Read The Gustav Sonata for Free Online Page B

didn’t think Gustav’s concentration would be helped by these ‘cramped work conditions’.
    He hadn’t been told that Gustav had had to sacrifice his skating, so he was further dismayed by the boy’s anger and resentment at being there with him. When Gustav deliberately knocked to the floor the storybooks and history books which had been placed on the shelf, Herr Hodler swore.
    ‘
Scheisse!
’
    The swear word seemed to echo around the silent kitchen. It had always been part of Emilie’s credo of self-mastery that swearing was an unpleasant indulgence, never to be allowed. And now the schoolteacher had transgressed this sacred edict.
    It made Gustav want to laugh. He felt better. He apologised to Herr Hodler and helped him to pick up the books and rearrange them on the shelf. When he saw that one of the books was entitled
A Short History of Switzerland
, he said to Herr Hodler, ‘I don’t know anything about the history of Switzerland. All I know is the war didn’t come here. It went to Germany and Russia and other places and all the buildings were bombed. Is that right?’
    ‘Yes,’ said Herr Hodler. ‘More or less. Except millions of people died, too. What we believe in Switzerland is that we should avoid conflict, especially being drawn into the conflicts of others. We call it “neutrality”. Do you know what this means?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘It means we
believe in ourselves.
We protect our own. And you know, this is a good way to be in your life, Gustav. Have you ever eaten a coconut?’
    ‘What?’
    ‘You know coconuts have a very tough outer shell?’
    ‘I’ve never eaten one.’
    ‘Well, the shell is hard and fibrous, difficult to penetrate. It protects the nourishing coconut flesh and milk inside. And that is how Switzerland is and how Swiss people should be – like coconuts. We protect ourselves – all the good things that we have and that we are – with hard and determined yet rational behaviour – our neutrality. Do you understand what I’m saying?’
    ‘That I’ve got to be like a coconut?’
    ‘Yes. Then you will not be hurt, Gustav.’
    ‘I am hurt.’
    ‘In what way?’
    ‘I used to go skating on Sunday afternoons. Skating was my favourite thing in the world. Now, I can’t go any more. I’ve got to do lessons with you.’
    Herr Hodler’s pink, flickering eyes looked anxiously at Gustav.
    ‘I didn’t know this,’ he said.
    ‘I was getting quite good at skating. I could do small jumps. Now it’s all over. That hurts me.’
    ‘I understand. All I can suggest is that we get on with the lessons as quickly as we can. That way, you will make progress, and then perhaps in a few weeks’ time, you can resume your skating?’
    After that, Gustav and Herr Hodler became friends – or at least not enemies.
    Herr Hodler permitted Gustav to address him by his first name, which was Max. Gustav saw that Max Hodler had very beautiful handwriting and he asked him to teach him how to write like this.
    Lines were ruled. Along these lines, Max supervised the slow beat-beat, like distant music, of Gustav’s letter formation: a a a a a a, b b b b b b, c c c c c c.
    He said that Gustav should pretend he had never learned to write, because somehow he had learned all wrong and now he had to start again. Sometimes, Max drew very large letters for Gustav to copy and together they examined the forms and shapes of the letters, how they turned and curved, like patterns on the ice. And so this is what Gustav thought about now, when he was forming letters. He pretended his pencil was a skater.
    ‘Good,’ said Max. ‘There is improvement.’
    Gustav wanted to take the improved letters to show Emilie, but he suspected that Emilie was asleep and, besides, Max said they couldn’t waste time showing anybody half-formed work. There was far too much to do. Gustav’s reading was still poor and to help him concentrate, Max Hodler brought along one of his own favourite books,
Struwwelpeter.
In this book,