The Gustav Sonata Read online

  When she’d finished the cigarette, she looked directly at Anton and said, ‘You didn’t tell us anything about yourself last time. What does your father do?’

  Anton was trying to eat his slice of Nusstorte, but was finding it difficult. He reached into his mouth and took out the lump of sticky pastry and stuck it onto his plate. ‘He’s a banker,’ he said.

  ‘That is very bad manners, you know,’ said Emilie Perle, grimacing at the gob of Nusstorte. ‘How long have you been in Switzerland?’

  ‘What did you say, Frau Perle?’ said Anton.

  ‘I’m asking, how long has your family been in Switzerland?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Zwiebel is a name more German than Swiss. Perhaps you came over from Germany during the war?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t think so.’

  ‘Or from Austria? With the help of others, perhaps? I expect you know that a lot of people, like Gustav’s father, enabled persecuted families from Germany to make a new life in Switzerland. Perhaps your family was helped in this way?’

  Anton stared at Emilie. She was puffing on another cigarette, blowing the smoke towards the open window. Anton looked away from her and turned to Gustav. ‘Can we go and play now?’ he said.

  ‘Do you remember Germany?’ persisted Emilie.

  Anton shook his head. Gustav saw that his face had turned red, like it did whenever he was about to cry. He knew, somehow, that this peculiar conversation about Germany had come about because of the failed Nusstorte.

  In Gustav’s room, Anton sat down on the narrow bed and looked at the wooden chest of drawers, the Biedermeier chair, the rag rug, the metal wastepaper bin and the map of Mittelland – the only objects the small space contained. He said nothing.

  Gustav stood at the window, pushing his train back and forth. There was silence in the room for several minutes and this silence felt like a kind of suffering to Gustav. He opened the window, hoping to hear – as he sometimes could – the murmuring of the city doves on the roof. The sound of animals or birds could sometimes be consoling. But there was no sound of doves. Gustav went to the chest of drawers and took out the cigar box which contained his ‘treasure’. He brought the box over to the bed and set it down beside Anton.

  ‘Look at this,’ he said. ‘I was going to show you last time. It’s my treasure.’

  Anton turned his attention to the contents of the box. His face was still red and Gustav saw a tear slide down his cheek. He knew that something should be said, but he had no idea what.

  Anton ran his hands through the collection of paper clips, flower petals and nails. Then he picked up the golden lipstick and swivelled it open and stared at it. He wiped his tear away with his hand, looked for a moment at the lipstick, and then slowly painted his lips the deep damson colour. The sight of Anton with these damson lips was so strange that all Gustav could do was laugh. It was a hectic laugh, high-pitched and afraid.

  Anton smiled. ‘Have you got a mirror?’ he said.

  ‘No.’

  ‘I want to see what I look like.’

  ‘You look peculiar.’

  ‘I want to see.’

  ‘We can go into the bathroom.’

  They ran across the landing. Both of them were laughing now and the fear in Gustav’s laughter had diminished. The laughter propelled them into the bathroom, which they were suddenly aware was full of steam, and visible through the steam was Emilie lying in the bath. Her eyes had been closed, her damp head resting on the rim of the bath. When Emilie was tired or angry, she liked to do this, run a bath so hot it filled the room with steam and lie there, naked in the warm mist. Now, when she saw Gustav and Anton come charging in, she screamed. She picked up the soap and threw it at the boys and it hit Gustav on the arm. He knew the pain of this wasn’t very bad, yet it seemed, for a moment, like the worst pain he’d ever endured. Anton was staring at Emilie, at her thin arms resting along the rim of the bath and at her scant breasts, and Gustav knew that this was a terrible thing for his friend to be doing. He pushed him out and quickly followed, slamming the door behind them and rushing back to what felt like the safety of his room.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said to Anton. ‘I didn’t hear her running the bath.’

  Anton was wiping off the lipstick with the back of his hand. Then he went to the window and gazed down at the cherry tree in the courtyard. Gustav rubbed his arm, where the soap had hit him. He thought of the soap slithering around on the bathroom lino and his mother captive in her bath, with no soap to wash herself with.

  ‘What happened to the cherry tree?’ asked Anton after a moment.

  ‘What? What happened?’

  ‘It’s not white any more.’

  ‘No,’ said Gustav. ‘Things are only white for a bit.’

  Emilie didn’t say goodbye to Anton at six o’clock, nor come out to greet his father when he came to collect him. She’d gone to her room and remained there, with the door locked.

  ‘How is your mother, Gustav?’ enquired the banker father politely.

  ‘All right, sir, thank you,’ said Gustav.

  ‘She’s not ill, I trust?’

  ‘No. I think she’s sleeping.’

  ‘Oh, well, we must be quiet then. What’s that all over your face, Anton?’

  ‘Nothing, Father.’

  ‘Well, it’s a very colourful nothing!’

  ‘It’s my fault,’ said Gustav. ‘Shall I fetch a flannel to wash it off?’

  ‘Yes. I think that would be a good idea. He can’t go home looking like that.’

  Gustav went into the bathroom and turned on the hot tap. The steam from Emilie’s bath had evaporated, but there was a damp, unpleasant smell in the cramped space which made Gustav feel embarrassed to be there. He moistened a flannel and quickly returned to Anton and his father. The father took the flannel and scrubbed roughly at Anton’s face. Gustav noticed for the first time the size of the gold signet ring Herr Zwiebel wore on his broad fourth finger.

  ‘My wife and I were wondering,’ Herr Zwiebel said after a moment, ‘whether you might like to come to tea with us one day?’

  Gustav felt a stab of joy, mixed with something else, which seemed like fear, but which he didn’t want to admit was fear. ‘Thank you,’ he said.

  ‘Will you ask your mother? You can walk from school with Anton and my wife will bring you back in the car.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Gustav again.

  ‘You can listen to me play,’ said Anton. ‘I can almost do the fast bit of “Für Elise” now. And I’m learning a Schubert lied. Schubert is difficult, isn’t he, Father?’

  ‘Yes, he is. But so are many things. Eh, Gustav?’

  ‘Yes. But my mother says you have to go on until you master them.’

  ‘Quite right,’ said Herr Zwiebel. ‘Absolutely right.’

  Later that night, Emilie, with newly washed hair framing her serious face, said to Gustav that the whole afternoon – and not just the episode in the bathroom – had been very difficult for her.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mutti. We didn’t know you were in the bath,’ said Gustav.

  ‘I said not only that!’ snapped Emilie. ‘The thing is that the presence of that child here in this wretched little apartment is quite painful to me.’

  ‘Why?’ said Gustav.

  ‘When you’re older, I’ll try to explain it all to you. But for now, please don’t invite him here again. At least not for a while.’

  Gustav stared at his mother. In front of her was one of her aniseed drinks and she was sipping it very fast.

  Whenever he remembered this moment, Gustav knew that what he’d felt was a sudden, overwhelming tiredness – a tiredness born of all the things he didn’t understand. He remembered closing his eyes. A vision of Emilie with her clean hair and her clouded glass came and went, came and went, as things did when he was on the threshold of sleep.

  Linden Tree

  Matzlingen, 1948

  EMILIE ASKED WHERE the Zwiebels’ apart
ment was and when Gustav told her it was on Fribourgstrasse, she said, ‘Oh no.’

  Gustav couldn’t remember Fribourgstrasse – he’d been too young – but he’d been told about their flat there and about Emilie’s geraniums, which she had loved so much.

  ‘What number Fribourgstrasse?’ she asked.

  ‘Seventy-seven.’

  ‘Oh well, at least it’s not the same building. They may not have a nice balcony, like we had.’

  Emilie was making rösti, Gustav’s favourite dish, but she left the frying potatoes to go to the kitchen window and take deep breaths of air, so Gustav came to the stove to watch over them. He liked watching over things that were cooking. He thought that in his future life, which his mother called his ‘right kind of life’, he might become a chef.

  He prodded the rösti with Emilie’s steel spatula, but it was soon snatched out of his hand. ‘Leave it alone!’ she said.

  Gustav was so used to Emilie’s crossness that it didn’t upset him very often. It was just part of how she was, like her thin hair was part of her and her cigarette smoking and her love of magazines. He left the kitchen and went to his room and sat on the bed, where Anton had sat to put on the damson lipstick. All he minded about was being allowed to go to tea with the Zwiebels. But he was almost certain that, now Emilie had been told they lived in Fribourgstrasse, she would find some reason to say no.

  Gustav got up and found his cigar box and took out the lipstick, and remembered how the casing had shone so brightly in the dust underneath the church grating. He polished it a little on his shorts, then he took it through to the kitchen, where the rösti was becoming fragrant and crispy, and held it out in his hand. ‘I’ve got a present for you, Mutti,’ he said.

  Emilie stared at the lipstick in Gustav’s outstretched hand. ‘Where did you get that?’ she said. ‘You didn’t steal it, did you? Your life will never amount to anything, Gustav, if you begin stealing.’

  ‘I found it in the church,’ said Gustav. ‘Under the grating.’

  Emilie hesitated. She wiped her face, sweating a little from the hot stove, with the hem of her apron. Then she said, ‘Don’t you think you should have given it up to Pastor Sammlung?’

  ‘No,’ said Gustav. ‘It was just lying in the dust. I got it for you.’

  ‘I think you should have given it up to the pastor. One of his congregation might have come asking about it.’

  Gustav ignored this and said, ‘Look, Mutti …’ He took the top off the lipstick and showed Emilie the beautiful purple colour.

  ‘Good heavens!’ she said. ‘Who would wear a shade like that?’

  ‘Don’t you like it?’

  ‘No, I don’t. Now, the rösti’s almost ready. Go and wash your hands. And when we go to the church on Saturday, take the lipstick back. Remember, your father was a policeman. He would never have countenanced small acts of pilfering.’

  But later, consoled by her aniseed drink, Emilie said, ‘If you go to tea with the Zwiebels, and the father is away, who will bring you home?’

  ‘Anton’s mother. She has a car.’

  ‘And you would be home by six?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘I don’t want you spending too long there.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘They live differently from us. I don’t want you thinking that our life could be like theirs.’

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘Cars. Pianos. Expensive food. That kind of thing.’

  ‘I like our food. I like our dumplings and rösti …’

  ‘Good. Because it’s all we can afford. Home by six, then.’

  The first things that Gustav saw when he went into the living room of the Zwiebels’ apartment at Fribourgstrasse 77 were the big black grand piano and the window box of scarlet geraniums on the balcony overlooking the street. A part of him – the part which loved Emilie so much – pretended he hadn’t seen the geraniums.

  Anton’s mother was standing by the window, holding a little watering can. She held out a soft, manicured hand to Gustav.

  ‘Ah,’ she said, ‘Gustav. You’re very welcome. You’ve been so kind to Anton.’

  ‘How do you do, Frau Zwiebel?’ said Gustav, bowing, as he had been taught.

  ‘And such nice manners!’ laughed Frau Zwiebel. ‘Where did you learn those?’

  ‘He didn’t learn them. He’s just like that,’ said Anton.

  ‘Even better,’ said Frau Zwiebel. ‘If only it were true of everyone! Now, boys, what would you like to do before we have tea?’

  ‘I’m going to play for Gustav,’ said Anton. ‘I’m going to play “The Linden Tree”.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Frau Zwiebel, ‘do you know it well enough yet?’

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘Well, would you like that, Gustav – for Anton to play “The Linden Tree”?’

  ‘I don’t know what it is.’

  ‘It’s what’s called a lied. It’s a song by Schubert.’

  ‘Who’s going to sing?’

  ‘Nobody today. Sometimes, my husband sings a few bars of this, but mainly Anton just plays the piano part.’

  ‘If you listen carefully and close your eyes,’ said Anton, ‘you can hear the leaves of the tree rustling in the notes.’

  ‘What do you mean, hear the leaves rustling in the notes?’

  ‘You’ll see what I mean.’

  ‘Come on then,’ said Frau Zwiebel, taking Gustav’s hand, ‘you and I will sit on the sofa, Gustav, and Anton will play.’

  The room was large, with a chandelier hanging from the ceiling rose and the walls were hung with heavily framed pictures – too many to count. Near the fireplace stood a porcelain bear. Gustav sat down next to Frau Zwiebel, who smelled of pungent summer flowers.

  He watched Anton fuss with the piano stool, turning it until it was the right height for his small frame. Then, he sat down and fussed with the music, lifting a page and putting it back, folding one corner down. He said, ‘The piece is in the key of E major. Most of the lieder in this cycle are in minor keys, but this one isn’t. I can’t remember why.’

  Gustav stared at Anton. It was difficult to imagine this boy on the piano stool as the same boy who had cried by the kindergarten sandbox. He looked older. His eyes were dry and bright. It was almost as if Anton had gone away from him into another life, into a place where he, Gustav, was too young – or too afraid – to follow. He wanted, then, to stand up and say, Don’t play this ‘Linden Tree’, whatever it is. I don’t want to hear it.

  But the playing had already begun. Frau Zwiebel clasped her hands together in passionate appreciation and she now whispered to Gustav, ‘The tree talks to a sad man. The tree whispers to the man, come and lie down here, under the leaves, and rest. Can you hear the leaves talking to the man?’

  Gustav didn’t think that he could hear this, or else that perhaps he heard it somewhere in him but couldn’t concentrate on it because of that feeling he had that Anton had run on far ahead of him and that he might never look back. But he knew he had to be polite to Frau Zwiebel, so he whispered that yes, he could hear the tree talking, and he thought then that if music could be the leaves of a tree moving in the wind, then perhaps it could also be the man, and he began to expect that there would be a chord – was that what it was called, a chord? – which would sound like a human voice. But the song just ended.

  Anton got down from the piano stool, smiling, and bowed to his mother and bowed to Gustav. And Gustav knew he was expected to clap, so he clapped and Frau Zwiebel clapped and said, ‘Well done, Anton. That’s coming along very well.’

  ‘Did you like it, Gustav?’ asked Anton.

  ‘Yes,’ said Gustav. ‘But why didn’t the man talk back to the tree?’

  Anton burst out laughing. ‘Talk back to the tree? You can’t have that! He’s not really there. He’s quite old and sad. He’s just remembering, isn’t he, Mother?’

  ‘I think that’s it, yes. He’s remembering. I think he heard the leaves of the t
ree rustling like that when he was very young, perhaps as young as you boys: “Und seine Zweige rauschten / Als riefen sie mir zu …” And perhaps he used to lie down under the tree and dream. But he can’t go back.’

  ‘Why can’t he?’ asked Gustav.

  ‘Because that’s how life is. You can never go back once things are past.’

  ‘Like we can’t go back to the kindergarten?’

  ‘Exactly. You have to go forward. Never back. Now, Anton, what else are you going to play?’

  ‘I’m not going to. I’m going to show Gustav my new train set. I just wanted him to hear “The Linden Tree”.’

  There was so much that had been confusing about ‘The Linden Tree’ that Gustav almost wished Anton hadn’t played it. It wasn’t just the business about the notes sounding like rustling leaves (and yet they didn’t, not quite), or the sad man who was and was not there; it was the fact of Anton being able to play this complicated song. How could he have learned it? When?

  And then Gustav had another thought which he found disturbing. He imagined that at the very time when he and Emilie were on their hands and knees cleaning the Church of Sankt Johann, on Saturday mornings, Anton was with his piano teacher. He and Emilie were scrubbing and dusting and polishing while Anton was playing music by Schubert.

  He decided: I won’t tell Mutti. Mutti doesn’t need to know about the geraniums, and Mutti doesn’t need to know about Anton playing ‘The Linden Tree’.

  While these thoughts distracted Gustav, Anton was asking him to look at his new train set. The boys knelt down beside the little steel rails set out in a circle on the carpet in Anton’s spacious room. The train on it, smartly painted and with brass fittings and realistic coal in the furnace box, had a winder key. You wound it up and set it on the rails, and it clicked slowly along. There was a signal set up over the track and Anton put his hand on the train, so that it would stop here. ‘That’s what trains do,’ he said, ‘they stop at signals. And this makes my mother afraid. I don’t know why. She always asks, “Why are we stopping?” and Father says, “I expect we’re stopping at a signal, dear. Nothing to worry about.”’

  Perhaps Anton thought that this would amuse Gustav, this little imitation of his parents, because when Gustav didn’t laugh he asked, ‘Are you all right? You’re a bit quiet.’