The Decision

THE DECISION

BRITTA BÖHLER

Translated from Dutch 

by Jeannette K. Ringold

Originally published with the title De Beslissing by Uitgeverij Cossee

Copyright © 2013 by Uitgeverij Cossee, Amsterdam, and Britta Böhler

First published in Great Britain in 2015 by

HAUS PUBLISHING LTD

70 Cadogan Place, London SW1X 9AH

www.hauspublishing.com

English translation copyright © Jeannette K. Ringold, 2015

ISBN 978-1-910376-13-3

eISBN 978-1-910376-22-5

A CIP catalogue for this book is available from the British Library

The publisher gratefully acknowledges the support of the Dutch Foundation for Literature.

All rights reserved

‘Ethics and esthetics are one.’

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Friday, 31 January 1936

Allegro ma non troppo

1

Finally! After hesitating for three years he has done what had to be done. He hooks his cane over his arm and walks slowly down the wide staircase. On Monday the letter will appear in the newspaper, a public repudiation of the regime and also of Germany. Erika will be proud of him, proud that the magician has admirably discharged his duty. He has listened to his conscience and his conviction, his profound conviction as it says in the letter, that nothing good can come from the present-day German regime, not for Germany and certainly not for the world.

Two editors almost run into him as they rush up the stairs, two steps at a time. The younger of the two has a pencil behind his ear, his suit is wrinkled, and his tie is crooked. Wildly gesticulating, he is trying to convince the older colleague of something. The two walk right past him; the younger one almost touches his elbow; they smell of damp paper.

He is thirsty; his mouth is dry. They could at least have offered him a cup of tea in the editorial office. He stops for a moment. Shall he go back and ask for a glass of water? He looks at the grandfather clock in the main lobby. No, he mustn’t waste more time. The visit to the newspaper has taken much longer than he had expected, and Katja will certainly be wondering where he is. He crosses the lobby, quickly now and with determined steps. He nods at the blond receptionist; he wants to thank her for her trouble, but she is leafing through a magazine and doesn’t notice him. Irritated, he goes ‘tsk, tsk’ and walks past her to the exit.

When the heavy entrance door falls shut behind him with a dull thud, he flinches in spite of himself. ‘Now the bonds are broken,’ he mutters. He takes a deep breath and says energetically: ‘This is good.’

He stops on the threshold to pull on his gloves and to button his coat. For the meeting with Korrodi he is wearing his new winter coat with the dark-grey fur collar, although it’s actually too warm for it. The sudden mild weather and the föhn wind disagree with him. While getting up this morning he became dizzy; he had to hold onto the bedpost and breathe deeply at the open window for a couple of minutes before his circulation returned to normal.

Loudly honking, a black car passes; water splashes to all sides. He avoids a large puddle and crosses the street. He detests this nasty wet weather, these dark days when even during the day you have to work by electric light. Winter is not his season. In November, when the days shorten and the cloudy, grey sky narrows our vision, it would be good to be able to crawl into a hole like hedgehogs and marmots. Right now he’d love to curl up on a soft bed of hemp and grass and not wake up until spring.

December is the only good winter month. Christmas! Children’s words and children’s happiness. Each year all through Advent he looks forward to his favorite holiday – the weather and the darkness don’t bother him then. Even abroad, Christmas hasn’t lost any of its glow. At least they haven’t been able to take that away from him, those bastards in Berlin. Even though the holidays in Munich were of course much lovelier than here.

Every year, well before Christmas, the entrance hall would be changed into a Christmas room with the tree in the middle. A majestic, dark pine that reached the ceiling. Katja always bought the tree herself; she felt that you couldn’t leave that to the servants.

She’d bring the ornaments up from the cellar, and together they decorated the tree. He whistled Christmas songs and looked forward eagerly to the next day. On the lowest branches they hung four large cloth balls: red, blue, green, and white. Katja had bought them when Erika started walking. ‘To touch,’ Katja had said; the glass decorations were too dangerous, the toddler might break the glass and hurt herself. These were instead hung on the higher branches, and that’s how it continued, even when the children were older. When all the decorations had been hung, silver streamers were looped over the branches and candleholders were clipped on. The last thing he did was to place the gilded angel at the top of the tree.

On Christmas Eve Katja would sit in the darkened study with the children. They sang Christmas carols and waited until he lit the red candles, opened the double doors, and let the children – with delighted oh’s and ah’s – come from the dark room into the brightly lit entrance hall. They rushed to the table next to the tree that was laden with colorful wrapped presents and candy. There were gifts for everyone, also for the servants – no one was forgotten.

And Christmas morning was so wonderful when he emerged from his bedroom very early and smelled the pine as he came down the stairs. Everyone was still asleep, not a sound could be heard, and the smell of pine accompanied him until he was in his study and closed the door behind him.

Compared to Christmas, New Year’s leaves him cold. He often goes to bed before midnight; he can’t stand the New Year’s bustle and all the cheerfulness. What is the point of resolutions that are not carried out and predictions that don’t come true? Every new year brings the same difficulties and conflicts as the previous year.

He crosses Schillerstrasse, walks past the opera, and hesitates for a moment. The way via Utoquai is shorter, but he wants to walk along the lake. He quickens his pace and goes toward the lakeshore.

2

The walkway is quiet and deserted; the bare trees cast odd slanted shadows. No strollers taking a walk in the moonlight and no lovers exchanging secret oaths of fidelity under the protection of darkness.

Slowly he walks along the edge of the lake and while walking pokes with his cane in the hard soil. A squirrel races up a tree trunk, startled by his presence. The small pavilion, where a violinist played in nice weather, has been boarded up. He had watched with pleasure how the attractive young man played and couples danced.

He is still annoyed that, of all things, that stupid article by Schwarzschild had been the immediate reason for the letter. It places the affair in the wrong light and doesn’t do justice to its importance. Still, the Neue Zürcher Zeitung is one of the best German language newspapers; it is read not only in Switzerland but also in other countries and not only by German expatriates. No, Korrodi’s reputation is above suspicion.

He stops and looks out over the lake. Wisps of mist rise from the water. Across the lake is the white, brightly lit façade of Baur au Lac. In the summer he often sat on the terrace of the hotel; he’d drink his vermouth and look at the colorful bustle on the promenade until Katja returned from shopping in the city. Farther down on Hirschengraben is the German consulate, nowadays with a swastika flag on the roof. The letter will cause a stir in Berlin, that’s for sure; most likely they haven’t counted on that. He squeezes his eyes half shut. The darkness has swallowed the flag, he thinks, and that silly thought almost makes him laugh.

Next week the whole world will know where he stands. There will no longer be any doubt about his position, and there will be an end to everything that was ambiguous and undecided. He hunches his shoulders and pulls up the collar of his coat. He had expected to be relieved and in a good mood after delivering the letter, but he can’t dismiss his doubts. Did he do the right thing? Did he perhaps act too rashly? He will make enemies with that letter, and not only in Berlin. And Bermann will be far from happy. The publisher is having a hard time these days, and without him the publishing house will probably not be able to keep its head above water in the Reich.

Of course it’s true that Bermann hasn’t always made things easy for him. The question of Klaus’s magazine, for example – a nasty affair whereby Bermann drove him into a corner.

But it had been Klaus’s fault in the first place. Why did that boy have to print that very aggressive essay by Heinrich in the very first issue? His older brother and his son resemble each other so much – you’d almost think that Klaus was Heinrich’s child. Thoughtless and impulsive, without thinking of the consequences. Was it really necessary to depict Goering as a morphine-addicted, bloodthirsty monster?

Bermann had become terribly agitated, he ranted and raved on the telephone. Katja had rolled her eyes; she felt that Bermann was exaggerating – you shouldn’t take everything so seriously. But Bermann wouldn’t calm down. According to him the future of the entire publishing house was at stake; how would he be able to keep his head above water in Germany if his authors were engaged in political agitation? Not to mention the consequences that Klaus’s unthinking action would have for the first two Joseph volumes that were about to be published. ‘There is no doubt,’ Bermann insisted, ‘you have to terminate your association with the magazine.’

He walks a few feet and stops. Wind gusts rise up from the lake. He takes his cigarette case from the inside pocket of his coat and looks for his lighter. The wind blows out the flame; it takes a while before he succeeds in lighting the cigarette.

Yes, the letter would have unpleasant consequences. He can kiss goodbye to restitution of the house and the furniture in Munich. That gang of thieves in Berlin has confiscated everything, literally everything, as punishment for his remaining abroad ‘illegally’. For three years he has been trying to get back his possessions.

Again and again he has written letters to the Reichsstatt-halter to state that he has not fled the Reich, but that his wife is in poor health and hopes to recover in Switzerland. His lawyer, faithful Heins, also put himself out considerably, but it didn’t help one bit. Even payment of the Reichsflucht-steuer – the