Read Online Death in Rome by Wolfgang Koeppen - Free Book Online Page B

just been arrested for the first time; it was the day of the first little anti-Jewish boycott, and it wasn't till later, the Kristallnacht, that Aufhäu ser's store was set on fire. I got the day off at the Junker school and I saw it burning, the first building I saw burned down. And Aufhäuser was back in protective custody, and my Father sat at the head of the table, ladling out soup, he liked to play the patriarch occasionally, and Goring and Goebbels were spitting venom on the wireless, and my mother said: 'I must say it's a shame about all the beautiful things that were lost to the flames.' And old Aufhäuser was once again in protective custody, and later on I came across his library; it lay in disorderly heaps in the attic of the Hitlerjugendheim , somebody must have carted it off there and then forgotten all about it. Aufhäuser was a bibliophile, and I found first editions of the Classics and Romantics, precious old German and Latin volumes, first editions of the Naturalists, of the Mann brothers, of the works of Hofmannsthal, Rilke, George, bound volumes of periodicals like Blätter für die Kunst and Neue Rundschau , the literature of the First World War, the Expressionists up to Kafka. I helped myself, and later whatever was left was burned, was blown up by bombs along with the rest of the Hitlerjugendheim , and Aufhäuser, the captive in protective custody was murdered—and this was his daughter. Could I bear to look at her? Where were my thoughts running off to? My thoughts rebelled. They said: She's in pretty good shape, she must be forty and hardly a wrinkle on her. And my thoughts went on: The Aufhäusers were wealthy, wonder if she got compensation? And then: He didn't marry her money, it was too late for that, he did it to oppose evil. And then: They love each other, they've stayed together, they're still in love. And we went to table, we sat down, Kürenberg served the food, she poured the wine. It must have been a delicious meal, the chef deserved my compliments, but I couldn't bring myself to do it, nothing had a taste—or rather, it tasted of ashes, dead ashes blowing on the wind. And I thought: She didn't see her father's store on fire. And I thought: She didn't see our houses burning down, either. And I thought: It's over over over, nothing can be done about it, nothing nothing, it's finished finished finished finished. There was fresh spinach, sautéed in fine oil, and over it we sprinkled the cheese I'd grated myself, and my steak was two fingers thick, as soft as butter, and blood ran out of the heart of it, and the wine was as cold and dry as a fresh spring, I was able to taste that still in spite of all the ash coating my tongue, we didn't speak during the meal, the Kürenbergs leaned over their plates and took their nourishment seriously, and once I said, 'This is wonderful,' but maybe I didn't say it loud enough, no one replied, and then there was a raspberry soufflé, flambéed, almost tropical and yet with the aroma of German forests, and Kürenberg said, 'We'll get coffee brought up; there's nothing like a real espresso.' Ilse Kürenberg ordered coffee over the hotel telephone; a bottle of cognac appeared on the table and we talked about Rome.
    They love old Rome, antique Roman Rome, they love the fora with their battered grandeur, they love looking at the ancient hills in the evenings, the views of cypresses and solitary pines, they love the now functionless pillars, the marble staircases leading nowhere, the sundered arches over the filled-in chasms commemorating victories whose names figure in schoolbooks, they love the House of Augustus and they quote from Horace and Virgil, they adore the Rotunda of the Vestal Virgins, and they pray at the Temple of Fortune. I listen to them, speaking knowledgeably of new finds, discussing archaeological digs and museum treasures; and I love them too, love the old gods, love beauty long buried in the ground now visible once more, I love the proportions