The Boxer (19 page)

Once the date was happily agreed upon, there were longer and longer pauses in the conversation; he had never been good at entertaining, Aron says. Finally, he went to fetch the champagne from its hiding place. Irma looked surprised. She read the label and said, Good God, she hadn’t seen anything like that for ages. As she watched, he popped the cork. She put her finger to her lips and listened; Mark didn’t wake up. Aron poured and said, “To a good beginning.”

After the champagne he took her to the train station.

*  *  *

A
few weeks later Irma moved in. The rooms were shared as discussed, but before that, significant events occurred. First of all, Aron took his letter of recommendation to the closest Soviet headquarters; when he left the building he was an interpreter. He would start the first day of the following month, just as Irma would.

He found some aspects of this new situation worrisome: the early start in the morning, every day at eight, and never leaving the office before five. The man he spoke to even hinted that he should count on some occasional overtime. Then the salary. Aron claims he does not remember the sum; all he recalls is that, when he heard what it was, he thought it was a bad joke. Nevertheless, there was a good food ration card, the man said, as well as the possibility of shopping in certain stores that had been set up only for members and employees of the Soviet army. Aron hadn’t expected to get rich in his new job; he took it simply because he didn’t like his old one. Fortunately he had saved up some money and could
afford
the post as interpreter.

The second important event was Kenik’s departure. One day Kenik arrived and said, “I’m glad you’re here. We’re starting this afternoon.”

“Starting what?” Aron asked.

“Did you forget what we talked about? The trip? My trip?”

Much to his surprise, the opportunity had arisen, Kenik said; the organization he had called responded very promptly. They told him that if he could make up his mind immediately, there was an opening. The next group would leave in three months at the earliest. “I grabbed it. Who knows what the situation will look like in three months?” People like Kenik, Aron says, spend half their lives getting transported somewhere.

Aron went with Kenik to the meeting place. Along the way, the thought occurred to him that with Kenik, the last
living
person to know that his name wasn’t Aron would be leaving. Kenik carried a rucksack and a suitcase; there were still several things in his apartment that he would have loved to bring along, he said, but that was as much luggage as was allowed. The following day at this time he would be in Bremen, he continued, the day after that perhaps already on a big ship, and soon, if God didn’t place any stones in his path, at his destination. “Of course it’s too late,” he said, “but doesn’t the idea appeal to you at all?”

The meeting place was a courtyard. A man at the entrance with an armband let through only those people who could produce a certain piece of paper, like the one Kenik had.

“Well, this is it,” Kenik said. Then he said, “Let me give you a hug,” and he did. When they broke away from their embrace, Aron noticed that Kenik’s eyes were filled with tears; he was crying,
don’t ask me why
. He was sure he would never miss Kenik. Only taking leave of him would hurt a little. Farewells, Aron says, follow their own rules. He called out after Kenik, “I’ll stay here until your bus comes.”

“It might take a while,” Kenik called back. “I’ll stay anyway.”

In fact, Aron had to wait for almost an hour; then at last came a filthy truck chock-full of people. Aron couldn’t see Kenik. He probably was sitting at the far end of the truck. Nonetheless, Aron waved; he was the only one still standing in front of the gate. He thought there might be a second truck, but when? And while he was walking away he thought, What torture, going all the way to Bremen on a truck like that.

Finally the third event, in Aron’s eyes the most pleasant, was tendering his resignation to Tennenbaum. First, he took advantage of the privileges he had as Tennenbaum’s employee — he went shopping in the storage room. He stocked up on tea, liquor, clothes for Mark and himself, as well as a wool sweater that he hoped would fit Irma and that she would like.

As soon as he brought the things home, he collected all the documents and went to see Tennenbaum, who welcomed him warmly, though with a curious look on his face. Aron still hadn’t replied to his question, whether he wanted to join Tennenbaum’s commercial enterprise as head bookkeeper. Aron spread out all the papers and notes on the table.

“What does this mean?”

For a long time Aron had pondered how to let Tennenbaum know his decision
most effectively
. The point of the visit, resigning, was clear from the start, but there were various ways to proceed. He couldn’t make up his mind whether a blunt statement was better than recriminations, barging in noisily, for instance, combined with making remarks about Tennenbaum’s
inhuman behavior
. Finally he decided to resolve the matter as gracefully as possible. On the one hand, Aron says, he considered it a given that Tennenbaum possessed a great many unpleasant qualities and character traits; on the other hand, any hope of converting him by listing these qualities and traits was pointless. Besides, it would make him feel better for only a couple of minutes — the toll on his nervous system simply wasn’t worth the effort. His
revenge
could consist of only the indisputable fact that by losing him, Aron, Tennenbaum was losing an irreplaceable employee. Yet pettiness and openly vengeful behavior could not arouse this sense of loss. For this reason, too, moderation.

“The month isn’t over yet,” Aron said, “but we have to close the books. I quit.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m resigning.”

“Right now?”

“Yes.”

“But why? Aren’t you satisfied? Do you have any cause for complaint?”

“It’s for personal reasons.”

Tennenbaum looked truly unhappy, Aron says. He shrugged, as if he didn’t understand, and grimaced thoughtfully. He asked, “Are you sure?”

“Absolutely.”

“Does this mean you’re turning down my offer?”

“It does.”

Tennenbaum suddenly seemed to remember who he was. He straightened up in his chair and said, “Let’s go through the numbers.”

They checked each entry, meticulously, Aron remembers, as they never had before. When they were through, without finding a single error, Tennenbaum said, “So that’s it. Thank you.”

He stood up and walked Aron to the door; in the corridor he asked, “Oh, by the way, do you have any idea where your friend Kenik might be?”

“Why?”

“He asked me to pay him a month in advance. And now I’m told that no one has seen him for days. Please tell him I don’t approve of such behavior, that he should come here to pay off his debts.”

“If I see him I’ll tell him,” Aron said.

A
bout four weeks after Irma’s arrival,
the time finally came
— the rooms were rearranged. Mark moved into one, the other was shared by the two grown-ups. Irma suggested they call a contractor to build a children’s room in the hallway, which was uncommonly long, but Aron felt it was
still too early
to let Mark live in a room without any windows, which would result from closing off the corridor.

There’s not much I can do with this information, but he didn’t want to keep it from me: The days until Irma and he agreed to
share one bed
were the most exciting in his entire life. Erotically speaking, at any rate — four long weeks. At the time, the problem was how to come to an understanding.

Irma was to be Mark’s educator, the housekeeper, and Aron’s lover all rolled into one, and yet they spoke openly about only the first two functions. The difficulty of talking about the third point increased hour by hour. It soon appeared to Aron that the first two aspects of Irma’s duties were unimportant, that the still not discussed third point was the only one that mattered, but he was afraid of jumping the gun. Irma could easily have come to the conclusion that he had lured her into his house under false pretenses and only now revealed his true intentions. (These explanations are in clear opposition to Aron’s previous claim, namely that when Irma was particularly friendly to Mark in the children’s home, she’d actually had the father in mind. When I had subsequently asked for proof, Aron had silenced me with the promise of coming events. Well, here they are.)

For example, the feeling, he proceeds, when they sat across from each other at breakfast or dinner and talked about only the
other
things, those emanating from daily life. Or sitting side by side after dinner, he says. They sat next to each other for no good reason, or only because they were officially sharing the apartment —- Irma’s presence had been registered with the police the very first day. Sitting there in silence, once the empty topics of conversation had been exhausted, and searching for some reason to justify their presence in the room.
At least Irma had buttons to sew
. The many secret looks, always from an embarrassed face and always responded to with a friendly smile whenever they were observed. Or when Irma would play with Mark, when Mark forced her to play horse and rode her through the room until the people in the apartment below banged on the ceiling,
that was quite provocative
. Or the noises, Aron says, the noises late at night from the neighboring room. He lay beside Mark, who was sleeping, and couldn’t fall asleep; next door Irma couldn’t sleep either. She was always busy with something, night after night, no one knew with what; in any case she made noises, he says, like only a woman does. Now and then they would meet at the bathroom door, and inevitably Aron saw her in an outfit that made her even more desirable. He concedes that sometimes he would arrange accidental meetings in the corridor when she was on her way to the bathroom clad only in her nightgown or pajamas, since she didn’t own a bathrobe.

Four weeks later there was clarification. Aron took the initiative, not because he had managed to summon up enough courage but because he felt the urge.
What urge?
The deadline of four weeks was not self-imposed; after a month Irma would, though they had still never discussed the matter, ask him for her first paycheck. He was afraid of that. He couldn’t refuse her a stipend. At most he could pretend, if she reminded him, to have forgotten about it. It would have been more than embarrassing. Still, he thought that to pay her a salary would somehow create a distance between them, more than before. It meant an additional obstacle, which did not yet exist, and had to be avoided at all cost.

Four weeks later, late one evening, he knocked quietly on her door, in order not to wake Mark. He said he absolutely had to talk to her, and sat down at the bedroom table. Irma was lying in bed and had put down her book. She looked at him, attentive and serious, as if she knew
the importance of the moment;
how the situation evolved was his sole responsibility. He had to choose, at lightning speed, between two possibilities, between talking and acting. Then he noticed that he had already opted against action —- he shouldn’t have sat down. To sit first and then stand up again and kiss her — he didn’t want to be responsible for such
clumsiness
, not to mention that he wasn’t sure anymore if Irma would let herself be kissed.

She was of no help. She just lay there, serious and attentive, so that he had to ask why they were making things so hard for themselves. To that she didn’t respond either. Her entire answer consisted of a shrug, which could mean several things. Aron wanted to put
this affair
behind him at last; he said he had liked her from the first moment they had met. Actually, longer than that; he had been interested in her ever since he had heard Mark’s stories about her. He was a man of flesh and blood, not of wood, they had been living under the same roof for weeks. In God’s name, she mustn’t misunderstand him, and if she felt differently, they could, even if he would find it rather sad, leave things as they were. But as for himself, he was ready, more than ready, he felt a strong desire — stronger than ever — to make their relationship warmer, more intimate. All this without looking at Irma, he says. The question lay on his lips, Did I make myself clear? Of course, he didn’t say that. He envied Irma’s
freedom of movement
.

She stood up and quietly locked both doors. First the one to the neighboring room, then the one opening onto the corridor; then she went back toward the bed, stopped halfway, and turned to face Aron. The inviting smile was still absent from her face. Yet her consent was as good as spoken; she stood there, her arms by her sides, the way women in the movies tend to stand, Aron says, ready to be possessed. And that was basically the end of any happiness with her worth mentioning. Later there was only satisfaction,
as when you’ve eaten your fill
. In sexual matters she was unimaginative, and this shouldn’t be taken as a reproach, Aron says; he was even more unimaginative than she was, he mentions this only because his desires developed into disillusionment shockingly fast.

Rather, he found reason for reproach in the fact that there was almost nothing he could talk to Irma about. At most about Mark, with whom she was probably in love, he didn’t exclude that possibility He never managed to involve Irma in any deep conversation about anything. In the most extreme case she would listen to him patiently,
she was patient
. Her interests were limited to organizational issues; she had to organize the housekeeping, shopping, laundry, and so on — Irma was a fantastic housekeeper. Her fallen husband, a certain Herbert Wiesner, cabinetmaker, had probably trained her.

Aron never seriously tried to expand Irma’s field of interest or change it in any way He accepted the situation and never gave her any indication that she did not interest him. They never had a fight, a real fight, and
that’s why
there’s nothing more to say about Irma.

During one of the evenings they spent together, she asked Aron how much longer he thought he would wait before enrolling Mark.