The Hothouse (9 page)

For his part, Mergentheim had completely wiped Keetenheuve from his memory, and when he spotted him as a member of parliament in Bonn, a poacher in his own preserve, he was frankly astounded. "I thought you were dead," he stammered the first time Keetenheuve paid him a visit, and he thought the game was up and he would be made to account for himself. Though account for what? Was any of what had happened his fault? He was a man who liked to clarify things for the people, not uncritically so long as it didn't cost him his life or his job, and his chosen profession after all was newspaperman and not martyr. But Mergentheim quickly recovered himself. He saw that Keetenheuve had come to him in friendship, with his head full of sentimental memories, and not in any accusing spirit. The only thing that Mergentheim was left at a loss to explain to himself was how Keetenheuve too had managed to catch the wave and, even more than that, how he had managed to ride it and take Fortune (as Mergentheim would see it) by the throat. But when he noticed during their first conversation that Keetenheuve had not come home armed, as Mergentheim had expected him to be, with a British or a Panamanian passport, and that he had come to see his old chum on foot, then Mergentheim changed from being apprehensive to being benevolent, and he took Keetenheuve and put him in his chrome company car, and drove him home to Sophie.

Sophie, fragrant, alluring, wearing a housedress designed by some Düsseldorf Dior, and apparently alerted by telephone of the visitors coming (how had Mergentheim managed to pull that off?), greeted Keetenheuve with a purring "Yes, we've met," and with a flutter of the eyelids that suggested to him that he had slept with her. It was unlikely. But then it turned out that Sophie had once worked as an office junior in the circulation department of the
Volksblatt,
and even if Keetenheuve couldn't place her in his memory, that was where Mergentheim must have discovered her, unless it was she who had made a play for him, and the rise to
Frau Hauptschriftleiter
must have made her socially ambitious; she was the Muse who advised, supported, and encouraged Mergentheim on the path of success, career, and timely trimming.

No, Keetenheuve hadn't slept with her, though perhaps he might have done so. Sophie gave herself to important and influential men without arousal on her part, she felt aroused only when she talked about these copulations afterwards, she scorned boys and men who were merely good-looking, and, while Keetenheuve was perhaps not his party's concertmaster, he was at least among its first violins, and therefore worthy of being slept with. But it had never come to a kiss or sexual embrace between them; Keetenheuve's response had been lukewarm, and, since he made a point of not participating in the social life of the upper echelons of the new Republic, he wasn't a tempting quarry for Sophie either, but just a fool. The epithet "good-natured" was left off this time, and Mergentheim too didn't add it to his description of his old friend. Seeing as Keetenheuve had made it to MP, it stood to reason that he would be a fool, but it seemed unwise to gamble on his good nature.

What plunged the loose friendship between them into something approaching enmity was Mergentheim's discovery in the Bundestag's register that Keetenheuve was married. Sophie's curiosity was piqued. Who was this wife whom Keetenheuve didn't produce? Was she so beautiful or so ugly that he kept her concealed? Was she a wealthy heiress, and was he afraid she might be stolen from him? It would probably be something like that, and Sophie in her imagination was already pairing off Elke with young first secretaries, not in order to hurt Keetenheuve, but merely to restore the natural order of things, because clearly a Keetenheuve didn't merit a young and beautiful heiress. Eventually, the two women met and took an instant dislike to each other. Elke was naughty and mouthy, she didn't want to go to the ball (which delighted Keetenheuve, who didn't want to go either, couldn't go, as he didn't have a black tie), but in the end Sophie got her way, and Elke drove to the ball with Mergentheim, after whispering in Keetenheuve's ear that Sophie was wearing a corset (which embarrassed Keetenheuve). The evening had been ghastly. Both women, feeling an inexplicable aversion to one another, thought: Nazi bitch (that's how mistaken women can be), and Elke didn't cosy up to the embassy first secretaries, she cosied up to the embassy gin, which was imported duty-free and was excellent, and when alcohol had fogged her brain, she announced to the astonished gathering, whom she called a bunch of ghosts, that her Keetenheuve would bring down the government. She dubbed Keetenheuve the man of the revolution, who felt contempt for the restoration that was now strengthening its grip on the country; so highly did Elke think of her husband, and how badly she must have felt let down by him. Once the astonishment at her display had died down, and Elke was driven home by an attaché—though, instead of canoodling with him, she swore at him—the silly incident had the unexpected effect of raising the profile of the MP, because Elke hadn't betrayed (if she had even known) what sort of putsch Keetenheuve was gearing up for, for what side, with whose help, with what weapons, and to what end he wanted to remove the government, and so, after that evening, many people viewed Keetenheuve distrustfully and anxiously as a politician to be reckoned with, and perhaps kept in with.

Mergentheim sat behind his desk like a fluffy melancholy bird, his face getting ever broader, his eyes more and more veiled, his glasses thicker, their horn rims heavier and blacker, and so the impression grew of confronting an owl, a bird that frequented ruins and boskage, who wore his handmade suits, and might be satisfied and merry and amused, but wheezed a little with so much fluffy activity, was a little exhausted by his dynamic consort's night flights, and the assumption that the wisdom associated with that bird was melancholy was perhaps a mistake based on the visitor's ignorance. Mergentheim sent his secretary away to get something. He offered Keetenheuve a cigar. He knew that Keetenheuve didn't smoke, but Mergentheim pretended to have forgotten.

Keetenheuve should remember not to get above himself. Mergentheim took a black cylinder of tobacco out of a crinkly tin wrapper and lit it. He eyed Keetenheuve through the blue haze. Mergentheim knew that Elke had died, under mysterious circumstances, it was rumored, gossip traveled quickly, but, like Korodin, Mergentheim was unable to offer a word of sympathy to Keetenheuve, he too felt that to bring up family tragedy and personal loss with Keetenheuve was inappropriate, tactless, and intrusive; Mergentheim wouldn't have been able to explain why this was so—Keetenheuve was just like that. This time, Mergentheim was correct in his intuition. Keetenheuve was not a family man, he was sensual and capable of love, but he had so little of coupledom in his makeup that he wasn't even husband material. Keetenheuve was a man without contact, with occasional yearning for contact, and that led him to his party, to difficulties and confusion. It was marriage, and not love, that to Keetenheuve was a contrary form of existence, and maybe he was a stray monk, a caged tramp, or even a martyr who'd missed his cross. Poor guy, thought Mergentheim. Elke's death must have affected Keetenheuve badly, and the way Mergentheim saw it (and he wasn't completely wrong), Keetenheuve had come back from exile feeling thoroughly deracinated, and Elke had represented his desperate attempt to put down fresh roots here, and to win love and to have love. The attempt had failed. What would the man do now? An unexpected run of fortune (as Mergentheim persisted in seeing it) had borne Keetenheuve aloft, into the arena of big-time political decision making, and through a variety of circumstances, which Keetenheuve had not particularly intended or worked to bring about, he had ended up occupying a pivotal position, which wouldn't allow him to put into effect whatever he wanted to put into effect (whatever that might be), but in which he could certainly make a major nuisance of himself. That was dangerous! Perhaps Keetenheuve himself didn't even know how dangerous his position was. Maybe he hadn't changed at all, an idiot, a well-intentioned fool. That would make him unusual, at least among the new intake of parliamentarians, and Mergentheim viewed him with new benevolence.

"You need to watch yourself," said Mergentheim.

"What for?" Keetenheuve wasn't really interested. Why should he watch himself? What was Mergentheim getting at now? What was he doing here, Keetenheuve, what was his purpose? The room in the old
Volksblatt
had been more gemütlich. It was in ruins now.
Forget it!
What was Keetenheuve doing in this barrack, where the walls were throbbing with industriousness and hysterical busyness? Keetenheuve had gradually stopped caring whether it was rain or shine. He had his trench coat.

"The knives are out for you," said Mergentheim.

He was right! The knives were out for him. He sensed it himself. He had fallen victim to the pleasures of the table. Maybe it was to make up for so much thin gruel. It couldn't be made up for. But he had become heavy. Layers of sluggish fat slept under his skin. Mergentheim, admittedly, was much fatter. But on Mergentheim it looked good; on himself, it didn't. Well then, he had better fight.

He asked: "What information do you have?"

"None," said Mergentheim. "I'm just thinking aloud." The owl put on an intelligent expression. It shrouded itself in smoke. The thick spectacle lenses misted in front of the veiled eyes. Owls looked like that in old pictures of witches. Actually, they looked stupid.

"Don't be oracular. What's going on?" He couldn't really care less. He was just drifting along today.
Rotten

Mergentheim laughed. "If you want to hang a dog ..." A
dog barked in Insterburg

"I don't have a hook," said Keetenheuve, "not one they can use!"

"Now, Major . . ."

"Don't be stupid. That's such an idiotic old story."

"Truth is often just a question of packaging," said Mergentheim.

So that was it! That's how they proposed to gag him. It was that old canard that they were going to wheel out against him. Shortly after his return, the rumor had spread around Keetenheuve that in England during the war, he had worn the uniform of a major in the British army; and of course people came forward, prepared (people are prepared to do anything) to claim they'd seen him in that uniform. It was absolute rubbish, so easy to disprove that Keetenheuve didn't even feel like defending himself. For anyone who knew him, it was a ridiculous vision, Keetenheuve mincing around as a British major, with his swagger stick tucked under his arm. It was particularly absurd, because in fact it was Keetenheuve's proud Achilles' heel (and he was quite unyielding about this) that he had never worn a uniform of any description, even though (purely hypothetically—it had never quite come to that), if he'd had to choose, he would have preferred a British uniform to a German one—for ethical reasons (i.e., Hitler) to which Keetenheuve gave far more weight than the patriotic ones, which to him were merely atavistic. A dead man is no good to his Fatherland, and people die for ideas they are at best incapable of grasping, and whose implications they fail to see. The flogged warriors on the battlefields, the tortured nations, were the victims of quarrelsome, selfish, self-righteous, and completely hopeless thinkers, unable to get clarity in their poor warped brains, and incapable, furthermore, of understanding, or of getting along with one another. Maybe armies were irrational notions of God, unleashed against one another. Better to abstain! Better still to try and call a halt to the whole thing!

Keetenheuve gestured dismissively. "That's crap, why are you telling me that?"

"I'm not so sure," said Mergentheim, "call it crap if you like, sure, you were never in His Majesty's Armed Forces, I don’t believe for a moment you were, but it's a good story, and it's a good picture of you for the masses to keep in their heads. Keetenheuve, member of parliament and major in the British army. Surely some mistake? Something not quite right there. We know it's a lie, a completely baseless story. But one day a newspaper decides to print it, for the hell of it. If you're lucky it's forgotten again. But then someone else runs it. You know Hitler knew a thing or two about black propaganda, and what is it he says in his book? You repeat the lie over and over again. A man's name is Bernhard. You call him Isaac. You do it again. You keep on doing it. Never fails."

"We're not at that stage yet."

"You're right. Not yet. But maybe someone, maybe friend Frost-Forestier, has turned up some old photograph of you. You won't remember. But say the photograph shows you behind a BBC microphone, the letters are clearly visible, and if they're not, there are ways of making them visible, and then everyone can see them, and everyone can understand them. Do you know what's coming? Then someone, say Frost-Forestier, gets his hands on a bit of old tape, maybe from the Ministry of Defense, or old Gestapo archives, and it's of you, and you're addressing your electorate, who are huddled in their basements, while you . . ."

This is England. This is England. The long corridors of Broadcasting House. The blacked-out windows. The lightbulbs daubed blue. The smell of carbolic soap and moldy tea. He didn't go down to the bomb shelter during air raids. The blackened windows shook. The blue daubed lightbulbs trembled and swayed. My heart! My heart! He came from the forests
. . .

He came from the forests of Canada. As an interned enemy alien, he had worked as a lumberjack. Physically, it had been a wonderful time: plain food, cold ozone-rich air, physical labor, sleeping under canvas . . .

But no sleep for Keetenheuve! What am I doing here? Why am I here? Just so as not to participate? Not to be there? Stay out of the picture? To nurture my carefully tended innocence
,
misleading
,
bogus? Is that enough? In winter snow fell on the tents
,
fell silently through the great forest
,
poured a quiet anonymous grave of gentle foreign snow
;
because had he not brought it upon himself wasn't it his fault, had he not always tried to stay out of it, oh-so-sensitive and babied, in his ivory tower, distinguished, standing, without shelter, miserable, sent from country to country'
;
but always out of it, always enduring, never fighting, was he not at the root of all the atrocities that were breaking out all over the world like bleeding and prurient sores
. . .