The Pegnitz Junction Read online

  And she answered, “Yes, I see. Classic, aesthetic – no?”

  “Well, jaws are always classical,” said the dentist.

  The photographer wanted to look a bit younger for the sake of his wife. Every season the difference in time between them seemed to increase. Most young wives of middle-aged men bridged the gap by looking older, but his wife grew more and more childlike. On their honeymoon in Florence he had shown her the marble likeness of a total stranger, saying, “There, the ideal – classic, aesthetic,” and so forth; and she told her mother later and they had a good laugh. When the dentist made the remark about his jaws she saved it up for her mother too. Now the dentist had said he could make a third lot of teeth that would make the photographer appear to be twenty-eight and would not hurt as much as the last set, but the work would cost six hundred marks more.

  As soon as he saw the photographer the curator began to shout everything he had just been thinking about the newspaper. The very sight of the photographer with his collapsed face and brown socks made the curator feel tense. He had to defend art as far as the first row of barbed wire, but he would have preferred doing this without ever meeting an artist, for they took up time. The curator’s angry voice carried along the platform to the waiting room, where a cultural travelling group, tossed up between trains like Christine and the others, sat hungry and miserable with their cultural group leader. These people distinctly heard the curator say that he was opposed to womanhood. They put their heads together and began to whisper.

  The group were on their way to the opera and had dressed for a cultural evening in July – that is, the men in white dinner jackets and the women with long skirts, and fur stoles they hugged around themselves in spite of the heat. They knew pretty well what the curator was yelling about because the most revolting of the photographs had been shown on television and in the picture magazines, and had been discussed in a syndicated editorial of the opposition press. The result was that this little frontier town, with its teacup-with-mumps museum, its reputation for pornography, and its forward-looking curator, was quite famous now. Most members of the group had actually heard the curator mouthing cultural insults in their own living rooms, with the colour TV lending a strange mauve tinge to his ears and chin. The photographer had scarcely been interviewed at all. He had nothing in the way of a social theory; he could only bleat that he loved his wife and thought marriage was noble and fulfilling. For some reason this irritated the public. He said nothing but simple and gentle things, yet everyone hated him and people had written letters to the government saying he ought to be lynched.

  Now he walked along the platform with the curator in the boiling heat and said he had been wondering if the caricature of himself as a gorilla might not be just a little libellous. And the curator, sweating and cross, sick to death of art and artists, looked down at his legs and socks and snapped, “Oh, it’s probably not libellous at all.”

  Little Bert stayed close to Christine and curled his hand tightly around her fingers. She remembered how he had wakened night after night in a strange room and found himself alone in the dark. At first he had not even known how the foreign light switch worked. She and Herbert had spoken French much of the time; no wonder the child had finally preferred to have conversation with a sponge.

  “You’ll soon be home,” she said. “Are you hungry?”

  The station buffet had run out of food and the newsstand sold nothing to eat except cough drops and chewing gum. Little Bert did not seem to notice; at least he did not say he was hungry. He was only slightly interested in the comic book. He was taking in the opera party, all in their sixties or so, looking rather alike. They sat facing one another on two long rows of benches, the women holding their fat knees together under their long gowns. Perhaps these people did not know each other well, except for their cultural meetings. There was too much shy laughter, and too many Oh, do you think so’s after every remark. What they had in common at this moment was their need of comfort; here they were, forced to change trains, the new train late, and the women in particular having a bad time of it, their makeup melting in the heat and having to hear their sex and station in life criticized by the trumpet-voiced curator. Luckily to console them they had their own cultural group leader, a match for the curator any day.

  The group leader, whose long chin all but hid his collar, and whose eyes seemed startled and wise because his glasses magnified them, sat with one hand on each knee, legs wide apart, shoulders forward. It was not quite the position of a cultured person, more the way a train conductor might perch between rounds, but this might have been only because the bench was so narrow. He spoke to them softly, looking from face to face, and leaning left and right for those sharing his bench.

  Within a few minutes he had wiped out of their memories every vexation and discomfort they had been feeling. He mentioned

  Bach

  Brahms

  Mozart

  Mahler

  Wagner

  Schubert

  Goethe

  Schiller

  Luther and Luther’s bible

  Kant

  Hegel

  the Mann brothers, Thomas and Heinrich;

  true connoisseurs prefer the latter

  Brecht – yes, Brecht

  several Strausses

  Schopenhauer

  Gropius

  and went on until he had mentioned perhaps one hundred familiar names. Just as everyone was beginning to feel pleasantly lulled, and even to feel oddly well fed, though a moment ago they had all been saying that they could eat the wooden benches, their leader suddenly said, “The Adolf-time …”

  In the silence that followed he looked into every face, one after the other, sadly and accusingly, like a dog about to be left behind; the reproachful silence and sliding dog’s glance went on for so long that one could have heard a thought. Christine did hear some, in fact: they were creaking thoughts, as old chairs creak. The whole cultural group held its breath and the thoughts creaked, “Oh, God, where is this kind of talk taking us?” Finally the cultural leader had to end his sentence because they could not go on holding their breath that way, especially those who were stout and easily winded. He concluded, “… was a sad time for art in this country.”

  Who could disagree? Certainly no cultivated person on his way to the opera. Yes, a sad time for art, though no one could remember much preoccupation with art at the time, rather more with coal and margarine. There had been no public exhibitions of women showing their private parts like baboons, if that was art. There had been none of that, said some of the creaking thoughts. Yet others creaked, “But stop! What does he mean when he says ‘art’? For isn’t music art too?” There had been concerts, hadn’t there? And the Ring cycle, never before so rich and full of meaning, and The Magic Flute, with its mysterious trials, the Mass in B Minor, the various Passions, and the Ninth Symphony almost whenever you wanted it? There must have been architecture, sculpture, historical memoirs, bookbinding, splendid colour films. Plays, ballet – all that went on. Cranach, Dürer, the museums. Surely the cultural leader must have meant that it was a sad time in general, especially towards the end.

  He was still speaking: “As I stood before the new opera house, the same house you are about to see – if our train ever does arrive –” (smiles and anxiety) “a distinguished foreigner said to me, ‘If only you Germans had thought more about that …’ “ pointing as the distinguished foreigner had pointed, but really indicating a gap between two women sitting with their knees clenched. He continued, “ ‘… instead of material things, it would have been better for you and for everybody …’ ”

  Following this closely, Little Bert turned to where the man had pointed and saw nothing but the newsstand, which was not any kind of a house. Christine saw little Bert looking at a row of pornographic magazines, the sort that were sold everywhere now, and wanted to cover his eyes, but as Herbert had said, one could not protect him forever.

  The cultural group exhaled
, then breathed in deeply and gently. The women did something melancholy with the corners of their mouths. “As for the orchestras in those days,” said the leader cheerfully, “they played like cows and they knew it. I remember how one execrable fiddle said to another, equally vile, ‘Are you a Party member too?’ ”

  This was a comic story – it must be. Their sad faces began to clear. All the same, no one was doing much more than breathing carefully in and out. Their creaking thoughts were scattered and lost as two new people, the Norwegian and the American army wife, appeared. The Norwegian greeted Herbert rather formally; the girl marched up to the newsstand, and after giving the rack of pornography a short, cool glance, indicated, somewhere beyond it, Time, Life, and Newsweek.

  “They take their culture with them,” said the Norwegian. “And what a culture it has become. Drugs, madness, sadism, poverty, lice, syphilis, and several other diseases believed to have died out in the Middle Ages.”

  “The girl is German,” said Herbert, smiling.

  “Oh, Herbert, no,” said Christine. “Everything about her … the hat … the shell necklace … everything … the hair. She could not be anything but what she is.”

  “I agree,” said Herbert. “German. Now, little Bert,” he went on, “do you see the train which is just arriving? It will take us to Pegnitz. Once there we are almost home. Pegnitz is a junction. Trains go through every few minutes, in all directions. In most directions,” he corrected.

  Now that their transport was here a number of those who had been grumbling at the delay suddenly decided that they did not want this train after all; they would wait for the regular service, or hire taxis, or send telegrams asking their relatives to come and pick them up in cars. Finally, after a certain amount of elbowing and jostling, only the hungry woman, the cultural group going to the opera, the Norwegian, some German soldiers with hair like pirate wigs, the pregnant American girl, and little Bert’s party climbed aboard. This train was neat, swept, cool; the first-class carriage was not crowded and had plastic-leather seats. The opera party immediately spread out and filled three compartments. The hungry woman, caught up in the platoon of soldiers, disappeared, swept on to second class. But she could not have been far away: The arrangement was we each got fifty percent of the estate under a separate property agreement. He never thought I would survive him. All his plans were for how he would dispose of my fifty percent once I had passed on. His fifty percent was to be for himself and half of mine for him, and half for the little movie star Shirley Bimbo. He never never thought I’d be there after him. I had this diabetes, pneumonia three times, around the change of life I got nervous and lost all my hair, had to do the cooking wearing a turban. Later I got a women’s complaint, had the works out, better to get it over with. No wonder he never thought I could survive him. He left his fifty percent to the little lamb of God, Carol Ann. What the dumb bastard didn’t know was that I would get my half plus sixty-seven percent of his half because we were married in Muggendorf under a completely different set of laws and we never took the citizenship. So think that over in your grave, Josef Schneider! He turned out to have more than anyone knew. There were the savings, the property, some home appliances, the TV and that – but what he had salted away besides was nobody’s business. It’s invested over here now. Safer.

  This time they shared their compartment with the American girl, who buried her pretty nose in her magazines. There was nothing else for her to do; she could not understand what they were saying. The missing traveller drew nearer. He asked to be cremated and the ashes brought to Muggendorf and buried. He left eight hundred dollars just for somebody to tend the plot. I signed a promise to look after the grave; the money’s being held. If I keep the grave looking good for five years running I get the eight hundred dollars. Only one year to go. Always had said he wanted his ashes scattered on the trout stream at Muggendorf. Must have changed his mind. Just as well. Might be a fine for doing it. Pollution. She saw them, perhaps had been looking for them and came in and sat down. As Herbert had said, it was as good as being home.

  A woman we knew had this happen – her husband said he wanted his ashes flung to the winds from a dune by the North Sea. No planes in those days, had to take the ashes over by boat. Went up to Holstein, would climb on a dune, change her mind. Hated to part with poor Jobst. Noticed more and more barbed wire along the dunes, didn’t know why. Never read the papers, had got out of the habit in the USA. Dreamed that Jobst appeared and said the world would experience a terrible catastrophe if she didn’t scatter his ashes. Went back to the beach as near as she could to the sea, flung one handful east, one south, one west, was about to turn north when somebody grabbed her arm, two men with revolvers, the conflict had begun, they thought she was making signs to submarines.

  They arrived at Pegnitz at dusk. Everyone began to shuffle along the corridor, peering out at the station they had been told was a junction. The train seemed becalmed in an infinity of tracks meeting, merging, and sliding away. Little Bert said to his sponge, “There are cows, one black, one brown, one dappled.” But of course no cows were to be seen in the yard, only lights flashing and signal stations like sentry boxes. The woman sorted out the food she had left – biscuits, chocolates, grapes, oranges, macaroons, portions of cheese in thin silver paper – and placed everything in one clean plastic bag which she unfolded out of her purse, and on which was printed

  CANARY BED

  WARM, HYGIENIC, AGREEABLE

  Above these words was the drawing of a canary tucked up in sheets and blankets for the night. Shirley Bimbo, Shirley Bimbo, she was telling herself.

  All of them got to their feet too soon, as people do when they are tired of travelling. The train seemed to coast slowly and endlessly along a long platform. Christine stood between the Norwegian and little Bert, who put his nose on the window, making it white and button-shaped. When he glanced up at her he had two round patches of dirt, one on his forehead.

  “Again,” exclaimed the Norwegian.

  “What?”

  He did not mean little Bert. He was glaring at a detachment of conscripts lounging and sitting slumped on their luggage, yelling at one another and laughing foolishly. Christine said, “They are only farmers’ sons who have been drafted, you know. Poor lads who have never studied anything. Boys like that must exist everywhere, even where you come from.” But then she remembered how kind he had been to little Bert, and how generous about singing. She tried to agree with him: “I must say, they aren’t attractive. They do seem to be little and ugly.” She paused. “It’s not their fault.”

  “They always looked that way,” said the Norwegian. “They were always very little and very ugly, but they frightened us.”

  Christine had none of Herbert’s amiable ambiguities. She said sadly, “We don’t even know each other’s names.”

  He pinched his nostrils and did a few seconds’ puffing without making a reply. The important part of the journey had ended, as far as he was concerned, because he had finally said what he thought.

  Yet it isn’t over, she said to herself. She saw threads, crystals, flying horizontally like driven snow, and she caught as clear as the summer night a new tone on a different channel: Dear Ken sorry I haven’t written sooner but you know how it is Dear Ken sorry I haven’t written sooner but you know how it is

  “Now, be ready,” called Herbert over his shoulder. He had seen their new train standing empty on the far side of the tracks. “Christine? Little Bert?” Little Bert clasped his sponge and was ready. Herbert opened a door on which was written “Do Not Open” and helped the other two down. But after making a run for it they found the carriages were dark and the doors locked, and that a sign hanging upside down said “Coburg-Pegnitz,” which was more or less where they had come from. “You must never do this, little Bert,” said Herbert.

  “Never do what?”

  “Open the wrong door and cross the tracks. You could be killed or arrested.”

  They made their way to the
platform by lawful means, through an underpass. The station was crammed with passengers who had been turned out of a number of rerouted trains, shouting, arguing, complaining, and asking questions. The American girl stood gazing up at “Pegnitz” as if she could not believe what she saw. She seemed fragile and lonely.

  “Help her,” said Christine. “She doesn’t understand. Herbert, you can speak English.”

  “En quel honneur?” said Herbert. “Her German is probably better than little Bert’s.”

  Perhaps it was true, or else when she was among Germans she did not want to hear what they said. She had just returned from the square behind the station where the bus to Pottenstein was usually parked. But everything had been changed around; there wasn’t even a schedule in sight, and everyone on the platform was trying to find out when some train would come by to take them away from Pegnitz. She was seven and a half months pregnant, she had been travelling for hours now, and her back ached. All at once she turned and looked at Herbert. He looked back – respectfully, she believed. She pushed her way over to him through the crowd on the platform and said in her haughtiest English, “Sir! Vare iss ze boss to Buttonshtah?” which was enough to tell any careful census taker (Herbert, for one) her nationality, schooling, region, village – what part of village, even, if one was particular over details.

  The fact of the matter was that she was on her way home to Pottenstein and that her shape was bound to be something of a shock to her parents. However, once they had recovered consciousness they would certainly try to help. For instance, they had a friend, a garage mechanic who had worked for two years in America and knew the customs. He had returned to Pottenstein for two reasons: one, when Americans invited him to their houses they would offer him something to drink and never a bite to eat, which showed that they were not refined; and two, he had been offended by the anti-German tone of the television commercials for a certain brand of coffee. This man would be called in to look at the letter she had intercepted, stolen, read in secret, and reread until she could see every word with her eyes tight shut. He would tell her how to use the letter in order to further her case – providing she had a case at all.