Tip Of The Hat To Wilhelm's Seducer (2)

2

Wilhelm F. Schwarzwald was born in early twentieth-century Salzburg (1910), quite reluctantly, to a prominent Austrian freiherr of agreeable position and wealth, and his doctrinaire, and equably charming, Hungarian bride. Ernest Schwarzwald was never particularly concerned with matters beyond his own arrogant and political proficiency, even less so in his own son, or perhaps that was purely his means of eluding, or imploring, much needed familiarity (although, Pride had his compassion charily barred, its black crumpled wings bound around his long lost sentimentality). In 1902, the Schwarzwalds spent an affectionate August with the Fehérs in their summer home in Budapest, as they did every year, much to Ernest’s dismay who did not much care for his mother’s foreign relatives nor for spending all his valuable leisure time with his wearisome second cousins, Róza and Bernádett. Oh, it was anguish! Anguish, unlike anything he had ever felt! Days, weeks, months, for however long it went on, time was an incomprehensible concept.

Yet, this summer was to prove somewhat dissimilar from those deadly childhood retreats Ernest had grown to loathe. Indeed, possibly more so, as this was to be his one of his last ventures to Budapest (before his premature death anyway) and one in which was incredibly substantial, the first occasion in which he encountered his Ara. He stumbled upon her quite accidently, at a birthday celebration for one of his great uncles (Éliás if he recalled correctly, or was it Vida?  Oh no, it was unquestionably Uncle Móric. Yes, he was reasonably sure, he had been there sampling all the wine, or had he been the one died of heart failure?) who had turned seventy-nine and yet looked not a day over fifty, conceivably due to all the bulet (foetal duck) he used to consume. The evening, for the most part, was predictably dreary; there were no men of Ernest’s age present, in fact most of them exceeded his father who was absent for various professional reasons, his mother spent most of the festivities in the drawing room with two of her lady friends who were too self-conscious to waltz with strangers, even little Róza decided she would rather spend her evening in the company of her gloomy governess.

Ernest idled away the evening by dancing, unwillingly, with Aunt Klara; a heavy and buxom woman with callous, demeaning eyes and wild gray hair, who seemed to take great pleasure in correcting his careless footwork with a sharp graze from her devil-hued nails. It was shortly after eleven when he was eventually able to flee the wretched fête and enjoy a moments silence on the veranda. The air was warm and encouraging with the dreamy scent of irises and orchids quivering by from the neighbouring pasture.  He inhaled the subtle sky; he preserved its aroma fondly, meticulously, delicately, with great deliberation and enthusiasm. It was not long afterwards that he was joined by Bernádett. She acknowledged him graciously, she had always been very genteel, which obviously was not a mannerism that she inherited from her atrocious mother: she asked of Ernest’s well being, his enjoyment of the evening so far, how his sister was in Vienna and what a shame she could not make it. It was only after all her refined (and well-rehearsed) small talk did she think to introduce Ernest to her quiet companion.

Initially, Ernest was not sure what to think of her; she was certainly very appealing but then again so was he (albeit, he would never say so for risk of sounding conceited) and she carried herself in a wonderfully respectable manner, with unwavering precision and esteem. He introduced himself, as charmingly as he thought appropriate, with a slight bow of the head, to which she reimbursed with a timid curtsy; understand it was all formality (Aunt Iza keep peering through the courtyard door, ensuring that they conducted themselves properly, and Ernest, being much older than the two girls, was merely required to show a highly regarded sense of propriety).  Her name was Ara. Bernádett had unveiled this rather earthily, before the poor child had even the faintest possibility to respond. She was the daughter of a developing novelist, a Mr Kerényi, whom Ernest had seen frequenting his uncle’s property for quite a few years, much to his disappointment as he always seemed a very restless and troubling fellow. Ara Kerényi, however, was very congenial, so much so that after only perhaps fifteen minutes did Ernest ask his doting cousin to retrieve his overcoat from the study (even though it was very humid outside) merely so he could be alone with her.

It did not take amorous Ernest very long, with that attractive drollery and forked silver tongue, to persuade his blushing Ara to accompany him to the lily pond (“in which to observe the stars, they are ever so splendid this time of year!”) which she did rather coyly, noticeably disinclined, but exceptionally eager to please. He indulged her with his ostensible consideration, his sensitivity, his amiable absurdity, yet she was still insecure and fairly detached, so he held her hand with hopes it would console her. They spoke of inconsequential matters, fifteen year old Ara and twenty-four year old Ernest, under his childhood trees, which conducted an enquiring kiss, and then another, until somewhat inevitably, he had unbound that oppressively laced and archaic corset, elevated her ruffled underskirt, then adeptly (and quite voraciously) yielded to his impetuous and roaring salacity. Ara was enchanting. She was tender, soft, and paper-pale, with adorable ivory limbs and small honeyed breasts, her hair sepia and wayward; she sighed, slurred and trembled through the glorious intensity of it all and kissed Ernest drunkenly through a veil of radiant and dishonourable rapture.

Subsequent to his own hurried ecstasy, with Ara still breathless and exposed, Ernest rearranged his haphazard attire before abruptly returning to the currently occupied veranda (where Bernádett had been heatedly pursuing him for the last thirty minutes greatly convinced he had gotten lost) and approached her contentedly, with a little too much interest perhaps, and greeted her unusually warmly. However, when she inquired as to where Ara had gotten to, he merely replied that he no longer required the overcoat and could she please return it to the study, which she did obediently. The following year, the Schwarzwalds returned, as accustomed, to the Fehérs in Budapest (naturally, Ernest’s father had not appeared due to vocational concerns, yet his elder sister, Elsa, did join them to atone for her absence the previous year) where Ernest spent most of his summer in the library.  It was not until the last week of their two month excursion did Ernest encounter Ara once again; a week which they habitually spent down by the pond. The following year was to be Ernest’s last in Budapest (if he could help it) and he spent the majority of his time with his matured but still striking Ara who had grown quite cynical in his undue absence from her side.

Upon his return to Salzburg, Ernest wrote Ara various letters, nothing imperative, the same kind as one would write to a work colleague or indifferent neighbour, after all, he was not the sort of fellow who was particularly solicitous or remotely adoring even to someone as handsome as Ara. Even so, in the spring of 1905, Ernest wrote a considerably articulate and influential letter to Ara imploring her to come to Austria for the summer while his parents were in Budapest, to which she gladly accepted.  The next year (1906), their rendezvous lead them to Vienna where they resided in an austere boarding house for nearly all of July, they returned to Salzburg in the August, and he proposed to her in late September. They were married three weeks later. Then, in the spring of 1910, Ara gave birth to a plump, vigorous, and regrettably unwanted, infant son, whom they named Wilhelm Franz, after his late grandfather (a peculiar clockmaker of the most hideous timepieces you could ever observe with frightening impressions of demons, disease and desolation). He was a very demanding child, or so his father would say – he could hear him now, his voice venomous with disdain and resentment! – he was so demanding in fact that his father was entailed to appoint a (rather callous) governess to tend to his requests and give a reprieve to his poor mother, not that it much mattered, Ara died four years later, at twenty-three, while giving birth to her long anticipated (and alas stillborn) daughter.

Her son was a dreadfully forlorn and companionless child, his father was seldom at home and whenever he was, he would take to harbouring himself in his study, sometimes for many days, until his next engagement in either Vienna or Klagenfurt. If ever Wilhelm did happen upon his father he was merely brushed to the side and requested, dispassionately, not to bother him again (and later struck by his governess, Augusta, for wasting his father’s precious time). As a boy, his only companions were those of toy soldiers and dusty old books, mostly leather bound textbooks of past confrontations, and gold-gilded journals of ambiguous German and Hungarian poetry or sometimes, if Augusta had neglected to lock the reading room, monstrous chronicles detailed with various diversities of foliage and flora. He spent a great deal of time on his studies, not only did Augusta instructed him on a variety of different subjects from a very young age, but he utilised most of his recreational time on studying some of the more obscure subjects (mycology, evolution, geodesy, astrology, et cetera) and contemplated, with great solemnity, questions of fatalism which he hoped to debate with Augusta who simply told him to stop being so foolish.

He recalled a particular incident, when he was perhaps seven or eight, when he was frankly, very aware and very confident (or more precisely self-convinced) of the fact that he might not grow anymore. He had been this tall (short? He was short for his age, he assumed) for fourteen months. He had been one hundred and thirty centimetres tall (short? It was short, in the depths of his mind) for fourteen months, it was very disenchanting, disheartening, disappointing—because all these words that sound so negative were getting to him (Augusta was accountable for introducing such hideous speech). Unsurprisingly, she was not the one to reassure him and he lazed upon the violet chesterfield with hopes of welcoming his father in the foyer. He had embraced him once, momentarily, one Christmas evening, after Wilhelm learned to declaim a challenging French sonnet, of which his father was considerably fond, and it filled him with a splendid sense of satisfaction (even though he did smell terribly of wine and repeatedly addressed him as ‘Johanna’). However, he did not emerge that morning, or the next, which confounded little Wilhelm with fearful thoughts of shamefulness and abandonment (to which Augusta did not take too kindly). He appeared a week later, drenched by an aggressive downpour, silent and composed, and as hopeless Wilhelm scuttled towards him, arms extended, Ernest simply brushed him aside before proceeding, as standard, to his forbidden and formless study. 

As he advanced from a discontented child into a disconnected adolescent, Wilhelm endeavoured to accompany his father on one of his frequent excursions to Vienna with promises of assisting him with his work should ever he need it, but needless to say, his answer was always the same. It was only natural, of course, that he turned his eyes to his father for a pattern to set himself after, an example to look up to— which explained the top hat set crooked on his head, and the hair growing out to cover his ears, and the striped trousers with the chains dangling from the pocket— it even explained the difficulty in communicating with people, and the tendency to get flustered and simply stand and glare tremendously, whacking his cane against his palm and looking like he was waiting for people’s behinds to come within reach. He was exceptionally responsible, perhaps more so than his father who seemed a little more self-effacing than thirteen year old Wilhelm, and was just as decorous in addition. Whether it was the glowing self-disregard or his infuriating Augusta or degrading his father, he was not sure; maybe he was so desperate for closeness with Ernest Schwarzwald that he exerted his very being to hopefully (unsuccessfully) attain his father’s approval, yet it was possible he did not try hard enough. Did he really have to? There was in no hurry; he had all the time in the world— or, at least he presumed so, until his father took ill.