A Gushing Fountain

by Martin Walser

  Frau Haensel was a pianist from Munich. Her shiny clothes looked as if they were made of material that wasn’t dyed but possessed some natural luminescence. And she always wore long pearl necklaces. Slung two or three times around her neck, they still hung down to her black patent leather belt. There was a concert grand in her living room. Frau Haensel was always quite pale, almost yellowish, and had dark spots on her face, hands, and arms. She wore several rings on her fingers and bracelets on both wrists. Johann knew from Josef that you had to show her how cautiously you walked along her newspaper trail so that not a speck of dust could trickle out of a sack. It was easy for Johann to carry the two hundredweights in three sacks, shuffling out to the balcony in slow motion for Frau Haensel’s benefit. There he slowly emptied the sacks into the bin, turning and pulling them up carefully to let the coal slide out slowly. Frau Haensel praised him and tipped him fifty pfennigs. Downstairs, he passed the coin on to Niklaus, because he felt he was the boss and accepting a tip was beneath him.

  The second load went to Nonnenhorn. For this trip, Winnetou I was carefully wrapped up and stowed among the sacks. Nonnenhorn meant up the steep ramp again, then straight out of the village toward Schäggs, from there downhill at a trot, taking advantage of the momentum that lasted almost to the doctor’s house. By that point they were also almost at Herr von Lützow’s.

  Viktor Baron von Lützow lived on the second floor of the house at Hagenau’s chicken farm and was one of Johann’s favorite customers. When the singing society practiced on Thursday evenings and Johann lay in bed reading, he often heard the powerful song with the refrain, That was Lützow’s wild swashbuckling charge, that was Lützow’s wild swashbuckling charge. Then he thought of his baron, who more than any other customer praised you for bringing him his coal and emptying it carefully into the bin next to his tiny stove. The baron even patted you on the head. The baron was never without a scarf, one end hanging down in front and one behind, and always wore suits of coarse, speckled material with trousers that ended just below the knee and were cinched there with buckles. In the street, he always wore a billed cap of the same material as his suits. You never saw him other than all alone. Every time Johann greeted Herr von Lützow in the village, loudly and cheerily, he always said to himself, He’s going to buy bouillon cubes and teabags. And maybe some biscuits. That was really all he ever bought. From Ludwig, Johann had heard that Herr von Lützow used to live in the colonies.

  In Nonnenhorn, Niklaus had to wait by the empty cart while Johann trotted into town to exchange Winnetou I and then trotted back. Canon Krumbacher packed up Winnetou II in the same paper Winnetou I had been returned in. He asked Johann if he’d gotten all his sins assembled for first confession this afternoon. Johann tried to laugh and said, “There’s not that many of them.” Another lie. He was actually almost buried under a heavy mountain of sin. When he thought about how to put his sins in order so that he could mention each one in the right place during his first confession, he thought he must have done nothing but sin his whole life long. It was still unclear to him how he was going to get rid of this mountain of sins in a single confession. He mustn’t stay in the confession box any longer than the others. Above all, what was contained in the priest’s response to Johann’s confession mustn’t be any different from his response to the others. If only Canon Hebel would be taking the boys’ confessions. Dr. Rottenkolber was well known as a stickler for detail. He had follow-up questions and wanted everything explained in more detail. That’s why, since he had become their priest, many grown-ups from the village went to confession in Lindau, and some even as far away as Lochau or Bregenz.

  The canon wished Johann a painless first confession and a blessed First Communion. He said it was a truly unique day when one was permitted to partake of the Body of our Lord for the first time. The canon’s mother pressed some eucalyptus drops on Johann. The canon said, “Looks like this is your lucky day!” Johann really liked the Nonnenhorn canon. In everything he said, Johann had the feeling that he didn’t really mean it that way. He spoke through his nose. It sounded like he was talking into a drinking glass. He talked only because one had to say something, after all. Whether the canon was talking about eucalyptus drops or the Body of our Lord, he would have preferred not to say anything. But since that wasn’t possible, he had to say something. When he spoke, he always closed his eyes and didn’t open them until he’d said the sentence he had to say. And when he spoke, his mouth looked like he was nauseated by something he’d eaten. For Luise, speaking was a risk, because she had grown up in a language that she had to handle with care, word by word, in order to use it in Wasserburg. But for Canon Krumbacher, speaking was an embarrassment because he would have preferred to remain silent. Even when the canon came to Wasserburg to preach, in every sentence of his sermon Johann could feel the pain it caused him to have to say so many sentences so loudly to so many people. Even in the pulpit, the canon closed his eyes at every sentence, and his lips curled as if he was nauseated. On the soccer pitch, the canon was a different person. After Wolfgang Landsmann was gone, he had taken over as their coach. And he also played with them. If he didn’t see an opportunity soon enough, voices would shout from all sides, “Shoot, Canon! Shoot!”

  Ever since Missionary Week, Johann had felt sorry for all the local preachers. Father Chrysostomus, the Franciscan from Messkirch—now that was a preacher! Chrysostomus’s very first sermon had convinced Johann that he wanted to be a priest. For the entire week, he hadn’t missed a single evening sermon. Their teacher had made it impossible for them to hear the morning sermons. But he couldn’t keep them from going to the evening sermons. Johann had heard Father Chrysostomus three times. Fathers Gangolf and Barnabas also preached better than the local priests, but nobody could equal Chrysostomus for preaching. “When you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts!” That’s how he began. When he spread his arms in his white habit, he looked like a huge bird. He must have been at least six foot six and had a wingspan of more than that. And a face straight off an altarpiece. And a voice that made the church seem for the first time not too large, but two small. The church was more than filled by his voice. Father Chrysostomus preached about boots and sandals. What would get you farther, what did the Earth prefer—boots or sandals? And he talked about the Kingdom of Heaven that the apostles had walked in their sandals. Later, when Josef passed the giant priest in the street, he’d been disappointed to see that he was wearing boots, not sandals.

  Why Do the Heathen Rage? That had been his third sermon. Johann got tears in his eyes and could only stare up at that angel. If he wasn’t an angel, then who was? Why do the heathen rage? That question, called out repeatedly, propelled the sermon forward. And everyone had sensed who was meant by the heathen. Why do the heathen rage? And why are their ideas worthless? He posed one ringing question after another. He was only repeating what the mouth of the psalmist had been crying out for three thousand years. And with the psalmist, he answered today as the psalmist reported the heathen answering so many years ago: “We are free! We need no God. We have no need for this alliance!” And the psalmist replied: “Eternal God can only laugh at that. But then God gets angry at that pack of fools. He’s going to show the scoundrels what it means to deny Him.”

  Never before had it been so loud and then so quiet in the church.

  But did Johann still want to be a priest? On the one hand, what more could he wish than to stand in the pulpit and preach to Anita? On the other hand, he was more attracted to singing than preaching. He could still hear his father saying: Four years old, and Schubert’s “Jägerlied” down pat! You’re amazing, Johann! Johann could tell that his father liked his singing as much as Josef’s piano playing. And since Father played piano four hands more and more often with Josef, Johann was also asked to sing something his father could accompany. If Johann had known that his father was going to die soon, he wouldn’t have refused to sing anything but “Von Apfelblüten einen Kranz.” Since Father’s death, he sang
nothing but Lehár, “Von Apfelblüten einen Kranz” or “Dein ist mein ganzes Herz.” Those were melodies he could lose himself in.

  As Johann was thanking them for the eucalyptus drops, the canon remarked that Johann had come not just from Wasserburg to Nonnenhorn, but had walked all the way across Nonnenhorn, too. He’d give Johann a ride back to the handcart. “But be careful!” called his little old mother as the canon started up his DKW 500. Johann climbed onto the passenger seat, clutched his Winnetou in one hand, and held on tight with the other, and the two of them roared away down the long straight street. Johann knew that their roar could be heard all over Nonnenhorn. Riding in the car was nice, too, and the great-uncle they called Cousin sometimes drove really fast. But basically, it was just the car that was moving. On a motorcycle, you were moving yourself. Johann would always drive a motorcycle, just like the canon.

  Through town, across the tracks, and out to Niklaus, who was sitting on the empty coco fiber sacks, and if Johann hadn’t come, he would probably be sitting there to this day. What Niklaus did wasn’t waiting. Whether sitting or standing, he did it as if nothing would ever change. Johann jumped off, and the canon roared off with as much style as he’d shown on the way there. Johann wanted to call after him: Canon, shoot! Johann gave his eucalyptus drops to Niklaus. He didn’t like eucalyptus drops. Niklaus, who accepted everything that was given to him except socks, said, “God bless you.”

  At home, Josef was sitting at the long kitchen table, but on the stove side of the table, with his right leg resting on a chair and with a bandage instead of a shoe on his foot. Johann immediately envied Josef’s tan. A tan like that was worth a torn ligament. Josef had just gotten home. His skis and rucksack were still at the station. Josef had limped over on crutches. Mother said Helmer’s Hermine had just asked if Johann would still have time to take a hundredweight of briquettes to Zwerger’s Anna today. Johann hated orders like that. Even if Josef hadn’t had a torn ligament, it was always Johann who had to make these small deliveries. Usually it took a wrestling match to get him to do it. He wouldn’t agree until he was pinned flat on his back with Josef kneeling on his upper arms. Today there was no match and no argument; Johann cursed and went to do it. When he heard himself cursing, he thought of this afternoon and his first confession: I have taken the Lord’s name in vain, I have spoken the Lord’s name in anger. Then he rode the cart down the Dorfstrasse at the speed they called hell-for-leather, swung the hundredweight sack into Fräulein Zwerger’s coal bin (the usually freshly shaved fräulein lived on the ground floor), plodded home, rinsed himself off with cold water from the hose in the laundry room, lathered himself up, rinsed off once more, and while he rinsed he sang in the highest register of “Von Apfelblüten einen Kranz.” Then he ran up to his room with only a towel around his waist. Tell had, of course, been listening the whole time and complained that Johann hadn’t come back sooner. Johann checked the mirror to see if there was still a bit of coal dust around his eyes. He thought he looked more interesting with dark circles under his eyes. But it hadn’t been dusty enough today. No circles. Too bad.

  After depositing the payments he’d collected in the safe, Johann went into the kitchen. Mina insisted that for once they all eat together today. “Not like cows out to pasture, every man for himself,” she said in her Allgäu accent. But then Mother had to get up and go out to the dining room after all to greet Herr Hartstern the architect and Captain Knorr and his wife. Mina scolded Luise for announcing every time she put in an order who was having brisket of beef, who was having schnitzel, and who was having a pair of bratwurst with mixed green salad. Mina liked to scold Luise. Stubborn as a mule, she was. Couldn’t just do as she was told, had to think over if she should or even if she would. She apparently had to prove that you couldn’t just order her around. She’d only do things she thought were right and proper and necessary. Johann liked the way Luise would demur and then nod: Okay, she’d do it. But only because she understood that it had to be done, and by her. Johann thought it must be a typical South Tyrolean trait.

  Josef told them about what had happened. He was the third one to start down the mountain. The two ahead of him had broken their legs when the snow suddenly gave way. But since it wasn’t a big slope and there was an opposing slope that followed it immediately, the snow mass didn’t develop into an avalanche. The only problem was how the nine others would get the three injured boys back to the hut. Mother told Luise to take a beer to Herr Deuerling over at the station. In the meantime, the stationmaster had brought Josef’s rucksack and skis over to the restaurant. Luise thought about it for a moment and then said, “Agreed.”

  “Aggrieved!” said the Princess.

  “She’d rather have said no,” said Mina when Luise had left the room. “Such an obstinate thing she is!”

  Josef asked about the circus. Johann described it with muted enthusiasm. Josef had a girlfriend already, but everyone knew he was a lady-killer. That meant Josef could steal Anita from him without a second thought. So Johann only told him about what had happened to Dumb August. “Who did it?” asked Josef.

  “Don’t even ask,” said Johann, attempting to convey some of the admonitory mood in which Adolf had reacted to the same question. But Josef said they absolutely had to get to the bottom of it. It was cowardly for a gang to ambush one guy in the dark, especially if he was smaller. Edi Fürst should look into it, Josef said.

  Mother said, “Don’t always get mixed up in things that aren’t your business.”

  “I could say the same to you,” said Josef. Mother had little Anselm on her hip, and he kicked his leg against Josef’s foot. Josef cried out in pain. But then everyone thought it was good that the little tyke had seen that his mother needed defending against Josef’s sass.

  “Have you heard the latest from Helmer’s Hermine?” asked Mina. “When Semper’s Fritz got back to Herr Seehahn with the doctor, Herr Seehahn had Dumb August’s head in his lap and was just saying to him, ‘If you come with me, your Eminence, I’m placing you under arrest. If you take the back door, you’ve given me the slip.’”

  Johann closed Tell in his room, went into the lavatory, and gazed down on the circus grounds.

  The circus people were sitting at their table, talking and smoking. Herr Wiener in his short red-and-black checked jacket and Anita in her yellow robe and red turban. They were all looking at the Little Giant. He wasn’t jumping up and sitting down, jumping up and sitting down today. He was sitting and not moving. His florid face was half covered in bandages, and one hand was wrapped in gauze. The way he was sitting on that bench today, no one would think to say that Dumb August was the circus. Dumb August had given aid and comfort to the enemies of the German people, their teacher had said. The teacher hadn’t attended the performance. When he said that, it made Johann think of Versailles. The previous year they had performed The Death of Schlageter in the gymnasium, and Johann had played the part of the Red Death of Versailles. He had to wear a fire engine–red costume knitted by Huth’s Jossi and say nasty lines about Germany, and then Frommknecht’s Hermann, who got to play Schlageter, tied him to a stake and burned him with flames of silver paper. Germany awake! the others had cried in unison. Death to the specter of Versailles! The Germans would have to toil another hundred years, the others chanted, a hundred years of slavery for the shameful Treaty of Versailles. But the Führer had ripped up that shameful treaty. That’s why the enemies of the German people didn’t like him. And the Little Giant had given aid and comfort to those enemies. Unfortunately.

  Johann put on a jacket Josef had outgrown. It was still a little too big for him. But he had to wear it now. It was from Mother’s uncle, the one they called Cousin. Whenever Josef and Johann went to Allgäu to visit him, he picked them up from the train station in Wangen in his Ford and drove straight to Bredl’s store to buy them clothes. This unmarried uncle whom all their relatives called Cousin was stout and had the handsome brown face of an Indian. He would seat himself in an armchair in the sto
re, and Josef and Johann had to try everything on and walk back and forth in front of him and look at themselves in the big mirrors, and then choose. He always wanted them to choose between one suit with plus-fours or another, one gabardine coat or another. Then they drove like fury out to his house next to the cheese factory, which displayed the name Alpine Bee in big letters. In the evening, he would take his freshly-suited boys to one of the taverns in the neighborhood and stand everyone drinks while Josef and Johann had to sing for them. Johann sang melody and Josef harmony. Johann thought he had the more beautiful voice, but Josef was more musical. After all, Johann just had to sing the melody, while Josef improvised a second voice that went with it. Josef never sang the same harmony twice. There was always lots of applause in the tavern. Cousin Anselm didn’t applaud, but on the way home in his Ford he praised the two singers. Sometimes they had to sing at his house, just for him. He had a piano on which Josef would accompany the two voices. The piano always sounded like it had fallen fast asleep since the last time Josef had woken it up. There was always a dark red velvet cloth with gold embroidery covering the keyboard.

  In the morning they would drive to church in Cousin Anselm’s car, and that was the whole visit. But he had already told them he would come the following year for Josef and Johann’s confirmation. They were going to be confirmed together, because the bishop of Augsburg only got to Wasserburg every other year. Cousin Anselm had announced that he would buy each confirmand a gold wristwatch for the occasion. Their godfather and godmother were coming to their First Communion. The latter, the baker’s wife from Kressbronn, had never been seen without a smile on her face, and their godfather, Mother’s oldest brother who ran the family farm, was the biggest, strongest man in the world. Above his eyes, one thick, bushy, continuous eyebrow with no gap in the middle. Johann was going to walk through the village with this giant godfather and his smiling godmother. Anita’s parents would probably choose to walk behind him and his godparents. Johann couldn’t imagine his godmother and godfather conversing with Herr and Frau Wiener. Whenever his godfather came down from Kümmertsweiler and sat at the regulars’ table, he would swing his head around exaggeratedly to look at the person who was speaking, and then the same with the next speaker. You could tell by watching him that what people talked about here on the lake didn’t count for much up in Kümmertsweiler. He almost looked amused as he listened. He never said a word himself.