by Günter Grass
I could have called or drummed him away. My drum was right there with me. I could feel it under my coat. I had only to undo a button and it would have swung out into the frosty night. I had only to reach into my coat pockets and the sticks would have been ready for action. Hubert the huntsman withheld his arrow when that very special stag entered his field of vision. Saul became Paul. Attila turned back when Pope Leo raised his finger with the ring on it. But I released my arrow, I was not converted, I did not turn back, I, Oskar, remained a hunter intent on my game; I did not unbutton my coat, I did not let my drum swing out into the frosty night, I did not cross my drumsticks over the wintry white drumhead, I did not turn that January night into a drummer’s night, but screamed silently, screamed as perhaps a star screams or a fish deep down in the sea. I screamed first into the frosty night that new snow might fall at last, and then into the glass, the dense glass, the precious glass, the cheap glass, the transparent glass, the partitioning glass, the glass between worlds, the virginal, mystical glass that separated Jan Bronski from the ruby necklace, cutting a hole just right for Jan’s glove size, which was well known to me. I made the cutout fall inward like a trap door, like the gate of heaven or the gate of hell: and Jan did not flinch, his fine leather hand emerged from his coat pocket and moved heavenward; from heaven or hell it removed a necklace whose rubies would have satisfied all the angels in the world, including the fallen. Full of rubies and gold, his hand returned to his pocket, and still he stood by the gaping window although to keep standing there was dangerous, although there were no more bleeding rubies to tell him, or Parsifal, which way to look.
O Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It was high time the spirit moved, or it would be all up with Jan, the father. Oskar the son unbuttoned his coat, reached quickly for his drumsticks, and made his drum cry out: Father, father, until Jan Bronski turned and slowly, much too slowly, crossed the street, and found me, Oskar, in the doorway.
How wonderful it was that just as Jan, still frozen in his trance but about to thaw, turned to look at me, snow began to fall. He held out a hand, but not the glove that had touched the rubies, to me and led me silent but undismayed home, where Mama was worrying about me, and Matzerath, not quite seriously but with his usual show of severity, was threatening to call the police. Jan offered no explanation; he did not stay long and was disinclined to play skat, though Matzerath put beer on the table and invited him. In leaving, he caressed Oskar and Oskar was at a loss to know whether it was discretion or friendship he was asking for.
A few days later Bronski gave my mother the necklace. Surely knowing where it came from, she wore it only when Matzerath was absent, either for herself alone or for Jan Bronski, and possibly for me.
Shortly after the war I exchanged it on the black market in Düsseldorf for twelve cartons of Lucky Strikes and a leather briefcase.
No Wonder
Today as i lie here in my mental hospital, I often regret the power I had in those days to project my voice through the wintry night to thaw frost flowers on glass, cut holes in shopwindows, and show thieves the way.
How happy I should be, for example, to unglass the peephole in my door so that Bruno my keeper might observe me more directly.
How I suffered from the loss of this power during the year before my commitment to the hospital! From time to time I would dispatch a cry into the wretched Düsseldorf suburb where I was living. When despite my eagerness for success nothing happened, I, who abhor violence, was quite capable of picking up a stone and flinging it at a kitchen window. I would have been so glad to put on a show, especially for the benefit of Vittlar the window dresser. It was past midnight when I saw him behind the plate-glass window of a men’s fashions store or perhaps of a perfumer’s shop. From the waist up he would be hidden by a curtain, but I recognized him by his green and red socks. And though he is or might be my disciple, I desired passionately to sing his window to pieces, because I did not know then and still do not know whether to call him John or Judas.
Vittlar is noble and his first name is Gottfried. When after my humiliating vain vocal effort I called his attention to myself by drumming lightly on the unharmed plate glass and he stepped outside for a few minutes to chat with me and make light of his decorative abilities, I was reduced to calling him Gottfried because my voice could not perform the miracle that would have entitled me to call him John or Judas.
The exploit of the jewelry store, which made Jan Bronski a thief and my mama the possessor of a ruby necklace, put a temporary end to my singing outside of shopwindows with desirable displays. Mama got religion. How so? No doubt it was her association with Jan Bronski, the stolen necklace, the delicious misery of an adulterous woman’s life, that made her lust after sacraments. How easily the routine of sin establishes itself. Ah, those Thursdays: rendezvous in town, deposit little Oskar with Markus, strenuous exercise, usually satisfactory, in Tischlergasse, mocha and pastry at the Café Weitzke, pick up the boy along with a few of Markus’ compliments and a package of sewing silk, sold at a price which made it more a present than a purchase, and back again to the Number 5 streetcar. Smiling and far away in her thoughts, my mama enjoyed the ride past Oliva Gate through Hindenburg-Allee, scarcely noticing the Maiwiese where Matzerath spent his Sunday mornings. She gritted her teeth on the curve round the Sports Palace—how ugly that boxlike structure could be immediately after a beautiful experience!—another curve and there behind dusty trees stood the Conradinum with its red-capped schoolboys—how lovely if little Oskar could have been there in a red cap with a golden C; he would be twelve and a half, in the first year of high school, just starting in on Latin, cutting the figure of a regular little Conradinian, a good student, though perhaps a bit cocky.
After the underpass, as the car moved on toward Reichskolonie and the Helene Lange School, Mrs. Matzerath’s thoughts of the Conradinum and her son Oskar’s lost opportunities seeped away. Another curve to leftward, past Christ Church with its bulbiform steeple. Then at Max-Halbe-Platz, we would get out, just in front of Kaiser’s grocery store. After a glance into the competitor’s window, my mama turned into Labesweg, her calvary: what with her nascent ill humor, this freak of a child, her troubled conscience, and her impatience to begin all over again, my mama, torn between not enough and too much, between aversion and good-natured affection for Matzerath, plodded wearily down Labesweg with me and my drum and her package of dirt-cheap silk thread, toward the store, toward the rolled oats, the kerosene by the herring barrel, the currants, raisins, almonds, and spices, toward Dr. Oetker’s Baking Powder, toward Persil Washes White, Maggi and Knorr, Kaffee Hag, Kühne’s Vinegar, and four-fruit jam, toward the two strips of flypaper, buzzing in different keys, which hung honeysweet over our counter and had to be changed every other day in the summer, whereas Mama, always with the same honeysweet soul, which summer and winter, all year long, attracted sins buzzing high and buzzing low, repaired each Saturday to the Church of the Sacred Heart, where she confessed to the Right Reverend Father Wiehnke.
Just as Mama took me with her to the city on Thursday to share as it were in her guilt, she led me on Saturday over cool and Catholic flagstones through the church door, having previously stuffed my drum under my sweater or overcoat, for without my drum I would not budge, and without my drum I should never have touched my forehead, chest, and shoulders, making the Catholic cross, nor should I ever have bent my knees as though to put on my shoes and, with holy water slowly drying on the bridge of my nose, sat still and behaved on the polished wooden bench.
I could still remember this church from my baptism: there had been trouble over the heathen name they were giving me, but my parents insisted on Oskar, and Jan, as godfather, took the same position. Then Father Wiehnke blew into my face three times—that was supposed to drive Satan out of me. The sign of the cross was made, a hand was imposed, salt was sprinkled, and various other measures were taken against Satan. At the baptismal chapel the party stopped again. I kept still while the Credo and the Lord�
��s Prayer were dished out to me. Afterward Father Wiehnke saw fit to say another “Satan depart”, and touched my nose and ears, fancying that by so doing he was opening up the senses of this child, Oskar, who had known what was what from the very first. Then he wanted one last time to hear it loud and plain and asked: “Dost thou renounce Satan? And all his works? And all his pomp?”
Before I could shake my head—for I had no intention whatsoever of renouncing—Jan, acting as my proxy, said 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 the shoulder blades. By the baptismal font another Credo, then at last I was dipped thrice in the water, my scalp was anointed with chrism, they clothed me in a white dress to make spots on, the candle for dark days was bestowed on Uncle Jan, and we were dismissed. Matzerath paid, Jan carried me outside the Church, where the taxi was waiting in fair to cloudy weather, and I asked the Satan within me: “Did you get through it all right?”
Satan jumped up and down and whispered: “Did you see those church windows? All glass, all glass!”
The Church of the Sacred Heart was built during the early years of the German Empire and its style could consequently be identified as Neo-Gothic. Since the brickwork had quickly darkened and the copper covering of the steeple had promptly taken on the traditional verdegris, the differences between medieval and modern brick Gothic were embarrassingly evident only to connoisseurs. Confession was heard in the same way in churches old and new. Just like the Right Reverend Father Wiehkne, a hundred other Right Reverend Fathers sat down in their confessionals on Saturdays after business hours, pressing their hairy sacerdotal ears to the shiny black grating, and the members of the congregation did their best to slip their strings of sins, bead after bead of tawdry sinfulness, through the wire meshes into the priest’s ear.
While Mama, by way of Father Wiehnke’s auditory canal, was communicating her commissions and omissions, her thoughts, words, and works, to the supreme authorities of the only-saving Church, I, who had nothing to confess, slipped off the wooden bench, which was too smooth for my liking, and stood waiting on the stone floor.
I must admit that the floors of Catholic churches, the smell of a Catholic church, in fact everything about Catholicism still fascinates me in some inexplicable way, just as redheaded girls fascinate me though I should like to change the color of their hair, and that Catholicism never ceases to inspire me with blasphemies which make it perfectly clear that I was irrevocably though to no good purpose baptized a Catholic. Often I surprise myself in the course of the most commonplace acts, while brushing my teeth, for instance, or even while moving my bowels, muttering commentaries on the Mass: In Holy Mass Christ’s blood sacrifice is renewed, his blood is shed again for the remission of your sins. The chalice of Christ’s 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 will admit that I have maintained a certain Catholic tone. There was a time when I couldn’t wait for the 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 are 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…
Sometimes, and especially on those Saturdays when Mama and I went to the Church of the Sacred Heart, that little word “blessed” was so poisonously sweet in my heart that I thanked Satan for living through my baptism within me, for providing me with an antidote which enabled me to stride, blaspheming like a Catholic but still erect, over the flagstones of Sacred Heart.
Jesus, after whose heart the church was named, was manifested not only in the sacraments and in the bright-colored little pictures of the Calvary; there were also three colored sculptures showing him in different poses.
One was of painted-plaster. He stood there, long-haired, on a golden pedestal in a Prussian blue robe and sandals. He opened his robe over his chest and, in defiance of all physiology, disclosed in the middle of his thorax a tomato-red, glorified, and stylized bleeding heart, so enabling the church to be named after this organ.
The very first time I examined this open-hearted Jesus, I couldn’t help noticing an embarrassing resemblance between the Saviour and my godfather, uncle, and presumptive father Jan Bronski. The same dreamy blue eyes full of naïve self-confidence. That blossoming rosebud mouth, always on the point of tears. The manly suffering in the line of the eyebrows. The full sanguine cheeks demanding to be chastised. Both had that face which men feel rather inclined to punch in the nose but which wrings caresses from women. And then there were the tired effeminate hands, well manicured and averse to manual labor, with their stigmata displayed like the prize pieces of a court jeweler. I was deeply troubled by those Bronski eyes, those eyes that misunderstood me like a father, which had been painted into Jesus’ face. For my own eyes had that same blue look which can arouse enthusiasm but not convince.
Oskar turned away from the bleeding heart in the nave, hastened from the first station of the Cross, where Jesus takes up the Cross, to the seventh station where he falls for the second time beneath its weight, and on to the high altar over which hung the second sculptured image of Jesus. Perhaps he was tired or perhaps he was just trying to concentrate—in any case, this Jesus had his eyes closed. What muscles the man had! At the sight of this decathlon-winner I forgot all about Sacred-Heart Bronski. There I stood, as often as Mama confessed to Father Wiehnke, gazing devoutly at the athlete over the high altar. You can believe me that I prayed. Athlete most amiable, I called him, athlete of athletes, world’s champion hanger on the Cross by regulation nails. And never a twitch or a quiver. The perpetual light quivered, but he displayed perfect discipline and took the highest possible number of points. The stop watches ticked. His time was computed. In the sacristy the sexton’s none-too-clean fingers were already polishing his gold medal. But Jesus didn’t compete for the sake of honors. Faith came to me. I knelt down as best I could, made the sign of the Cross on my drum, and tried to associate words like “blessed” or “afflicted” with Jesse Owens and Rudolf Harbig and last year’s Olympic Games in Berlin; but I was not always successful, for I had to admit that Jesus had not played fair with the two thieves. Forced to disqualify him, I turned my head to the left, where, taking new hope, I saw the third statue of the divine athlete in the interior of the church.
“Let me not pray until I have seen thrice,” I stammered, then set my feet down on the flags and followed the checkerboard pattern to the left-side altar. At every step I had the feeling: he is looking after you, the saints are looking after you, Peter, whom they nailed to a cross with his head down, Andrew whom they nailed to a slanting cross—hence the St. Andrew’s cross. There is also a Greek cross, not to mention the Latin, or Passion, cross. Double crosses, Teutonic crosses, and Calvary crosses are reproduced on textiles, in books and pictures. I have seen the patty cross, the anchor cross, and the cloverleaf cross overlapping in relief. The Moline cross is handsome, the Maltese cross is coveted, the hooked cross, or swastika, is forbidden, while de Gaulle’s cross, the cross of Lorraine, is called the cross of St. Anthony in naval battles. This same cross of St. Anthony is worn on a chain, the thieves’ cross is ugly, the Pope’s cross is papal, and the Russian cross is also known as the cross of Lazarus. In addition there is the Red Cross. And the anti-alcoholic Blue Cross. Yellow cross is poison, cross spiders eat one another. At the crossroads you crossed me up, crisscross, cross-examination, cross purpo
ses, crossword puzzles. And so I turned round, leaving the Cross behind me; turned my back on the crucified athlete, and approached the child Jesus who was propped up on the Virgin Mary’s right thigh.
Oskar stood by the left side-altar of the left aisle of the nave. Mary had the expression that his mama must have worn when as a seventeen-year-old shopgirl in Troyl she had no money for the movies, but made up for it by gazing spellbound at posters of Asta Nielsen.
She took no interest in Jesus but was looking at the other boy on her right knee, whom, to avert misunderstandings, I shall identify at once as John the Baptist. Both boys were my size. Actually Jesus seemed perhaps an inch taller, though according to the texts he was even younger than the little Baptist. It had amused the sculptor to make the three-year-old Saviour pink and naked. John, because he would later go out into the desert, was wearing a shaggy, chocolate-colored pelt, which covered half his chest, his belly, and his watering can.
Oskar would have done better to stay by the high altar or to mind his business in the vicinity of the confessional than to venture into the company of these two boys with that precocious look in their eyes which bore a terrifying resemblance to his own. Naturally they had blue eyes and his chestnut-brown hair. The likeness would have been complete if only the barber-sculptor had given his two little Oskars a crew cut and chopped off those preposterous corkscrew curls.
I shall not dwell too long on the boy Baptist, who pointed his left forefinger at Jesus as though counting off to see who should play first: “Eeny meeny miny mo…” Ignoring such childish pastimes, I take a good look at Jesus and recognize my spit and image. He might have been my twin brother. He had my stature and exactly my watering can, in those days employed exclusively as a watering can. He looked out into the world with my cobalt blue Bronski eyes and—this was what I resented most—he had my very own gestures.
