 
                         20061101.00

     Its a bright sunny warm New England autumn day.  The
trees in front of my window still have their leaves, many of
which are in fact quite green, as if they didn't really
believe winter was coming. The Konnarock weather report is
for only light rain today and tomorrow, clear the rest of the
week. Jeane, tired as she is, will go up to the house for me
to dry the dining room floor if it is necessary.  It occurred
to me that if we went to Konnarock now, the chance of pipes
freezing in Belmont would be negligible. In December or
January, Klemens might have to check on the house frequently
to make sure it was not too cold. On the other hand, if we go
now, we would likely have to postpone Margaret's cataract
surgery, and I would miss the seven continuing medical
education credits that I get from the New England
Ophthalmological Society meeting with so little effort. My
tentative conclusion is that we'll wait until the middle of
winter before going.

     This morning, when I awoke and then in the shower, I had
in mind a clearer than usual synopsis of my novel, which is
probably worth reporting:

     The introductory chapters describe the bewilderment of
Joachim Magus, a freshman trying to orient himself in the
university.  Joachim, virtually an orphan, was raised by
foster parents, the Rev. Klutz and his wife, and had just
arrived from the Klutz' home in Maryland where he grew up. He
has sat up all night on the express train to save moneys and
is now very tired.  On the subway train that takes him to the
university, he falls into a dreamlike trance and has a
bewildering fantasy of political success.  He is in fact
envisioning his inauguration as "president of the free
world", when his dream is rudely interrupted with a slap on
the shoulder by a burly Irish policeman standing next to him,
who tells him he is "disturbing the peace" by singing loudly
amidst the clatter and roar of the subway train.

     He arrives at the university.  There is described a
series of unsettling encounters, first with the janitor who
tells him to change his name to Johnny, then with the crowd
of fellow students encamped on the administration building
steps waiting for their tickets to the football games; there
is a medical examination, and an appointment to a
psychological test for which Joachim mistakenly walks into a
physiology laboratory. There Eva, a girl in the role of
Calypso, tries to ensnare him; but when the department head
unexpectedly walks in, Eva runs away and Joachim is set free.

     The only person who is kind to and supportive of Joachim
is his freshman adviser, a man named Jonathan Mengs, a
character whom I have imported from my previous novel Die
Andere. There he appeared as a doctoral candidate older than
his fellows, who had originally dropped out of the PhD
program on account of his unwillingness to limit himself to
the ideas of an unimaginative thesis advisor. On leaving the
program, he had gone into the financial business and had
become wealthy, but the love of learning had forced him back
into the university. He became the tutee of my protagonist
Jacob Doehring, amd achieved sufficient academic success to
be selected to follow Doehring as professor of history and
literature. It is in this academically exalted position that
Mengs encounters Joachim.

     Joachim's first visit to Mengs' study is for routine
approval and signature of his course card.  The second visit
some days later, however, is the result of a very painful and
embarrassing scene at a social "mixer" which Joachim in his
loneliness and longing for feminine companionship had wanted
to attend, but only as an "observer".  The aggressive
mistress of ceremonies, however, will not permit him to
remain on the sidelines, she summons him to the stage to be
interviewed and introduced. When asked his name, Joachim
pauses and hesitates, and the mistress' suggestion that
perhaps Joachim doesn't know his own name is greeted by roars
of laughter.  When he refuses an invitation to dance she
tells him in front of the cheering, jeering crowd that
perhpas his proper name is "Tanznicht" (Wontdance). And then
ostentatiously acts out a dancing lesson with him, by leading
him, stumbling and beginning to sob, across the stage as her
partner.  All this to the amusement and laughter of the
assembled students. Joachim leaves the auditorium in tears.
He returns to his dormitory room embarrassed and ashamed and
is greeted by Mac, the janitor and by his roommate as
"Tanznicht", because everyone has already heard the story
which also gets front page display in the student newspaper.

     Joachim cannot contemplate enduring such humiliation and
sees no alternative but to leave the university. He makes a
final visit to his freshman adviser, Professor Mengs, of whom
he has become very fond, to bid him farewell. Mengs, of
course, understands the implications of this turn of events,
not only for the student but also for himself as the
responsible faculty member, and is determined to make it
possible for Joachim to continue his studies. Mengs therefore
postpones a planned weekend rendezvous with his mistress
Susanna Fuerstenberg (a concert pianist) and decides to try
to distract Joachim by inviting him on a Columbus Day weekend
trip to the Island. They arrive that evening to stay at a
"Bed and Breakfast" establishment. On the next day Mengs and
Joachim take the bus to the beach at Oceanside. The vehicle
is empty except for the driver and one other passenger, an
eccentric old man whose name, he tells them is Maximilian
Katenus. As the bus courses through picturesque moors and
dunes Katenus becomes agitated and begins to rant claiming
that all this wonderful landscape before their eyes once was
his, but fool that he was, he gave it away to his friends
whom he to fetter to himself by means of this gift, which
they accepted only to abandon him and go their own ways.
"What an idiot, what an idiot!" Katenus exclaims over and
over, referring to the folly of his generosity. The bus
driver, however, misunderstands, and thinking that Katenus is
disparaging his driving, gets very angry, stops the bus and
expels all his passengers. They set off on trails into the
dunes, Katenus in one direction, Mengs and Joachim in the
other.

     Some hours later, trudging along the shore, past
breakers shimmering in the evening sun, Mengs and Joachim
espy a distant figure which, as they approach, proves to be
Katenus sitting in a beach chair by the edge of the ocean
writing a book. As Mengs and Joachim come near, the tide,
which unobserved by Katenus has been encroaching on him
topples his chair with one large wave. Joachim sprints about
collecting the soaked manuscript pages, while Mengs rescues
the beach chair and the would-be author himself. There are
effusive expressions of gratitude.  Katenus leads his
rescuers to the bus stop. While they wait for the bus to take
them back to town, Katenus begins discoursing about his
"philosophy," and when the coming of the bus interrupts this
exposition, Katenus invites the two to supper with him and to
spend the night at his mansion on Main Street.  There is the
obligatory supper scene, and then Katenus continues with a
very lengthy exposition of his epistemology, ethics and
esthetics, over which he has brooded for years but for which,
until this night, he has never had an audience. He is pleased
and grateful to have such educated and attentive listeners.
But they are tired. First Joachim, then Mengs falls asleep.
Katenus, however, seems not to notice or to care, and
continues with his disquisition until the last idea has been
articulated.  (The reader of the novel also is advised to
skip these chapters.)  The next day Joachim and Mengs depart
from the Island. There is a dramatic scene on the ferry:
Mengs is looking for Joachim, and begins to fear that Joachim
has fallen overboard, rushes to the pursers office to have
Joachim summoned by the public address system.  The purser of
course, is unable to pronounce the name and turns the
microphone over to Mengs.  [I'm not sure how far I want to
pursue this theme, arguably I might even have them stop the
ferry and launch the motorized life raft in search of the
presumably overboard passenger.]  In any event, Joachim
reappears and Mengs is much relieved.  The trip has given
Joachim a new perspective on his life at the university. He
now can't imagine ever having planned to leave.

     The ensuing chapters are somewhat hazy in my mind. I
shall probably have to reread them many times before being
able to decide whether or not to rewrite them or to eliminate
them altogether. Joachim's psychological evaluation finally
takes place, but as I remember the chapter, Jonathan Mengs
decides to accompany him and "sit in" on the examination, in
the end answering all the questions himself and turning the
"psychological testing" into a political discussion with his
colleague in the psychology department. I am not at all sure
that this chapter is successful. It may require radical
revision.

     Over the ensuing years there develops an intimate
friendship between Jonathan Mengs and Joachim Magus, a
friendship which is complementary to Mengs' erotic connection
to Susanna Fuerstenberg, the concert pianist. I have written
what I think is a very beautiful but at the same time
unconventionally explicit description of a night which they
spend together, of which only an expurgated version (Chapter
10) is published on my website at this time. It occurs to me
that I have perhaps not adequately described or documented
the evolution of this ad hoc family consisting of Mengs,
Susanna and their son-substitute Joachim. Jonathan has been
attracted to Susanna not so much by her feminine charms as by
the music that she plays so exquisitely; and he in turn was
acceptable to her because his masculinity was sublimated in
intellect and spirit. Susanna never wanted children because
she considered her function in life the making of music
rather than the bearing and raising of children. Jonathan
sought above all to be intellectually rather than
biologically creative.  And so their marriage, if such it may
be called, unauthorized by the state and never sanctified by
any formal religion, remained childless.  Jonathan tried to
think of his students as his children; Susanna her, piano
pupils. But the ruse worked for neither of them.

     Perhaps then one should consider natural, or at least
inevitable the close relationship that evolved over a period
of years from Joachim's first visit to his freshman adviser.
Joachim's studies were successful. He was was promoted with
ever greater endorsement by virtually all of his teachers
through the college and into graduate school, where as was to
be expected, Mengs became his thesis adviser.

     Already in Joachim's sophomore year, Mengs had offered
him a room in the large house on Linnean Street, which he had
inherited from Jacob Doehring and in which, following
Doehring's death, he had lived alone. Initially Joachim paid
for a moderate rental, which became nominal in the second
year, and was waived thereafter. Joachim regularly
accompanied Jonathan to Susanna's concerts. At one time he
even considered asking her to give him lessons, but decided
then that he was too old to become anything more than a third
rate musician and dispensed with the idea. During the summer
months, and frequently on weekends in the warm and balmy
summerlike days of autumn, Jonathan and Joachim went off on
excursions together. Sometimes to the Island as guests of
Maximilian Katenus, more often into the mountains either for
day-hikes or for longer trips where they stayed overnight in
hikers' huts or in a tent that one of them carried in a
backpack.

     It was on one of those trips that the accident happened
which would prove to be a pivotal event in their lives.  On a
steep descent where the trail threaded its way through an
accumulation of boulders, Jonathan slipped, fell, and broke
his right thigh, just above the knee.  Fortunately it was a
warm summer day: Joachim had no difficulty in notifying state
police and forest rangers. A rescue party was quickly
assembled and Jonathan was carried down the mountain and out
of the forest. An ambulance took him to the local hospital
where his leg was operated on.  The next day he was on his
way home again in an ambulance, with Joachim following
faithfully after, driving the car.

     It seemed both natural and necessary that Joachim should
rearrange his schedules so as to be able to take care of
Jonathan. It was fortunate that he already lived in the
house.  Joachim was relieved yet disconcerted, when on the
day after she heard the news of Jonathan's accident, Susanna
unexpectedly appeared and announced that, to be the more
readily available for Jonathan's care, she was moving into
the Doeringhouse as well.  The competition between Joachim
and Susanna in looking after Jonathan, which might have
turned into unpleasant or acrimonious rivalry, in fact did
nothing of the sort.  On the contrary, there ensued a period
of affectionate and productive cooperation, so gratifying to
Jonathan that from time to time he mused, whether the pain
and discomfiture of the broken leg might not, in the end, be
worth the family harmony which it engendered.

     Jonathan recovered more rapidly even than his doctors
had predicted.  Within four weeks he was walking again,
returning to his office in the Wherehouse. After another
month his activities were back to normal, except that he had
decided to dispense with mountain climbing and cross-country
skiing for the foreseeable future.  Within three weeks of his
return home, Jonathan needed no further nursing care at all
and Joachim was relieved to be able to return to his familiar
academic schedule. In conversations to which we are not
privy, Jonathan and Susanna agreed that she should continue
staying in the bedroom that she was using, that her piano and
her harpsichord should be moved into the music room
downstairs; and that she would relocate her keyboard lessons
to this address.

     There then ensued for Jonathan an idyllic period of
great happiness.  Susanna had agreed to live in his house,
and in addition Joachim was a member of the household, taking
the place of a son with whom Jonathan had never had to
negotiate the straits of adolescence.  It was a situation too
good to be true. For Jonathan, the new and unexpected
happiness was profoundly suspect. Still he could foresee
nothing that would end it. The informal family now began
taking trips together. The strenuous backpacking, hiking and
skiing excursions that Jonathan and Joachim had made together
were modified to accommodate Susanna's tastes, abilities and
wishes. Their trips took them to Rome, to Florence and
Venice, to Vienna, Salzburg Passau and Regensburg, to mention
only the more memorable destinations.  They visited museums,
art galleries, attended theatre performances, operas and
symphony concerts. It was not long before Susanna began to
entertain the idea of making a concert tour of her own. In
her judgment her own musical accomplishments compared
favorably to those for which they waited in line at box
offices and purchased tickets at substantial prices.  It took
some months for Susanna's plans to mature.

                      * * * * *
Copyright 2006, Ernst Jochen Meyer
