by Günter Grass
KITTY: Just one word is missing, then it’ll be done.
FELIX: Oskar wants to know what those spikes in the sand are called.
KITTY: ‘Cause he needs them for the poem.
FELIX: They’re too important to leave out.
KITTY: Won’t you tell us, Mr. Corporal? What are they called?
FELIX: Maybe he’s not allowed to. On account of enemy ears.
KITTY: We promise not to tell anybody.
FELIX: It’s for art.
KITTY: Oskarnello has gone to so much trouble.
FELIX: And how beautifully he writes. In Sütterlin script.
KITTY: I wonder where he learned it.
FELIX: Oh, Oskar’s educated. He knows everything, except what those spikes are called.
LANKES: I’ll tell you if the captain has no objection.
BEBRA: But maybe it’s top secret.
FELIX: But Oskar needs to know.
KITTY: Or the poem will be ruined.
ROSWITHA: And we’re all so curious.
BEBRA: You might as well tell us. It’s an order.
LANKES: Well, we put them in as a defense against tanks and landing craft. They look like asparagus, don’t they? Well, that’s why we call them. Rommel asparagus.
FELIX: Rommel…
KITTY: …asparagus? Does it fit, Oskarnello?
OSKAR:—It fits!
(He writes the word on the paper, hands the poem to Kitty on top of the pillbox. She knots herself still more and recites the following lines like a schoolchild.)
KITTY: On the Atlantic Wall
Rommel has sent us steel asparagus
And here we sit, bristling and camouflaged.
Dreaming of the land of carpet slippers.
Of Sunday’s roasts and Friday’s kippers.
Where everything is soft and snug:
The trend is toward the bourgeois-smug.
We live in concrete and barbed wire.
We bury mines in the latrines.
But then we dream of garden bowers
Of frigidaires and happy hours
Bestowed by an electric plug:
The trend is toward the bourgeois-smug.
Though some of us are sure to die
And many a mother’s heart must break,
Though death still wears a parachute
And Martian harness on his suit,
The thought of comfort’s like a drug:
The trend is toward the bourgeois-smug.
(All applaud, including Lankes.)
LANKES: It’s low tide.
ROSWITHA: That’s time for breakfast.
(She brandishes her big basket, which is decorated with bows and artificial flowers.)
KITTY: Oh, yes, a picnic in the open.
FELIX: Nature has whetted our appetites.
ROSWITHA: Oh, sacred act of belly-filling that will unite the nations as long as men eat breakfast!
BEBRA: Let us feast on the concrete. Let us have human rituals built on solid foundations!
(All except for Lankes climb up on the pillbox. Roswitha spreads out a bright flowery tablecloth. From the bottomless basket she produces little cushions with tassels and fringes. A pink and bright green parasol is opened, a tiny gramophone with loudspeaker is set up. Little plates, little spoons, little knives, egg cups, and napkins are distributed.)
FELIX: I’d like some of the pâté de foie gras.
KITTY: Have you still got any of that caviar we rescued from Stalingrad?
OSCAR: You oughtn’t to spread the Danish butter so thick, Roswitha.
BEBRA: I’m glad to see you looking out for her figure. That’s the right spirit, son.
ROSWITHA: But I like it and it’s good for me. Oh! When I think of the cake and whipped cream the Air Force served us in Copenhagen.
BEBRA: The Dutch chocolate in the thermos bottle is still nice and warm.
KITTY: I’m just crazy about these canned American cookies.
ROSWITHA: But they’re only good if you spread some of the South African ginger preserve on top.
OSCAR: A little moderation, Roswitha, I beseech you.
ROSWITHA: What about you? Look at the big thick slices of that nasty English corned beef you’ve been helping yourself to.
BEBRA: What about you, my dear corporal? May I offer you a paper-thin slice of raisin bread with plum jam?
LANKES: If I weren’t on duty, sir.
ROSWITHA: He needs an official order.
KITTY: Yes, do give him an order.
BEBRA: Very well. Corporal Lankes, you are hereby ordered to accept a slice of raisin bread with French plum jam, a soft-boiled Danish egg, a spot of Soviet caviar, and a little cup of genuine Dutch chocolate.
LANKES: Yes, sir.
(He joins the others on top of the pillbox.)
BEBRA: Haven’t we another cushion for the corporal?
OSCAR: He can have mine. I’ll sit on my drum.
ROSWITHA: Mustn’t catch cold, precious. Concrete is treacherous, and you’re not used to it.
KITTY: He can have my cushion too. I’ll just knot myself up a little, it helps my digestion anyway.
FELIX: But do eat over the tablecloth or you’ll get honey on the concrete. We wouldn’t want to damage the defenses! (All giggle.)
BEBRA: Ah, the sea air! How fine it makes us feel.
ROSWITHA: Feel!
BEBRA: The breast expands.
ROSWITHA: Expands!
BEBRA: The heart casts off its crust.
ROSWITHA: Crust!
BEBRA: The soul is reborn.
ROSWITHA: Reborn!
BEBRA: The eyes soar aloft.
ROSWITHA: Aloft!
BEBRA: Over the sea. the endless sea… I say. Corporal, I see something black down there on the beach. Whatever it is, there’s five of them.
KITTY: So do I. With five umbrellas.
FELIX: Six.
KITTY: Five! One, two, three, four, five!
LANKES: It’s the nuns from Lisieux. They’ve been evacuated and shipped over here with their kindergarten.
KITTY: I don’t see any children. Just five umbrellas.
LANKES: They leave the children at Bavent. Sometimes they come down here at low tide to pick up the crabs and shellfish that get stuck in the Rommel asparagus.
KITTY: Poor things!
ROSWITHA: Shouldn’t we offer them some corned beef and cookies?
OSCAR: I suggest raisin bread with plum jam. It’s Friday; nuns aren’t allowed to eat corned beef on Friday.
KITTY: They’re running now. They seem to be gliding on their umbrellas.
LANKES: They always do that when they’ve finished picking. Then they begin to play. Especially Agheta, the novice, she’s just a kid that doesn’t know which way is up. Maybe you could spare another cigarette? Thank you, sir. And the one back there, the fat one that isn’t running is Scholastica, the mother superior. She doesn’t like them to play on the beach, she thinks it might be against the rule of their order.
(Nuns with umbrellas are seen running in the background. Roswitha puts on the gramophone: “Sleigh Bells in St. Petersburg.” The nuns dance and shout.)
AGNETA: Yoohoo, Sister Scholastica!
SCHOLASTICA: Agneta, Sister Agneta!
AGNETA: Yoohoo, Sister Scholastica!
SCHOLASTICA: Come back now, child! Sister Agneta!
AGNETA: I can’t. It carries me away.
SCHOLASTICA: Then you must pray, sister, for a conversion.
AGNETA: A sorrowful one?
SCHOLASTICA: A merciful one.
AGNETA: A joyful one?
SCHOLASTICA: Just pray, Sister Agneta!
AGNETA: I’m praying to beat the band. But I’m still being carried away.
SCHOLASTICA (her voice dying away in the distance): Agneta, Sister Agneta.
AGNETA: Yoohoo, Sister Scholastica!
(The nuns disappear, but from time to time their umbrellas appear in the background. The phonograph record runs down. Beside the pillb
ox entrance the telephone rings. Lankes jumps down and picks up the receiver, the others go on eating.)
ROSWITHA: Telephones, telephones, wherever you go. Between the sea and the sky, telephones.
LANKES: Dora Seven speaking. Corporal Lankes.
HERZOG (comes in slowly from the right, holding a telephone and dragging the wire after him. He stops repeatedly and talks into the phone): Are you asleep, Lankes? There’s something moving in front of Dora Seven. I’m sure of it.
LANKES: It’s the nuns, sir.
HERZOG: What are nuns doing down there? And suppose they’re not nuns.
LANKES: But they are nuns. I can see them plain as day.
HERZOG: Never hear of camouflage? Never hear of the fifth column? The English have been at it for centuries. They come in with their Bibles and before you know what they’re up to, boom!
LANKES: They’re picking up crabs, sir…
HERZOG: I want that beach cleared immediately. Is that clear?
LANKES: Yes, sir, but they’re just picking up crabs.
HERZOG: Lankes, I want you to get your ass behind your MG!
LANKES: But suppose they’re just looking for crabs, ‘cause it’s low tide and the children in their kindergarten…
HERZOG: That’s an official order, Lankes.
LANKES: Yes, sir.
(Lankes disappears into the pillbox. Herzog goes out right with the telephone.)
OSKAR: Roswitha, stop your ears, there’s going to be shooting like in the newsreels.
KITTY: Oh, how awful! I’m going to knot myself still tighter.
BEBRA: I myself am almost inclined to think that we shall soon hear some noise.
FELIX: Let’s put on another record. That will help some.
(He puts on the gramophone: The Platters singing “The Great Pretender”. The rat-tat-tat of the machine gun punctuates the slow mournful music. Roswitha holds her ears. Felix stands on his head. In the background five nuns with umbrellas are seen flying heavenward. The record sticks in its groove and repeats. Felix returns to his feet. Kitty unties herself. Roswitha begins to clear the table and repack her basket. Oskar and Bebra help her. They leave the roof of the pillbox. Lankes appears in the entrance.)
LANKES: Captain, sir, if you could spare another cigarette…
BEBRA (his frightened troupe huddle behind him): You smoke too much, Corporal.
BEBRA’S TROUPE: He smokes too much.
LANKES: That’s on account of the concrete, sir.
BEBRA: And suppose some day there’s no more concrete?
BEBRA’S TROUPE: No more concrete.
LANKES: Concrete is immortal, sir. Just us and our cigarettes…
BEBRA: I know, I know, we vanish like a puff of smoke.
BEBRA’S TROUPE:(slowly going out): Smoke!
BEBRA: But in a thousand years they will still be coming to see the concrete.
BEBRA’S TROUPE: In a thousand years!
BEBRA: They’ll find puppy bones.
BEBRA’S TROUPE: Puppy bones.
BEBRA: And your Oblique Formations in the concrete.
BEBRA’S TROUPE: Barbaric, mystical, bored!
(Lankes is left alone, smoking)
Though Oskar hardly opened his mouth in the course of that breakfast on the concrete, the mere fact that such words should be spoken on the eve of the invasion has impelled me to record them. Moreover, we haven’t seen the last of Corporal Lankes, the master of “concrete” art; we shall meet him again when the time comes to speak of the postwar period and the present apotheosis of bourgeois comfort.
On the beach promenade, our armored personnel carrier was still waiting for us. With long strides Lieutenant Herzog returned to his protégés and breathlessly apologized to Bebra for the little incident, adding, however, that the beach was off limits for civilians and “Off limits is off limits.” He helped the ladies into the vehicle, gave the driver some instructions, and back we rode to Bavent. We had to hurry, there was no time for lunch, for at two o’clock we had a show at the charming little Norman château nestling among the poplars at the edge of the village.
We had barely half an hour in which to test the lighting; then Oskar raised the curtain with a drum flourish. We were playing to an audience of enlisted men. We laid it on thick and the laughter was hearty and frequent. I sang at a glass chamber pot containing a pair of hot dogs with mustard. Bebra, in white grease paint, wept clown’s tears over the broken pot, salvaged the sausages from the shards, and devoured them to the joy of the field-grey mass. Felix and Kitty had taken to appearing in leather shorts and Tyrolian hats, which lent their act a special cachet. Roswitha wore a close-fitting silvery gown and long pale-green gloves; her tiny feet were encased in gold-embroidered sandals. Her half-closed bluish eyelids and drowsy Mediterranean voice produced their usual effect of eerie magic. Oskar—or have I mentioned it before?—required no special costume. I wore my good old sailor hat with S.M.S. Seydlitz on the band, my navy-blue shirt, and my jacket with the golden anchor buttons. As the camera eye descended, it registered the bottoms of my knee-pants, rolled stockings, and a very dilapidated pair of boots. From my neck hung my red and white lacquered drum, serene in the knowledge that there were five more like it in my luggage.
That night we repeated the same show for officers and for the Blitz Girls from the Cabourg message center. Roswitha was a trifle nervous. She made no mistakes, but in the middle of her number she put on a pair of sunglasses with blue rims and abruptly changed her tone. Here revelations became more direct; for instance, she informed an anemic-looking Blitz Girl, whose embarrassment made her snippish, that she was having an affair with her commanding officer. This, it seemed to me, was in poor taste, but there were plenty of laughs, for there was an officer sitting beside the Blitz Girl, and there was good reason to suppose…
After the show the regimental staff officers, who were billeted in the chateâu, gave a party. Bebra, Kitty, and Felix stayed on, but Raguna and Oskar slipped quietly away and went to bed. It had been a trying day. We dropped off quickly and slept until 5 a.m. when the invasion woke us up.
What shall I tell you about the invasion? Canadians landed in our sector, not far from the mouth of the Orne. Bavent had to be evacuated. Our luggage was already stowed in the truck. We were pulling out with the regimental staff. A motorized field kitchen had stopped in the court of the chateâu. Roswitha asked me to get her a cup of coffee. Rather nervous and afraid of missing the truck. I refused. I was even a little rude to her. Thereupon she herself ran over to the field kitchen in her high-heeled shoes, and reached the steaming hot coffee exactly at the same time as a shell from a naval gun.
O Roswitha, I know not how old you were, I know only that you measured three foot three, that the Mediterranean spoke from your lips, that you smelled of cinnamon and nutmeg, and that you could see into the hearts of men; but you couldn’t see into your own heart, or else you would have stayed with me instead of running after that coffee, which was much too hot.
In Lisieux Bebra managed to wangle marching orders for Berlin. We waited for him outside the Kommandantur, and it was only when he joined us that he mentioned Roswitha’s death for the first time: “We dwarfs and fools have no business dancing on concrete made for giants. If only we had stayed under the rostrums where no one suspected our presence!”
In Berlin I parted from Bebra. “What,” he said with a smile as thin as a spiderweb, “will you do in all those air-raid shelters without your Roswitha?” Then he kissed me on the forehead. He made me a present of the five remaining drums and sent Kitty and Felix to Danzig with official travel orders to keep me company. So it was that armed with six drums and my “book”, I returned on June 11, 1944, the day before my son’s third birthday, to my native city, which was still intact and medieval and which still resounded with bells of every size ringing out the hour from belfries high and low.
The Imitation of Christ
Ah, yes, homecoming! At four minutes after twenty hundred, the furlough tr
ain pulled into Danzig station. Felix and Kitty accompanied me as far as Max-Halbe-Platz. Kitty burst into tears as they were saying goodbye. Then—it was almost twenty-one hundred—they went on to Propaganda Troop headquarters in Hochstriess, while Oskar toted his luggage down Labesweg.
Homecoming indeed! Nowadays every young man who forges a little check, joins the Foreign Legion, and spins a few yarns when he gets home a few years later, tends to be regarded as a modern Ulysses. Maybe on his way home our young man gets into the wrong train which takes him to Oberhausen instead of Frankfurt, and has some sort of experience on the way—why not?—and the moment he reaches home, he begins to bandy mythological names about: Circe, Penelope, Telemachus.
Oskar was no Ulysses, if only because on his return home he found everything unchanged. Far from being beset by lecherous suitors, his beloved Maria, who, had he been Ulysses, would have had to play the role of Penelope, still had her Matzerath, in whose favor she had decided long before Oskar’s departure. And I do hope the more classical-minded among my readers will not, because of her somnambulism, mistake my poor Roswitha for Circe, the enchantress who turned men into beasts. Lastly, my son Kurt didn’t raise a ringer for his returning father; accordingly, he was no Telemachus, even if he did fail to recognize me.
If comparison there must be—and I can see that homecomers must put up with a comparison or two—I prefer to be looked upon as the Prodigal Son; for Matzerath opened the door and welcomed me like a true, not a presumptive, father. In fact, he managed to be so happy over Oskar’s return, to the point of shedding real, speechless tears, that from that day on I ceased to call myself exclusively Oskar Bronski and called myself Oskar Matzerath as well.
Maria’s reception of me was less emotional but not unfriendly. She was sitting at the table, pasting up food stamps for the Board of Trade, having previously piled up a few birthday presents for little Kurt. Practical as she was, she thought first of my physical well-being, undressed me, bathed me as in times gone by, overlooked my blushes, and set me down in my pajamas at the table, Matzerath having meanwhile served up a dish of fried eggs and browned potatoes. I drank milk with my food, and as I ate and drank, the questions began: “Where have you been? We looked all over like mad; we even had to go to the police and swear we hadn’t done you in. Well, here you are and thank the Lord for that. But plenty of trouble you made us and there’s going to be more, because now we’ve got to report you back again. I only hope they won’t put you in an institution. That’s what you deserve. Running away without a word.”
