The Clown

by Heinrich Böll

  9

  It was a long time before anyone at the Fredebeuls came to the phone; the constant ringing got on my nerves, I imagined Mrs. Fredebeul asleep, then being woken up by the ringing, then falling asleep again, then being woken up again, and I suffered all the agony that this call was causing her ears. I was just about to hang up but told myself this was an emergency and let it go on ringing. The idea of waking Fredebeul himself out of a deep sleep would not have bothered me in the least: the fellow doesn’t deserve undisturbed sleep; he is pathologically ambitious, probably always has his hand poised on the telephone ready to call someone up or take calls from government department heads, editors, executive committees and the party. I like his wife very much. She was still a schoolgirl when he took her for the first time to a group meeting, and the way she sat there, following the theological-sociological discussions with her beautiful eyes, quite upset me. I could see she would much rather have gone dancing or to a movie. Sommerwild, in whose home this meeting was taking place, kept asking me: Is it too warm for you, Schnier, and I said: No, sir, although the sweat was pouring off my forehead and cheeks. Finally I went out onto Sommerwild’s balcony because I couldn’t stand all that talking any more. She was the one who had started off this whole palaver by saying—à propos of nothing, by the way, as actually they were discussing the size and extent of provincialism—she thought some things Gottfried Benn had written were “quite nice really.” Whereupon Fredebeul, who was supposed to be her fiancé, went scarlet, for Kinkel gave him one of his famous speaking looks: “How come? Haven’t you straightened her out about this yet?” So he straightened her out himself and chipped away at the poor girl, using the whole Western world as a chisel. There was practically nothing left of the nice girl, the chips flew, and I was annoyed at Fredebeul for being such a coward and not intervening because with Kinkel he was “committed” to a certain ideological line, I have no idea whether left or right, at any rate they have their line, and Kinkel felt morally obliged to straighten out Fredebeul’s fiancée. Sommerwild didn’t lift a finger either, though he represented the opposite line from Kinkel’s and Fredebeul’s, I can’t remember which: if Kinkel and Fredebeul are left, Sommerwild is right, or vice versa. Marie had gone a bit pale too, but she is impressed by erudition—I have never been able to talk her out of it—and Kinkel’s erudition impressed the future Mrs. Fredebeul too: with almost lascivious sighs she submitted to the torrent of information: from the Church Fathers to Brecht, it poured down like a tropical storm, and when I came back refreshed from the balcony they were all sitting there totally exhausted, drinking punch—and all because the poor child had said she thought some of Benn’s writings were “quite nice really.”

  Now she already has two children by Fredebeul, is barely twenty-two, and while the phone was still ringing in their apartment I imagined her somewhere busy with baby bottles, talcum powder, diapers and cold cream, utterly helpless and confused, and I thought of the mountains of dirty diapers and the unwashed, greasy dishes in her kitchen. Once when the conversation became too exhausting for me I had helped her make some toast, cut sandwiches and put on the coffee, chores of which I can only say that they are less repellent to me than certain forms of conversation.

  A very hesitant voice said: “Yes?” and I could tell from the voice that the kitchen, bathroom and bedroom looked more hopeless than ever. I could hardly smell anything this time: only that she must be holding a cigarette.

  “Schnier speaking,” I said, and I expected an exclamation of pleasure, such as she always gives when I call her up. Oh, you’re in Bonn—how nice—or something like that, but there was an embarrassed silence, then she said feebly: “Oh, that’s nice.” I didn’t know what to say. Formerly she always used to say: “When are you coming to give us a show again?” Not a word. I was embarrassed, not for my sake, more for hers, for me it was only depressing, for her it was embarrassing. “The letters,” I finally said with an effort, “the letters I sent to Marie care of your address?”

  “They’re lying here,” she said, “returned unopened.”

  “Where did you forward them to?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, “my husband took care of that.”

  “But you must have seen on the letters that came back what address he wrote on them?”

  “Are you cross-examining me?”

  “Oh no,” I said mildly, “no, no, I simply thought in all modesty that perhaps I had a right to know what happened to my letters.”

  “Which you, without asking us, sent here.”

  “Dear Mrs. Fredebeul,” I said, “please, do be human now.”

  She laughed, faintly but audibly, but said nothing.

  “What I mean is,” I said, “there is a point at which human beings, even if for ideological reasons—become human.”

  “Does that mean that up to now I have behaved inhumanly?”

  “Yes,” I said. She laughed again, very faintly, but still audibly.

  “I am very unhappy about this whole thing,” she said finally, “but more than that I can’t say. You have disappointed us all terribly.”

  “As a clown?” I asked.

  “That too,” she said, “but not only that.”

  “I suppose your husband isn’t home?”

  “No,” she said, “he won’t be back for a few days. He is on an election campaign in the Eifel Mountains.”

  “What?” I exclaimed; that was news indeed, “surely not for the CDU?”

  “Why not,” she said in a voice that made it clear she would like to hang up.

  “Oh all right,” I said, “is it asking too much if I ask you to send me my letters.”

  “Where to?”

  “To Bonn—to my address here in Bonn.”

  “You’re in Bonn?” she asked, and it sounded as if she was suppressing a “For Heaven’s sake.”

  “Goodbye,” I said, “and thank you for so much humanity.” I was sorry to be so angry with her, I was fed up. I went into the kitchen, took the cognac out of the icebox and had a long drink from it. It didn’t help. I had another, that didn’t help either. Mrs. Fredebeul was the last person from whom I would have expected a brush-off like that. I had been prepared for a long sermon about marriage, with reproaches about my behavior toward Marie; she could be dogmatic in a nice, consistent way, but usually when I was in Bonn and phoned her she would ask me laughingly to help her again in the kitchen and with the children. I must have been mistaken about her, or perhaps she was pregnant again and in a bad mood. I didn’t have the nerve to phone again and maybe find out what was the matter with her. She had always been so nice to me. The only way I could account for it was that Fredebeul had given her “strict instructions” how to treat me. I have often noticed how wives are loyal to their husbands to the point of absolute madness. Mrs. Fredebeul was no doubt too young to know how deeply her unnatural coldness would hurt me, and I really couldn’t expect her to realize that Fredebeul is little more than an opportunist, full of hot air, intent on becoming a success at all costs and prepared to “drop” his own grandmother if she got in his way. No doubt he had said, “Write Schnier off,” and so she simply wrote me off. She was under his thumb, and as long as he had believed I was useful in some way, she had been allowed to follow her natural instincts and be nice to me, now contrary to her instincts she had to be unkind to me. But maybe I was doing them an injustice, and they were both merely following the dictates of their conscience. If Marie was married to Züpfner, it was no doubt sinful to arrange a contact between us—that Züpfner was the man in the Executive Committee and could be useful to Fredebeul didn’t interfere with their conscience. Doubtless they must do what was right and proper even when it was to their advantage. I was less shocked at Fredebeul than at his wife. I had never had any illusions about him, and not even the fact that he was now on an election tour on behalf of the Christian Democratic Union could surprise me.

  I put the cognac bottle away in the refrigerator for good.

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p; I decided I might as well ring them all, one after the other, so I could get the Catholics out of the way. Somehow I was wide awake now and wasn’t even limping any more when I came back to the living room from the kitchen.

  Even the clothes closet and the door to the broom closet in the hall were terra cotta.

  I didn’t expect to get anywhere by phoning Kinkel—but I dialed his number just the same. He had always declared himself to be an enthusiastic admirer of my art—and anyone familiar with our profession knows that even the tiniest scrap of praise from a stagehand makes us nearly burst with pride. I had the urge to disturb the peace of Kinkel’s Christian evening—and the idea at the back of my mind that he might tell me where Marie was. He was the brain of the group, had studied theology, then broken off his studies on account of a pretty woman, went in for law, had seven children and was said to be “one of our most capable social legislators.” Perhaps he really was, I couldn’t judge. Before I met him Marie had given me one of his pamphlets to read, Ways to a New Order, and after reading it, and liking it very much, I had imagined him as a tall, slight man with fair hair, and then when I saw him for the first time: a heavy-set, short chap with thick black hair, “bursting with vitality,” I couldn’t believe it was him. Maybe it was because he didn’t look the way I had imagined that I was so unjust toward him. Whenever Marie began to enthuse about Kinkel, old man Derkum had always talked about the Kinkel cocktails: mixtures of various ingredients: Marx plus Guardini, or Bloy plus Tolstoy. The first time we were invited there, things went wrong right from the start. We arrived much too early, and somewhere in the rear of the apartment Kinkel’s children were quarreling noisily, with much hissing, subdued by still further hissing, as to whose job it was to clear the supper table. Kinkel came in, smiling, still chewing, and tried desperately to hide his irritation at our premature appearance. Sommerwild came in too, not chewing, but grinning and rubbing his hands. Kinkel’s children shrieked atrociously in the background, an embarrassing contrast to Kinkel’s smile and Sommerwild’s grin, we could hear faces being slapped, a brutal sound, and behind closed doors, I knew, the shrieking went on worse than ever. I sat there beside Marie and out of sheer nervousness, thrown completely off balance by the row going on in the background, I smoked one cigarette after another, while Sommerwild chatted with Marie, that “forgiving, generous smile” never leaving his face. It was our first time back in Bonn since our flight. Marie was pale with emotion, also with awe and pride, and I understood very well what she was feeling. It was important to her to “become reconciled with the Church,” and Sommerwild was so kind to her, and Kinkel and Sommerwild were people she looked up to in awe. She introduced me to Sommerwild, and when we sat down again Sommerwild said: “Are you related to the brown-coal Schniers?” I was annoyed. He knew quite well who I was related to. Almost everyone in Bonn knew Marie Derkum had run away with one of the brown-coal Schniers, “just before her graduation, too, and she was such a religious girl.” I ignored Sommerwild’s question, he laughed and said: “Sometimes I go hunting with your grandfather, and occasionally I play skat with your father at the Union Club in Bonn.” This annoyed me too. Surely he couldn’t be so stupid as to suppose I would be impressed by this nonsense about hunting and the Union Club, and he didn’t look to me the type of man who would say something just for the sake of talking. I finally opened my mouth and said: “Hunting? I always thought the Catholic clergy were forbidden to hunt.” An awkward silence followed, Marie blushed, Kinkel hunted irritably around the room for the corkscrew, his wife, who had just come into the room, shook some salted almonds onto a glass dish which already contained olives. Even Sommerwild blushed, and it didn’t suit him at all, his face was red enough in the first place. He said in a low yet slightly offended voice: “For a Protestant you are well informed.” And I said: “I am not a Protestant, but I am interested in certain things because Marie is interested in them.” And while Kinkel poured us all some wine, Sommerwild said: “There are certain rules, Schnier, but there are also exceptions. I come from a family in which the profession of head game warden was hereditary.” If he had said profession of game warden I would have understood, but his saying profession of head game warden annoyed me again, though I said nothing, just looked sour. Then they began again with their eye-language. Mrs. Kinkel said with her eyes to Sommerwild: Leave him alone, he’s so terribly young. And Sommerwild said with his eyes to her: Yes, young and pretty badly behaved, and Kinkel as he filled my glass, the last one, said with his eyes to me: God, how young you are. Aloud he said to Marie: “How’s your father? Still the same?” Poor Marie was so pale and upset that she could only nod dumbly. Sommerwild said: “What would our nice devout old city be like without Mr. Derkum.” That annoyed me still further, for old man Derkum had told me that Sommerwild had tried to warn the Catholic schools kids, who still bought candy and pencils at his shop, against him. I said: “Without Mr. Derkum our nice devout old city would be even dirtier, at least he is not a hypocrite.” Kinkel looked at me in surprise, raised his glass and said: “Thank you, Mr. Schnier, you have given me my cue for a good toast: let’s drink to Martin Derkum’s health.” I said: “Yes, to his health with pleasure.” And Mrs. Kinkel spoke again with her eyes to her husband: He is not only young and badly behaved—he is also insolent. I have never understood how later on Kinkel could always refer to that “first evening with you” as the nicest. Shortly afterwards Fredebeul arrived, with his fiancée, Monika Silvs and a certain Von Severn of whom, before he came, it was said that “although he had just converted he was very close to the Socialist Party,” which was evidently regarded as a terrific sensation. I also met Fredebeul for the first time that evening, and there again the same thing happened as with almost all the others: in spite of everything they liked me, and in spite of everything I didn’t like any of them, except Fredebeul’s fiancée and Monika Silvs; I felt neither one way nor the other about Von Severn. He was a bore and seemed firmly determined to rest on the laurels he had acquired from the sensational fact that he was a convert and a member of the Socialist Party; he smiled, was friendly, and yet his rather prominent eyes always seemed to be saying: Look at me, it’s me! I didn’t find him bad at all. Fredebeul was very jovial with me, he talked for almost three quarters of an hour about Beckett and Ionesco, rattling off a lot of stuff which I could tell he had pieced together from his reading, and his smooth handsome face with the surprisingly wide mouth radiated goodwill when I was stupid enough to acknowledge having read Beckett; everything he says seems so familiar to me, as if I had read it somewhere before. Kinkel beamed at him admiringly, and Sommerwild looked around, his eyes saying: We Catholics aren’t behind the times, are we, eh? All this was before prayers. It was Mrs. Kinkel who said: “I think, Odilo, we can say prayers. It looks as if Heribert is not coming today”—they all looked at Marie, then away again, much too quickly, but I didn’t understand why there was again such an awkward silence—it was only in Hanover in the hotel room that I suddenly realized Heribert is Züpfner’s Christian name. He did come later after all, after prayers, when they were in the midst of the topic for the evening, and I found it very sweet the way Marie went up to him as soon as he came in the room, looked at him, and gave a helpless little shrug before Züpfner greeted the others and sat down next to me with a smile. Sommerwild then told the story of the Catholic writer who lived for a long time with a divorced woman, and when he finally married her an eminent church dignitary said to him: “But my dear Besewitz, couldn’t you have just kept her on as a concubine?” They all laughed rather boisterously at this story, and Mrs. Kinkel almost obscenely. The only one who didn’t laugh was Züpfner, and I liked him for it. Marie didn’t laugh either. No doubt Sommerwild told his story to show me how generous and warm, how witty and colorful, the Catholic church is; that I was also living with Marie as my concubine, as it were, that they didn’t think of. I told them the tale of the workman who had lived quite near us; he was called Frehlingen, and in his little suburban hou
se he had also lived with a divorced woman, and even supported her three children. One day the priest came to see Frehlingen and with a grave face and the use of certain threats he called upon him to “put an end to these immoral goings on,” and Frehlingen, who was a good Catholic, had actually sent the pretty woman and her three children away. I also told them how the woman later went on the streets to support her children, and how Frehlingen took to drink because he had really loved her. Again there was the same awkward silence which occurred whenever I said anything, but Sommerwild laughed and said: “But Mr. Schnier, you can’t really compare the two cases, can you?” “Why not?” I said. “You can only say that because you know nothing about Besewitz,” he said angrily, “he is the most sensitive author worthy of being called a Christian.” And I got angry too and said: “Do you know how sensitive Frehlingen was—and what a Christian workman he was.” He merely looked at me and shook his head and raised his hands in despair. There was a pause, during which all one could hear was Monika Silvs clearing her throat, but as soon as Fredebeul is in the room no host need be afraid of a pause in the conversation. He immediately broke into the short silence, led the conversation back to the topic for the evening, and talked about the relative nature of poverty, for about an hour and a half, till he at last gave Kinkel a chance to tell the story about the man who between five hundred and three thousand marks a month had gone through sheer hell, and Züpfner asked me for a cigarette to hide his embarrassment behind the smoke.

  I felt as bad as Marie did when we took the last train back to Cologne. We had scraped the money together for the trip because it had meant so much to Marie to accept the invitation. We felt physically sick too, we had not had enough to eat and had drunk more than we were used to. The journey seemed endless, and when we got out at Cologne West we had to walk home. We had no more money for fares.