by Günter Grass
My double raised both arms and clenched his fists in such a way that one wanted desperately to thrust something into them, my drumsticks for example. If the sculptor had done that and put a red and white plaster drum on his pink little thighs, it would have been I, Oskar’s very own self, who sat there on the Virgin’s knee, drumming the congregation together. There are things in this world which—sacred as they may be—cannot be left as they are.
Three carpeted steps led up to the Virgin clad in green and silver, to John’s shaggy, chocolate-colored pelt, and to the boy Jesus whose coloring suggested boiled ham. In front of them there was an altar outfitted with anemic candles and flowers at all prices. All three of them—the green Virgin, the brown John, and the pink Jesus—had halos the size of dinnerplates stuck to the backs of their heads—expensive plates adorned with gold leaf.
If not for the steps before the altar, I should never have climbed up. Steps, door handles, and shopwindows had a power of seduction for Oskar in those days, and though today he has no need of anything but his hospital bed, they still do not leave him indifferent. He let himself be seduced from one step to the next, though always on the same carpet. He came close enough to tap the group, at once disparagingly and respectfully with his knuckles. He was able to scratch it with his fingernails in the way that discloses the plaster under the paint. The folds in the Virgin’s drapery could be followed along their devious course to the toes resting on the cloud bank. A succinct intimation of the Virgin’s shin suggested that the sculptor had first created flesh and then submerged it in draperies. When Oskar felt the boy Jesus’ watering can, which should have been circumcised but wasn’t, when he stroked it and cautiously pressed it as though to move it, he felt a pleasant but strangely new and disturbing sensation in his own watering can, whereupon he left Jesus’ alone in the hope that Jesus would let his alone.
Circumcised or uncircumcised, I let matters rest there, pulled out my drum from under my sweater, removed it from my neck, and, taking care not to nick Jesus’ halo, hung the drum round his neck. In view of my size, this took a bit of doing. I had to climb up on the sculpture and stand on the cloud bank that served as a pedestal.
This did not happen in January, ‘36, on Oskar’s first visit to church after baptism, but during Holy Week of the same year. All that winter his mama had been hard put to it to keep abreast of her dealings with Jan Bronski in the confessional. Consequently Oskar had plenty of Saturdays in which to mature his plan, to reject, justify, and revise it, to examine it from all sides, and finally, with the help of the stations of the Cross on the Monday of Holy Week, to discard all previous variants, formulate a new one, and carry it out with the utmost simplicity and directness.
Since Mama felt the need to confess before the Easter to-do should reach its climax, she took me by the hand on the afternoon of Passion Monday and led me down Labesweg to the Neue Markt and Elsenstrasse, down Marienstrasse past Wohlgemuth’s butcher shop, turning left at Kleinhammer-Park, through the underpass always dripping with some disgusting yellow ooze, to the Church of the Sacred Heart across from the railway embankment.
It was late when we arrived. There were only two old women and a frightened young man waiting outside the confessional. While Mama was examining her conscience—leafing through her missal with a moistened thumb as though searching a ledger for the figures she would need in preparing her tax returns—I slipped out of the pew and, managing to avoid the eyes of the open-hearted Jesus and the Athlete on the Cross—made my way to the left side-altar.
Although I had to move quickly, I did not omit the Introit. Three steps: Intraibo ad altare Dei. To God who giveth joy to my youth. Dragging out the Kyrie, I removed the drum from my neck and climbed up on the cloud bank; no dawdling by the watering can, no, just before the Gloria, I hung the drum on Jesus, taking care not to injure the halo. Down from the cloud bank—remission of sins, pardon, and forgiveness—but first I thrust the drumsticks into Jesus’ hands that were just the right size to receive them, and one, two, three steps, I lift my eyes unto the hills, a little more carpet, then at last the flags and a prayer stool for Oskar, who knelt down on the cushion and folded his drummer’s hands before his face—Gloria in Excelsis Deo— squinted past the folded hands at Jesus and his drum and awaited the miracle: will he drum now, or can’t he drum, or isn’t he allowed to drum? Either he drums or he is not a real Jesus; if he doesn’t drum now, Oskar is a realer Jesus than he is.
If it is miracles you are after, you must know how to wait. And so I waited. In the beginning at least I waited patiently, though perhaps not patiently enough, for the longer I repeated the words “All eyes attend thee, O Lord”—substituting ears for eyes as the occasion demanded—the more disappointed Oskar became as he knelt on his prayer stool. He gave the Lord all sorts of opportunities, closed his eyes on the supposition that Little Lord Jesus, afraid that his first movements might be awkward, would be more likely to begin if no one were looking, but finally, after the third Credo, after Father, Creator of Heaven and Earth of things visible and invisible, and the only begotten Son, begotten not made by Him, true Son of true Father, consubstantial with Him, through Him, who for us men and our salvation, descended from Heaven, became incarnate, was made man, was buried, rose again, sitteth at the hand of the Father, the dead, no end, I believe in, together with the Father, spoke by, believe in the one Holy, Catholic, and…
Well, my Catholicism survived only in my nostrils. My faith was just about washed up. But it wasn’t the smell I was interested in. I wanted something else: I wanted to hear my drum, I wanted Jesus to play something for my benefit, I wanted a modest little miracle. I wasn’t asking for thunder that would send Vicar Rasczeia running to the spot and Father Wiehnke painfully dragging his fat to witness the miracle; I wasn’t asking for a major miracle that would demand reports to the Diocese at Oliva and impel the bishop to submit a testimonial to the Vatican. No, I was not ambitious. Oskar had no desire to be canonized. All he wanted was a little private miracle, something he could hear and see, something that would make it clear to him once and for all whether he should drum for or against; all he wanted was a sign to tell him which of the two blue-eyed identical twins was entitled and would be entitled in future to call himself Jesus.
I sat and waited. I also began to worry: Mama must be in the confessional; by now she must have the sixth commandment behind her. The old man who is always limping about churches limped past the main altar and then past the left side-altar, saluting the Virgin with the boys. Perhaps he saw the drum but without understanding. He shuffled on, growing older in the process.
Time passed, but Jesus did not beat the drum. I heard voices from the choir. If only no one starts playing the organ, I thought anxiously. If they start practicing for Easter, the organ will drown out the first feeble, hesitant drumbeats.
But no one touched the organ. Nor did Jesus drum. There was no miracle. I rose from my cushion with a cracking in my knee joints. Desolate and morose, I moved over the carpet, pulled myself up from step to step, but neglected all the gradual prayers I knew. I climbed up on the plaster cloud, upsetting some medium-priced flowers. All I wanted was to get my drum back from that preposterous naked kid.
I admit it and I always will: it was a mistake to try to teach him anything. I can’t imagine what gave me the idea. Be that as it may, I took the sticks but left the drum. Softly at first, but then with the impatience of an impatient teacher, I showed little pseudo-Jesus how to do it. And finally, putting the drumsticks back into his hands, I gave him his chance to show what he had learned from Oskar.
Before I had time to wrench drum and drumsticks away from this most obstinate of all pupils without concern for his halo, Father Wiehnke was behind me—my drumming had made itself heard throughout the length and breadth of the church—Vicar Rasczeia was behind me. Mama was behind me, the old man was behind me. The Vicar pulled me down, Father Wiehnke cuffed me, Mama wept at me, Father Wiehnke whispered at me, the Vicar genuflected and bo
bbed up and took the drumsticks away from Jesus, genuflected again with the drumsticks and bobbed up again for the drum, took the drum away from Little Lord Jesus, cracked his halo, jostled his watering can, broke off a bit of cloud, tumbled down the steps, and genuflected once more. He didn’t want to give me the drum and that made me angrier than I was before, compelling me to kick Father Wiehnke and shame my mama, who indeed had plenty to be ashamed about by the time I had finished kicking, biting, and scratching and torn myself free from Father Wiehnke, the Vicar, the old man, and Mama. Thereupon I ran out in front of the high altar with Satan hopping up and down in me, whispering as he had at my baptism: “Oskar, look around. Windows everywhere. All glass, all glass.”
And past the Athlete on the Cross, who kept his peace and did not so much as twitch a muscle, I sang at the three high windows of the apse, red, yellow and green on a blue ground, representing the twelve apostles. But I aimed neither at Mark nor Matthew. I aimed at the dove above them, which stood on its head celebrating the Pentecost; I aimed at the Holy Ghost. My vocal chords vibrated, I battled the bird with my diamond. Was it my fault? Was it the dauntless Athlete who intervened? Was that the miracle, unknown to all? They saw me trembling and silently pouring out my powers against the apse, and all save Mama thought I was praying, though I was praying for nothing but broken glass. But Oskar failed, his time had not yet come. I sank down on the flagstones and wept bitterly because Jesus had failed, because Oskar had failed, because Wiehnke and Rasczeia misunderstood me, and were already spouting absurdities about repentance. Only Mama did not fail. She understood my tears, though she couldn’t help feeling glad that there had been no broken glass.
Then Mama picked me up in her arms, recovered the drum and drumsticks from the Vicar, and promised Father Wiehnke to pay for the damage, whereupon he accorded her a belated absolution, for I had interrupted her confession: even Oskar got a little of the blessing, though I could have done without it.
While Mama was carrying me out of the Sacred Heart, I counted on my fingers: Today is Monday, tomorrow is Tuesday, then Wednesday, Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and then it will be all up with that character who can’t even drum, who won’t even give me the pleasure of a little broken glass, who resembles me but is false. He will go down into the grave while I shall keep on drumming and drumming, but never again experience any desire for a miracle.
Good Friday Fare
Paradoxical: that might be the word for my feelings between Passion Monday and Good Friday. On the one hand I was irritated over that plaster Boy Jesus who wouldn’t drum; on the other, I was pleased that the drum was now all my own. Though on the one hand my voice failed in its assault on the church windows, on the other hand that intact multicolored glass preserved in Oskar the vestige of Catholic faith which was yet to inspire any number of desperate blasphemies.
And there was more to the paradox than that: On the one hand I managed to sing an attic window to pieces on my way home from the Church of the Sacred Heart just to see if it was still within my powers, but from that time on, on the other hand, the triumph of my voice over profane targets made me painfully aware of my failures in the sacred sector. Paradox, I have said. The cleavage was lasting; I have never been able to heal it, and it is still with me today, though today I am at home neither in the sacred nor the profane but dwell on the fringes, in a mental hospital.
Mama paid for the damage to the left side-altar. Business was good at Easter although the shop, on the insistence of Matzerath, who was a Protestant, had to be closed on Good Friday. Mama, who usually had her way, gave in on Good Fridays and closed up, demanding in return the right to close on Catholic grounds for Corpus Christi, to replace the gingerbread in the window by a gingerbread Virgin with electric lights and to march in the procession at Oliva.
We had a cardboard sign with “Closed for Good Friday” on one side and “Closed for Corpus Christi” on the other. On the Good Friday following that drumless and voiceless Monday of Holy Week, Matzerath hung out the sign saying “Closed for Good Friday”, and immediately after breakfast we started for Brösen on the streetcar. To run our word into the ground, the scene in Labesweg was also paradoxical. The Protestants went to church, the Catholics washed windows and beat everything vaguely resembling a carpet so vigorously and resoundingly in the courtyards that one had the impression thousands of Saviours were being nailed to thousands of Crosses all at once.
Our Holy Family however—Mama, Matzerath, Jan Bronski, and Oskar—left the Passiontide carpet-beating behind us, settled ourselves in the Number 9 streetcar, and rode down Brösener-Weg, past the airfield, the old drill ground and the new drill ground, and waited on a siding near Saspe Cemetery for the car coming in the opposite direction, from Neufahrwasser-Brösen, to pass. Mama took the wait as an occasion for gloomy, though lightly uttered observations. The abandoned little graveyard with its slanting overgrown tombstones and stunted scrub pines was pretty, romantic, enchanting, she thought.
“I’d be glad to lie there if it was still operating,” she said with enthusiasm. But Matzerath thought the soil was too sandy, found fault with the thistles and wild oats. Jan Bronski suggested that the noise from the airfield and the nearby streetcar switches might disturb the tranquility of an otherwise idyllic spot.
The car coming from Neufahrwasser-Brösen passed round us, the conductor rang twice, and we rode on, leaving Saspe and its cemetery behind us, toward Brösen, a beach resort which at that time, toward the end of April, looked mighty dismal: the refreshment stands boarded over, the casino shut tight, the seaside walk bereft of flags, long lines of empty bathhouses. On the weather table there were still chalk marks from the previous year: Air: 65; water: 60; wind: northeast; prospects: clear to cloudy.
At first we all decided to walk to Glettkau, but then, though nothing was said, we took the opposite direction to the breakwater. Broad and lazy, the Baltic lapped at the beach. As far as the harbor mouth, from the white lighthouse to the beacon light on the breakwater, not a soul to be seen. A recent rainfall had imprinted its regular pattern on the sand; it was fun to break it up with our footprints; Mama and I had taken off our shoes and stockings. Matzerath picked up smooth little disks of brick the size of gulden pieces and skipped them eagerly, ambitiously over the greenish water. Less skillful, Jan Bronski looked for amber between his attempts to skip stones, and actually found a few splinters and a nugget the size of a cherry pit, which he gave Mama, who kept looking back, as though in love with her footprints. The sun shone cautiously. The day was cool, still and clear; on the horizon you could make out a stripe that meant the Hela Peninsula and two or three vanishing smoke trails; from time to time the superstructure of a merchant ship would bob up over the horizon.
In dispersed order we reached the first granite boulders of the breakwater. Mama and I put our shoes and stockings back on. Matzerath and Jan started off into the open sea, hopping from stone to stone, while she was still helping me to lace my shoes. Scraggly clumps of seaweed grew from the interstices at the base of the wall. Oskar would have liked to comb them. But Mama took me by the hand and we followed the men, who were gamboling like schoolboys. At every step my drum beat against my knee; even here, I wouldn’t let them take it away from me. Mama had on a light-blue spring coat with raspberry-colored facings. She had difficulty in negotiating the granite boulders in her high-heeled shoes. As always on Sundays and holidays, I was wearing my sailor coat with the gold anchor buttons. The band on my sailor hat came from Gretchen Scheffler’s grab bag; S.M.S. Seydlitz, it said, and it would have fluttered if there had been any breeze. Matzerath unbuttoned his brown overcoat. Jan, always the soul of fashion, sported an ulster with a resplendent velvet collar.
We hopped and hobbled as far as the beacon at the end of the breakwater. At the base of the little tower sat an elderly man in a longshoreman’s cap and a quilted jacket. Beside him there was a potato sack with something wriggling and writhing in it. The man—I figured he must be from Brösen or Neufahrwasser—w
as holding one end of a clothesline. The other end, caked with seaweed, vanished in the brackish Mottlau water which, still unmixed with the clear open sea, splashed against the stones of the breakwater.
We were all curious to know why the man in the longshoreman’s cap was fishing with a common clothesline and obviously without a float. Mama asked him in tones of good-natured mockery, calling him “Uncle”. Uncle grinned, showing tobacco-stained stumps; offering no explanation, he spat out a long, viscous train of tobacco juice which landed in the sludge amid the granite boulders, coated with tar and oil, at the base of the sea wall. There his spittle bobbed up and down so long that a gull circled down and, deftly avoiding the boulders, caught it up and flew off, drawing other screaming gulls in its wake.
We were soon ready to go, for it was cold out there and the sun was no help, but just then the man in the longshoreman’s cap began to pull in his line hand over hand. Mama still wanted to leave. But Matzerath couldn’t be moved, and Jan, who as a rule acceded to Mama’s every wish, gave her no support on this occasion. Oskar didn’t care whether we stayed or went. But as long as we were staying, he watched. While the longshoreman, pulling evenly hand over hand and stripping off the seaweed at every stroke, gathered the line between his legs, I noted that the merchantman which only half an hour before had barely shown its superstructure above the horizon, had changed its course; lying low in the water, she was heading for the harbor. Must be a Swede carrying iron ore to draw that much water, Oskar reflected.
I turned away from the Swede when the longshoreman slowly stood up. “ Well, s’pose we take a look.” His words were addressed to Matzerath, who had no idea what it was all about but nodded knowingly. “S’pose we take a look,” the longshoreman said over and over as he continued to haul in the line, now with increasing effort. He clambered down the stones toward the end of the line and stretched out both arms into the foaming pond between the granite blocks, clutched something—Mama turned away but not soon enough—he clutched something, changed his hold, tugged and heaved, shouted at them to make way, and flung something heavy and dripping, a great living lump of something down in our midst: it was a horse’s head, a fresh and genuine horse’s head, the head of a black horse with a black mane, which only yesterday or the day before had no doubt been neighing; for the head was not putrid, it didn’t stink, or if it did, then only of Mottlau water; but everything on the breakwater stank of that.
