William Styron: The Collected Novels: Lie Down in Darkness, Set This House on Fire, The Confessions of Nat Turner, and Sophie's Choice (264 page)

Frau Dürrfeld is indisposed—a touch of
der Durchfall
has confined her to their room at the Hotel Francuski. As the trio sits sipping midafternoon tea after their descent from the Wawel parapets, the Professor apologizes with perhaps a touch too much acerbity on the poorness of Cracow water, intones with perhaps a shade too much feeling his regret at having had only the most fleeting glimpse of the charming Frau Dürrfeld before she hastened upstairs to her chambers. Dürrfeld nods pleasantly, Sophie squirms. She knows that the Professor will later require her to help re-create their conversation for his diary. She also knows that she has been dragooned into this outing for two purposes of display—because she is a knockout, as they say in the American movies that year, but also because by her presence, poise and language she can demonstrate to this distinguished guest, this dynamic helmsman of commerce, how fidelity to the principles of German culture and German breeding is capable of producing (and in such a quaint Slavic outback) the bewitching replica of a fräulein of whom not even the most committed racial purist in the Reich could disapprove. At least she looks the part. Sophie continues to squirm, praying that the conversation—once it becomes serious, if it does—will skirt Nazi politics; she is just beginning to be sickened by the extreme turn taken in the evolution of the Professor’s racial views, and she cannot bear listening to or being forced to echo, out of duty, those dangerous imbecilities.

But she need not worry. It is culture and business—not politics—which are on the Professor’s mind as he tactfully leads the conversation. Dürrfeld listens, wearing a thin smile. Polite, attentive, he is a sparely fleshed and handsome man in his mid-forties, with pink healthy skin and (she is struck by this detail) incredibly clean fingernails. They seem almost lacquered, painted on, the terminal edges crescent moons of ivory. His grooming is immaculate and his suit of tailored charcoal flannel, obviously English, makes her father’s broad bright pin-stripe look hopelessly dowdy and old-fashioned. His cigarettes, she notices, are also British—Craven A’s. As he listens to the Professor his eyes have a pleasant, amused, quizzical look. She feels attracted to him, vaguely—no, quite strongly. She finds herself blushing, knows that her cheeks are flushed. Her father is casting gemlike slivers of history around the table now, emphasizing the effect of German-speaking culture and tradition on the city of Cracow and indeed upon all of southern Poland. What a long-lasting and indelible tradition this has been! Of course, and it goes without saying (although the Professor is saying it), Cracow not so long ago was for three-quarters of a century under beneficent Austrian rule—
natürlich,
this Dr. Dürrfeld knew; but did he also know that the city was almost unique in Eastern Europe in possessing its own constitution, called even now “the Magdeburg rights” and based upon medieval laws formulated in the city of Magdeburg? Was it any wonder, then, that the community was richly steeped in German lore and law, in the very spirit of Germany, so that even now there was among Cracovian citizens the perpetual impulse to nurture a passionate devotion for the language which, as Von Hofmannsthal said (or was it Gerhart Hauptmann?), is the most gloriously expressive since the ancient Greek? Suddenly Sophie realizes that he has focused his attention on her. Even his daughter here, he continues, little Zosia, whose education had perhaps not been of the broadest, speaks with such fluency that she not only has perfect mastery of
Hochsprache,
the standard German of the schools, but of the colloquial
Umgangssprache,
and furthermore, can duplicate for the Doctor’s enjoyment almost any accent which lies in between.

There follows a distressing (to Sophie) several minutes in which, egged on pointedly by her father, she must utter a random phrase in various local German accents. It is a trick of mimicry which she picked up easily as a child and which the Professor has relished exploiting ever since. It is one of the misdemeanors he commits upon her from time to time. Sophie, who is shy enough anyway, detests being forced to perform for Dürrfeld, but, smiling a twisted embarrassed smile, complies, speaking at her father’s command in Swabian, then in the indolent cadences of Bavaria, now in the tones of a native of Dresden, of Frankfurt, quickly followed by the Low German sound of a Saxon from Hannover and at last—aware that the desperation shows in her own eyes—blurting out an imitation of some quaint denizen of the Schwarzwald.
“Entzuckend!”
she hears Dürrfeld’s voice, along with a delighted laugh. “Charming! Just charming!” And she can tell that Dürrfeld, fetched by the little act but at the same time sensing her discomfort, has brought her demonstration adroitly to an end. Is Dürrfeld offended by her father? She doesn’t know. She hopes so. Papa, Papa.
Du bist ein
...
Oh merde
...

Sophie is barely able to conquer her boredom but manages to remain attentive. The Professor has now turned subtly (without appearing to be inquisitive) to the subject second most dear to his heart—industry and commerce, especially German industry and commerce, and the power excitingly attending those activities, now so energetically on the upswing. It is easy to gain Dürrfeld’s confidence; the Professor’s knowledge of the architecture of world trade is comprehensive, encyclopedic. He knows when to open up a subject, when to shy away from it, when to be direct, when to be discreet. He does not once mention the Führer. Accepting with perhaps a little too much gratitude the fine hand-rolled Cuban cigar offered him by Dürrfeld, he expresses his profuse admiration for a recent German achievement. He has only recently read about it in the Zurich financial newspaper to which he subscribes. It is the sale to the United States of large quantities of syntheic rubber newly perfected by IG Farbenindustrie. What a glorious coup for the Reich! exclaims the Professor—at which point Sophie notices that Dürrfeld, who appears to be a man not easily flattered, nonetheless smiles in a responsive way and begins to speak with some animation. He seems pleased with the Professor’s technical grasp of the subject, to which now he himself warms, leaning forward and for the first time employing his beautifully manicured hands to make one point, then another and another. Sophie loses track of much of the arcane detail, meanwhile regarding Dürrfeld once more from a point of view that is singularly female: he
is
attractive, she thinks, then in a dampness of mild shame banishes the thought. (Married, the mother of two little children; how could she!)

Now, while plainly exercising control over himself, Dürrfeld is seized by some churning interior anger; the knuckles of one hand grow white as he clenches his fist, the area around his mouth also becomes blanched, tense. With barely stoppered rage he is speaking of imperialism, of
die Englander
and
die Hollander
, of the conspiracy on the part of two rich powers to so rig and control prices in natural rubber as to drive all others out of the market. And they accuse IG Farben of monopolistic practices! What else could we do? he says in a caustic, cutting voice which surprises Sophie, so at variance does it seem with his previous milky equanimity. No wonder that the world is amazed at our coup! With the British and the Dutch sole owners of Malaya and the East Indies, criminally fixing astronomical rates on the world market, what else could Germany do but employ its technological ingenuity to create a synthetic substitute that would not only be economical, durable, resilient, but—
“Oil-resistant!”
There! The Professor has taken the words right out of Dürrfeld’s mouth. Oil-resistant! He has mastered his homework, the shrewd Professor, in whose memory has lodged the salient fact that it is the
oil-resistance
of the new synthetic product which is so revolutionary and which is the key to its value and attractiveness. Another touch of flattery that almost works: Dürrfeld smiles pleasantly at the Professor’s expertise. But as often happens, her father does not know when to stop. Preening slightly dandruffed pin-striped shoulders, he begins to show off, murmuring chemical terms like “nitrile,” “Buna-N,” “polymerization of hydrocarbons.” His German is mellifluous—but now Dürrfeld, sidetracked from his righteous rage at the British and the Dutch, subsides into his previous detached self, gazing at the turgid Professor beneath arched eyebrows, looking remotely irritated and bored.

Yet oddly enough, the Professor at his best can be a charmer. Sometimes he is able to redeem himself. And so on the ride to the great salt mine of Wieliczka south of the city, the three of them sitting abreast in the rear seat of the hotel limousine, an ancient but pampered Daimler smelling of wood polish, his well-practiced disquisition on the Polish salt industry and its millennial history is captivating, bright, anything but tedious. He is exercising that talent which has made him an alluring lecturer and a public speaker of vibrant flair. No longer is he so pompous and self-conscious. The name of the king who was the founder of the Wieliczka mine, Boleslaw the Bashful, provides a moment of amusement; one or two low-keyed jokes, nicely timed, again put Dürrfeld at his ease. As he sinks back Sophie feels her liking for Dürrfeld increase; how little like a powerful German industrialist he seems, she thinks. She gives him a sidelong glance, and is affected by the lack of any arrogance in him, touched bv something obscurely warm, vulnerable—is it only a kind of loneliness? The countryside is green with spreading, trembling foliage, lush fields ablaze with wildflowers—the Polish spring in its voluptuous prime. Dürrfeld remarks on the scene with genuine delight. Sophie senses the pressure of his arm against her own, and realizes that her bare skin there is chill with goose flesh. She tries—without success on the cramped seat—to draw away. She shivers slightly, then relaxes.

Dürrfeld has unbent so naturally that he even feels constrained to utter a vague apology; he should not allow the British and the Dutch to agitate him so, he says to the Professor in a mild voice, forgive the outburst, but surely their monopolistic practices and manipulations of the supply of a natural product like rubber, which all the world should receive equitably, was an abomination. Surely a native of Poland, which like Germany has no rich overseas possessions, could appreciate this. Surely it is not militarism or blind desire for conquest (which have been libelously imputed to certain nations—Germany, yes, damnit,
Germany)
that makes some ghastly war probable, but this
greed.
What must a nation like Germany do when—deprived of the colonies which might have served as its own Straits Settlements, divested of the equivalent of its own Sumatra, its own Borneo—it faces a hostile world rimmed about at the edge by international pirates and profiteers? The legacy of Versailles! Yes,
what!
It must go creatively
wild.
It must manufacture its
own
substance—everything!—out of chaos and by its own genius, and then stand with its back against the wall, confronting a host of enemies. The little speech ends. The Professor beams and actually applauds with his hands.

Dürrfeld falls silent then. Despite his passion he is very calm. He has spoken not angrily or with alarm but with gentle, easy, brief eloquence, and Sophie finds herself affected by the words and the utter conviction they convey. She is a naif in politics and world affairs, but she has the wit to know it. She cannot tell if she is stirred more by Dürrfeld’s ideas or by his physical presence—perhaps it is a mingling of both—but she feels an honest, heartfelt reasonableness in what he has said, and certainly he does not in the least resemble the paradigmatic Nazi who has been the object of so much savage lampooning rage at the hands of the tiny liberal and radical elements around the university. Maybe he is
not
a Nazi, she thinks optimistically—but then, surely a man so highly placed must be a member of the Party. Yes? No? Well, no matter. Two things she now knows well: she is beset by a pleasant, wayward, tickling eroticism, and the eroticism itself fills her with the same sweetly queasy sense of danger she once felt in Vienna years ago as a child at the very peak of the terrifying Prater Ferris wheel—danger both delicious and nearly unendurable. (Yet even as the emotion sweeps over her she cannot help but writhe in the memory of the cataclysmic domestic happening which she knows gives her the liberty, the warrant to possess such electrifying desire: the silhouette of her husband, in his robe, standing in the doorway of their dark bedroom only a month before. And Kazik’s words, as excruciatingly hurtful as the sudden slice across her face of a kitchen knife: You must get this under your thick skull, which may be thicker even than your father says it is. If I am no longer able to function with you, it is, you understand, due to no lack of virility but because almost everything about you, especially your body, leaves me totally without sensation... I cannot stand even the smell of your bed.)

Moments later, outside the entrance to the mine, where the two of them are gazing down across a sun-flooded field swaying and rippling with green barley, Dürrfeld asks her about herself. She replies that she is—well, a housewife, a faculty wife, but she is studying the piano, she hopes to be able to continue in Vienna in a year or two. (They are alone for a moment, standing close to each other. Never has Sophie wished so keenly to be alone with a man. What has permitted this moment is a small crisis—a sign announcing no visitors, the mine closed for repairs, the Professor storming off with a cascade of apologies pouring from his lips, telling them to wait, declaring that his personal acquaintanceship with the superintendent will resolve this impasse.) He says she looks so youthful. A girl! He says that it is hard to believe that she has two children. She replies that she was married very young. He says that he has two children, too. “I am a family man.” The remark seems roguish, ambiguous. For the first time their eyes encounter each other’s, his gaze mingles with hers; it is unabashedly admiring, that look, and she turns away feeling a spasm of adulterous guilt. She moves a few paces off from him, shielding her eyes, wondering aloud where Papa is. She hears the tremor in her throat, another voice deep within her tells her that tomorrow she must go to early Mass. Over her shoulder his voice now asks her if she has ever been to Germany. She replies that yes, one summer years ago she stayed in Berlin. Her father’s vacation. She was just a child.