An Offering for the Dead by Hans Erich Nossack Page A

in their scrutiny. I did not know that I was meant.
    "It is not fear," answered my teacher next to me, and only now did I again stand solidly in the room. "It is the shaking of the leaves at the end of the day. It is the uncertainty of a person who does not know his mother."
    I glanced, frightened, at my younger brother; for I feared that he would be insulted by that word. But he gave me a friendly smile.
    "Why this fear?" said the fat man. "It is cheerful timidity." "And love," my father softly added.
    "What about the grief?" asked my forebear. "It will cause a great deal of grief. But by then, we will no longer be here." "We have preserved the grief sacredly within us; for human beings did not want grief and they acknowledged only the common plight, which adulterates all genuine things," my teacher replied. "Let us restore grief to them. Then our mission will be accomplished."
    "That is it," the fat man added, and he was now truly weeping without hiding it.
    "Let it be," my father resolved.
    The forebear sat self-absorbed for a while. Then he placed his bony hands open on the table and, gazing at them, he spoke: "Good! You shall take him to her, so that he will not go astray again."
    He said that to my brother. Then he stood up, and the others stood up too. I have forgotten whether they said anything to me when departing; I was too deeply moved. No, wait: I recall that my father stood in front of me for a while, and we actually wanted to embrace. But we did not do so; it was not customary between us.
     
    Then I was already off with my brother.
    Perhaps the person hearing this will be bored and will think: Why does he not talk about the house and the woman he was alone with? For that must be more important. Does he wish to keep it a secret?
    I do not know which is more important. Those men are no longer here to guide and protect my life. I do not believe that they are resting; it is not like them. They will be back if the events should make it necessary. But not I will be the object of their concern. Anyone who seeks them will not find them. Anyone who shouts for them or for one of them and accuses them with the cry: Why have you forsaken us? will not be heard by them. The violent shout will return to the shouter and crush him. One can look for the mother and one will find her at any time. But it is different with these men. One has to let oneself be found by them.
    I also had to say so much about them in order to explain how it happened that I went to my mother. The one is unthinkable without the other, like that woman, about whom I may be giving too few details. Even if she is less visible, she must be audible to an ear that pays more heed to the sound of words. Perhaps she can be best perceived from my breathing during my pauses and silences.
    Granted, it would be nice if I could recount: We walked together through the dining room past the cleared table. She slightly rearranged a vase of flowers, and then we walked on into the other room with the books and the piano. There, we sat down and talked about the evening, using somewhat weary words, and she sloughed off the role of hostess. But I would only be making that up retrospectively.
    The only thing that is certain is that I must have been more familiar with that woman than I thought. But I have completely forgotten how that came about. What had previously existed carried, no doubt, too little weight.
    You see, I was in her room. It was the same room that contained the mirror that did not render my image, and her bed, in which I dreamt. But now it was night, and heavy curtains had been drawn across the window. When I describe this, it almost seems to me as if she were the same woman to whom I am reporting it all. Only one candle was lit in a white holder, which stood in front of the mirror. The light fell warmly on her face and hands. The rest of the room lay in soft darkness. I too stood invisible in the shadow behind her. For she was sitting on the low footstool in