Dog Years
Page 60
MATERN :
For now the bars are down.
What tickled my palate then
makes me retch today.
What took the road to the high Caucasus
and down to pale Ladoga Lake,
shall now roll back: methodical, half-digested,
gall-bitter,
and stink till it rises sour to your mouths.
DISCUSSION LEADER : And so I invite questions relating to the ownership status of the black shepherd here present.
MATERN : Murder: an old-fashioned word!
A BOY : What is the name of the black shepherd here present?
MATERN :
Rear sight, front sight.
The whites of their eyes.
Holding enfolding squeezing.
A BOY : I repeat my question: The name of the dog here present?
MATERN :
Corpses, who counts them any longer?
The bones have all been processed.
The blood flows on the stage.
And hearts beat moderato.
Death has been run out of town! (Pause)
And the dog’s name, as if you didn’t know,
is Pluto.
A BOY : To whom does Pluto belong?
MATERN : To the man who feeds him.
A BOY : Did you purchase Pluto?
MATERN : He attached himself to me.
A BOY : Did you make inquiries as to the dog’s former owner?
MATERN : He attached himself to me shortly after the end of the war. There were lots of masterless dogs running around in those days.
A BOY : Has the topic under discussion any intimation as to whom Pluto may have belonged to, probably under another name?
MATERN : I’m willing to tell you what I’ve eaten, touched, done, experienced, but I refuse to let my intimations be discussed.
DISCUSSION LEADER : Since the topic under discussion, for reasons connoting hostility to discussion, wishes to remove his notions from the scope of our discussion, the members of our discussion club are authorized to question Pluto, the black shepherd, directly, since the dog, in fact and in his capacity as a fixed point, belongs to the topic under discussion. We shall submit three musical themes to the dog. Suggestions, please.
(Walli S. notes: “Musical interrogation of the dog Pluto.”)
A BOY : Why not begin the musical interrogation with Eine Kleine Nachtmusik?
(Walli S. puts on a record. Music plays briefly.)
DISCUSSION LEADER : We observe that the dog Pluto does not react to Mozart. Second suggestion.
A BOY : How about Haydn? Or something of the sort, maybe Deutschland, Deutschland über Alles.
(Walli S. puts on the record. The dog wags his tail as soon as the music starts.)
DISCUSSION LEADER : The dog reacts with pleasurable animation, so demonstrating that his former owner was a German national. This makes it clear that ownership cannot be imputed to members of the then occupying armies. Accordingly, we can dispense with Handel or with themes from the French opera Carmen. Neither Nutcracker Suite nor the Don Cossacks. Similarly there is no need to consider spirituals or ballads from American pioneering days. The third suggestion, please.
A BOY : Why beat about the bush? I suggest a direct approach: some typical Wagner, the Siegfried motif or the Helmsmen’s Chorus…
A BOY : We might as well start right in with Götterdämmerung.
CHORUS : Göt-ter-dämmerung! Göt-ter-dämmerung!
(Walli S. puts on the record. The music from Götterdämmerang plays at length. The dog howls throughout.)
DISCUSSION LEADER : Here we have conclusive proof that the dog Pluto must have belonged to an admirer of Wagner. On the strength of conclusions thus far arrived at in the course of our discussion—I call your attention to our notes—we shall make no mistake in presuming former Chancellor Adolf Hitler, whom we have recently discussed as the builder of the Reichsautobahn and whose predilection for Wagner is well known, to have been the rightful owner of the black shepherd here present, currently named Pluto. By way of avoiding unnecessary delay, we shall now proceed to a dynamic confrontation: black shepherd—Hitlerportrait, if you please.
MATERN : Preposterous. The dog is almost blind.
DISCUSSION LEADER : A dog’s instinct never goes blind. My father, for example, an honorable carpenter, kept a shepherd as a watchdog; incidentally, he was black, his name was Harras, and he was poisoned with rat poison. Though he never studied cynology as a science, the chair, having grown up so to speak with this Harras, regards himself as a pretty fair judge of dogs, especially black shepherds. If you please, the confrontation!
(Willi S. stands up and unrolls a large color print of Hitler over the blackboard. Then she moves the blackboard forward until it faces the cast-iron temple. Long pause. The dog becomes restless, sniffs in the direction of the picture, suddenly breaks loose, stands whimpering in front of the picture, gets up on his hind legs, and begins to lick Hitler’s colored face. At a sign from the discussion leader, Walli S. rolls up the picture. The dog continues to whimper and Walli S. has difficulty in leading him back to the temple. The blackboard is moved back to its former place. Clamor among the discussion club members.)
A BOY : It’s plain as day.
A BOY : Dynamic confrontation has again proved its value as a promoter of discussion.
CHORUS :
Shrewdly confronted,
his instinct was unblunted.
He whimpered and licked the place
where he discovered a face.
DISCUSSION LEADER : Quite apart from its relevance to our discussion, the confrontation has obviously taken on the character of a historic event. We therefore request our members to rise and join me in a brief moment of meditation: O great Creator of everlasting world discussion, O Thou maker of sublime topics of discussion… (Protracted silence. The members of the discussion club are filled with awe.) Amen! (The members sit down again.) Meanwhile the archives of our discussion club have disclosed the following data:
WALLI S. (who has not joined in the prayer, is holding a sheaf of papers): Among several shepherds in the kennels of former Chancellor Adolf Hitler, it was a black-haired shepherd by the name of Prinz who attracted the most attention. He was a present to the Chancellor from Adolf Forster, Gauleiter of Danzig. The first months of his life were spent in the police kennels at Danzig-Langfuhr. He was then transferred to the Führer’s residence, the so-called Berghof, where, up to the outbreak of the war, he was free to romp and run untrammeled in God’s great out-of-doors. Then, however, the vicissitudes of war led him from one Führer’s Headquarters to another, and finally to the Führer’s air raid shelter in the Chancellery.
DISCUSSION LEADER : And there the following happened:
WALLI S. : On April 20, 1945…
A BOY : On the day when the builder of the Reichsautobahn and our topic of discussion Walter Matern celebrate their birthdays…
WALLI S. : During the birthday celebration, attended by General Field Marshal Keitel, Lieutenant-Colonel von John…
A BOY : Naval Captain Lüdde-Neurath…
A BOY : Admirals Voss and Wagner…
A BOY : Generals Krebs and Burgdorf…
WALLI S. : Colonel von Below, Reichsleiter Bormann, Ambassador Hewel of the Foreign Office…
A BOY : Fräulein Braun!
WALLI S. : SS Hauptsturmführer Günsche and SS Obergruppenführer Fegelein…
A BOY : Dr. Morell…
WALLI S. : And Herr and Frau Dr. Goebbels with all their six children—while congratulations were still being tendered, the black-haired German shepherd Prinz ran away from his master.
A BOY : And then what? Was he halted, captured, shot?
A BOY : Did anyone see him running? Deserting?
A BOY : And to whom did he desert?
WALLI S. : After brief misgivings the dog decided to follow the movement of the hour and disengage in a westerly direction. Since at the time of his projected and execu
ted flight violent finishfights were in progress all around the capital, it proved impossible to catch the dog Prinz despite the untiring efforts of the dogsearchtroops that were immediately set up. At 8:45 a.m. on May 8, 1945, the dog Prinz swam across the Elbe above Magdeburg and went looking for a new master on the west shore of the river.
CHORUS :
Matern was the master he chose
with his legs and eyes and nose.
WALLI S. : But since in his last will of April 29th, the then Führer and Chancellor bequeathed his black-haired shepherd Prinz to the German people…
DISCUSSION LEADER : … we are forced to conclude that Walter Matern, the topic under discussion, cannot be the rightful owner of the shepherd Prinz—presently known as Pluto. We can regard him at the very most as the administrator of the Führerlegacy, the aforesaid black shepherd Prinz.
MATERN : This is an outrage! I’m an antifascist.
DISCUSSION LEADER : Why shouldn’t an antifascist be the administrator of the Führerlegacy? We shall be glad to hear the opinions of our members on the subject.
MATERN : I was with the Red Falcons. Later I was a card-carrying member of the C.P…
A BOY : As administrator of the Führerlegacy, the topic under discussion can lay claim to qualities that predestine him to this historic task…
MATERN : I distributed leaflets as late as ’36…
A BOY : For instance, he was born in the sign of the Ram, like the dog’s former owner.
MATERN : If I joined the SA later on, it was only for a year, a brief interlude.
A BOY : Like the dog’s late owner, dogadministrator Matern can grind his teeth.
MATERN : And then the Nazis kicked me out. Court of honor.
A BOY : But must it not be taken as an argument to the contrary that the selfsame dogadministrator Matern once poisoned a black dog?
MATERN : Yes, and with rat poison, because that Nazi dog, who belonged to a carpenter, mated with a bitch in the police kennels who later…
A BOY : Yet the topic under discussion claims to love animals.
A BOY : Would it not be fruitful to discuss our fixed point, namely “black shepherd” and the ownership status of the black shepherd Prinz, now Pluto, in conjunction with the pedigree of the black shepherd Pluto and the dynamic past of the topic under discussion?
MATERN : As an antifascist, I protest forcefully against this association of unrelated and purely fortuitous factors.
DISCUSSION LEADER : Objection upheld. We amend our project as follows: The fixed point and the dog pedigree will be dynamically discussed in the light of our topic’s antifascist past.
A BOY : But only the final outcome of our discussion can show whether the Führerlegacy Prinz—now Pluto—is in reliable hands with the present dogadministrator.
DISCUSSION LEADER : The member’s motion is approved. An ticipating the probable existence of a second fixed point, the chair prefers for the present to invite questions without direct bearing on the fixed point or on the ownership status of the black shepherd.
(Walli S. notes: Fixed Point 2, colon.)
A GIRL : Can the topic under discussion think of any important childhood experiences that left their mark on him?
MATERN : Actual happenings? Or are you more interested in atmosphere?
A GIRL : Every level of consciousness can provide us with discussion-promoting data.
MATERN (with a sweeping gesture):
Here Nickelswalde—over there Schiewenhorst.
Perkunos, Pikollos, Potrimpos!
Twelve headless nuns and twelve headless knights.
Gregor Materna and Simon Materna.
The giant Miligedo and the robber Bobrowski.
Kujave wheat and Urtoba wheat.
Mennonites and breaches in the dikes…
And the Vistula flows,
and the mill mills,
and the narrow-gauge railway runs,
and the butter melts,
and the milk thickens,
a little sugar on top,
and the spoon stands upright,
and the ferry comes,
and the sun gone,
and the sun back again,
and the sea sand goes,
and the sea licks sand…
Barefoot barefoot run the children,
and find blueberries,
and look for amber,
and step on thistles,
and dig up mice,
and climb barefoot into hollow willows…
But he who looks for amber,
who steps on the thistle,
jumps into the willow,
and digs up the mouse,
will find a dead dried maiden in the dike:
that’s Duke Swantopolk’s daughter,
who was always shoveling about for mice in the sand,
who bit with two incisor teeth,
and never wore shoes or stockings…
Barefoot barefoot run the children,
and the willows shake themselves,
and the Vistula flows for evermore,
and the sun now gone, now back again,
and the ferry comes or goes
or lies fast and groans
while the milk thickens till the spoon stands, and slowly runs the narrow-gauge railway ringing fast on the bend. And the mill creaks when the wind at a rate of twenty-five feet a second. And the miller hears what the mealworm says. And teeth grind when Walter Matern from left to right. Same with his grandmother: all around the garden she chases poor Lorchen. Black and big with young, Senta crashes through a trellis of broad beans. For terrible she approaches, raising an angular arm: and in the hand on the arm the wooden cooking spoon casts its shadow on curly-headed Lorchen and grows bigger and bigger, fatter and fatter, more and more… also Eddi Amsel…
A BOY : Was this Eddi Amsel a friend of the topic under discussion?
MATERN : The only one I ever had.
A BOY : Did your friend die?
MATERN : I can’t imagine Eddi Amsel being dead.
A BOY : Was the aforementioned Eddi Amsel an intimate friend?
MATERN : We were blood brothers! With one and the same pocketknife we scored each other’s left…
A BOY : What became of the knife?
MATERN : No idea.
A BOY : The question is vital. We repeat: what happened to the pocketknife?
MATERN : Actually I wanted to throw a zellack into the Vistula. In those parts we called stones zellacken.
A BOY : We are waiting for news of the pocketknife!
MATERN : Well, stone or zellack, I looked for one in both pockets, but didn’t find anything but the…
A BOY : … pocketknife.
A BOY : The knife had…
MATERN : …three blades, a corkscrew, a saw, and a leather punch… Nevertheless, I threw it…
A BOY : … the knife!
MATERN : into the Vistula. What does a river like the Vistula carry away with it? Sunsets, friendships, pocket-knives! What rises to memory, floating on its stomach, with the help of the Vistula? Sunsets, friendships, pocketknives! Not all friendships last. Rivers that set out for hell empty into the Vistula…
DISCUSSION LEADER : Therefore let us recapitulate: As children and with the help of a pocketknife, Walter Matern, the topic under discussion, and his friend Eddi Amsel swore blood brotherhood. Still a boy, Matern threw the same pocket-knife into the Vistula. Why the pocketknife? Because no stone was available. But in a more general sense, why?
MATERN : Because the Vistula flowed straight ahead for evermore. Because the sunset behind the opposite dike, because after we had sworn blood brotherhood, my friend Eddi’s blood flowed inside me, because—because…
A BOY : Was your friend a Negro, a Gypsy, or a Jew?
MATERN (eagerly): Only a half-Jew. His father was. His mother wasn’t. He had reddish-blond hair from his mother and next to nothing from his father. A wonderful guy. You’d have liked him, boys. Always in a good humor, and what idea
s he had! But he was kind of fat and I often had to protect him. All the same I loved him, admired him, even today I’d…
A BOY : If, for instance, you were annoyed with your friend, which must have happened now and then, what bad names did you call him?
MATERN : Well, at the worst, because he really was so monstrously fat, I’d call him a fat pig. Or to kid him, I’d call him fly shit, because he had millions of freckles all over. I’d also, but more as a joke and not when I was sore, call him milliner, because he was always building weird figures out of old rags, and the peasants used them for scarecrows and stood them up in their wheat.
A BOY : Can’t you think of any other bad names?
A BOY : Something more specific.
MATERN : That was all.
A BOY : For instance, when you really wanted to wound him, to hurt his feelings?
MATERN : I never had any such intentions.
DISCUSSION LEADER : We are obliged to point out that we are discussing not intentions, but actions. So out with that big bad last dramatic dynamic word?
CHORUS :
Let him cough up that little word,
or under pressure he’ll be heard.
WALLI S. : Perhaps I shall have to put on the knowledge glasses after all and peer into long past situations, in the course of which the topic under discussion, my uncle Walter, lost his temper.
MATERN (shakes his head): Then—at times when I couldn’t control myself, because he was starting up again, or because he wouldn’t stop, or because Eddi—I called him sheeny.
DISCUSSION LEADER : The discussion will be suspended while the insulting word “sheeny” is being analyzed. (Muttering among the members. Walli S. stands up.) I request your attention for our assistant Walli S.
WALLI S. : “Sheeny” is a contemptuous term, meaning Jew, dating roughly from the middle of the nineteenth century. It is thought to derive from the Yiddish word shane, meaning “fine,” “lovely,” “very good,” which is often overheard in conversation among Jews, though what reason they had for regarding anything as fine, lovely, or very good has not been established. Cf. the popular jingle which developed early in the twentieth century…
CHORUS :
Jewish sheeny,
his legs are skinny,