by Günter Grass
Pinchcoal looked me over, suggested something to his chief called "a dusting." Others in the background, the pimply Lionheart, Mister, Thumper, and PuttPutt, also favored a dusting.
Still with the moon, I spelled out the word dusting. A pretty little word, but it surely did not stand for anything pleasant.
"I'll decide when it's time for a dusting!" Störtebeker said, bringing the murmurs of his gang to an end, then turned to me again: "We've seen you plenty of times on Bahnhofstraße. What are you doing there? Where you coming from?"
Two questions at once. Oskar had to answer at least one of them if he wanted to maintain control of the situation. So I turned my gaze from the moon, looked at Störtebeker with my persuasive blue eyes, and said quietly: "I'm coming from church."
Murmuring behind Störtebeker's raincoat. They filled in my answer. Pinchcoal figured out that by church I meant the Church of the Sacred Heart.
"What's your name?"
This question was bound to come up. It lay in the very nature of the encounter. This particular formulation plays an important role in human conversation. Answering that question provides the substance of entire plays, both short and long, as well as whole operas—see Lohengrin.
I waited for the moonlight to emerge between two clouds, let it shimmer in the blue of my eyes and work on Störtebeker for the length of three spoonfuls of soup, then spoke, named myself, envious of the word's effect—for the name Oskar would only have made them laugh—"My name is Jesus," Oskar declared; a long silence followed this confession, till Pinchcoal cleared his throat and said, "We really have to dust him, Chief."
Pinchcoal wasn't the only one in favor of dusting him. Störtebeker gave his permission with a snap of his fingers and Pinchcoal grabbed me, ground his knuckles into my upper right arm, rubbed them rapidly, dry, hot, and painful until Störtebeker signaled stop with a second snap of his fingers—so that was dusting.
"Now what was that name?" The chief in his velour hat acted bored, shot his right arm out like a boxer, pulling back the overly long sleeve of his raincoat, showed his wristwatch in the moonlight, and whispered past me to my left, "You've got one minute to think it over. Then I close up shop."
For another full minute Oskar could gaze at the moon with impunity, search for refuge in its craters, and question the decision he once made to follow in Christ's footsteps. Because I didn't like the sound of the phrase close up shop, and because I had no intention of allowing these brats to patronize me with their deadlines, after about thirty-five seconds Oskar declared, "I am Jesus."
What happened next was very effective, though I hadn't planned it. The moment I repeated my confession as Christ's follower, and before Störtebeker could snap his fingers or Pinchcoal could start dusting—an air-raid siren sounded.
Oskar said, "Jesus," took another breath, and the word was confirmed one after the other by the sirens at the nearby airfield, the siren at the headquarters of the infantry barracks in Hochstrieß, the siren on the roof of the Horst Wessel School just outside Langfuhr Forest, the siren on Sternfeld's department store, and far in the distance, from Hindenburgallee, the siren at the School of Engineering. It was some time before all the sirens in the suburb, like a choir of long-winded and emphatic archangels, took up the message I had delivered, set the night rising and falling, caused dreams to flicker and break, crept into the ears of the sleeping, and gave the moon, which was beyond all influence, the terrible significance of a heavenly body that could not be blacked out.
While Oskar knew that the air-raid alarm was entirely on his side, the sirens made Störtebeker nervous. A part of his gang was addressed directly and clearly by the alarm. He had to send the four Air Force auxiliaries over the fence to their batteries to man the eight-comma-eights between the tram depot and the airfield. Three of his people, Belisarius among them, were air-raid wardens at the Conradinum, and also had to leave immediately. The rest of them, around fifteen in number, he kept together, and since nothing was going on in the sky, he resumed the interrogation: "So if we understood you right, you're Jesus. Let's leave it at that. One more question: How do you do that thing with the streetlights and windowpanes? Don't try to get out of it, we know what's going on!"
But in fact they had no idea what was going on. At most they had witnessed one or another of my vocal triumphs. Oskar told himself not to be too hard on the youngsters, who today would simply be called hooligans. I tried to forgive their direct and somewhat awkward single-mindedness, to be gentle and objective. So these were the notorious Dusters the whole city had been talking about for the past few weeks, a gang of youths the police and several Hitler Youth patrols were after. Schoolboys, as it later turned out, from the Conradinum, Petri School, and Horst Wessel School. There was also a second gang of Dusters in Neufahrwasser, led by schoolboys but made up largely of apprentices from the Schichau shipyards and the railroad-car factory. The two gangs worked separately, joining forces only for nighttime forays by way of Schichaugasse to Steffenspark and Hindenburgallee, combing them for leaders heading home from evening classes of the League of German Girls at the youth hostel on Bischofsberg. Quarrels between gangs were avoided, their respective territories were clearly demarcated, and Störtebeker considered the leader of the Neufahrwasser group more as a friend than a rival. The Dusters attacked everything. They raided the offices of the Hitler Youth, grabbed medals and insignia from soldiers on furlough necking with their girls in the park, stole weapons, ammunition, and gasoline from anti-aircraft batteries, aided by their Air Force auxiliaries, and had been planning a major attack on the Office of Economic Affairs from the very start.
Oskar knew nothing about the Dusters' organization and plans back then, but feeling forsaken and dejected, a sense of security stole over him in the company of these youths. I was already secretly starting to feel I belonged with them, cast our age difference to the wind—I would soon be twenty—and thought: Why not give them a sample of your art? The young are always eager to learn. You too were fifteen or sixteen once. Give them an example, a little demonstration. They'll admire you, may even make you their leader. You can exercise your influence, sharpened by long experience; answer your calling now, gather disciples and follow in the footsteps of Christ.
Störtebeker may have sensed that my meditative silence was well founded. He gave me time, and I was thankful to him. The end of August. A moonlit night with scattered clouds. Air-raid sirens. Two or three spotlights on the coast. Probably a reconnaissance flight. Paris was being evacuated. Across from me the multiwindowed facade of the Baltic Chocolate Factory headquarters. After a long march back, Army Group Center had dug in at the Vistula. Of course Baltic no longer sold retail, but made chocolate for the Air Force. So Oskar had to get used to the idea of General Patton's soldiers strolling about beneath the Eiffel Tower in their American uniforms. That was painful for me, and Oskar lifted a drumstick. All those hours with Roswitha. And Störtebeker noticed my gesture, his eyes followed my stick toward the chocolate factory. While Japanese soldiers were being cleaned out of a small island in the Pacific in broad daylight, here the moon lay in all the factory windows at once. And Oskar said to all who had ears to hear, "Jesus will now singshatter glass."
Even before I'd finished off the first three panes, I heard the buzz of a fly high above me. While two further panes were surrendering their moonlight, I thought: That fly's dying, or it wouldn't be buzzing so loud. Then I blackened the rest of the windows on the top floor of the factory with my voice, and convinced myself that several spotlights must be suffering from anemia, before eliminating reflected lights—probably from the battery near Camp Narvik—on the two lower floors. First the coastal batteries fired; then I let the middle floor have it. A moment later the Altschottland, Pelonken, and Schellmühl batteries opened up. Three windows on the ground floor—and night fighters were taking off from the airfield, streaking low over the factory. Before I'd finished off the ground floor the anti-aircraft guns had stopped firing, leaving it to the night f
ighters to shoot down the four-engine long-range bomber, which was being honored by three spotlights at once over Oliva.
At first Oskar was worried that the simultaneity of his own presentation with the spectacular efforts of the anti-aircraft guns might divide the gang's attention, or even lure their gaze from the factory into the night sky.
Thus, when my work was done, I was all the more astonished to find the entire band still staring at the chocolate factory with no windowpanes. Even when applause and bravos erupted from nearby Hohenfriedberger Weg as from a theater, because the bomber had been hit and was in flames, offering a general spectacle as it crash-landed in Jäschkentaler Forest, only a few members of the gang, PuttPutt among them, tore themselves away from the deglazed factory. But neither Stôrtebeker nor Pinchcoal, the ones I cared about, paid any attention to the downing.
Then the heavens were bare once more of all but the moon and the petty jewelry of the stars. The night fighters landed. Far in the distance fire engines howled. Then Stôrtebeker turned, showing me the usual contemptuous curve of his lip, gave the boxer's jab that freed the wristwatch from the sleeve of his oversize raincoat, removed the watch, handed it to me without a word, and, breathing heavily, tried to say something but had to wait for the all-clear sirens to die away before declaring, to the applause of his gang, "OK, Jesus. You're in if you want. We're the Dusters, if that means anything to you!"
Oskar weighed the wristwatch in his hand, then gave the rather fine piece with its luminous dial showing twenty-three minutes past midnight to little Pinchcoal. He looked up inquiringly at his chief. Stôrtebeker nodded his assent. And Oskar said, as he adjusted his drum snugly for the trip home, "Jesus will lead the way. Follow thou me!"
The Christmas Play
There was a good deal of talk in those days about miracle weapons and final victory. We Dusters didn't talk about either, but we had the miracle weapon.
Oskar's first move when he took over leadership of the thirty to forty members of the gang was to have Störtebeker introduce me to the chief of the Neufahrwasser group, Moorskiff, a limping seventeen-year-old, the son of a high official in the Neufahrwasser Pilot Office, who because of his disability—his right leg was almost an inch shorter than his left—had not been taken in as an Air Force auxiliary or as a recruit. Even though Moorskiff displayed his limp openly and assertively, he was shy and soft-spoken. This young man, who bore a constant and somewhat crafty smile on his lips, was considered the top student in the graduating class at the Conradinum and had every expectation—so long as the Russian Army raised no objection—of passing his final exam with flying colors; Moorskiff planned to study philosophy.
Like Störtebeker, who gave me his unconditional respect, this lame boy accepted me as Jesus, leader of the Dusters. Oskar asked both gangs right at the start to show him the storeroom and the cash box, for they both kept their loot in the same cellar. This dry and spacious room was located in a quiet, elegant villa on Jäschkentaler Weg in Langfuhr. The house, covered with ivy and creeping vines and set well back from the street at the top of a gently rising lawn, was the abode of PuttPutt's parents, who were named "von Puttkamer"—though Herr von Puttkamer, who had been awarded the Knight's Cross and was of Pomeranian-Polish-Prussian stock, was off commanding a division in fair France, while Frau Elisabeth von Puttkamer, who was in poor health, had been in upper Bavaria for several months now, trying to recover. Wolfgang von Puttkamer, whom the Dusters called PuttPutt, was lord of the manor, for we never saw the old, nearly deaf maid who cared for the young master in the upper reaches of the villa, since we entered the cellar through the laundry room.
The storeroom was piled high with canned goods, tobacco, and several bolts of parachute silk. Hanging from one shelf were two dozen army watches, which PuttPutt was under orders from Störtebeker to keep running and properly synchronized. He also had to clean the two submachine guns, the assault rifle, and the pistols. I was shown a bazooka, machine-gun ammo, and twenty-five hand grenades. All this and an imposing row of gasoline cans were meant for storming the Office of Economic Affairs. Oskar's first order, which I spoke as Jesus, ran as follows: "Bury the weapons and gasoline in the garden. Hand over all the firing pins to Jesus. Our weapons are of a different kind!"
When the gang showed me a cigar box full of stolen medals and decorations I smiled and granted them permission to keep them. But I should have taken away the paratrooper knives. Later on they made use of those blades, which fit so neatly inside their handles and were just crying out to be used.
Then they brought me the cash box. Oskar had them count out the money, re-counted it himself, and recorded the cash on hand as two thousand four hundred and twenty Reichsmarks. This was at the beginning of September, in forty-four. And when, in mid-January of forty-five, Konev and Zhukov broke through on the Vistula, we were forced to surrender our cellar cash box. PuttPutt confessed, and thirty-six thousand Reichsmarks lay stacked and bundled on the bench of the Higher Regional Court.
True to my nature, Oskar stayed in the background during the action. By day, on my own usually, or at most with Störtebeker, I would seek out a suitable target for our nightly forays, then leave the planning to Störtebeker or Moorskiff, and would singshatter—now I've named our miracle weapon—with greater long-distance effect than ever before, and without leaving Mother Truczinski's flat, from my bedroom window, at some late hour, the ground-floor windows of several Party offices, the courtyard window of a printing shop that turned out food-ration cards, and once, when requested, and reluctantly, the kitchen windows of a high school principal the boys bore a grudge against.
This was in November. V1s and V2s were winging toward England, and I sang out over Langfuhr, followed the trees of the Hindenburgallee, hopped over Central Station, Altstadt, and Rechtstadt, sought out Fleischergasse and the museum, and sent my gang in to look for Niobe, the wooden galleon figurehead.
They didn't find her. In the room beside me Mother Truczinski sat stuck in her chair, her head wobbling, sharing some things she had in common with me; for while Oskar sang long-distance, she thought longdistance, searching heaven for her son Herbert, and the front lines of the Center Sector for her son Fritz. And she also searched distant Düsseldorf for her eldest daughter Guste, who'd gone off to get married in the Rhineland in forty-four, since that was where Köster the headwaiter lived, though now he was spending time in Courland; Guste had only a brief two-week furlough to have him to herself and get to know him.
Those were peaceful evenings. Oskar sat at Mother Truczinski's feet, improvised a bit on his drum, fetched a baked apple from the oven in the tile stove, disappeared into the darkened bedroom with the wrinkled fruit meant for old women and little children, lifted the blackout paper, opened the window a crack, letting a little of the frosty night into the room, and sent forth his carefully aimed long-distance song, not toward any trembling star or some point in the Milky Way, but aimed instead at Winterfeldplatz, not at the radio building, but at the boxlike structure across the way, where the office doors of the Hitler Youth district headquarters stood all in a row.
In clear weather my work took barely a minute. Meanwhile the baked apple had cooled off a little by the open window. Munching, I returned to Mother Truczinski and my drum and soon went to bed, with every assurance that while Oskar slept, the Dusters were stealing Party cash boxes, food-ration cards, and, most important of all, official rubber stamps, preprinted forms, or a membership list of the Hitler Youth Patrol, all in Jesus' name.
Indulgently I let Störtebeker and Moorskiff engage in all sorts of nonsense with falsified documents. The gang's main enemy was now the Patrol Service. They could kidnap and dust their adversaries to their hearts' content, or, for all I cared—to use Pinchcoal's phrase for the practice, which he oversaw himself—polish their balls.
Since I kept my distance from these events, which were all a mere prologue, revealing nothing of my real plans, I can't say for sure whether it was the Dusters who, in September of forty-fou
r, tied up two highranking officers of the Patrol Service, one the dreaded Helmut Neitberg, and drowned them in the Mottlau above the Kuhbrücke.
But as Oskar and Jesus, double leader of the bands, I must challenge later claims that there were connections between the Dusters and the Edelweiß Pirates in Cologne on the Rhine, or that Polish partisans from Tuchlerheide influenced our actions, perhaps even directed them; all this must be banished to the realm of legend.
At the trial we were also accused of having ties with the perpetrators of the July Twentieth conspiracy, because PuttPutt's father, August von Puttkamer, had been close to Field Marshal Rommel and had committed suicide. PuttPutt, who had seen his father perhaps four or five times during the war, and then just briefly enough to note his changing insignia of rank, first heard this story about the officers, which left us totally indifferent, at the trial, and wept so wretchedly and shamelessly that Pinchcoal, who was sitting beside him, had to give him a dusting right in front of the judges.
Only once in the course of our activities did grownups try to approach us. Some shipyard workers—with Communist leanings, as I could guess at once—tried to gain influence over our Schichau apprentices and turn us into a Red underground movement. The apprentices weren't even particularly opposed to the idea. But the high school students opposed all political tendencies. Mister, the Air Force auxiliary who was the band's cynic and theoretician, formulated his position during a gang meeting: "We have nothing to do with parties, we're fighting against our parents and all grownups, regardless of what they may be for or against."
Mister may have put it a bit too strongly, but the schoolboys all agreed; and so there was a schism within the Duster gangs. The Schichau apprentices—they were good lads, I was sorry to see them go—formed a club of their own, but, over the objections of Störtebeker and Moorskiff, still called themselves Dusters. At the trial—for their shop went bust at the same time ours did—the fire on the training submarine in the shipyards was laid at their doorstep. Over one hundred captains and midshipmen met a terrible death on the submarine. Fire broke out on deck, preventing the crew sleeping below from leaving their quarters, and when the young midshipmen of barely eighteen tried to squeeze out the portholes to the safety of the harbor waters, their hips got stuck; caught from behind by the rapidly spreading flames, they screamed so loudly and for so long that motor launches were brought alongside and they had to be shot.
