12

After recuperating from the hemorrhage, Alois gave Adolf no more beatings. Sometimes when Alois thought the boy was becoming too sure of himself, he would threaten a whipping, but the warning had lost all drama.

At the Buergerabend on the night before New Year’s Eve of 1903, the members allowed themselves a bit more to drink, and Alois could feel how disturbed was the mood. In the last few weeks, a Capuchin Monk named Jurichek had been invited to preach in St. Martin’s Church, where he would deliver his sermon in the Czech language as a means of collecting money for a proposed Czech school. Some members at the Buergerabends began to complain (most incorrectly as it turned out) that before long there would be a Czech invasion of Linz.

Alois was uneasy. “If a Czech uprising takes place,” he did say, “it could mean the end of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. Yet,” as he would also murmur, “my best friend is a Czech.”

He almost recounted a discussion with Karl Wesseley, who had passed by on a business trip from Prague to Salzburg. “We Czechs,” Wesseley had argued, “offer more loyalty to the Emperor than you Austrian-Germans who would dissolve the Empire in a moment if you could just link up with the Prussians.”

His brief visit left Alois in a state of confusion. Contradictory remarks were now being voiced by him at the Buergerabends. It was as if the loss of blood had also loosened his tongue. First he would find himself on one side of an argument, then the other. Finally, he was attacked by one of the oldest gentlemen in the club.

Unfortunately, this fine elder also proved to be a hint unbalanced. “Herr Alois,” he said, “you have been so totally opposed to our poor little local priest, who wants to invite poor Czechoslovakian workers to come to free food kitchens when they are hungry. That does make you sound like you are a pro-German. ‘Get rid of these dirty Czechs,’ it seems you are saying. But I cannot follow you. Your best friend, you tell us, is a Czech. Dear Herr Hitler, I hesitate to say this, but I must attribute your confusions to the one affliction we are all in danger of approaching these days. That is premature old age. You are not an old man, not as old as I am, but, my esteemed fellow Buergerabender, I must warn you that confusions, if not promptly cleared up, can swallow good intentions.” And abruptly he sat down, as if to apologize for having gone too far.

Unhappily for Alois, the old man had not been inaccurate. Since the lung hemorrhage, Alois had lost exactly that clarity of which he had been so proud. Now many of Alois’ thoughts seemed to come into his head for no better purpose than to proclaim the opposite of his previous remarks. Indeed, Alois had confessed as much to Wesseley on the last visit, after which he sighed and said, “I like talking to you. In my opinion, you are as deep as the sea.”

“Alois, tell the truth. Have you ever seen a large body of water?” asked Wesseley.

“Beautiful lakes I have seen, and plenty. That is enough.” He paused. “I feel as if I am living in the desert.”

A couple of nights after the old member’s tirade, Alois kept remembering how some of the Buergerabenders had been nodding their heads in agreement. And Alois did keep hearing the old man’s voice: “You say that we give too much to the Czechs, but then I hear you tell us that to be against the Jews and the Hungarians is antagonistic to good culture. Where is the focus of your thoughts?”

In the course of that upbraiding, Alois had felt so weak that he could not summon enough vigor to stand up and leave the room. Then he found the strength. Not often did members walk out of the Buergerabends in such an abrupt manner, but on this occasion it became imperative. Be damned to how weak he felt.

He was furious. It seemed undeniably clear to him that he had only been tolerated at the Buergerabends. Did they laugh among themselves at remarks he had made? Was it like that? Had he been their resident fool?

It gave him a fearful headache. Four days later, on January 3, he was dead before noon.