking looks good.”

“It tastes good, too.”

“I believe you.”

The man sat down; in disgust he drained the glass he had brought with him, all in one shot. Aron knew that the fluid was called Alkolat. Up front everyone drank Alkolat; he had never tasted it before. The man called to the barman, “Bring me more of this swill.”