The Tin Drum

by Günter Grass

  Since the police don't believe in miracles, everyone they caught, and all those who turned themselves in, served from four weeks to two months in jail.

  I myself was put under house arrest from time to time, for of course Mama suspected, though she did not admit it to herself, or—wisely enough—to the police, that my glass-shattering voice was involved in this crime spree.

  Matzerath, playing the law-abiding citizen, conducted an interrogation at which I offered no statement of any kind, but hid instead with ever increasing skill behind my drum and the permanently stunted stature of a three-year-old. At the end of such interrogations Mama would always cry, "It's all that midget's fault, kissing Oskar on the head and all. I knew right away it meant something, Oskar never used to be that way."

  I admit Herr Bebra exerted a gentle but persistent influence on me. Even the house arrests couldn't keep me from escaping for an hour or so, with a little luck and of course without leave, to sing one of those notorious round holes in the window of a haberdashery shop and turn the promising young man enjoying the display into the proud owner of a genuine burgundy silk tie.

  If you were to ask, was it Evil that bid Oskar to increase the already strong temptation of a brightly polished shop window by adding a hand-sized opening, I would have to reply, it was. It was Evil by the very fact that I stood in dark doorways. For as we all know, a doorway is Evil's favorite spot. On the other hand, without wishing to downplay the evil nature of the temptations I offered, I feel compelled, now that I have lost all opportunity or inclination for such acts, to say to myself and my keeper Bruno: Oskar, not only did you fulfill the small and medium-sized dreams of those who strolled silently through wintry nights in love with some special object, you helped them, as they stood before those shop windows, to know themselves. Many a respectable, elegant lady, many an upstanding uncle, many an elderly spinster still youthful and vigorous in her religious beliefs, would never have recognized the thief that dwells within had your voice not led them to steal, nor would they have undergone such a change as citizens, who till then had regarded every maladroit petty pickpocket as a dangerous scoundrel deserving eternal damnation.

  After I'd lain in wait for him evenings on end, watching as three times he refused to steal before finally reaching out to become a thief the police never found, Dr. Erwin Scholtis, district attorney and a dreaded prosecutor for the Higher Regional Court, is said to have become a mild, indulgent jurist whose sentences were almost humane, and all because he sacrificed to me, the little demigod of thieves, and stole a genuine badger-hair shaving brush.

  In January of thirty-seven I stood shivering for some time across the way from a jewelry shop, which, despite its quiet location on a suburban avenue bordered at regular intervals by maples, was well-known by name and reputation. The shop window with its watches and jewels attracted all sorts of game that I would have snared without a second thought as they faced displays of silk stockings, velour hats, or bottles of liqueur.

  That's what jewelry does to you: you become selective, take your time, adapt yourself to the endless chain of necklaces, measure time not in minutes but in a string of pearl years, proceed on the assumption that pearls outlast the neck, that the wrist, not the wristband, will wither, that rings will be found in tombs where fingers have long since failed them; in short, I would find one window shopper too pretentious, another too small-minded, to care to bedeck them with jewels.

  The shop window of Bansemer Jewelers was not overcrowded. A few choice watches, Swiss-quality articles, an assortment of wedding rings on pale blue velvet, and in the center of a display of perhaps six, or better seven, of the choicest items: a triply coiled snake, fashioned in varicolored gold, its finely chased head adorned and enriched with a topaz, two diamonds, and two sapphire eyes. As a rule I don't like black velvet, but it was a perfect setting for the Bansemer Jewelers' snake, as was the gray velvet that spread a tingling calm beneath the enchantingly simple articles of silverwork with their harmonious forms. A ring set with a stone so lovely you could see it would wear out the hands of equally lovely women, becoming lovelier and lovelier, till it achieved that degree of immortality reserved, it seems, for jewelry alone. There were chain-necklaces not to be donned with impunity, chains that would wear out the wearer, and finally, on a pale yellow velvet cushion in the simplified form of the base of a neck, a collier necklace of infinite delicacy. Finely articulated, a playful border, a mesh repeatedly pieced. What spider had secreted that golden web into which six small rubies and one large stone had wandered? And where was she sitting, that spider, and waiting for what? Surely not for more rubies, but for someone whose gaze would be riveted by the rubies that glowed in the web like sculpted blood—in other words: to whom, for my own purposes or those of that gold-spinning spider, should I give this necklace?

  On the eighteenth of January, nineteen thirty-seven, on crunchy, hard-trodden snow, in a night that smelled of more snow to come, smelled of all the snow a person who wished to leave it all up to the snow could possibly want, I saw Jan Bronski cross higher up the street on the right from where I was posted, pass the jewelry store without glancing up, then hesitate, or better yet pull up, as if in response to a challenge; he turned, or was turned—and there Jan stood, before the shop window, among the hushed maples laden in white.

  The stylish, always slightly plaintive Jan Bronski, submissive at work, ambitious in love, imprudent and obsessed by beauty in equal measure, who lived from the flesh of my mama, who, as I still believe and doubt to this day, begot me in Matzerath's name, stood in his elegant winter coat, worthy of a Warsaw tailor, and became a statue of himself, or so it seemed to me, so petrified, so symbolically did he stand before the windowpane, his gaze, like that of Parsifal standing in the snow staring at the blood in the snow, fastened upon the rubies of the golden necklace.

  I could have called him back, drummed him back. I had my drum with me, after all. I could feel it under my coat. All I had to do was loosen one button and it would have swung out into the frosty night on its own. One hand in my pocket would handle the sticks. Hubertus the huntsman didn't shoot that special stag he had within range. Saul became Paul. Attila turned round when Pope Leo raised his finger with the ring. But I fired my shot, was neither changed nor turned back, stayed Oskar the huntsman intent on the goal, loosed no button, no drum to the frost, crossed no cudgels on a wintry-white drum, nor turned that January night into one for drummers, but screamed instead in silence, screamed as a star might scream, or a fish deep down, screamed at the very texture of frost, so new snow could fall at last, then screamed into glass, into glass that was thick, into glass that was dear, into glass that was cheap, into glass that was clear, into glass that divided, into glass between worlds, into virginal, mystical shop-window glass that stood between Jan and that necklace of rubies, screamed a hole I knew was the size of Jan's glove, dropped the glass like a trapdoor, like the portals of heaven and the gates of hell: and Jan didn't flinch, let his fine leather hand emerge from his pocket and enter heaven; then the glove left hell behind, stole a necklace from heaven or hell whose rubies looked good on all angels flying or fallen—and he let that handful of rubies and gold slide back in his pocket, and still he stood by the gaping window, in spite of the danger, though no rubies bled now to force his gaze or that of Parsifal in one unchanging direction.

  Oh, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit! Something had better move the Holy Spirit, or it will be the end of Jan the Father. Oskar, the Son, quickly unbuttoned his coat, yanked out his drumsticks, and cried on his drum, Father, Father! till Jan turned round, slowly, much too slowly, crossed the street, and found me, Oskar, in the doorway.

  How good that at the very moment Jan looked at me, his face still expressionless but soon to thaw, it started to snow. He held out a hand, but not the glove that had touched the rubies, to me, and led me, silent but not dejected, home, where Mama was worrying about me, and Matzerath, with his usual feigned severity but no serious intent, was threatening to cal
l the police. Jan offered no explanation, didn't stay long or join the game of skat Matzerath invited him to while placing beer on the table. As he was leaving he patted Oskar, who didn't know whether he was asking for his silence or his friendship.

  Soon thereafter Jan Bronski gave my mama the necklace. Surely aware of its origin, she only wore it a few hours at a time when Matzerath was away, either just for herself or for Jan Bronski, and possibly for me.

  Shortly after the war I traded it on the black market in Düsseldorf for twelve cartons of Lucky Strikes and a leather briefcase.

  No Miracle

  Today, in the bed of my mental institution, I often miss the power I had back then to penetrate the wintry night, thaw frost flowers, lay open shop windows, and guide the hand of thieves.

  How I would like, for example, to deglaze the glazed peephole in the upper third of my door so Bruno, my keeper, could observe me more directly.

  How my voice's impotence pained me the year before I was sent to the institution. If, on some street at night, I released a scream longing for success and yet achieved none, I, who abhor all violence, was quite capable of picking up a stone from some wretched suburban lane in Düsseldorf and taking aim at a kitchen window. I would have been so glad to put on a show, especially for Vittlar, the window dresser. If after midnight, his upper body screened by a curtain, I recognized his green and red wool socks in the window of some men's store on Königsallee or at a perfume shop near the old Concert Hall, I would gladly have sung-shattered glass for him, since he is in fact my disciple, or might be, for I still don't know if I should call him Judas or John.

  Vittlar is of noble birth, and his given name is Gottfried. After my futile and embarrassing attempt at song had failed, I drummed lightly on the undamaged shop window to get the window dresser's attention, and when he came out onto the street for a quarter of an hour to chat with me, making light of his own decorative abilities, I simply called him Gottfried, because my voice had not produced the miracle that would have entitled me to call him John or Judas.

  The song at the jewelry shop that transformed Jan Bronski into a thief and my mama into the owner of a ruby necklace put a temporary end to singing at shop windows with desirable displays. Mama turned pious. What made her pious? Her affair with Jan Bronski, the stolen necklace, the sweet strain of an adulterous woman's life, produced both piety and a lust for sacraments. The routine of sin establishes itself so easily: on Thursdays they met in the city, left little Oskar with Markus, engaged in a strenuous and generally satisfactory workout on Tischlergasse, refreshed themselves afterward in the Café Weitzke with Mocha and pastries, she picked up the boy at the Jew's place, accepted a few of his compliments along with a package of sewing silk he practically gave her for free, caught the Number Five streetcar, enjoyed the ride past Oliva Gate along Hindenburgallee, smiling, her thoughts far away, scarcely noticed the Maiwiese by the Sporthalle where Matzerath spent his Sunday mornings, tolerated the curve around the Sporthalle—how ugly that box could be when one had just experienced something beautiful—a further curve to the left and there behind the dust-covered trees was the Conradinum with its red-capped schoolboys—how nice little Oskar would have looked in a red cap like that with its golden C; twelve and a half he would be, sitting in the third form, ready for Latin, behaving like a true little Conradinian: hardworking, slightly cheeky, and arrogant.

  Beyond the railway underpass, heading toward Reichskolonie and the Helene Lange School, Frau Agnes Matzerath's thoughts of the Conradinum and her son Oskar's missed opportunities faded away. Another curve leftward past the Church of Christ with its onion dome to alight at Max-Halbe-Platz in front of Kaisers-Kaffee, where she glanced briefly in the competition's shop windows, then toiled along Labesweg as if passing through the stations of the cross: the incipient disgust, the abnormal child holding her hand, her guilty conscience, the desire for more of the same; satiated yet still wanting more, with a mixture of loathing and good-natured affection for Matzerath, Mama toiled down Labesweg with me, with my new drum, with her package of practically free sewing silk, to the shop, to rolled oats, to kerosene and casks of herring, to currants, raisins, almonds, and gingerbread spices, to Dr. Oetker's Baking Powder, to Persil Tried and True, to Urbin's the One, to Maggi and Knorr, to Kathreiner and Kaffee Hag, to Vitello and Palmin, to Kühne's Vinegar and four-fruit jam, to those two fly strips abuzz at different pitches that dangled honey-sweet above our counter and had to be changed every other day in summer, while Mama, with a similarly oversweet soul that attracted sins buzzing high and low throughout the year, summer and winter alike, entered the Church of the Sacred Heart each Saturday and confessed to the Right Reverend Father Wiehnke.

  Just as Mama took me along to the city on Thursdays to share in her guilt, so to speak, she took me on Saturdays through the portals onto the cool Catholic flagstones, having first stuffed my drum under my sweater or my little overcoat, for I couldn't do without my drum, and without my drum at my stomach I would never have crossed myself in Catholic fashion, touching my forehead, chest and shoulders, or knelt down as though to put on my shoes, or behaved and sat still on the polished church wood as the holy water slowly dried on the bridge of my nose.

  I still remembered the Church of the Sacred Heart from my baptism: my heathen name caused problems, but the family insisted on Oskar, as Jan, my godfather, made clear at the church door. Then Father Wiehnke blew in my face three times to drive Satan out, the sign of the cross was made, a hand was laid upon me, salt was sprinkled and a few further measures taken against Satan. Inside the church a second stop at the actual baptismal chapel. I kept quiet as the Apostles' Creed and Our Father were tendered to me. After which Father Wiehnke found it advisable to pronounce another Satan Depart, and imagined he was awakening my senses as he touched Oskar's nose and ears, though I had known what was what right from the start. Then he wanted to hear it once more, loud and clear, asking, "Dost thou renounce Satan? And all his works? And all his pomp?"

  Before I could shake my head—for I had no intention of rejecting anything—Jan answered in my stead, saying three times, "I do renounce."

  Without my having said anything to spoil my relations with Satan, Father Wiehnke anointed me on the breast and between my shoulder blades. Another Apostles' Creed before the baptismal font, then finally water three times, anointing of the scalp with chrism, a white garment to stain, the candle for days of darkness, the dismissal—Matzerath paid—and as Jan carried me outside the doors of the Church of the Sacred Heart to where the taxi stood waiting in clear to partly cloudy weather, I asked Satan within me, "Did you make it through?"

  Satan hopped up and down and whispered, "Did you see those church windows, Oskar? All glass, all glass!"

  The Church of the Sacred Heart was built during the early years of the German empire, and its style could thus be identified as Neo-Gothic. Since it had been faced with rapidly darkening brick, and the copper dome of the tower had quickly taken on the traditional verdigris, the distinctions between early Gothic brick churches and Neo-Gothic ones were evident and disturbing only to experts. Confession was heard identically in churches old and new. Hundreds of other Right Reverend Fathers sat in the confessional on Saturday after the offices and shops had closed exactly as the Right Reverend Father Wiehnke did, holding a hairy priestly ear against the polished black grille while the congregation attempted to slip their strings of sins with bead after bead of sinfully tawdry jewels through the lattice and into his priestly ear.

  While Mama, following the model Mirror of Confession, was communicating her omissions and commissions, her conduct in thought, word, and deed, to the highest authorities of the only true Church by way of Father Wiehnke's auditory canal, I, who had nothing to confess, slid down from the church wood too smoothly polished for my liking and took my stand upon the flagstones.

  I admit that the flagstones in Catholic churches, the odor of a Catholic church, Catholicism as a whole, still inexplicably fascinates me, like a red-ha
ired girl, even though I'd like to re-dye that red hair and even though Catholicism moves me to blasphemies that repeatedly betray my futile, yet still irrevocable, baptism as a Catholic. Even during the most mundane of activities, like brushing my teeth, even during bowel movements, I catch myself running through commentaries on the Mass such as: In the Holy Mass Christ's blood sacrifice is renewed, his blood is shed again for the remission of your sins, this is the chalice of his blood, the wine is transformed whenever Christ's blood is shed, the true blood of Christ is present, through the vision of his most sacred blood, the soul is sprinkled with the blood of Christ, the precious blood, washed in the blood, in the consecration the blood flows, the bloodstained flesh, the voice of Christ's blood rings through all the heavens, the blood of Christ diffuses fragrance before the face of God.

  You must admit I have retained a certain Catholic tone. In earlier days I couldn't wait for a streetcar without thinking of the Virgin Mary. I called her blessed, full of grace, virgin of virgins, mother of divine grace, Thou blessed among women, Thou who art worthy of all veneration, Thou who hast borne the..., mother most amiable, mother inviolate, virgin most renowned, let me savor the sweetness of the name of Jesus as Thou savoredst it in thy heart, for it is just and meet, right and for our salvation, Queen of Heaven, thrice-blessed....