Read an Excerpt
Mohr
a novel
By Frederick Reuss Unbridled Books
Copyright © 2006 Frederick Reuss
All right reserved. ISBN: 1-932961-17-8
Chapter One
In early morning, when the house is silent and the sun has not yet risen above the eastern ridges of the Tegernsee valley, it is tempting to think that the heartache that once filled these rooms is gone, vanished with another era. Open the front door, step outside into the morning air-crisp and frosty in winter, moist with dew and the smell of cows at pasture in summertime, walk the gravel path around to the side of the house, sit down on the bench, and watch the shifting hues of dawn on the steep slopes of the Wallberg. The cross on top of the mountain, like the one on the peak of the old farmhouse, has been there for so long that nobody notices it. This morning, you want to take in every detail: the crow calling from a tree at the forest edge, the vapor rising from the sun-warmed treetops, leaning fence posts, peeling paint on the shutters and condensation on the windowpanes, the distant ringing of a bell. The morning gradually brightens and with it a sense that each of these details is crucial; none is more crucial than the simple fact of your presence here. You grip the edge of the wooden bench with your hands, breathe in and out. Your breath condenses and the billowing steam makes you want to go inside and get your cigarettes, but, no, you alsowant to savor the first tobacco-free moment of the day, so you remain.
Feeling slightly absurd for all this heightened self-consciousness, you smile to yourself; then your smile fades because, no, there is nothing funny or false about this feeling of connection. There is nothing wrong with it, just as there is nothing wrong with supposing you belong to a continuum of human events that links you to a vanished past, part of which you may come to know, and all of which you are free to imagine.
I say you, but I also mean me. In novels, personal pronouns can be misleading. This is not an easy idea to express, and some will call the notion absurd. But why not? Why can't I be you? Or him or her? At least here, for now, sitting on a bench outside this old Bavarian farmhouse called Wolfsgrub early one October morning in 1934? And if I can be Max Mohr, I can be his wife, Kathe, too-whom he has left sleeping to come downstairs and light the stove.
Picture it. There are, after all, photographs. A great many photographs, piles of evidence that stand for something a little different with each viewing: so lovely, and not at all out of date.
Last night, you went up to the attic to sit for a time at his writing table. On it was a note from Kathe written on an old scrap of saved stationery. The desk is set between two narrow windows and faces the wall. He always wrote at night, so there was no need for a view. You sat down, adjusted yourself on the wooden chair. Once upon a time he kept his empty ink bottles lined up like little soldiers at the edge of the desk. One day, he gave them all to Eva to play with. You held Kathe's note to your nose. It was not scented, which caused a twinge of regret. It would have been just the perfect gesture. Like you, he was here and not here. He was going away and not going anywhere. She was sad-but also, perhaps, happier than you have ever been.
Liebster. Please know how much I love you. There is nothing more to say. Think how happy we were here together. Try to remember what a lovely place this was. K.
Mohr folded the note and slipped it into his pocket. Kathe must have put it there sometime during the afternoon-when he and Eva were bringing Minna in from the field. His fingers felt thick, his hands large and clumsy. He wanted to go downstairs right away, to be with her until the very last minute. But something kept him. He had passed so many hours at this little desk under the eaves. The larchwood paneling was dark with time. Late at night when the house fell silent, he listened to the creaking rafters, could hear the woodworms boring their tiny holes in the old beams.
Tuck your hands, palms flat, underneath your thighs. A shiver of cold concentrates your thoughts of what might have been.
Glance up.
The path leading up into the forest stands out clearly in the early morning light. It cuts through frosted grass and disappears into the trees. How much wider might it have become with Mohr tromping up it to work every day? A little cabin to write in. Would he have been thrilled, gone happily off to work deep in the rustling forest? An image flashes, of smoke curling from the cabin chimney, and Kathe down at the house, seeing it rise up through the treetops, and sending Eva up with a freshly baked loaf, some apples, and a piece of cheese to tide him over.
No. That would never be. On his last day in Wolfsgrub, Mohr doesn't want to think of what will never be, however lovely. He can't hold on hold on hold on; never give anything up. That would be fatal. Knowing when to let go is more important than fretting about what's been left behind.
Impatient, you jiggle your legs, shake your head once again at the idea of him scribbling away in a little cabin deep in the forest. You recall Lawrence's description of the crucifix-studded Bavarian uplands, the wooden Christs presiding over the whole countryside. When Lawrence spoke about Germany and Germans, Mohr always had the feeling he was addressing his Jewish nature, as if he knew what it was better than Mohr did; some secret voluptuousness he engaged in. The trouble with their friendship was not that Lawrence asserted so deep an understanding of Mohr but that he asserted it to everyone except Mohr himself. If he were an anti-Semite-and there were times when he seemed so-he never forswore any friendships because of it. It didn't seem to matter to him that his opinions could inflict pain. Remember how you felt when you read his first impression of Mohr? A last man, who has arrived at the last end of the road, who can no longer go ahead in the wilderness nor take a step into the unknown.
If only he'd lived to see the unknown that Mohr would come to face.
And not just Max, but Kathe, too.
When she came downstairs and saw his packed bags neatly stacked in the hall, and the front door slightly ajar, she stepped outside, walked around to the side of the house, and sat down next to him.
"Let's nor be glum," he said and put an arm across her shoulders, drew her closer. "I will always remember what a lovely place this is." He smiled and patted his breast pocket, where he was keeping the note she'd written yesterday. "Thank you," he said and kissed her forehead.
Now they are sitting at breakfast, trying to put the best face they can on the day.
"Can I take a picture?" Eva points to the camera on the table.
"If you promise me one thing." Mohr draws her onto his lap, whispers into her ear. Eva slides off his lap and picks up the camera again.
"Promise," she says.
"Promise what?"
Eva glances at her father. "Can I tell?'"
"Of course," he says emphatically.
"That we will come to China soon."
"Sooner than soon," Mohr corrects.
"Of course we will." Kathe's voice sounds weary. How many times can she repeat such a promise? it isn't empty, just hopelessly abstract and distant, like China itself.
They sit for Eva's photograph. Mohr makes a funny face, which causes Eva to laugh. She takes a second one, and this time nobody laughs. Kathe has felt observed by Mohr all morning, lost in her own quiet nowhere, counting down the hours until Zibert comes to drive them all to the train station. The breakfast plates on the table are empty; a few cold sips of coffee remain at the bottom of each cup. They are waiting, but the wait is already over.
All this determined cheerfulness isn't easy. Eva had come downstairs crying. Mohr swept her up in his arms and they went to the hen-house to fetch some eggs; then he took her upstairs and drew his bath. Kathe watched as Eva stood over him in the bathtub. He sank slowly under the surface of the water, wetted his hair. Then he resurfaced, brandishing an egg. "Voile, Mademoiselle! Bitte schon!" He handed the egg to Eva with a grin and bowed, offering the crown of his head. Tap tap tap, the egg was broken, and Eva stepped back giggling while he massaged the gooey mess into his scalp, singing, "Eeenie beenie suplameenie deevi dahvi domineenie."
As the shampoo was concluding, Nanni's voice rang from down stairs to say that she was leaving the butter inside the door.
"Tell her to wait!" Mohr sputtered from the tub.
Kathe ran downstairs and called to Nanni, "Dr. Mohr is leaving today! He wants to say good-bye!"
Nanni hung her woolen cardigan on the hook inside the door and waited in the kitchen. She was the eldest of the Berghammer girls, simpleminded, good-hearted, and she adored Mohr.
"Is that Nanni I hear?" Mohr called down the stairs. "You were going to let me go without saying good-bye?" He came into the kitchen, hair tousled, still shiny and wet. He put a hand on Nanni's shoulder and gave her a friendly shake, then hugged her. Nanni blushed, and when he released her she drew back and punched him with her fist.
"Ouch!" Mohr gripped his arm. Nanni was momentarily uncertain; then Mohr laughed, snatched her back, and hugged her tightly once again.
"Papa is going to China," Eva announced from the doorway.
Nanni glanced about. "Why?" she asked.
"Because it's there," Mohr said.
"Where?" Nanni inquired after a short pause.
Mohr reached into his trousers pocket and took out an imaginary compass, held it in the flat of his hand. "Well, let's see." He turned and pointed. "It's over there."
"That's the stove!" Nanni objected.
"He means that's the way you have to go," Eva said.
"If my compass is correct," Mohr said, slipping the imaginary instrument into his pocket.
Kathe slices the bread, and begins to set the table as Mohr entertains Nanni and Eva with one of his nonsense stories. His manner is a little forced, but only Kathe would notice. She passes in and out of the kitchen three times with the breakfast tray, pausing to listen. Mohr leans against the stove, fills the room with his presence. He cleans his glasses on his shirt, twists them back onto his ears, combs his wet hair with his fingers, all the while expanding on a complicated tale of a lost school of Mexican dancing fish and a band of robbers.
She can't listen, nor can she bring herself to interrupt. She goes into the next room to wait at the breakfast table. Through the closed door she can hear Mohr's voice, the giggles of Eva and Nanni. Is this last little burst of storytelling meant to be remembered? One final thing left behind?
She pours herself a cup of coffee and stares through the windows at the frost-covered meadow that slopes up steeply behind the house, every blade of grass stiff and glistening with ice. Yesterday it was still warm, and they were all outside in shirtsleeves. The temperature dropped sharply overnight. Several times she was awakened by gusts of wind rattling the windows.
After Nanni leaves-with tearful promises of letters, though she can neither read nor write-they come in and sit down to breakfast. Mohr's spark fades, a silence falls. Butter and marmalade, coffee and milk, eggs in little clips, late-October air, woolen sweaters, the crackle and pop of wood in the stove. All at once, he puts down his knife, looks up, and says, "I won't be pushed out. I'd rather just leave."
Kathe puts her hands in her lap and waits for him to continue. Eva meticulously dips little pieces of bread into her egg, licks off the yolk. Mohr cleans his glasses once again.
"Can I sit in the front of the taxi?" Eva asks.
"You can sit on the roof if you like." Mohr pinches her check. The resemblance between father and daughter is remarkable. Dark hair, light hazel eyes, sharp, square jawline, and an impatient, impulsive nature prone to veer in all directions at once. Eva has grown several centimeters in just the last few months. Kathe can see the lineaments of the future woman emerging, not in fragments but whole, and not a Westphal but a Mohr.
The telephone rings. Mohr rises to answer but changes his mind and sits down again.
"Aren't you going to answer, Papa?"
Mohr shakes his head. "I don't want to talk."
The bell clangs several more times and then falls silent. For the past week, calls have been coming in from friends and acquaintances. His story, The Diamond Heart. had been serialized a year ago in a Hamburg daily. The editor, Jahn, had telephoned the other day to say good-bye and they had talked for over an hour. The last call, and the one he had least wanted to take, had come from his sister, Hedwig. A letter had preceded it in which she tried to argue that he should allow himself to be baptized, as she and her husband had done-many years ago. After handing it to Kathe to read, he tore the letter to pieces.
"A little severe, don't you think?" she said.
"Not nearly as severe as her stupidity." He glanced at the strewn bits of paper and flushed. She waited for him to continue, but he didn't. The redness in his face dissolved. When she began to gather up the scraps from the floor, he made as if to help, then stopped himself and left the room.
That Mohr was a Jew had never been an issue of any significance between them until these last tow years; no more than her Hamburg Protestant origins. If anything, they both considered themselves refugees of the horrible and confining Burgertum they had both been brought up in-of which Hedwig's letter was such an unwelcome reminder.
Yesterday, up on the roof, she'd tried one last time to engage him. He was replacing some broken tiles and she climbed up to take in the view and keep him company. It was a sunny day and the slopes of the Wallberg stood out clearly and in full autumn color. As she made her way gingerly across the gently pitched rooftop, it flit as though they'd always been together here, and would always remain so. She sat next to him on the roof ridge, tucked her skirt up. It was pleasantly warm. He slid a new tile into place and hit it with the hammer. It broke. He turned to her with a strange smile and said, "Voila! The world resolves itself in twos." After a short pause he said, "\Vu should keep that in mind."
"Keep what in mind?"
"That we can be apart and not apart. Together and not together."
"You think that sort of talk makes things any easier? Why don't you try to see things a little more simply?"
He shook his head. "'There's nothing simple about anything."
She watched as he fitted in the next tile. It was not a job he was familiar with. The last time the roof had needed repairing, they'd hired somebody; but Mohr had insisted on doing this job by himself, and worked as if he knew just what he was doing. "Why China, Max?"
He didn't answer, and continued working.
"Why not someplace closer? Like Prague? Or Vienna?"
Mohr stopped and leaned back on his haunches. She knew he understood what she meant. He tapped the edge of the tile into place with the rubber hammer. There was nothing she could think of to say, so she kept him company up there until he was finished. Strangely, she wasn't frustrated or impatient. Not at all. It was nice to sit quietly together. Theo Seethaler appeared in the yard below.
"What are you doing back here?" Mohr called.
"I came to say good-bye."
Mohr tossed his tools down into the yard. Kathe sensed that there was something he still wanted to tell her, and also that he was glad for this sudden distraction. Seethaler held the base of the ladder as she descended, talking the whole time about having had to leave school to come home and help his father, who had fallen ill. The boy-no longer a boy, but already twenty-made no attempt to hide his disappointment. Mohr came down right behind her, jumped from the ladder several rungs before the bottom. He marched into the middle of the yard to survey his work. "Perfect!" He lit a cigarette, and pointed to the roof. "You can't even tell they're new."
Seethaler helped Mohr carry the ladder and tools to the barn. Kathe went inside to take down the wash from the upstairs balcony. The low slant of the sun cast everything in a golden light. They returned from the barn, and Mohr invited Seethaler to sit with him on the bench. She folded clothes and listened as they talked. There was something sweet in the trust the local boys placed in Mohr, the way they telegraphed so much of themselves in conversations about ski bindings or bicycle racing. Seethaler was clearly upset about having to help in the family plumbing business.
"So, you prefer life in the big city," Mohr said.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Mohr by Frederick Reuss Copyright © 2006 by Frederick Reuss. Excerpted by permission.
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