There is no other way of putting it: Magda was rigid with shock. And as for Konrad’s appearance, one has to say it was pitiful.
Apart from the darker patches of stubble, his face was ghostly pale. The brow especially, lengthened by the recent brutal haircut, looked waxen. His lantern jaws transformed his appearance. His cheekbones bulged, and the eyes were sunk in their hollows, the look in them was one she had never seen.
There he stood, haggard, awkward, silent, smelling of sweat and booze.
Finally, almost inaudibly, he asked the stunned Magda: What are you doing here?
Waiting for you! she cried, threw her arms round him, crying, and pressed him to her. My God I’ve missed you, I was so worried for you, my poor dear husband!
Konrad did not hold her, but nor did he try to break away either, he just stood there with his arms hanging down, and said: There there.
Magda pulled him into the living room.
Come on, come, what’s the matter with you, what’s the matter with you for Lord’s sake? Are you ill? Yes, you’re ill, what’s the matter with you?
The sole of my foot is poisoned, said Konrad, apart from that I’m all right, but I stink.
He said little, and didn’t talk about what he had been through.
Magda was careful of him. She avoided asking him questions. Luckily, he agreed to eat a little something, and he didn’t refuse a bubble bath either. She sat on the edge of the tub, stroking his head, and said: I like your new haircut.
He said: There there.
Tomorrow morning, Magda said, I’ll call the school and tell them you’re not well. Then I’ll nurse you back to health.
Konrad asked: Did your brother leave?
Oh, Koni, she said, you know I don’t have a brother! Since when did you think I had a brother?
I see, he said, absent-mindedly.
Magda didn’t show her horror at Konrad’s confusion. She said: Guess what, I’ve started smoking, I think it was purely from missing you so badly! Did you think of me sometimes when you were in Italy? – Yes, he said.
After his bath, he seemed to feel better. In his dressing gown he sat down at the table, and drank a chamomile tea. He asked: Did she get a new lampshade then? – That’s not new, Magda contradicted him, we always had that! – Konrad said: It shed a kindlier light before. – She changed the subject: Guess what, I knitted a new sweater vest for you – wouldn’t you like to try it on? – He said: Summer’s all very well, but what about the flies. – Come on, just try it on for me, said Magda, you can keep your pajama top on. – He took off his dressing gown, and she brought the vest for him to slip into. After a while he said: That’s not possible. – Magda said: But why not, it’s a lovely fit, don’t you like it? Konrad said: Can’t you hear the wind whistling through it.
Fighting off laughter and tears, Magda lit a cigarette. Then she said: Well, is it all right if I call tomorrow and tell the school you’re ill? – No! he cried, that’s all I need! I’ve only got two classes tomorrow, both history, and a break in between, I can manage that! – Are you prepared? asked Magda. He answered: For thirty-two years I was industrious and dependable. Where idleness dwells, the beams sag – or so I thought. Well, I was a busy carle, and they sagged anyway.
Tears slithered down his expressionless face. Magda put her arms around him, and said quietly: Come on, I’ll put you to bed! – I still need to pack my briefcase, he said.
He stood in front of the bookcase, pulled out the odd volume, leafed around in it, and put it back. One blue paperback he kept in his hands for longer. – Listen to this, Magda! he suddenly said. – Yes, I’m listening. – He read: “Of course life is poor and solitary. We live in the depths, like the diamond in its pit. In vain do we ask how we got there, in the hope of making our way back up.”
He went on browsing, and asked: Are you listening? – Yes, darling, she replied. He read: “When I see a child and think how humiliating and deleterious is the yoke it will bear, and that it will work, as we do, that it will seek people, as we do, to ask, as we do, after the beautiful and the true, that it will pass infertile, that it – O, pluck your sons out of their cradles, and throw them in the river . . .”
Nice, isn’t it? said Konrad, but Magda said: I want a baby! – Now, all at once? he asked. – Yes, she replied, for the last two weeks I’ve wanted a baby.
Silently, he stowed a couple of books in his briefcase. He asked: Do you know what the time is? – Ten to midnight, she said, are you sure you want me to wake you at half past six? – Whatever for? he murmured, and, because Magda was looking at him questioningly: I’m never going to set foot in that fiendish establishment again! – Good, she said, then we can have a lie in tomorrow morning.
He went to the bathroom once more. When he came back, he said sadly: Toilet paper is getting shoddier by the day.
Do you want to be by yourself? she asked shyly, and he answered: It’s probably advisable.
Magda saw him to his room, and tucked him up. Konrad whispered: I can’t find him in any of the encyclopedias! – Find who? she asked. – A man by the name of John Knickerbocker! – Who’s that? – He’s the author of a little sentence I greatly admire, replied Konrad, even though it’s only three words long.
Magda waited patiently for the sentence to be vouchsafed to her, but soon noticed that Konrad had fallen into a deep sleep.
Later she lay in bed, crying. She felt as though she had someone’s knee pressed against her throat.
Shortly after six she was woken by a jangle of glassware. She got up right away. Konrad was sitting at the table, fully dressed. His hands were shaking. In front of him was a large glass brimful of brandy. – You’re not drinking that! screamed Magda. – I am drinking that, said Konrad in hoarse tones, I have to drink that, because otherwise I won’t be able to teach. – She dropped onto the sofa and said: You’re mad. – He picked up the glass, and drained it. Then he said: You see how calm my hands are now, you used to be so keen on them once, do you remember, these hands? – I still love them, sobbed Magda, but you mustn’t destroy yourself, please please stay at home, you’re so ill, I want to look after you and make you better, I love you! – Konrad said: I was your diving board, and you were my Dutch tiled stove, and both were wrong, and both were a mistake. – That’s a lie! cried Magda, you were never my diving board, and if I was your Dutch stove, then it’s because I liked it! – You’re lying, roared Konrad, you should be ashamed of yourself, Schmocker told me everything! – What did he tell you, that slimy so-and-so! – Oh, all sorts of things, said Konrad, but we’re not talking about them anymore, they’re all over and in the past, now we have to take things as they come. Thank you for your farewell letter! – What farewell letter? asked Magda. – The one you left on the kitchen table, before you went to Bern to see Helen, went to Bern to see Helen, a comprehensive list of my character flaws. – Oh, God! said Magda, please understand, please forgive me! – There’s nothing to forgive, he said, you were absolutely right, I was a monster, but you too are just flesh and blood and other shortcomings, and it’s quite possible that neither of us will get into heaven. I’m cold, you be warm. – I’m here, said Magda, and she stood up and despairingly kissed his pallid face.
Konrad went to school.
Magda hadn’t been able to keep him at home.
He had spent a long time standing in front of the bathroom mirror, saying the same line twenty or thirty times in a row, that she – Magda – would never forget: “On the brows of a man thrones queen Duty.”