The Clown

by Heinrich Böll

  “Yes,” I said quietly, “it was nice of you to put your hand on my shoulder when those fools passed sentence on me—and it was especially nice of you to save Mrs. Wieneken’s life when that imbecile of a major wanted to have her shot.”

  “Well, well,” he said, “I’d almost forgotten about all that.”

  “The fact that you have forgotten it,” I said, “is especially nice—I haven’t.”

  He looked at me and implored me dumbly not to say Henrietta’s name, although I had meant to ask him why he had not been nice enough to forbid her to go on the school anti-aircraft outing. I nodded, and he understood: I would not mention Henrietta. No doubt he sat there during the board meetings, doodling little men on a sheet of paper and sometimes an H, and another H, maybe sometimes even her whole name: Henrietta. He was not to blame, only stupid in a way which excluded tragedy or perhaps was the basis for it. I didn’t know. He was so distinguished and frail and silver-haired, he looked so kind and he hadn’t even sent me a pittance when I was in Cologne with Marie. What was it that made this kind man, my father, so hard and so strong, why did he talk on the TV screen about social obligations, about national consciousness, about Germany, about Christianity even, which he admitted he didn’t believe in, and, what was more, in such a way that you were forced to believe him? It could only be money, not the concrete kind you use to buy milk and take a taxi, keep a mistress and go to the movies—but money in the abstract. I was afraid of him, and he was afraid of me: we both knew we were not realists, and we both despised those who talked about “Realpolitik.” There was much more to it than those idiots would ever understand. I read it in his eyes: he couldn’t give his money to a clown who would do only one thing with it: spend it, the very opposite of what you were supposed to do with money. And I knew, even if he had given me a million, I would have spent it, and to spend money was in his eyes synonymous with wasting it.

  While I was waiting in the kitchen and bathroom to let him cry by himself, I had been hoping he would be so deeply moved that he would give me a large lump sum, without the ridiculous conditions, but now I read it in his eyes, he couldn’t. He was not a realist, and I wasn’t either, and we both knew that the others in all their triteness were realists, stupid as puppets which touch their collars a thousand times without ever discovering the string they are dangling on.

  I nodded again, to reassure him completely: I would mention neither money nor Henrietta, but I thought about her in a way which didn’t seem right, I pictured her as she would be now: thirty-three, probably divorced from an industrialist. I couldn’t imagine her being involved in all that nonsense, flirting and parties and “holding fast to Christianity,” sitting around in committees and “being especially nice to the Socialists, otherwise they get even more complexes.” I could only picture her as being desperate, doing something the realists would find outrageous because they have no imagination. Pouring a cocktail down the collar of one of the innumerable presidents, or ploughing her car into the Mercedes of one of the head hypocrites. What else could she have done if she hadn’t been able to paint or make ashtrays on a potter’s wheel? She would be bound to feel it, as I felt it, wherever there was life, this invisible wall where money ceased to be there to be spent, where it became inviolate and dwelled in tabernacles in the form of figures and columns.

  I stepped aside for my father. He began to sweat again and I felt sorry for him. I hurried back into the living room and picked up the dirty handkerchief from the table and put it in his coat pocket. My mother could become very unpleasant if she found something missing when she checked the laundry once a month, she would accuse the maids of theft or carelessness.

  “Shall I call a cab for you?” I asked.

  “No,” he said, “I’ll walk a bit. Fuhrmann is waiting for me near the station.” He walked past me, I opened the door, went with him to the elevator and pressed the button. I took my mark out of my pocket once more, laid it on my outstretched left hand and looked at it. My father looked away in disgust and shook his head. I thought he might at least get out his wallet and give me fifty or a hundred marks, but pain, noble sentiment and the realization of his tragic position had driven him up onto such a high level of sublimation that any thought of money was abhorrent to him, my attempts to remind him of it were sacrilege. I held open the elevator door for him, he embraced me, suddenly began to sniff, tittered and said: “You really do smell of coffee—what a pity, I would have so much liked to make you some decent coffee—I really can, you know.” He released me, got into the elevator, and I saw him press the button inside and give a crafty little smile before the elevator began to move. I stood there for a minute and watched the figures light up: four, three, two, one—then the red light went out.

  16

  I felt like a fool as I went back into the apartment and shut the door. I should have accepted his offer to make me some coffee and kept him there for a bit. At the critical moment when he was serving the coffee, pouring it out, happy over his achievement, I ought to have said “Let’s have the money” or “Hand over the money.” At the critical moment one always has to be primitive, barbaric. Then one says: “You get half of Poland, we get half of Rumania—and how about it, would you like two thirds of Silesia or only half. You get four ministerial seats, we get the Piggyback Company.” I had been a fool to give way to my mood and his instead of just grabbing his wallet. I should simply have brought up the subject of money and talked to him about it, about dead, abstract, tied-up money, which for a lot of people was a matter of life and death. “Money, money, money”—my mother was forever uttering this cry of dismay even when we asked her for thirty pfennigs to buy a copybook. Money, money, money. Love, love, love.

  I went into the kitchen, cut myself some bread, spread butter on it, went into the living room and dialed Bella Brosen’s number. I only hoped that in his present state—shivering with emotion—my father, rather than go home, would go to his mistress. She looked as if she would put him to bed, fix him a hot-water bottle, and feed him honey and milk. Mother had a damnable way, when one was feeling lousy, of carrying on about pulling oneself together and will power, and for some time now she has regarded cold water as “the only remedy.”

  “Mrs. Brosen speaking,” she said, and I was glad to note she did not emit any odor. She had a wonderful voice, contralto, warm and affectionate.

  I said: “This is Schnier—Hans—remember?”

  “Remember,” she said warmly, “and how—and how I feel for you.” I didn’t know what she was talking about, not until she went on. “You must bear in mind,” she said, “that all critics are silly, vain, and egotistical.”

  I sighed. “If only I could believe that,” I said, “I would feel a lot better.”

  “Then just believe it,” she said, “just believe. You can’t imagine how iron determination to believe something helps.”

  “And if someone says I’m good, what do I do then?”

  “Oh,” she laughed and turned the Oh into a charming coloratura, “then you simply believe that he happens to have had an attack of honesty and has forgotten his egotism.”

  I laughed. I didn’t know whether I should address her as Bella or Mrs. Brosen. We didn’t know one another at all, and there is no book where you can look up to see how you address your father’s mistress. I finally said “Madame Bella,” although this artistic form seemed in the highest degree inane. “Madame Bella,” I said, “I am in a fix. Father was here, we talked about all sorts of things, and I never got around to the subject of money—and yet,” I could tell she was blushing, I felt she was very conscientious, I believed that her relationship with Father really had something to do with “true love,” and that “money matters” embarrassed her. “Please listen,” I said, “forget everything that’s going through your mind now, don’t feel embarrassed, all I ask is, if Father should talk to you about me—I mean, perhaps you could bring him round to the idea that I’m desperate for money. Cash. Right away, I’m flat broke. Are yo
u listening?”

  “Yes,” she said, so softly that I was scared. Then I could hear her sniffling.

  “You must think I’m a bad woman, Hans,” she said, she was crying openly now, “a mercenary creature, like so many others. You must think that’s what I’m like. Oh.”

  “Not in the least,” I said raising my voice, “I never thought that of you—really I didn’t.” I was afraid she might start talking about her soul and my father’s soul, to judge by her violent sobbing she was pretty sentimental, and it was even possible she might bring up Marie. “Honestly,” I said, not quite convinced, for the fact that she tried to make the mercenary creatures so contemptible made me a bit suspicious, “honestly,” I said, “I have always been convinced of your fine feelings and I have never thought badly of you.” That was true. “And besides,” I would have liked to say her name again, but couldn’t bring myself to utter that ghastly Bella, “besides I am almost thirty. Are you still there?”

  “Yes,” she sighed, and sobbed away there in Godesberg as if she were in the confessional.

  “Just try and get it across to him that I need money.”

  “I think,” she said feebly, “it would be wrong to talk to him directly about it. Anything to do with his family, you understand, is taboo for us—but there is another way.” I was silent. Her sobs had subsided to modest sniffs. “Now and again he gives me money for needy colleagues,” she said, “he lets me do as I like with it, and—don’t you think it would be a good idea if I gave you the benefit of these small sums as a temporarily needy colleague?” “I really am a needy colleague, not just temporarily but for the next six months at least. But would you mind telling me what you mean by small sums?”

  She cleared her throat, emitted another Oh, but without coloratura this time, and said: “They are usually donations in actual emergency cases, when someone dies or gets sick, or a woman has a baby—what I mean is, they’re not permanent support but kind of special allowances.”

  “How much?” I asked. She hesitated, and I tried to picture her. I had seen her once five years ago, when Marie managed to drag me to an opera. Madame Brosen had sung the role of a peasant girl who had been seduced by a count, and I had been surprised at Father’s taste. She was quite a sturdy person, of medium height, obviously blonde and with the required heaving bosom, who, leaning against a cottage or a farm wagon, finally on a hay fork, sang of simple emotions in a fine powerful voice.

  “Hullo?” I called, “hullo?”

  “Oh,” she said, and she managed another coloratura, though a weak one this time. “Your question is so direct.”

  “It’s in keeping with my situation.” I said. I was getting panicky. The longer she remained silent, the smaller would be the amount she named.

  “Well,” she said at last, “the amounts vary between ten and, say, thirty marks.”

  “And suppose you were to invent a colleague who has got into an exceptionally difficult situation: let’s say, has had a serious accident and can do with an allowance of a hundred marks or so for a few months?”

  “My dear Hans,” she said lowering her voice, “you don’t expect me to cheat, do you?”

  “No,” I said, “I really have had an accident—and anyway aren’t we colleagues? Artistes?”

  “I’ll try,” she said, “but I don’t know whether he’ll bite.”

  “What?” I exclaimed.

  “I don’t know whether I’ll succeed in putting it to him in such a way that he’s convinced. I haven’t got much imagination.”

  She didn’t have to tell me that, I was beginning to believe she was the silliest female I had ever come across.

  “How would it be then,” I said, “if you tried to get me a booking, at the theater here—small roles, of course, I am good at bit parts.”

  “No, no, my dear boy,” she said, “I don’t feel comfortable as it is, being mixed up in this conspiracy.”

  “All right then,” I said, “I just want you to know that small sums are welcome too. Goodbye and thanks.” I hung up before she could say any more. I had a feeling that this source would yield nothing. She was too stupid. The way she had said bite had made me suspicious. It was not impossible that she simply pocketed these “donations for needy colleagues.” I felt sorry for my father, I would have liked him to have a pretty and intelligent mistress. I still regretted not having given him the chance to make me some coffee. That stupid hussy would probably smile, secretly shake her head like a frustrated schoolteacher, if he went into the kitchen to make coffee, and then she would be all false smiles and praise the coffee, as if he were a dog fetching a stone. I was furious when I left the phone and went to the window, opened it and looked out onto the street. I was afraid that one day I might have to take up Sommerwild’s offer. All of a sudden I took my mark out of my pocket, threw it down into the street and regretted it the same instant, I looked, didn’t see it, but thought I heard it fall onto the roof of a passing streetcar. I picked up the slice of bread and butter from the table, ate it, while I looked out onto the street. It was nearly eight o’clock, I had been in Bonn for nearly two hours, had talked on the phone with six so-called friends, spoken to my mother and father, and instead of having one mark more than when I arrived I had one less. I would have liked to go down to pick up the coin from the street, but it was getting on for half-past eight, Leo might call up or arrive any minute.

  Marie was doing all right, she was in Rome now, in the bosom of her church, and was wondering what to wear for an audience with the Pope. Züpfner would get hold of a photo of Jacqueline Kennedy for her, would have to buy her a Spanish mantilla and a veil, for strictly speaking Marie was now almost a kind of “first lady” of German Catholicism. I made up my mind to go to Rome and request an audience with the Pope. There was something of a wise old clown about him too, and after all the figure of Harlequin had originated in Bergamo; I would find out for sure from Genneholm, who knew everything. I would explain to the Pope that my marriage with Marie had actually broken up over the question of the civil ceremony, and I would ask him to regard me as a kind of opposite number to Henry the Eighth: he had been polygamous and a believer, I was monogamous and an unbeliever. I would tell him how conceited and mean “leading” German Catholics are, and that he shouldn’t let himself be duped. I would do a few turns for him, nice light little things like Going to School and Returning from School, but not the one called Cardinal; that would hurt his feelings, because he had once been a cardinal after all—and he was the last person I wanted to hurt.

  Time and again I become the prey of my imagination: I pictured my audience with the Pope so minutely, saw myself kneel down and as an unbeliever ask his blessing, I saw the Swiss Guards at the door and some benevolent, only slightly disgusted smiling Monsignore in attendance—that I almost believed I had already been to see the Pope. I would be tempted to tell Leo that I had been to see the Pope and had been granted an audience. During those minutes I was with the Pope, saw his smile and heard his wonderful peasant’s voice, told him how the local buffoon of Bergamo had become Harlequin. Leo is very strict in such things, he is always calling me a liar. It always infuriated Leo when I saw him and asked: “Do you remember how we sawed through that wood together?” He exclaims: “But we didn’t saw through any wood together.” In a very unimportant, ridiculous way, he is right. Leo was six or seven, I was eight or nine, when he came across a chunk of wood in the stables, the remains of a fence post, he also found a rusty saw in the stables and asked me to saw through the fence post with him. I asked him why on earth he wanted to saw through such a silly chunk of wood; he couldn’t give any reason, he just wanted to saw; it seemed utterly senseless to me, and Leo cried for half an hour—and much later, not till ten years later, when we were discussing Lessing in our German literature class with Father Wunibald, suddenly in the middle of the class and à propos of nothing at all I realized what Leo had wanted: he just wanted to saw, at that particular moment when he felt the urge, to saw with me. I sudden
ly understood him, after ten years, and experienced his joy, his anticipation, his excitement, everything that had moved him, so intensely that in the middle of the lesson I began making sawing movements. I saw Leo’s face opposite me, flushed with pleasure, I pushed the rusty saw toward him, he pushed it back—till Father Wunibald suddenly caught me by the hair and “brought me to my senses.” Since then I have really sawed that wood with Leo—he can’t understand it. He is a realist. Today he no longer understands that something which seems stupid must be done immediately. Even Mother sometimes has fleeting impulses; to play cards by the fire, to make apple-blossom tea in the kitchen with her own hands. All of a sudden she must long to sit at the well-polished mahogany table and play cards, be a happy family. But whenever she feels this urge, none of us has the urge; there used to be scenes, Misunderstood-Mother stuff, then she would insist on our duty to be obedient, the Fourth Commandment, but then she would realize it would be a strange kind of pleasure to play cards with children who join in only from a sense of duty—and she would retire weeping to her room. Sometimes she would try it with bribes, promise to produce something “specially good” to drink or eat—and it would become one of those tearful evenings again of which Mother supplied us with so many. She didn’t know the reason we all so firmly refused was because the seven of hearts was still in the pack and reminded us of Henrietta every time we played cards, but no one told her, and later on, when I remembered her vain efforts to play the happy family at the fireside I played cards with her alone in my mind’s eye, although card games which two can play are dull. I really did play with her, “Sixty-six” and “Gin Rummy,” I drank apple-blossom tea, with honey in it even, Mother—an admonitory forefinger coyly raised—even gave me a cigarette, and somewhere in the background Leo was playing his Études, while we all knew, even the maid, that Father was with “that woman.” Somehow or other Marie must have found out about these “lies,” for she always looked at me doubtfully when I told her anything, and yet I really did see that boy in Osnabrück. Sometimes it happens to me the other way round: that something I really did experience seems to me untrue and not real. Like the fact that I went from Cologne to Bonn to talk to Marie’s youth group about the Virgin Mary. Those things which other people call non-fiction seem very fictitious to me.