The Tin Drum d-1

by Günter Grass

  Maria was right. There was plenty of bother. A man came from the Ministry of Public Health and spoke to Matzerath in private, but Matzerath shouted so loud you could hear him all over the house; “It’s out of the question. I promised my wife on her deathbed. I’m his father, not the Board of Health.”

  So I was not sent to an institution. But every two weeks an official letter came, asking Matzerath for a little signature; Matzerath refused to sign, but his forehead was creased with care.

  Oskar has been getting ahead of himself; now he must smooth the creases out of Matzerath’s brow, for on the night of my arrival he beamed; he was much less worried than Maria, also asked fewer questions, and was happy just to have me home. All in all, he behaved like a true father. “Won’t Kurt be glad to have a little brother again!” he said as they were putting me to bed in the flat of the rather bewildered Mother Truczinski. “And just imagine, tomorrow is Kurt’s third birthday.”

  On his birthday table my son Kurt found a cake with three candles, a crimson sweater knitted by Gretchen Scheffler, to which he paid no attention at all, and various other articles. There was a ghastly yellow ball, which he sat on, rode about on, and finally punctured with a potato knife. From the wound in the rubber he sucked the sickly sweet fluid that gathers inside all air-filled balls, and when he had enough of that began to dismantle and wreck the sailboat. The whistling top and the whip that went with it lay untouched, but frighteningly close at hand.

  Oskar, who had long been thinking of this birthday, who had hastened eastward amid one of history’s wildest frenzies, determined not to miss the third birthday of his son and heir—Oskar stood aside viewing the little fellow’s destructive efforts, admiring his resolution, comparing his own dimensions with those of his son. I had to face the facts. While you were gone, I said to myself in some alarm, Kurt has grown by more than a head. He is already a good inch taller than the three feet you’ve kept yourself down to ever since your third birthday nearly seventeen years ago; it is time to make a drummer of him and call a halt to that immoderate growth.

  I had stored away my drums along with my one-volume library behind the roof tiles in the attic. I picked out a gleaming, brand-new instrument, resolved—since the grownups weren’t doing anything about it—to offer my son the same opportunity as my poor mother, faithful to her promise, had offered me on my third birthday.

  In my own infancy Matzerath had chosen me as his successor in the shop. Now that I had failed him, there was every reason to suppose that he had transferred his designs to Kurt. This, I said to myself, must be prevented at all costs. But I should not like you to see in Oskar a sworn enemy of the retail trade. If my son had been offered the ownership of a factory, or even of a kingdom complete with colonies, I should have felt exactly the same. Oskar had wanted no hand-me-downs for himself and he wanted none for his son. What Oskar wanted—and here was the flaw in my logic—was to make Kurt a permanently three-year-old drummer, as though it were not just as nauseating for a young hopeful to take over a tin drum as to step into a ready-made grocery store.

  This is Oskar’s present opinion. But at the time he was consumed by one desire: to see a drummer son beside a drummer father, two diminutive drummers looking on at the doings of the grown-up world; to establish a dynasty of drummers, capable of perpetuating itself and of handing down my work, drummed on tin encased in red and white lacquer, from generation to generation.

  What a life lay ahead of us! How we might have drummed. Side by side, but also in different rooms, side by side, but also he in Labesweg and I in Luisenstrasse, he in the cellar, I in the attic, Kurt in the kitchen, Oskar in the toilet, father and son, hither and yon but occasionally together; and when we had the chance, the two of us might have slipped under the skirts of Anna Koljaiczek, my grandmother and his great-grandmother, to live and drum and breathe in the smell of slightly rancid butter. Squatting by her portal, I should have said to Kurt: “Look inside, my son. That’s where we come from. And if you’re a good little boy, we shall be allowed to go back for an hour or more and visit those who are waiting.”

  And bending low, little Kurt would have peeped in. And ever so politely he would have asked me, his father, for explanations.

  And Oskar would have whispered: “The lovely lady sitting there in the middle, playing with her lovely hands, the lovely lady whose sweet oval face brings the tears to my eyes, and yours no doubt as well, is my poor mama, your good grandmother, who died of eating eel soup, or maybe because her heart was too tender.”

  “Tell me more, Papa, tell me more,” little Kurt would have clamored. “Who is the man with the mustache?”

  With an air of mystery, I should have lowered my voice: “That’s Joseph Koljaiczek, your great-grandfather. Take a good look at those flashing incendiary eyes, at his divine Polish wildness and the practical Kashubian shrewdness of his brow. Observe, if you please, the webs between his toes. In the year 1913, when the Columbus ran down the ways, he was hiding under a timber raft. After that he had to swim a long way; he swam and swam till he came to America and became a millionaire. But sometimes he takes to the water, swims back, and dives in here, where the fugitive firebug first found shelter and contributed his part toward my mama.”

  “ But what about the handsome gentleman who has been hiding behind the lady who is my grandmother, who is sitting down now beside her and stroking her hands with his hands? His eyes are just as blue as yours, Papa.”

  Then I, unnatural son and traitor that I was, should have summoned up all my courage to answer my dear child: “Those are the dreamy blue eyes of the Bronskis that are looking at you, my boy. Your eyes, it is true, are grey. They come to you from your mother. And yet, just like this Jan who is kissing my poor mama’s hands, or his father Vincent, for that matter, you too are a Bronski, a dreamer through and through, yet with a practical Kashubian side. One day we will go back there, one day we shall follow the source whence flows that smell of slightly rancid butter. It’s something to look forward to.”

  In those days it seemed to me that true family life was possible only in the interior of my grandmother Koljaiczek, in the grandmotherly butter tub, as I liked to call it. Today many things have changed. With a snap of my fingers I can equal if not surpass God the Father, the only begotten Son, and most important of all, the Holy Ghost. The imitation of Christ has become an occupation with me, that I practice with the same distaste as all my other occupations. And yet, though nothing is farther away from me today than the entrance to my grandmother, it is among my forebears that I picture the most beautiful family scenes.

  These fantasies come to me mostly on rainy days: my grandmother sends out invitations and we all meet inside her. Jan Bronski comes with flowers, carnations mostly, in the bullet holes perforating his Polish Post Office defender’s breast. Timidly Maria, who at my behest has also received an invitation, approaches my mama; currying favor, she shows her the account books impeccably set up by my mama and impeccably carried on by Maria, and Mama, with her most Kashubian laugh, draws my darling to her, kisses her on the cheek, and says with a twinkle: “Why, child, there’s nothing to be ashamed of. Haven’t the both of us married a Matzerath and nursed a Bronski?”

  I must sternly forbid myself any further reflections along these lines, speculations for example about a son begotten by Jan, deposited by my mama inside Grandma Koljaiczek, and finally born in the butter tub. Such notions would inevitably lead too far. Might it not occur to my half brother Stephan Bronski, who is after all one of us, to cast first a glance, and thereafter heaven knows what else, at my Maria? My imagination prefers to limit itself to an innocent family gathering. Renouncing a third and fourth drummer, I content myself with Oskar and Little Kurt. For the benefit of those present, I drum something or other about that Eiffel Tower which replaced my grandmother for me in a strange land, quite satisfied if the guests and Anna Koljaiczek, our hostess, enjoy our drumming and clap each other on the knees in obedience to the rhythm.

  Del
ightful as it may be to see the world and its relationships unfolding inside my own grandmother, to be profound in a limited area, Oskar must now—since like Matzerath he is only a presumptive father—turn back to the events of June 12, 1944, to Kurt’s third birthday.

  I repeat: the child had been given a sweater, a ball, a sailboat, a whistling top, and the whip that went with it, and was going to get a drum, lacquered red and white. When he had finished dismantling his sailboat, Oskar approached, the new gift drum hidden behind his back, the battered old one dangling beneath his belly. We stood face to face, only a short step apart: Oskar, the Lilliputian; Kurt, he too a Lilliputian but an inch taller. He had a furious, vicious look on his face, for he was still busy demolishing the sailing vessel. Just as I drew forth the drum and held it up, he cracked the last remaining mast of the Pamir, for that was the windjammer’s name.

  Kurt dropped the wreck, took the drum, and turned it over; he seemed to have calmed down a bit, but his expression was still tense. It was time to hand him the drumsticks. Unfortunately, he misinterpreted my twin movements, felt threatened, and instantly knocked the sticks out of my fingers with the edge of the drum. As I bent down to pick up the sticks, he reached behind himself. I tried again to hand him the sticks, whereupon he hauled off with his birthday present and struck me. It wasn’t the top that he whipped but Oskar, not the whistling top, that was meant to be whipped, but his father. Determined to teach his father to spin and to whistle, he whipped me, thinking: just wait, little brother. Thus did Cain whip Abel until Abel began to spin, staggering at first, then faster and with greater precision, until he began to sing at first in a low, disagreeable grumble, then higher and more steadily, till at last he was singing the song of the whistling top. And higher and higher Cain made me sing with his whip; I sang like a tenor singing his morning prayers, like angels forged of silver, like the Vienna Sängerknaben, like a chorus of eunuchs—I sang as Abel may have sung before he collapsed, as I too collapsed under the whip of my son Kurt.

  When he saw me lying there, moaning like a run-down top, he lashed at the air as though his arm had not yet exhausted its fury. At length he examined the drum carefully while at the same time keeping a suspicious eye on me. First he chipped off the lacquer against the edge of a chair; then he threw my gift to the floor and armed himself with the massive hull of the erstwhile sailing vessel and began to beat the drum. But the sounds he produced were not drumbeats. Not even the most rudimentary rhythm was discernible. With a look of frantic concentration he hammered ruthlessly at an instrument that had never expected such a drummer, that was made for a light roll, a playful flourish, and not for the blows of a nautical battering ram. The drum buckled, tried to escape by breaking away from its casing, tried to conceal its identity by shedding its red and white lacquer. In the end it was dull-grey tin that sued for mercy. But toward the father’s birthday present the son was unrelenting. And when the father tried again to make peace, to cross the carpet to his son in spite of his many aches and pains, the son resorted once more to his whip. The weary top said uncle and ceased to spin, moan, or whistle, and the drum gave up all hope of a sensitive drummer who would wield the sticks with authority but without brutality.

  When Maria came in, the drum was ready for the scrap heap. She took me in her arms, kissed my swollen eyes and lacerated ear, licked my blood and the welts on my hands.

  Oh, if only Maria had not kissed the maltreated, backward, deplorably abnormal child! If she had recognized the beaten father and in every wound the lover. What a consolation, what a loyal though secret husband I might have been to her during the dark months to come!

  The first blow—though it cannot have meant too much to Maria—was the death on the Arctic front of my half brother, Stephan Bronski, or Ehlers, if you will, for by then he had taken his stepfather’s name. He had just been promoted to lieutenant, but now his career was cut short forever. Unlike his father, Jan, who, when shot in Saspe Cemetery for defending the Polish Post Office, had borne a skat card under his shirt, the lieutenant was buried with the Iron Cross Second Class, the Infantry Badge, and the so-called Cold Storage Medal.

  At the end of June, Mother Truczinski suffered a slight stroke when the mailman brought her bad news. Sergeant Truczinski had fallen for three things at once: Führer, Folk, and Fatherland. This had happened in the Center Sector, and Fritz’ belongings—his wallet containing snapshots taken in Heidelberg, Brest, Paris, Bad Kreuznach, and Saloniki, of pretty girls, most of them smiling, the Iron Cross First and Second Class, various medals for various wounds, the bronze close-combat clasp, his two antitank patches, and a few letters—had been sent directly from Headquarters Center Sector to Labesweg, Langfuhr, by a certain Captain Kanauer.

  Matzerath helped as much as he could and soon Mother Truczinski felt better, though she never fully recovered. All day she sat in her chair by the window, periodically asking me or Matzerath, who would come up two or three times a day with something to eat or drink, where this “Center Sector” was, whether it was far away, and whether you could go there by train over Sunday.

  With all his good intentions Matzerath could tell her nothing. Oskar, however, had learned geography from the special newscasts and Wehrmacht communiqués. I spent many a long afternoon trying with my drum to tell Mother Truczinski, who sat motionless in her chair except for her wagging head, all I could about Center Sector and its increasingly precipitate movements.

  Maria had been very fond of her handsome brother. His death made her religious. All through July, she tried the religion she had been raised in; every Sunday she went to hear Pastor Hecht preach at Christ Church; once or twice Matzerath went with her, although she preferred to go alone.

  Protestant services failed to satisfy Maria. One weekday—a Thursday or maybe a Friday—Maria entrusted the shop to Matzerath’s care, took me, the Catholic, by the hand, and left the house. Starting off in the direction of the Neue Markt, we turned into Elsenstrasse, then took Marienstrasse, past Wohlgemuth’s butcher shop, as far as Kleinhammer-Park—we’re headed for Langfuhr Station, Oskar was beginning to think, we’re going to take a little trip, maybe to Bissau in Kashubia. But then we turned left, waited superstitiously near the underpass for a freight train to go by, and went on through the oozing, dripping tunnel. On the far side, instead of going straight ahead toward the Film-Palast, we turned left along the embankment. Either, I figured, she is dragging me to see Dr. Hollatz in Brunshöfer-Weg or else she’s going to Sacred Heart to be converted.

  The church door faced the railway tracks. Between the embankment and the open door we stopped still. An afternoon in late August, full of humming and buzzing. Behind us some Ukrainian women in white kerchiefs were picking and shoveling on the ballast. We stood there, peering into the cool, shady belly of the church. Far in the distance, ingeniously alluring, a violently inflamed eye: the eternal light. Behind us on the embankment the Ukrainian women stopped their picking and shoveling. A horn blew, a train was coming, there it was, still there, not yet past, gone, the horn tooted, and the women set to work again. Maria was undecided, perhaps uncertain which foot to put forward, and put all the responsibility on me, who by birth and baptism was closer to the only-saving Church; for the first time in years, for the first time since those two weeks full of fizz powder and love, she resigned herself to Oskar’s guidance.

  We left the embankment and its sounds, August and its buzzing, outside. Rather mournfully, letting my fingertips under my smock play sleepily over my drum, while outwardly a look of indifference settled on my features, I recalled the Masses, pontifical offices. Vespers services and Saturday confessions I had experienced at the side of my mother, who shortly before her death was rendered pious by the intensity of her relations with Jan Bronski, who Saturday after Saturday cast off her burden by confessing, who fortified herself with sacraments on Sunday in order, thus unburdened and fortified, to meet Jan in Tischlergasse the following Thursday. Who was the priest in those days? His name, then as now, for he w
as still priest of Sacred Heart, was Father Wiehnke, his sermons were pleasantly soft-spoken and unintelligible, his singing of the Credo was so thin and plaintive that even I should have been invaded by something resembling faith in those days if not for that left side-altar with the Virgin, the boy Jesus, and the boy John the Baptist.

  And yet it was that altar which impelled me to pull Maria from the sunshine into the doorway and then across the flags into the nave.

  Oskar took his time, sat quietly beside Maria in the oak pew, feeling more and more at his ease. Years had passed, and yet it seemed to me that the same people were still leafing through their missals, working out their strategy while waiting for Father Wiehnke’s ear. We were sitting slightly to one side of the center aisle. I wanted to let Maria do the choosing, but to make the choice easier for her. On the one hand, the confessional was not so close as to upset her, thus her conversion could be leisurely, unofficial as it were; on the other hand, she was in a position to see how people behaved while preparing to confess and, while looking on, make up her mind. She had not far to go to consult Father Wiehnke in the confessional, to discuss with him the details of her conversion to the only saving faith. I felt sorry for her; she seemed so little, so awkward as she knelt amid dust, incense, plaster, tortuous angels, refracted light, convulsed saints, as she knelt beneath and amid the sweetness and sorrow, the sorrowful sweetness of Catholicism and for the first time crossed herself the wrong way around. Oskar gave Maria a poke and showed her the right way. She was eager to learn. He showed her where behind her forehead, where deep in her heart, exactly where in the joints of her shoulders Father, Son, and Holy Ghost have their dwelling places, and how you must fold your hands if your amen is to be successful. Maria obeyed, her hands came to rest in amen, and she began to pray.