The Lime Works: A Novel (Vintage International) (5 page)

having a record of criminal convictions. No period in history had a better right than this period to be designated as a period of violent crime, Konrad is supposed to have said, in no previous period did people have a greater right to expect a violent crime to occur at any moment, and violent crimes not only occurred far more frequently in the country than in the city, but here in the Sicking area, as everyone knew, one had to deal daily and hourly with the most revolting forms of violent crime. The familiar thesis that the typical perpetrator of violent crimes was likely to shy away from no conceivable monstrosity, proved to be the absolute terrible truth in the Sicking area. That even Konrad’s wife had a gun within reach behind her invalid chair, as Konrad told Wieser about a year ago, is confirmed by Fro. Both he and his wife could not exist for a moment in the lime works or even in Sicking without the protection of firearms. Inside the lime works a person had to be armed at all times, had at every moment without exception to reckon with the likelihood of a crime against oneself. Only a fool would live unarmed in such a building as the lime works and in such an area as Sicking. Of course he had never sold a single one of his guns, Konrad said to Wieser, on the contrary, while I tried to sell every saleable thing on the premises, I bought up, as you know, nearly all the weapons in the Ulrich estate, you could never have enough guns when you were living in the lime works even though the place was as securely locked up, bolted, and barred as could be, any criminal determined to commit a violent crime would always find a way to get inside and do it. There was actually no way to prevent a criminal, no precautionary measure imaginable that would keep him from committing his crime, or crimes,
once he had made up his mind to commit them. Even if the decision did not always originate in the criminal’s own brain—the crime or crimes of any given criminal hardly ever originated in the criminal’s own brain—the criminal’s whole being nevertheless was predisposed to the crime, or crimes, his whole being aimed at the crime, or crimes, until they have been, or it has been, committed. The nature of the criminal was such as to aim incessantly at the crimes to be committed, and once this was done, the criminal’s nature tended of course to concentrate on a fresh crime, or crimes, and so forth. You can scream, of course, Konrad is supposed to have said to Wieser, but you will not be heard. The setup inevitably attracts criminals, and that means violent criminals. (Wieser remembers these statements of Konrad’s perfectly.) There had also been many accidents at the lime works, accidents which ended lethally for people who lived or worked there, in most cases, because their cries or screams for help had not been heard. Think of the accidental explosion in early ’38, Konrad is supposed to have said, seven dead, twenty-four wounded. Yet he had refused to install a telephone in the lime works, though he knew his wife had set her heart on having one, a telephone would unquestionably be a great help to her, but there was his work to be considered, which made the installation of a phone at the lime works a thing quite out of the question. No telephone! No telephone! Konrad had exclaimed time and again, says Wieser. Naturally, if you need a doctor, a doctor must be called! he is supposed to have said. But the installation of a telephone was bound to be the end of his work, that is, it would be the end, period; he knew what he was saying. Implausible as it may seem to you, Konrad is supposed to
have said to Wieser, if I had to choose between my wife and my work, I would of course choose my work. Quite apart from the fact that the installation of a phone would by far exceed my financial means, he said, because I have suddenly awakened to the fact that, contrary to my fixed idea that I was well off, we are suddenly totally impoverished. We are penniless, which is why I sold so many of our things, of course, but my wife must not hear of it, he is supposed to have said, her faith in our inexhaustible funds implying our inexhaustible wealth is all she has left, there is nothing else left for her to cling to, but as long as she can believe that there is plenty of money, something she has been able to believe until just two years ago, he said, as Konrad himself had been able to believe too, she could be at peace. If we had a telephone, Konrad is supposed to have said, we would be in the same situation as before we moved into the lime works. What did I move into the lime works for, he asked himself, if we are to have a phone here? Of course even the most absurd kind of building had a phone nowadays, there was no place without a phone anywhere, but the lime works did not yet have a phone. There’s a phone at the tavern, there’s a phone at the sawmill, but there will be no phone at the lime works, ever. Sometimes he thought of the original purpose for which the lime works was built, and of his own purpose in living there now, the purpose for which he was misusing it, he said. How bitterly all sorts of people had slaved in the place, for instance. He would think what the lime works had once meant to the entire region, and how long it was since it had ceased to mean anything. Even though it was still referred to as the lime works, when it came up, it would after all be truer to speak of a shut-down
or deactivated lime works, when referring to the lime works. People are always referring to all kinds of structures or mental complexes, Konrad is supposed to have said, that have long ceased to be the same structures or mental complexes they once were. For twenty years now the lime works had been shut down, dead. One fine day someone realized, Konrad said, that the lime works had become unprofitable, so they let the workers go and shut down the lime works. The manager had written to Hoerhager in Zurich that the lime works had ceased to make a profit and the manager proposed to Hoerhager that he shut it down, Konrad is supposed to have told Wieser; liquidate the lime works, the manager is supposed to have written to Hoerhager, or rather, to have telegraphed, and Hoerhager immediately liquidated the lime works; Hoerhager, who was a bachelor, is said to have instantly liquidated the works without a moment’s hesitation, upon receiving the manager’s proposal to liquidate, Konrad is supposed to have told Wieser. But the manager was a crook, Konrad said, everything about him was crooked, at least his intentions were. Hoerhager had actually never paid any attention to the lime works, Konrad told Wieser. The manager had been using Hoerhager, managers are by their very nature the exploiters of owners, all the managers in the world are exploiters, they never think of anything else than how to exploit the owners, the principle of exploiting owners has gradually been developed by them to a truly vertiginous science. At the time the lime works were liquidated, Konrad and his wife were living in Augsburg, crammed with all their possessions into a house that, as Konrad told Wieser, was well-suited to Konrad’s carrying on his research. Konrad at this time remembered
the lime works, as he had remembered it for decades before and for decades to come, as his first childhood playground, a structure associated in his mind with damp, chill, darkness, getting hurt, currently owned by his peripatetic nephew Hoerhager who was then spending his time mostly in Zurich, caught up in social distractions. Already the lime works had meant to Konrad a place of eclipse, an ideal retreat for working on his book, and already in Augsburg he started to think about buying the lime works from Hoerhager, Konrad reminisced to Wieser, though he did not know, did not even dream that he would actually one day buy the lime works from his nephew, even though that day would not arrive for two decades more. Hoerhager was then at the point of liquidating the lime works at long distance, from Zurich, and in cold blood. Yet despite the fact that the nephew never took the slightest interest in the lime works other than the financial, Hoerhager held off for decades on selling it to Konrad. My nephew probably knew that I was absolutely determined to buy the lime works, that my life, my very existence, depended upon my acquiring the lime works, and so he would not sell to me, Konrad is said to have told Wieser. My wife’s health was growing noticeably worse that time in Augsburg, as I remember, Konrad said, we kept trying every kind of specialist in nearby Munich, which was at the time world famous for its outstanding doctors, particularly its specialists for the various kinds of deformity, for cripples. In Augsburg I used to take long walks along the Lech River, Konrad recalled, it’s a usable sort of city, actually. The lime works manager was rumored to have demanded a horrendous sum of compensation from Hoerhager, Konrad told Wieser, which Hoerhager
instantly agreed to pay, just as Hoerhager always instantly agreed to whatever the manager proposed, simply to avoid being bothered, Konrad supposed. The manager offered to discharge the workmen, turn off the power, lock the gates for good. Lime works like this one in Sicking, i.e., of middling size, no longer had a future, the manager wrote to Hoerhager, so he, the manager, would undertake to wind it all up in orderly fashion; as usual, Hoerhager agreed to everything the manager proposed. The manager could have Hoerhager’s power of attorney to do whatever needed to be done, Hoerhager wrote from Zurich to Sicking. I remember his being in Zurich then, Konrad said to Wieser, while we were in Augsburg, he was in Zurich, a city that takes a great interest in the advancement of culture. The lime works were liquidated within a week. All that hardly interested my nephew Hoerhager in Zurich, said Konrad, while I was always interested in anything to do with the lime works, and the liquidation of the lime works aroused my interest in Augsburg all the more, in that a shut-down, abandoned, really dead lime works was more suitable than ever for me and my scientific work, more ideal a place to live and work than ever before. I instantly dispatched a telegram to Zurich: “Buying limeworks” two words just like that, “Buying limeworks,” but Hoerhager, my offer in hand, would not sell, Konrad is said to have told Wieser. So began my decades of struggle for possession of the lime works. The harder I kept after him, Konrad said to Wieser, the less inclined Hoerhager seemed to make a deal, though he could certainly have used my money, especially on the eve of World War II, yet he would not sell to me, but on the other hand he did not sell to anyone else, either, so as not to put an
end to my efforts to buy the lime works, he needed for me to go on making those desperate efforts, in which he took a sadistic delight, Konrad is said to have told Wieser. As my offer went up, his resistance stiffened. This went on for two decades. In the end, by this time we had moved to Mannheim, I did buy the lime works for a high price, probably by two hundred or three hundred percent too high a price, and probably, Konrad is said to have told Wieser, when it was already too late. Hoeller was to continue staying in the annex, on a pension, as the lime works manager is supposed to have requested and Hoerhager agreed instantly to the pension for Hoeller and to let him stay on at the annex, an additional charge Konrad took over, Hoeller’s pension and continued occupancy of the annex, along with the lime works, but he didn’t mind, on the contrary, he needed Hoeller. It was necessary to keep someone at the lime works who would be part and parcel of it, the manager wrote to Hoerhager in Zurich, and Konrad is said to have told Wieser that this was correct, a complex like the lime works needed a man like Hoeller. Hoeller had been lime works foreman for thirty years. He would have been incapable of leaving the lime works, besides; the others simply went, most of them took jobs in the brewery, the candle factory, the quarry, and that was that. Workmen simply turn their backs on their place of work, Konrad said to Wieser, their place of work is no more to them than a machine for providing them with money. To Hoeller the lime works was home. Though it must be said that the shut-down, dead state of the lime works depressed Hoeller, Konrad told Wieser, even now. It felt weird to him. Konrad struck him as weird, too, Konrad said, but Konrad for his
part regarded Hoeller, quite to the contrary, with increasing warmth as a thoroughly dependable, needed man. Konrad to Fro: he (Konrad) would start by going up to the attic, then down to the third floor, then the second, the first, and finally he would walk through all the rooms on the ground floor, to make sure that there really was not another salable thing in the house except for the Francis Bacon which he had bought in Glasgow. Just looking for something that could be converted into cash, that’s all. But he found nothing. Apparently, he thought, he had sold everything already. He did not know the full extent of his indebtedness, but he knew it was enormous. His debts amounted to more than the value of the lime works. Now he had absolutely nothing left, he thought. He might go up to the attic once more, but there really was nothing at all left in the attic. Old suit cases, beer glasses, preserve jars, hat boxes, crutches. He would search every corner, because he could not believe that there could be absolutely nothing salable left in the attic, not even an old icon, nothing at all. Nothing left in the rooms, nothing on the walls, nothing. Only three years ago all these walls had still been full of things, but there was nothing hanging on them now. You could still see how much there had been, the outlines of the pictures were still visible. Now the lime works walls were bare. It had all been taken down and sold. At a ridiculous price, Konrad is said to have told Fro. But though he realized that everything was gone, that there was nothing left because he had gradually sold even the most unsalable items he’d had, he kept going back through all the rooms again, as if to reassure himself for the hundredth or the thousandth time that there was nothing left in those rooms, not one thing. The empty rooms on
the ground floor are the most depressing of all, he said, according to Fro. High-ceilinged empty rooms make a terrible impression on first entering a house. He had only just been through all the rooms again, including the annex, he said, according to Fro, and there was no doubt at all that there was nothing salable left even in the annex. He said he had been considering sneaking something out of his wife’s room to sell, but that would be the hardest thing to do. In his own room there was nothing left except the Francis Bacon, which he would not sell, he would never part with that painting. I might just possibly succeed in smuggling something salable out of my wife’s room without her noticing it, he said. You must remember that I’ve nothing left in the bank, Fro quoted him saying. They had already told him at the bank that he had exhausted his account. But a man had to have