Breakfast in the Ruins kg-2 Read online

  Soon the cart went away. The soldiers sat down by the graveside and lit their pipes, complaining about the smell, which had become almost overpowering, and passing a bottle of wine back and forth. "I'll be glad when this is over," said one.

  Karl squatted against the wall of the house, trying to distinguish his mother's voice amongst those which groaned or cried out from the pit. He was sure he could hear her pleading to be let out.

  By dawn, her voice had stopped and the cart came back with a fresh load. These were dumped into the pit and the soldiers got up reluctantly at the command of their officer, putting down their rifles and picking up shovels. They began to throw earth onto the bodies.

  When the grave was covered, Karl got up and began to walk away.

  The guards put down their shovels. They seemed more cheerful now and they opened another bottle of wine. One of them saw Karl. "Hello, young man. You're up early." He ruffled the boy's hair. "Hoping for some more excitement, eh?" He took a pull on the bottle and then offered it to Karl. "Like a drink? " He laughed. Karl smiled at him.

  Karl gasps and he writhes on the bed.

  — What are you doing? he says.

  — Don't you like it? You don't have to like it. Not everyone does.

  — Oh, God, says Karl.

  The black man gets up. His body gleams in the faint light from the window. He moves gracefully back, out of range of Karl's vision.—Perhaps you had better sleep. There is lots of time.

  -No...

  — You want to go on? A pause.

  -Yes...

  What Would You Do? (2)

  You have been brought to a room by the Secret Police.

  They say that you can save the lives of your whole family if you will only assist them in one way.

  You agree to help.

  There is a table covered by a cloth. They remove the cloth and reveal a profusion of objects. There is a children's comforter, a Smith and Wesson.45, an umbrella, a big volume of Don Quixote, illustrated by Dore, two blankets, a jar of honey, four bottles of drugs, a bicycle pump, some blank envelopes, a carton of Sullivans cigarettes, an enameled pin with the word 1900 on it (blue on gold), a wrist-watch, a Japanese fan.

  They tell you that all you have to do is choose the correct object and you and your family will be released.

  You have never seen any of the objects before. You tell them this. They nod. That is all right. They know. Now choose.

  You stare at the objects, trying to divine their significance.

  3

  Kaffee Klatsch in Brunswick: 1883:

  The Lowdown Bismarck was very fond of enlarging on his favorite theory of the male and female European nations. The Germans themselves, the three Scandinavian peoples, the Dutch, the English proper, the Scotch, the Hungarians and the Turks, he declared to be essentially male races. The Russians, the Poles, the Bohemians, and indeed every Slavonic people, and all Celts, he maintained, just as emphatically, to be female races. A female race he ungallantly defined as one given to immense verbosity, to fickleness, and to lack of tenacity. He conceded to these feminine races some of the advantages of their sex, and acknowledged that they had great powers of attraction and charm, when they chose to exert them, and also a fluency of speech denied to the more virile nations. He maintained stoutly that it was quite useless to expect efficiency in any form from one of the female races, and he was full of contempt for the Celt and the Slav. He contended that the most interesting nations were the epicene ones, partaking, that is, of the characteristics of both sexes, and he instanced France and Italy, intensely virile in the North, absolutely female in the South; maintaining that the Northern French had saved their country times out of number from the follies of the "Meridionaux". He attributed the efficiency of the Frenchmen of the North to the fact that they had so large a proportion of Frankish and Norman blood in their veins, the Franks being a Germanic tribe, and the Normans, as their name implied, Northmen of Scandinavian, therefore also of Teutonic, origin. He declared that the fair-haired Piedmontese were the driving power of Italy, and that they owed their initiative to their descent from the Germanic hordes who invaded Italy under Alaric in the fifth century. Bismarck stoutly maintained that efficiency wherever it was found, was due to Teutonic blood; a statement with which I will not quarrel.

  As the inventor of "Practical Politics" (Real-Politik), Bismarck had a supreme contempt for fluent talkers and for words, saying that only fools could imagine that facts could be talked away. He cynically added that words were sometimes useful for "papering over structural cracks" when they had to be concealed for a time.

  With his intensely overbearing disposition, Bismarck could not brook the smallest contradiction, or any criticism whatever. I have often watched him in the Reichstag—then housed in a very modest building—whilst being attacked, especially by Lieb-knecht the Socialist. He made no effort to conceal his anger, and would stab the blotting-pad before him viciously with a metal paper-cutter, his face purple with rage.

  Bismarck himself was a very clear and forcible speaker, with a happy knack of coining felicitous phrases.

  THE VANISHED POMPS OF YESTERDAY.

  Lord Frederick Hamilton. Hodder and Stoughton, 1920.

  There is a big color TV in the suite.

  The Nigerian walks up to it. His penis is still slightly stiff.—Do you want this on?

  Karl is eight. It is 1883. Brunswick. He has a very respectable mother and father. They are kind but firm. It is very comfortable.

  He shakes his head.

  — Well, do you mind if I watch the news? Karl is eight. It is 1948. There is a man in pajamas in his mother's room. It is 1883...

  KARL WAS EIGHT. His mother was thirty-five. His father was forty. They had a large, modem house in the best part of Brunswick. His father's business was in the centre of town. Trade was good in Germany and particularly good in Brunswick. The Glogauers were part of the best society in Brunswick. Frau Glogauer belonged to the coffee circle which once a week met, in rotation, at the house of one of the members. This week the ladies were meeting at Frau Glogauer's.

  Karl, of course, was not allowed into the big drawing room where his mother entertained. His nurse watched over him while he played in the garden in the hot summer sunshine. Through the french windows, which were open, he could just see his mother and her friends. They balanced the delicate china cups so elegantly and they leaned their heads so close together when they talked. They were not bored. Karl was bored.

  He swung back and forth on his swing. Up and down and back and forward and up and down and back. He was dressed in his best velvet suit and he was hot and uncomfortable. But he always dressed in this way when it was his mother's turn to entertain the Kaffee Klatsch, even though he wasn't invited to join them. Usually he was asked to come in just before the ladies left. They would ask him the same questions as, they asked every tune and they would compliment his mother on his looks and his size and his health and they would give him a little piece of gateau. He was looking forward to the gateaux.

  "Karl, you must wear your hat," said Miss Henshaw. Miss Henshaw was English and her German was rather unfortunate in that she had learned it in a village. It was Low German and it made her sound like a yokel. Karl's parents and their friends spoke nothing but the more sophisticated High German. Low German sounded just like English, anyway. He didn't know why she'd bothered to learn it. "Your hat, Karl. The sun is too hot."

  In her garishly striped blouse and her silly, stiff grey skirt and her own floppy white hat, Miss Henshaw looked awful. How dowdy and decrepit she was compared to Mother who, corseted and bustled and covered in pretty silk ribbons and buttons and lace and brocade, moved with the dignity of a six-masted clipper. Miss Henshaw was evidently only a servant, for all her pretense at authority.

  She stretched out her freckled arm, offering him the little sun hat. He ignored her, making the swing go higher and higher.

  "You will get sunstroke, Karl. Your mother will be very angry with me." />
  Karl shrugged and kicked his feet out straight, enjoying Miss Henshaw's helplessness.

  "Karl! Karl!"

  Miss Henshaw's voice was almost a screech.

  Karl grinned. He saw that the ladies were looking out at him through the open window. He waved to his mother. The ladies smiled and returned to their gossip.

  He knew it was gossip, about everyone in Brunswick, because once he had lain beside the window in the shrubs and listened before he had been caught by Miss Henshaw. He wished that he had understood more of the references, but at least he had got one useful tip—that Fritz Vieweg's father had been born "the wrong side of the blanket". He hadn't been sure of the meaning, but when he had confronted Fritz Vieweg with it, it had stopped Vieweg calling him a "Jew-pig" all right.

  Gossip like that was worth a lot.

  "Karl! Karl!"

  "Oh, go away Fraulein Henshaw. I am not in need of my hat at present." He chuckled to himself. When he talked like his father, she always disapproved.

  His mother appeared in the doorway of the french window.

  "Karl, dear. There is someone who would like to meet you. May we have Karl in with us for a moment, Miss Henshaw?"

  "Of course, Frau Glogauer." Miss Henshaw darted him a look of stern triumph. Reluctantly, he let the swing slow down and then jumped off.

  Miss Henshaw took his hand and they walked across the ornamental pavement to the french windows. His mother smiled fondly and patted his head.

  "Frau Spiegelberg is here and wants to meet you."

  He supposed, from his mother's tone, that he should know who Frau Spiegelberg was, that she must be an important visitor, not one of Frau Glogauer's regulars. A woman dressed in purple and white silk was towering behind his mother. She gave him quite a friendly smile. He bowed twice very deeply. "Good afternoon, Frau Spiegelberg."

  "Good afternoon, Karl," said Frau Spiegelberg.

  "Frau Spiegelberg is from Berlin, Karl," said his mother. "She has met the great Chancellor Bismarck himself!"

  Again Karl bowed.

  The ladies laughed. Frau Spiegelberg said with charming, almost coquettish modesty, "I must emphasize I am not on intimate terms with Prinz Bismarck!" and she gave a trilling laugh. Karl knew that all the ladies would be practicing that laugh after she had gone back to Berlin.

  "I would like to go to Berlin," said Karl.

  "It is a very fine city," said Frau Spiegelberg complacently. "But your Brunswick is very pretty."

  Karl was at a loss for something to say. He frowned and then brightened. "Frau Spiegelberg -" he gave another little bow—"have you met Chancellor Bismarck's son?"

  "I have met both. Do you mean Herbert or William or -" Frau Spiegelberg glanced modestly at her companions again—"Bill as he likes to be called."

  "Bill," said Karl.

  "I have attended several balls at which he has been present, yes."

  "So you—have touched him, Frau Spiegelberg?"

  And again the trilling laugh. "Why do you ask?"

  "Well, Father met him once I believe when on business in Berlin..."

  "So your Father and I have an acquaintance in common. That is splendid, Karl." Frau Spiegelberg made to turn away. "A handsome boy, Frau -"

  "And Father shook hands with him," said Karl.

  "Really? Well..."

  "And Father said he drank so much beer that his hands were always wet and clammy and he could not possibly live for long if he continued to drink that much. Father is, himself, not averse to a few tots of beer or glasses of punch, but he swears he has never seen anyone drink so much in all his life. Is Bill Bismarck dead yet, Frau Spiegelberg?"

  His mother had been listening to him in cold horror, her mouth open. Frau Spiegelberg raised her eyebrows. The other ladies glanced at each other. Miss Henshaw took his hand and began to pull him away, apologizing to his mother.

  Karl bowed again. "I am honored to have met you, Frau Spiegelberg," he said in his father's voice. "I am afraid I have embarrassed you and so I will take my leave now." Miss Henshaw's tugging became more insistent. "I hope we shall meet again before you return to Berlin, Frau Spiegelberg..."

  "It is time I left," icily said Frau Spiegelberg to his mother.

  His mother came out for a moment and hissed: "You disgusting child. You will be punished for this. Your father shall do it."

  "But, Mother...".

  "In the meantime, Miss Henshaw," said Frau Glogauer in a terrible murmur, "you have my permission to beat the boy."

  Karl shuddered as he caught a glint of hidden malice in Miss Henshaw's pale, grey eyes.

  "Very well, madam," said Miss Henshaw. As she led him away he heard her sigh a deep sigh of pleasure.

  Already, he was plotting his own revenge.

  — You'll like it better when you get used to it. It's a question of your frame of mind. Karl sighs.—Maybe.

  — It's a matter of time, that's all.

  — I believe you.

  — You've got to let yourself go.

  They sip the dry, chilled champagne the black man has ordered. Outside, people are going into the theatres.

  — After all, says the black man—we are many people. There are a lot of different sides to one's personality. You mustn't feel that you've lost something. You have gained something. Another aspect is flowering.

  — I feel terrible.

  — It won't last. Your moment will come. Karl smiles. The black man's English is not always perfect.

  — There, you see, you are feeling more relaxed already. The black man reaches out and touches his arm.—How smooth your flesh is. What are you thinking?

  — I was remembering the time I found the air-raid warden in bed with my mother. I remember her explaining it to my father. My father was a patient man.

  — Is your father still alive?

  — I don't know.

  — You have a great deal to learn, yet.

  What Would You Do? (3)

  You are returning from the theatre after a pleasant evening with your sweetheart. You are in the centre of the city and you want a taxi. You decide to go to the main railway station and find a taxi there. As you come into a side-entrance and approach a flight of steps you see an old man trying to ascend. He is evidently incapably drunk. Normally you would help him up the steps, but in this case there is a problem. His trousers have fallen down to his ankles, revealing his filthy legs. From his bottom protrude several pieces of newspaper covered in excrement. To help him would be a messy task, to say the least, and you are reluctant to spoil the previously pleasant mood of the evening. There is a second or two before you pass him and continue on your journey.

  4

  Capetown Party: 1892:

  Butterflies

  In the meantime let us not forget that if errors of judgment have been committed, they have been committed by men whose zeal and patriotism has never been doubted. We cannot refrain, however, from alluding here to the greatest of all lessons which this war has taught, not us alone, but all the world—the solidarity of the Empire. And for that great demonstration what sacrifice was not worth making.

  WITH THE FLAG TO PRETORIA.

  H. W. Wilson, Harmsworth Brothers 1900.

  Karl emerges from the deep bath. Liquid drips from him. He stares in bewilderment at himself in the wall mirror opposite.

  — Why did you make me do that?

  — I thought you'd like it. You said how much you admired my body.

  — I meant your physique.

  — Oh, I see.

  — I look like something out of a minstrel show. Al Jolson...

  — Yes, you do rather. But you could pass for what? An Eurasian? The black man begins to laugh. Karl laughs, too. They fall into each other's arms.

  — It shouldn't take long to dry, says the black man. Karl is nine. Is 1892. He is at work now.

  — I think I like you better like that, says the black man. He puts a palm on Karl's damp thigh.—It's your color... Karl giggles.

&nbs
p; — There, you see, it has made you feel better.

  KARL WAS NINE. His mother did not know her age. He did not know his father. He was a servant in a house with a huge garden. A white house. He was the punkah-wallah, the boy who operated the giant fan which swept back and forth over the white people while they were eating. When he was not doing this, he helped the cook in the kitchen. Whenever he could, however, he was out in the grounds with his net. He had a passion for butterflies. He had a large collection in the room he shared with the two other little house-boys and his companions were very envious. If he saw a specimen he did not own, he would forget everything else until he had caught it. Everyone knew about his hobby and that was why he was known as "Butterfly" by everyone, from the master and mistress down. It was a kind house and they tolerated his passion. It was not everyone, even, who would employ a Cape Colored boy, because most thought that half-breeds were less trustworthy than pure-blooded natives. The master had presented him with a proper killing jar and an old velvet-lined case in which to mount his specimens. Karl was very lucky.