CHAPTER

23

The attacks intensified and came from all sides, now striking at the house itself. Karl would lie in wait for the attackers and scare them off. Sometimes he would catch one of them. They were mainly the kind of young people from outlying neighborhoods who, after work in a factory and downing a drink or two, would invade the center, jeer at the old men, and steal their money. Recently they had found a new target: Gloria. At first, Gloria gave as good as she got. She cursed them and their mothers. But Karl would not submit, even as the earth was collapsing from under their feet. At the same time, though, he had begun dreaming about a long trip to the provinces. When she heard his plans, Gloria’s face would become worried, as if he were speaking of some frightening delusion.

“And after the trip, will we return here?” she would ask.

“No.”

“Where will we live?”

“In different cities. Isn’t that more interesting?”

“And we won’t have a house?”

“Why do we need a house?”

The nights were still quiet, and Karl would sink into Gloria’s body with total abandon. In the morning he would get up late and hurry to work.

One evening a gang descended on the house. Without hesitating, Karl went after them. But this time they were quicker than he. One of them threw a knife and struck Gloria’s shoulder. When Karl returned, he found Gloria lying flat on the floor.

He summoned Freddy, who came in his carriage. Seeing that the wound was deep, they quickly got her to the hospital.

After Freddy had conferred with the staff doctor about Gloria’s wound, Karl spoke excitedly about the need to combat the spread of violence. He sounded like those young Jews who had fled to Russia to learn how to fight injustice. That night Karl and Freddy sat up in the hospital café until very late. Karl told him he was thinking of resigning from his position and going out into the provinces.

“What will you do there?” Freddy asked anxiously.

“I don’t know. I need trees now, not people.”

“I wouldn’t leave a steady job,” said Freddy.

“I’ve had my fill of people. I’m hungry for some trees and streams.”

Hearing those words, Freddy opened his eyes wide, as if Karl had said something truly astonishing.

That night Karl felt that everything around him was closing in on him. Rage gnawed at his limbs. Freddy was his only friend left in Neufeld. Still, it was hard to rely on him. His heart was boundless, but his mind could be narrow. Every time he encountered a problem, he would revert to his parents’ tired notions. “I wouldn’t leave a steady job,” he had repeated several times that night. And for some reason he was sure that Gloria had been stabbed because she was involved in a dispute. “Housemaids are always quarreling,” he declared.

“Gloria doesn’t quarrel. I’m the one who quarrels.”

“So why did they stab her?”

“Are you asking me?”

Freddy wasn’t about to grasp Karl’s relation to Gloria. His opinion was that if Gloria returned to her native village, things would go more easily for Karl.

Why are you so naïve, my dear fellow, Karl wanted to say.

After two weeks, Gloria was released from the hospital. Immediately she began tidying the house. Karl’s pleas were of no use: “You’ve got to rest,” he said. “Anyway, we’re leaving.”

“Where will we go?”

“To the Carpathians. Haven’t we said they’re a wonder of nature?”

“It’s all because of me.”

“I need trees now, not people.”

“I’m the one who must leave, not you.”

“Both of us,” he said, smiling.

He put the house up for sale. Agents and buyers would come and go during the evening hours. They were quick to point out the flaws: too close to the old town center, the ceiling was low, the floor was sinking. Karl saw their cunning attempts to depreciate the property. In the end, their offers were barely half the house’s value. But what irked him most were not the low offers themselves but the way they were made—in a teasing, mocking manner calculated to insult.

“I won’t sell to them,” he reported to Gloria without comment.

“As you wish.”

She had apparently underestimated his determination. At the end of March he wrote a brief letter to the mayor announcing his intention to resign. The mayor’s reply was courteous, but he did not ask him, as was customary, to postpone his decision. Nor did he ask to see him. If that’s how it is, Karl said to himself, then I acted correctly.

The house wasn’t yet sold. Meanwhile, Gloria cried at night, and Karl promised her that life in the Carpathians would be a life of truth, without pretense or fear.

One evening on his way home he met his friend Erwin.

“I’m leaving for the Carpathians,” Karl told him.

“On a trip?”

“Forever.”

“You mean you won’t be coming back here?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Strange,” said Erwin, and the astonishment in his face grew deeper.

“I’m glad to get free of this prison,” said Karl.

“Prison?”

“What else could I call it?”

“In the Middle Ages, they used to call the body a prison, so why not?”

“Don’t you feel that the empire is disintegrating?”

“Yes, but I’ll never leave here,” said Erwin, and a faint smile flickered on his lips.