The core block was, as Zieser called it, “duty”. Hans Castorp did not like the word, but he understood it. Duty is what remains when the celebration is over.
Glute head lifts, leg raises – movements that are not beautiful, not heroic, but unsatisfying in their intimacy, because they show the body as a machine.
And then, finally: hyperextensions.
Zieser placed the barbell at hip height so that Hans could let his upper body sink forward over it, in order to straighten it again using the tension of the backs of his legs and glutes. Hans Castorp thought that this straightening and lowering was a metaphor that one does not even have to look for.
“Always last,” said Zieser. “The back is the contract. A strong back knows no pain.”
Hans Castorp had to give a brief laugh, even though he was tired. It was a dry laugh.
“That is your slogan,” he said.
Zieser looked at him, and in his gaze there was for a moment something like memory – not sentimental, more businesslike.
“Was,” he said. “Today it is a sentence that one can repeat when people think they have to have a reason.”
“And what is the reason?” asked Hans Castorp.
Zieser answered without hesitation:
“Atrophy. It comes. It is silent. It does not only take your strength, it takes your posture. And posture is…” He paused, as if he did not want to look too deeply into Hans Castorp’s soul. “…more than muscle.”
Hans Castorp did the hyperextensions. Fifteen. The last three were hard. Not hard like a burden, but hard like the awareness that you are doing something that you will have to do again in the future.
He wrote the core block in the logbook.
Zieser nodded.
“Good,” he said. “Set by set. One day. Three days. One week.”
Hans Castorp stood there, sweaty, with a feeling of tiredness that was not sick, but honest. And he felt, strangely, a kind of calm – not the calm of relaxation, but the calm of duty fulfilled.
“And now?” he asked.
Zieser looked at him.
“Now shower,” he said. “Then eat. Then sleep. And this evening measure.”
Hans Castorp raised his eyebrows.
“Measure?”
Zieser pointed to the logbook.
“Measure what matters,” he said again. And then, almost kindly: “The body learns when you look at it.”
Hans Castorp thought: And when you look, you might see things you do not want to see. But he said nothing.
“Tomorrow,” Zieser continued, “legs: squats and hip thrusts. The day after tomorrow pull: pull-ups and rowing. Then rest day. Then push again. 3 days training, 1 day rest. Keep it simple.”
Hans Castorp nodded.
“And if tomorrow I…” he began.
Zieser raised his hand, and his voice was not hard, just clear:
“If you really want something, you will find a way.”
Hans Castorp was silent. He did not know whether he really wanted something. But he knew that it was no longer so easy to get out of things once they were written down.
“It was…” he began, and he searched for a word that did not sound ridiculous.
Zieser helped him.
“Hard,” he said. “And simple.”
Then he smiled – this time actually – and said, as if it were both a farewell and a threat:
“There are no miracles. There is only training.”
