No feelings would come to him as he went rocking on in No. 11 through the old town, the new town, past allotment gardens and gravel pits to Blessenfeld. He had heard the names of the stops four thousand times: Boisserée Street, North Park, Blessischer Station, Inner Ring. They sounded strange, the names, as if out of dreams which others had dreamed and vainly tried to let him share; they sounded like calls for help in a heavy fog, while the almost empty streetcar went on toward the end of the line in the afternoon summer sun.
There on the corner of Park Line and the Inner Ring had stood the stall in which his mother had attempted to set up a fish-fry business, but had been undone by her compassionate heart. ‘How can I refuse those hungry kids a bit of fried fish when they see me frying it? How can I?’ And Father said, ‘Of course you can’t, but we must close down the stall, there’s no more credit, the dealers won’t deliver any more.’ Mother had dipped the fillets of fish in egg and breadcrumbs, then let them fry in hot oil while she heaped one, two or three spoonfuls of potato salad on the paper plates. Mother’s heart had not remained firm against compassion. Tears had welled out of her blue eyes and the neighbors whispered, ‘She’s crying her heart out.’ She ate no more, drank no more, and her plump, full-blooded body changed into a thin, anemic one and nothing remained of the pretty barmaid everyone had loved at the station bar. Now she did nothing but whisper Lord, Lord, paging through dog-eared sectarian prayer books that foretold the end of the world, while out on the streets the red flags fluttered in the dusty wind and other people bore Hindenburg’s head on placards through the streets. Screaming and violence and shooting, and piping and drumming. When she died, Mother had looked like a girl, anemic and thin. Asters on the grave and a thin wooden cross: Edith Schrella, 1896–1932. Her soul had been sobbed out, and her body mingled with the earth in the Northern Cemetery.
“End of the line, sir,” announced the conductor. He climbed out of his box, lit a cigarette butt and walked up front. “Sorry, we don’t go any further.”
“Thank you.” He’d climbed in and climbed out at the No. 11 terminus four thousand times. The rusty rails went on and lost themselves among barracks and old excavations. Thirty years before, there had once been a projected extension of the tram service there. Now, lemonade stalls: chromium, plate glass, glittering automats and orderly rows of chocolate bars.
“A lemonade, please.”
The green concoction in a spotless glass tasted of sweet woodruff.
“If you don’t mind, sir, put the paper in the basket, please. Taste all right?”
“Yes, thank you.” The two chicken legs were still warm, and the tender breast was crispy, baked in the very best quality fat, all preserved in the cellophane pack clipped tight with Special Picnic Insulating Clips.
“That smells pretty good. Want another lemonade with it?”
“No, thank you. But I’ll have six cigarettes, please.”
He could still recognize, in the plump proprietress, the gentle, pretty girl she once had been. Those blue, childlike eyes, during their First Communion lessons, had moved the romantic chaplain to adjectives such as “angelic” and “innocent,” and now they had grown hard and businesslike.
“That’ll be ninety pfennigs, please.”
“Thank you.”
The No. 11 in which he had arrived was ringing its bell for departure. But he hesitated too long, and found himself imprisoned in Blessenfeld for another twelve minutes. He smoked and slowly drank the rest of his lemonade, trying to recall, through that pink and stony face, the name of the young girl she once had been—a blonde, flying through the park with windblown hair, shouting and singing, and enticing boys into dark doorways, after the resemblance to an angel had become a thing of the past; teasing hoarse declarations of love from them, while her brother, no less blond, no less angelic, made vain attempts to summon the street boys to noble deeds; a carpenter’s apprentice and a hundred-meter runner, beheaded at dawn for a piece of folly.
“Please,” said Schrella, “I’ll have another lemonade after all.” He stared at the immaculate parting in the plump woman’s hair as she bent to hold the glass below the tap of the balloon. Her brother had been the angelic Ferdi. Her own name later on had been hoarsely whispered from youth to youth, from mouth to mouth like a certain password to Paradise. Erika Progulske would help you get rid of your need and she won’t take a thing for it, because she likes it.
“Do we know each other?” She smiled and set the glass of lemonade on the counter.
“No,” he said, smiling back, “I don’t think so.”
Don’t encourage the frozen memory to thaw; such frost-flowers would only turn into dull dirty water and run down the pane. Evoke nothing, never expect to bring back childhood’s austerity of feeling in adult souls grown soft; you’ll just find out that now she takes something for it. Careful, just don’t start talking.
“Yes. Thirty pfennigs. Thank you.” Ferdi Progulske’s sister looked at him with professional friendliness. You gave me relief, too, and took nothing for it, not even the bar of chocolate gone soft in my pocket, although it wasn’t meant as payment, only as a present, but you wouldn’t take it. And you set me free with the compassion of your mouth and hands. I hope you didn’t tell Ferdi; part of compassion is discretion, and secrets once turned into words may become deadly. I hope he didn’t know, when he saw the sky for the last time, that morning in July. I was the only one he found in Gruffel Street, prepared for noble deeds; Edith didn’t yet count, she’d only turned twelve and the wisdom in her heart wasn’t apparent as yet.
“Don’t we really know each other?”
“No, I’m sure we don’t.”
You’d accept my present today; your heart has stayed firm, but not in compassion. Already, a few weeks later, you had lost the innocence of childish sin; you’d already made up your mind it was better to get rid of pity, decided you weren’t going to be a weeping blonde slut and sob your soul away. No, we don’t know each other, we really don’t. We won’t be thawing out any icicles. Thank you, Goodbye.
There at the corner was still the Blesseneck where Father had been a waiter. Beer, schnapps, meat balls, beer, schnapps, meat balls, all served with an expression in which mildness and doggedness mingled in a kind of unity, the face of a dreamer to whom it was a matter of indifference whether he served beer, schnapps and meat balls in the Blesseneck or lobsters and champagne in the Prince Heinrich or the kind of breakfasts of beer and chops or chocolate and cherry brandy which the whores ate after a night at the Upper Harbor. Father had brought home traces of those sticky breakfasts on his cuffs, brought good tips home, but had not brought home what other fathers brought, after-work good spirits, which could be translated into shouting and teasing, into protestations of love or tears of reconciliation. Always that dogged mildness in his face, a lost angel who hid Ferdi under the taproom table, where the police found him, between the beer pipes. And who, when he knew he was going to die, kept his smile; the sticky stuff was washed out of his cuffs and the waiter’s white shirt starched so it was stiff and shining; they came for him only the next morning, as he was going off to work with his sandwiches and his patent leather shoes under his arm. He got into their car and was not seen again. No white cross, no flowers for the waiter Alfred Schrella. Not even shot while attempting to escape—was simply not seen again.
Edith had ironed and starched, polished the extra pair of black shoes, cleaned the white ties, while I studied, playfully studied—Ovid and conic sections, the thoughts and deeds of Henry the First and Henry the Second and Tacitus, and William the First’s and William the Second’s thoughts and deeds. Kleist, and spherical trigonometry. Talented, talented, quite unusually talented, a worker’s child who had to learn exactly what the others had to learn, in face of four thousand times more obstacles, and dedicated furthermore to noble deeds. I even allowed myself one additional, personal pleasure: Hölderlin.
Seven more minutes till the next No. 11 leaves. Here’s No. 17 Gruffel Str
eet, redecorated; a car parked in front, green, and a bicycle, red, and two scooters, dirty. He had pressed that bell eighteen thousand times, on the pale, yellowish brass button which his thumb could still feel. Where Schrella once had been, there now was Tressel. Where Schmitz had been, was Humann now. New names. One alone had remained—Fruhl, lending cups of sugar, cups of flour, cups of vinegar and eggcupsful of salad oil, how many cups, how many egg cups, and at what high interest. Mrs. Fruhl would always fill the cups and egg cups half full only, making a mark at the door frame, where she had written in S, F, V, O, only rubbing out that mark with her thumb when she had received full cups and full egg cups in return. Then she’d whispered, ‘My God, what fatheads!’—whispered it through the doorways, in shops and to her friends when they gathered to air their old-wives’ gynecology, over eggnogs and potato salad. She’d taken the Host of the Beast very early and had forced her husband and her daughter to swallow it as well, and in the hall she sang, How weary, weary these old bones. Nothing, not a bit of feeling, only the skin of his thumb touching that pale yellow brass button felt something resembling emotion.
“Are you looking for someone?”
“Yes,” he said, “the Schrellas; don’t they live here any more?”
“No,” the girl said, “I’d know if they lived here.”
She was rosy-cheeked and delightful, balancing on her little swaying scooter and propping herself up against the wall of the building.
“No, they never lived here.” Off she went, scampering wildly across the sidewalk, and across the gutter, shouting, “Anyone here know the Schrellas?” He trembled for fear someone would call out yes, and he should have to go over and greet them, and exchange memories: Yes, Ferdi, they got him … your father, they got him … and Edith, what a fine marriage … but the little red-cheeked girl was racing round without success, swerving boldly on her dirty scooter and shouting, from group to group, into open windows, “Anyone here know the Schrellas?” She came back, her face flushed, turned smartly and stopped in front of him. “No sir, no one here knows them.”
“Thank you,” he said, smiling. “Would you like a groschen?”
“Yes”; she rushed gaily away to the lemonade stall.
“I’ve sinned, I’ve sinned greatly,” he softly muttered to himself as he walked back to the terminus; “I’ve had wood-rufflemonade from Gruffel Street with chicken from the Prince Heinrich. I’ve left undisturbed the memories and not thawed out the frost-flowers. I didn’t want to see recognition light up in Erika Progulske’s eyes, or hear Ferdi’s name from her lips. The only memory celebrated was in the skin at the end of my thumb, when it recognized the pale, yellow, brass bell-push.”
It was like running the gauntlet, the eyes so clearly watching him, from the edge of the street, from windows and doorways, while they took the summer sun after the day’s work. Would anybody recognize his spectacles or his walk, or the close set of his eyes; would anyone recognize the much-mocked student of Hölderlin, beneath his foreign overcoat, he at whom they had shouted their song of derision, ‘Schrella, Schrella, Schrella, he’s a poem-reading fella.’
He anxiously wiped the sweat away, took his hat off and stopped, looking back from the corner down Gruffel Street. No one had followed him. A couple of young fellows were sitting on their motorcycles, bending slightly forward and whispering love-talk to the girls standing beside them. Here and there on a window ledge beer bottles caught the afternoon sun. There, across the street, was the house where the angel had been born and raised. The brass doorbell might still be there, where Ferdi’s thumb had pressed it fifteen thousand times. The front of the building was green, and there was a gleaming array in the chemist’s shop window, with toothpaste advertisements, exactly underneath the window from which Ferdi had so often leaned down.
There was the path through the park, the path from which Robert had drawn Edith into the bushes one evening in July, twenty-three years before. Now there were retired men sitting bent over on the benches, swapping jokes and sniffing different brands of tobacco, peevishly observing that the children playing round them were being badly brought up. And shorttempered mothers were calling a bitter fate down upon their disobedient brood, invoking a terrible future: The atom’ll come and get you. And young people were coming back from confession, as yet undecided whether to abandon their state of grace on the spot or wait until the next morning.
One more minute still remained before the next No. 11 left. The rusty tracks had been running for thirty years now toward an empty future. Now Ferdi’s sister was pouring green lemonade into a clean glass. The motorman was ringing for his passengers. The weary conductor stubbed out his cigarette, straightened his leather satchel, got in behind his cabin and rang the bell, and far back where the rusty rails ended an old woman began breaking into a run.
“To Central Station,” said Schrella, “with a Harbor transfer.”
“Forty-five pfennigs.”
Less substantial buildings, more substantial houses, very substantial houses. Transfer, yes, it was No. 16 that still went to the harbor.
Building material, coal dumps, loading ramps. And from the ramp of the old weighhouse he could read it: “Michaelis, Coal, Coke, Briquettes.”
A couple more minutes, around a corner, and he’d be able to complete his remembering. Mrs. Trischler’s hands would have withstood time, like the old man’s eyes and Alois’ photo on the wall. Beer bottles, bundles of onions, tomatoes, bread and tobacco; ships at anchor, swaying gangways down which rolls of sailcloth were carried; giant pupa-shaped vessels would be ready to sail on down the Rhine to the North Sea fog.
Silence lay on the place. Fresh piles of coal were heaped up behind Michaelis’ fence, and there were mountains of bright red bricks in the construction-materials yard; nightwatchmen’s shuffling feet behind fences and sheds only made the silence greater.
Schrella smiled, leaned over the rusty railing, turned, and got a start. He had not known about the new bridge, nor had Nettlinger told him about it. It swung out, wide, over the old harbor basin, and the dark green pillars stood exactly where Trischler’s house had been. Shadows from the bridge were cast out in front where the old tughouse had stood, and the huge, open steel gates rising up out of the water framed blue nothingness.
Father had preferred most of all working in Trischler’s tavern, serving the seamen and their wives in the beer garden during the long summer evenings, while Alois, Edith and he went fishing in the old harbor basin. Eternity of a child’s timescale, infinity otherwise encountered only in verse. On the other side of the river the bells of St. Severin’s had chimed, chiming peace and confidence into the evening, while Edith traced the bobfly’s jerky motion in the air, her hips, her arms and her entire body dancing to the bobbing rhythm; and the fish had not even bitten once.
Father had served yellow beer with white foam, radiating more mildness than doggedness in his face, smilingly refusing every tip because all men are brothers. He called it out in the summer evening: brother, brother. Smiles appeared on the seamen’s thoughtful faces, and pretty women with confidence in their eyes shook their heads at so much childlike pathos, but clapped their applause nonetheless, brothers and sisters.
Schrella came slowly down from the balustrade and walked along by the harbor basin, where rusty boats and pontoons awaited the junk dealer. He plunged deep into the greenish shadow under the bridge and saw, in the middle of the water, industrious cranes loading bits of the old bridge onto barges, where the groaning scrap iron was crushed beneath the weight of more scrap iron descending on it. He came on the pretentious stairs going up onto the bridge, and felt, walking up them, how the wide steps enforced a solemn pace. With ghostly confidence the neat and empty autobahn rose up toward the river and the bridge, where the signboards stopped confidence short with their giant skull and crossbones, black on white. The way west was barred by signboards reading DEATH, DEATH, while across the endless expanse of shining beet leaves an empty road led out to the east.
> Schrella walked on, slipping through between DEATH and the skull and crossbones, past the construction workers’ huts, and pacified a nightwatchman who had raised his arms angrily, only to drop them again, appeased by Schrella’s smile. Schrella walked on farther, to the edge of the old bridge where rusty reinforcement rods, with lumps of concrete still dangling from them, testified by their fifteen years of unbroken survival to the quality of German steel. Behind the empty steel gates, over on the other side of the water, the autobahn resumed its way again, past the golf course and into the endless expanse of glimmering beet leaves.
The Cafe Bellevue. The promenade. On the right, the playing fields, rounders, rounders. The ball that Robert hit, and then the balls they had struck with their cues in Dutch drinking places, red-green, white-green, the monotonous music of the balls sounded almost Gregorian, and the figures formed by the balls were like some strict poetry, endlessly conjured up to the power of three on the green felt. Never a taste of the Host of the Beast, always blindly putting up with the injury inflicted; Feed my lambs on suburban fields, where rounders was played, in streets like Gruffel Street and Modest Street, in English suburban streets and behind prison walls. Feed my lambs wherever you can find them, even when they haven’t anything better to do than read Hölderlin or Trakl, nothing better for fifteen years than write on blackboards ‘I bind, I bound, I have bound, I shall bind, I had bound, I shall have bound,’ while Nettlinger’s children played badminton on well-kept lawns—‘The English are really best at that’—while his pretty wife, well-groomed, well-groomed, very well-groomed, called to him from the terrace, where he reclined in his pretty deck chair, ‘Would you like a drop of gin in your lemonade?’ and he called back, ‘Yes, a good, big one!’ and his wife, letting out a little giggle of delight at such a witty man, poured him a good big drop of gin in his lemonade and went outside and sat down beside him, in the second deck chair, no less pretty than the first, and passed expert judgment on her oldest daughter’s movement at play. Just a shade too thin perhaps, a shade too bony, the pretty face a shade too serious. And now she laid the racket down, exhausted, and went to sit at Daddy’s feet, at Mummy’s feet, by the edge of the lawn—‘Now don’t go and catch cold, darling’—and asked, oh so seriously, ‘Daddy, tell me, what does it mean, exactly, democracy?’ And that was the perfect moment for Daddy to grow solemn, and set down his glass of lemonade, and take the cigar out of his mouth—‘Ernst-Rudolf, that makes five today’—and explain to her, ‘Democracy.…’ No, no, I’ll not be asking you officially or privately to clarify my legal status. I don’t take anything for it, I swore the childish oath in the Cafe Zons; I swore to uphold the nobility of defenselessness. Let my legal position remain unclear. Perhaps Robert has clarified it already with dynamite. Wonder whether Robert’s learned to laugh in the meanwhile, or at least to smile. Always serious, never got over Ferdi’s death. He froze his thoughts of vengeance into formulas and carried them about, lightest of luggage, in his brain, carried them with him for six years, exact formulas, through the sergeants’ mess and the officers’ mess, without laughing once, whereas Ferdi when they arrested him smiled, that angel from the suburbs, from the hovels of a Gruffel Street. And only a square inch or so of skin on the tip of his thumb had consecrated his memory. A gym teacher’s scorched feet. The last lamb killed by a piece of shrapnel. Father was not seen again, not even shot while attempting to escape. And never again a trace of the ball that Robert hit.
Billiards at Half-Past Nine Page 23
