The Tin Drum d-1

by Günter Grass

  Once there was a musician, he slew his four cats, buried them in a garbage can, left the house, and went out to visit friends.

  There was once a watchmaker who sat pensively by his window, looking on as Meyn the musician stuffed a half-filled sack in the garbage can—and quickly left the court. A few moments after Meyn’s departure, he saw the lid of the garbage can beginning to rise and slowly go on rising.

  There were once four tomcats; because they smelled particularly strong on a certain particular day, they were knocked dead, stuffed into a sack, and buried in a garbage can. But the cats, one of which was called Bismarck, were not quite dead; they were tough customers, as cats tend to be. They moved in the sack, set the lid of the garbage can in motion, and confronted Laubschad the watchmaker, who still sat pensively at the window, with the question: what can there be in the sack that Meyn the musician threw in the garbage can?

  There was once a watchmaker who could not look on with indifference while something was moving in a garbage can. He left his flat on the second floor, went down into the court, lifted up the lid of the garbage can, opened the sack, took the four badly damaged but still living tomcats home with him, and cared for them. But they died the following night under his watchmaker’s fingers. This left him no other course than to enter a complaint with the SPCA, of which he was a member, and to inform the local party headquarters of a case of cruelty to animals which could only impair the party’s reputation.

  There was once an SA man who did four cats in with a poker. But because the cats were not all-the-way dead, they gave him away and a watchmaker reported him. The case came up for trial and the SA man had to pay a fine. But the matter was also discussed in the SA and the SA man was expelled from the SA for conduct unbecoming a storm trooper. Even his conspicuous bravery on the night of November 8, which later became known as Crystal Night, when he helped set fire to the Langfuhr synagogue in Michaelisweg, even his meritorious activity the following morning when a number of stores, carefully designated in advance, were closed down for the good of the nation, could not halt his expulsion from the Mounted SA. For inhuman cruelty to animals he was stricken from the membership list. It was not until a year later that he gained admittance to the Home Guard, which was later incorporated in the Waffen SS.

  There was once a grocer who closed his store one day in November, because something was doing in town; taking his son Oskar by the hand, he boarded a Number 5 streetcar and rode to the Langasser Gate, because there as in Zoppot and Langfuhr the synagogue was on fire. The synagogue had almost burned down and the firemen were looking on, taking care that the flames should not spread to other buildings. Outside the wrecked synagogue, men in uniform and others in civilian clothes piled up books, ritual objects, and strange kinds of cloth. The mound was set on fire and the grocer took advantage of the opportunity to warm his fingers and his feelings over the public blaze. But his son Oskar, seeing his father so occupied and inflamed, slipped away unobserved and hurried off in the direction of Arsenal Passage, because he was worried about his tin drums with their red and white lacquer.

  There was once a toystore owner; his name was Sigismund Markus and among other things he sold tin drums lacquered red and white. Oskar, above-mentioned, was the principal taker of these drums, because he was a drummer by profession and was neither able nor willing to live without a drum. For this reason he hurried away from the burning synagogue in the direction of Arsenal Passage, for there dwelt the keeper of his drums; but he found him in a state which forever after made it impossible for him to sell tin drums in this world.

  They, the same firemen whom I, Oskar, thought I had escaped, had visited Markus before me; dipping a brush in paint, they had written “Jewish Sow” obliquely across his window in Sütterlin script; then, perhaps disgusted with their own handwriting, they had kicked in the window with the heels of their boots, so that the epithet they had fastened on Markus could only be guessed at. Scorning the door, they had entered the shop through the broken window and there, in their characteristic way, they were playing with the toys.

  I found them still at play when I, also through the window, entered the shop. Some had taken their pants down and had deposited brown sausages, in which half-digested peas were still discernible, on sailing vessels, fiddling monkeys, and on my drums. They all looked like Meyn the musician, they wore Meyn’s SA uniform, but Meyn was not there; just as the ones who were there were not somewhere else. One had drawn his dagger. He was cutting dolls open and he seemed disappointed each time that nothing but sawdust flowed from their limbs and bodies.

  I was worried about my drums. They didn’t like my drums. My own drum couldn’t stand up to their rage; there was nothing it could do but bow down and keep quiet. But Markus had escaped from their rage. When they went to see him in his office, they did not knock, they broke the door open, although it was not locked.

  The toy merchant sat behind his desk. As usual he had on sleeve protectors over his dark-grey everyday jacket. Dandruff on his shoulders showed that his scalp was in bad shape. One of the SA men with puppets on his fingers poked him with Kasperl’s wooden grandmother, but Markus was beyond being spoken to, beyond being hurt or humiliated. Before him on the desk stood an empty water glass; the sound of his crashing shopwindow had made him thirsty no doubt.

  There was once a drummer, his name was Oskar. When they took away his toy merchant and ransacked the shop, he suspected that hard times were in the offing for gnomelike drummers like himself. And so, in leaving the store, he picked out of the ruins a whole drum and two that were not so badly injured, hung them round his neck, and so left Arsenal Passage for the Kohlenmarkt to look for his father, who was probably looking for him. Outside, it was a November morning. Beside the Stadt-Theater, near the streetcar stop, some pious ladies and strikingly ugly young girls were handing out religious tracts, collecting money in collection boxes, and holding up, between two poles, a banner with an inscription quoted from the thirteenth chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians. “Faith… hope… love,” Oskar read and played with the three words as a juggler plays with bottles: faith healer, Old Faithful, faithless hope, hope chest, Cape of Good Hope, hopeless love, Love’s Labour’s Lost, six love. An entire credulous nation believed, there’s faith for you, in Santa Claus. But Santa Claus was really the gasman. I believe—such is my faith—that it smells of walnuts and almonds. But it smelled of gas. Soon, so they said, ‘twill be the first Sunday of Advent. And the first, second, third, and fourth Sundays of Advent were turned on like gas cocks, to produce a credible smell of walnuts and almonds, so that all those who liked to crack nuts could take comfort and believe:

  He’s coming. He’s coming. Who is coming? The Christ child, the Saviour? Or is it the heavenly gasman with the gas meter under his arm, that always goes ticktock? And he said: I am the Saviour of this world, without me you can’t cook. And he was not too demanding, he offered special rates, turned on the freshly polished gas cocks, and let the Holy Ghost pour forth, so the dove, or squab, might be cooked. And handed out walnuts and almonds which were promptly cracked, and they too poured forth spirit and gas. Thus it was not hard, amid the dense blue air, for credulous souls to look upon all those gasmen outside department stores as Santa Clauses and Christ children in all sizes and at all prices. They believed in the only-saving gas company which symbolizes destiny with its rising and falling gas meters and staged an Advent at bargain prices. Many, to be sure, believed in the Christmas this Advent seemed to announce, but the sole survivors of these strenuous holidays were those for whom no almonds or walnuts were left—although everyone had supposed there would be plenty for all.

  But after faith in Santa Claus had turned out to be faith in the gasman, an attempt was made, in disregard of the order set forth in Corinthians, to do it with love: I love you, they said, oh, I love you. Do you, too, love yourself? Do you love me, say, do you really love me? I love myself too. And from sheer love they called each other radishes, they loved radishes,
they bit into each other, out of sheer love one radish bit off another’s radish. And they told one another stories about wonderful heavenly love, and earthly love too, between radishes, and just before biting, they whispered to one another, whispered with all the sharp freshness of hunger: Radish, say, do you love me? I love myself too.

  But after they had bitten off each other’s radishes out of love, and faith in the gasman had been proclaimed the state religion, there remained, after faith and anticipated love, only the third white elephant of the Epistle to the Corinthians: hope. And even while they still had radishes, walnuts, and almonds to nibble on, they began to hope that soon it would be over, so they might begin afresh or continue, hoping after or even during the finale that the end would soon be over. The end of what? They still did not know. They only hoped that it would soon be over, over tomorrow, but not today; for what were they to do if the end came so suddenly? And then when the end came, they quickly turned it into a hopeful beginning; for in our country the end is always the beginning and there is hope in every, even the most final, end. And so too is it written: As long as man hopes, he will go on turning out hopeful finales.

  For my part, I don’t know. I don’t know, for example, who it is nowadays that hides under the beards of the Santa Clauses, nor what Santa Claus has in his sack; I don’t know how gas cocks are throttled and shut off; for Advent, the time of longing for a Redeemer, is flowing again, or flowing still, I do not know. Another thing I don’t know is whether I can believe that, as I hope, they are polishing the gas cocks lovingly, so as to make them crow, what morning, what evening, I don’t know, nor know I whether the time of day matters; for love knows no time of day, and hope is without end, and faith knows no limits, only knowing and not knowing are subject to times and limits and usually end before their time with beards, knapsacks, almonds, so that once again I must say: I know not, oh, I know not, for example, what they fill sausage casings with, whose guts are fit to be filled, nor do I know with what, though the prices for every filling, fine or coarse, are legibly displayed, still, I know not what is included in the price, I know not in what dictionaries they find the names for fillings. I know not wherewith they fill the dictionaries or sausage casings, I know not whose meat, I know not whose language: words communicate, butchers won’t tell, I cut off slices, you open books. I read what tastes good to me, but what tastes good to you? Slices of sausage and quotations from sausage casings and books—and never will we learn who had to be reduced to silence before sausage casings could be filled, before books could speak, stuffed full of print, I know not, but I surmise: It is the same butchers who fill dictionaries and sausage casings with language and sausage, there is no Paul, the man’s name was Saul and a Saul he was, and it was Saul who told the people of Corinth something about some priceless sausages that he called faith, hope, and love, which he advertised as easily digestible and which to this very day, still Saul though forever changing in form, he palms off on mankind.

  As for me, they took away my toy merchant, wishing with him to banish all toys from the world.

  There was once a musician, his name was Meyn, and he played the trumpet too beautifully for words.

  There was once a toy merchant, his name was Markus and he sold tin drums, lacquered red and white.

  There was once a musician, his name was Meyn and he had four cats, one of which was called Bismarck.

  There was once a drummer, his name was Oskar, and he needed the toy merchant.

  There was once a musician, his name was Meyn, and he did his four cats in with a fire poker.

  There was once a watchmaker, his name was Laubschad, and he was a member of the SPCA.

  There was once a drummer, his name was Oskar, and they took away his toy merchant.

  There was once a toy merchant, his name was Markus, and he took all the toys in the world away with him out of this world.

  There was once a musician, his name was Meyn, and if he isn’t dead he is still alive, once again playing the trumpet too beautifully for words.

  Book Two

  Scrap Metal

  Visiting day: Maria has brought me a new drum. After passing it over the bars enclosing my bed, she wished to give me the sales slip from the store, but I waved it away and pressed the bell button at the head end of the bed until Bruno my keeper came in and did what he always does when Maria brings me a new drum. He undid the string, let the blue wrapping paper open of its own accord, solemnly lifted out the drum, and carefully folded the paper. Only then did he stride—and when I say stride, I mean stride—to the washbasin with the new drum, turn on the hot water, and, taking care not to scratch the red and white lacquer, remove the price tag.

  When, after a brief, not too fatiguing visit, Maria prepared to go, she picked up the old drum, which I had pretty well wrecked during my saga of Herbert Truczinski’s back, my stories about the figurehead, and my perhaps rather arbitrary interpretation of the first Epistle to the Corinthians. She was going to take it home to store in our cellar, side by side with all the other worn-out instruments that had served my professional or private purposes. “There’s not much room left in the cellar,” she said with a sigh. “I’d like to know where I’m going to put the winter potatoes.”

  I smiled, pretending not to hear this plaint of the housekeeper in Maria, and gave her my instructions: the retired drum must be numbered in black ink and the brief notes I had made on a slip of paper about the drum’s career must be transferred to the diary which has been hanging for years on the inside of the cellar door and knows all about my drums since 1949.

  Maria nodded in resignation and kissed me goodbye. She never did understand this passion of mine for order; in fact it strikes her as almost insane. Oskar can see how she feels, for he himself is at a loss to account for the pedantry he puts into collecting battered tin drums. The strangest part of it is that he never wants to lay eyes on that pile of scrap metal in the potato cellar again as long as he lives. For he knows from experience that children despise their father’s collections and that his son Kurt will look with indifference at best on all those pitiful drums he will one day inherit.

  What is it then that makes me, every three weeks, give Maria instructions which, if regularly followed, will one day take up all the room in our cellar and expel the potatoes?

  The idea which lights up in my mind now and then, though more and more infrequently, that a museum might one day take an interest in my weary instruments, came to me only after several dozen of them had found their way to the cellar; hence it cannot have been at the root of my collector’s passion. The more I think of it, the more I veer toward a very simple motive: fear, fear of a shortage, fear that tin drums might be prohibited, that existing stocks might be destroyed. One day Oskar might be obliged to unearth a few of the less damaged ones and have them repaired as a stopgap to carry him through a period of bleak and terrible drumlessness.

  The doctors at the mental hospital offer a similar explanation, though they put it differently. Dr. (Miss) Hornstetter was even curious to know the exact date when my complex was born. I told her at once: November 9, 1938, for that was the day when I lost Sigismund Markus, who had kept me supplied with drums. After my mother’s death, it had already become difficult to obtain a new drum when I needed one; there were no more Thursday visits to Arsenal Passage, Matzerath’s interest in my drum supply was very halfhearted, and Jan Bronski came to see us more and more infrequently. Now that the toy store was smashed to bits, my situation became truly desperate. The sight of Markus sitting at his empty desk made it very clear to me: Markus won’t give you any more drums, Markus won’t be selling any more toys, Markus has broken off business relations with the makers of your beautiful red and white drums.

  At the time, however, I was not yet prepared to believe that the relatively serene and playful days of my childhood had ended with Markus’ death. From the ruins of the toystore I selected a whole drum and two that were dented only at the edges and, running home with my treasures, imag
ined that I was secure against hard times.

  I was very careful with my drums, I drummed seldom and only in cases of absolute necessity; I denied myself whole afternoons of drumming and, very reluctantly, the drumming at breakfast time that had hitherto made my days bearable. Oskar had turned ascetic; he lost weight and was taken to see Dr. Hollatz and Sister Inge, his assistant, who was getting steadily bonier. They gave me sweet, sour, bitter, and tasteless medicine and put the blame on my glands, which in Dr. Hollatz’ opinion had upset my constitution by alternating between hyperfunction and hypofunction.

  To escape from Dr. Hollatz’ clutches, Oskar moderated his asceticism and put on weight. By the summer of ‘39, he was his old three-year-old self again, but in filling out his cheeks he had irrevocably demolished the last of Markus’ drums. The object that hung on my belly was a pitiful wreck, rusty and full of gaping holes; the red and white lacquer was nearly gone and the sound was utterly lugubrious.

  There was no point in appealing to Matzerath for help, though he was a helpful soul and even kindly in his way. Since my poor mother’s death, he thought of nothing but his Party occupations; when in need of distraction, he would confer with other unit leaders. Or toward midnight, after ample consumption of spirits, he would carry on loud though confidential conversations with the black-framed likenesses of Hitler and Beethoven in our living room, the genius speaking to him of destiny and the Führer of providence. When he was sober he looked upon the collecting of Winter Aid as the destiny allotted him by providence.