A Gushing Fountain

by Martin Walser

  Johann experimented in front of the mirror with how many and which jacket buttons he should leave open.

  Suddenly, he took the jacket off again. He took another jacket that Josef called a sport coat out of the closet. Josef had outgrown this jacket, too. Johann knew at once: this was the one. A very light-colored sport coat. The palest imaginable blue-gray with just a hint of purple. But with a pattern of nearly imperceptible reddish lines that formed a few large checks in the almost purple blue-gray. Johann had been waiting a long time to inherit this sport coat. It was still just a little too big for him, but he couldn’t wait any longer. He tried it on in front of the mirror and couldn’t get enough of his reflection. He grinned at himself a few times. He would confess that today. I have been vain. And not just confess it, but repent it, too, or else the priest could say ego te absolvo a hundred times, but without complete repentance there would be no forgiveness of his sins. That was his great fear. What if he couldn’t manage to repent them completely? And without the intention of never again doing what one had done, there was no complete repentance. They said you had to pray for the strength to repent completely. The strength to say: Never again. On his own, he didn’t have the strength for it. Some more hair oil for his hair? He thought he needed a bit more to give his hair a more reliably jaunty shape. Not as much as the other day, but at least a little more. Then he could confess his vanity right away. But what about repentance? Could he repent his vanity while still wearing a haircut like a crown?

  At four thirty, he was standing at the foot of the three steps that led to Anita’s trailer. The door opened, and Anita appeared, in light blue today, white stockings, and on top, a soft, light blue bow in her hair. As soon as she came down the three steps, he turned and walked before her, hoping she would follow. He felt hot. But he definitely could not puff as he usually did. He thought that his voice was getting better by the week. His voice, he thought, was the best thing he had. When he sang, he could lose himself in his voice. It was as if he weren’t the person singing anymore. It was just his voice, which he found as beautiful as the voice of Karl Erb or Ludwig’s father. Ludwig’s father sang as beautifully as Karl Erb. When Ludwig had said that they—the Grübels—were related to Karl Erb, Johann had sensed that he should spend more time with Ludwig and less with Adolf. Ludwig said Karl Erb had told his father: Cousin Anton, if you’d had the training, you’d be my main competition today.

  Even before they reached the Moosweg, they could see the two nuns forging ahead. They were basically always on their way from the hospital in Hege to the church. Because of the high grass, only their upper halves were visible, the huge, angular, white superstructures of their wimples floating above their darker habits. As if two black ships with white sails were running before the wind that rippled through the grass. The green of the meadow foamed with the purplish-white and yellow of cuckoo flowers and buttercups. Sing something, thought Johann. Best would be “Von Apfelblüten einen Kranz” or “Dein ist mein ganzes Herz,” or something from the Agnus Dei last Sunday. Or “Wer hat dich du schöner Wald.” If only she doesn’t start talking. He can’t say anything. He wouldn’t be able to get a single word out.

  She asked if he had seen Axel Munz. Had he seen what those scoundrels had done to him last night?

  Johann was glad she had started talking about that. It was easier for him to answer that question than if she’d asked him something about confession. “Yes,” he said. “It was a cowardly thing to do, all against one and in the dark, too, those cowards.”

  “And the way they ambushed him,” said Anita. “They were actually lying in wait for him.” She said that after the performance, Axel Munz had had a beer in the restaurant, and no one dared say a word to him. But when he was walking back to his trailer, alone, they jumped him, those scoundrels.

  “Those cowards,” Johann added.

  Suddenly, she laughed and said, “I hope I don’t forget any of my sins.” Oh no, thought Johann. He remembered the hair in Anita’s armpits. Was armpit hair something you had to confess? He thought it probably was. She said she was going to be driven to church in an automobile tomorrow.

  “In a Mercedes,” he said, and was immediately annoyed at himself for making propaganda for Adolf’s car. She said she would have liked just as much to walk to church with Johann.

  “You and I make a good pair, don’t we?” she said and looked over at him and laughed. Johann could feel himself getting red.

  “Anita, Anita,” he said.

  “Yes?” she said. All he’d meant to say was Anita, nothing more. And accidentally, he said her name twice. He knew that as often as he said Anita, he would always say Anita, Anita. He could have said Anita a hundred times in succession. Of course, he wasn’t about to do that, but twice was all right, wasn’t it?

  “What about your parents?” he asked in order to say something.

  “They don’t have time to go to church,” she said.

  “My mother doesn’t either,” he said.

  “That’s right,” she said. “The two of us could have done it by ourselves anyway.” Since he didn’t reply, she said, “Isn’t that right?” Was she making fun of him? “That’s a stylish jacket,” she said.

  He said, “Anita, Anita.”

  “Now let’s wish each other a good confession,” she said when they reached the cemetery.

  “I hope so,” said Johann, and had no idea what he was trying to say.

  She walked to the door that led to the women’s side while he went toward the side facing the lake. But before the gravestones blocked their view of each other, she looked over at him once more, raised both hands, made little fists, pumped them even higher, and smiled. Johann couldn’t smile. He hurt all over from happiness. Birds were singing in the bushes and trees along the cemetery wall. They had never sung so loud before. It echoed as if he was already indoors. His steps crunched the gravel of the cemetery path so loudly it scratched his ears. He didn’t stop at his father’s grave. In the distance across the lake, Mount Säntis was closer than ever. As if Mount Säntis stood before a wall of gold. “Mount Säntis is a mother hen,” his father had said once, “two million years old.”

  Once Johann was kneeling in the pew, it was time to start examining his conscience. But first he cast a quick glance across the aisle. Anita was already on her knees. So go ahead, examine your conscience. He called up the individual items. His numbered sins announced themselves. Then he summoned up complete repentance by the usual formula. It appeared. That is, it filled him up. He was almost surprised. Is it really complete repentance? he asked himself. Is your Never Again genuine? Do you think that’s possible? You just have to resolve to do it, and that’s sufficient, to beg for the grace that helps you not do it again. Just beg for grace. With grace, everything will be all right. But then it was already his turn. With numb feet, he walked the three steps from the pew to the confessional, heard the priest’s breath, started breathing himself again, rattled off his confession, and there was no problem at all. But the priest’s response was too loud. Everybody out there must have heard what he said. Yet earlier, when the priest had spoken to Adolf, Paul, Ludwig, Guido, Berni, Helmut, and Helmut, Johann hadn’t been able to make out what he was saying. You couldn’t understand him until he started in with the Latin, but what he said in Latin was the same for everyone.

  Even after saying the penance he had been given, Johann stayed in the pew; not till he saw that Anita was getting up and leaving did he go outside himself. Not immediately after her, of course, but soon. Outside, most of the others were standing around between the castle and the Crown, boys and girls in separate groups, even more separated than usual. And they remained so as they set off toward the village. Guido asked if the others had gotten as much penance as he did and laughed. He was surely the only one who could ask that and laugh at the same time. But at least they could talk about it now. Of course, not so loudly that the girls walking up ahead could hear what they were talking about. It was reassuring to lear
n that everybody had been assigned three Our Fathers and three Hail Marys. It was a bit disappointing, too, or so Johann thought. Everyone doing the same penance! But he didn’t say that. After all, they’d committed most of their sins together. Everybody had contributed a couple pfennigs so Edi could buy sauerkraut in Brodbeck’s store. Frau Brodbeck had to leave the shop to get the sauerkraut out of the barrel, and Edi was able to pilfer four bars of chocolate before she came back. They flung the sauerkraut against the wall of Zürns’ new house and divvied up and immediately ate the chocolate by the lake. And was it a sin to steal boxes of cheese from Müller’s cheese shop when they turned out to be just shop-window dummies? They had run straight through the village and down to the bay, and only when they were deep into the reeds had they opened the boxes: no camembert, just wooden discs. Now Paul asked if the others had confessed to that. He hadn’t. They were just fakes. None of them had confessed to that failed mission. And when the girls in front of them started giggling, the boys took it as a pretext to catch up with them. Adolf asked what they were giggling about. Trudl Schnell gave Leni a nudge so she would tell the boys. Day before yesterday, a rural constable had gone to Lattermann, the man who made hay-drying racks and props for fruit tree branches in Hege, saying that another complaint had been lodged against him for trespassing in a private woodlot, but before Herr Lattermann could answer, Frau Lattermann stepped in and told the officer she was surprised the police were looking into that since they’d already confessed it all in church.

  Adolf asked—and Johann admired his courage—what penance the girls had gotten. Had they, like the boys, all been given the same penance? The girls looked at each other and decided they weren’t going to tell. Ludwig said they probably didn’t get any penance at all, their sins were so tiny. But Leni corrected him sharply by rattling off a saying. And in rattling it off, she demonstrated how well known it was and how unshakable the truth it expressed: “Biechta und it biassa, isch wia Lade und it schiesse.”

  “Bingo,” said Paul, and everybody laughed.

  Adolf translated for Anita: “Beichten und nicht büssen, ist wie Laden und nicht schiessen.”—Confession without penance is like loading without shooting. Fortunately, Anita said she didn’t need a translation to understand it. Today, not the single boy or girl accompanied them beyond the linden tree. That meant that Johann had about sixty-five yards alone with Anita. And it was clear that not a single boy or girl would come to the performance today, either. For one thing, the teacher had as much as forbidden it, and for another, it probably wasn’t proper to go to the circus in a state of sanctified forgiveness, anyway. Since he thought it would flatter her, he said he would watch the performance again today, but from the window. He did not say, however, that it was the lavatory window. She had no idea that as he walked along next to her, he was constantly saying something other than what he meant. This talking one way and thinking another was like a hum inside of him. It felt grown up.

  He asked if he could show her something after the performance. Yes, he could. Okay, he’d wait for her over at the station. “Good luck.”

  “Thanks,” she called and ran off to her people.

  He dashed up to his room, threw together the things he needed, then ran out of the village with Tell, past the fir-tree hedge, and then instead of going down past Schäggs’, they went across the tracks and uphill onto the Lausbichel. To his right and left, apple and cherry trees were all in bloom. Just before he reached the top of the hill, he turned off into the high grass. Tell sprang ahead of him, as if he knew where Johann was headed. Johann put the things he had brought with him onto the grass at the base of a cherry tree and returned to the path.

  He heard the sounds of Josef playing piano in the spare room. Josef had started playing even before Johann went to confession. Josef had to make up for his two pianoless weeks on the Nebelhorn. Johann was not as excited as Josef when it was time for Jutz the organist to come. Herr Jutz always came by bicycle from Kressbronn, leaned his bike against one of the two chestnut trees, locked it, and unclipped his pant legs, setting the material free to ripple at every step around the legs of the nonchalantly approaching organist and painter. A circle of black hair around a shiny brown glabrousness, Gypsy eyes, and a sharply angled nose: that was Jutz the artiste. To tell the truth, Herr Jutz was only interested in Josef, and Johann could tell.

  When the circus music began, Josef stopped playing and hobbled down to the courtyard. Johann ran upstairs. Tell had to stay in his room. Johann went to the lavatory, opened both halves of the window, and leaned out. The same program as the day before, except that the Little Giant wasn’t making any beautiful gestures.

  There were only pitiful remnants of his drumming and bell-ringing. When he played Dumb August, people laughed because they thought that all the sticking plasters and bandages were part of the act. Today, he didn’t shake himself to set the little bells ajingle in answer to the ringmaster. Today, the jingling was constant. But not loud. Maybe he couldn’t shake himself anymore, but he could still tremble.

  The ringmaster said in a loud voice, “August, August, what a sight you are!”

  And August answered contritely, “I look like a man who’s gotten to know his wife from a new angle.”

  “When did you first get to know your wife?” the ringmaster wanted to know.

  “Six weeks after the wedding,” said August.

  The ringmaster: “But she’s never thrashed you like this before.”

  August: “And I’ve never contradicted her like this before. Just imagine, she claims that four minus one is three.”

  The ringmaster: “She’s right.”

  August: “Interesting that you agree with her. An example: four sparrows are sitting on a wire. I shoot one of them. How many are left?”

  The ringmaster: “Three.”

  August: “Zero. The others flew away.”

  The ringmaster: “Since your wife has already banged you up so badly, I’m going to make an exception and not slap your face today.”

  August: “That’s the difference between you and a scoundrel.”

  The ringmaster: “How so?”

  August: “You give me a slap from in front. A scoundrel jumps me from behind.” The ringmaster raised his hand but didn’t slap. People laughed. Johann saw Josef laughing, too.

  Johann was only waiting for Anita’s entrances, especially when she appeared as the goddess Devi riding on Vishnu and deceiving Shiva the God of Death with her many arms. Johann was waiting to look at Anita’s armpits. Viewed from the second floor, Anita’s armpit hair was no longer hair.

  When the applause finally died down, he ran down and waited for Anita at the train station. He couldn’t sit still on a bench. He couldn’t stay standing in one place. He was sure Anita wouldn’t show up. But he intended to walk up and down in front of the station, go halfway around the station, and return to the front. He was going to walk back and forth here all night long until it was finally time to go to church.

  But she did come. “Anita, Anita,” he said. She was wearing a jacket and her hands were in the jacket pockets. She said it had turned cool, but Johann knew nothing about that. “Come on,” he said and set off, more running than walking out of the village in the direction of the grade crossing. She kept up with him, even when they went uphill. The moon was so bright that the trees in bloom along the path leading upward were almost blindingly white. The path was white with fallen cherry blossoms. On a moonlit night in April, Johann was humming rapidly “Von Apfelblüten einen Kranz”—A Wreath of Apple Blossoms. Anita had no reaction. If only he could sing now! “Dein ist mein ganzes Herz”—I’m Yours with All My Heart. That was it, and he hummed with all his heart: I’m yours with all my heart, Without you I am all undone. Just as the flower fades, If it be not kissed by the morning sun . . . Josef disliked Lehár just as much as Father had. Johann loved to lose himself in Lehár, his favorite. Now if only Anita had hummed along. Lehár with her, now that would be something. But she didn’t
join in. Johann said, “There it is!” He made his voice sound as rough as he could, somehow angry or threatening or coarse. In any event, he meant to scare Anita. Stupid girl, he thought, scaring himself. Suddenly, he didn’t know how to proceed. Could he . . . Did he want to . . . What? Stupid girl, he wanted to say. He wanted to grab Anita and throw her against something. Like the cat in the carriage house.

  “Come here,” he said, took hold of her, picked her up in his arms, and carried her through the grass to the tree he had chosen. He said they weren’t supposed to trample down the farmers’ tall grass, so it was better if only he walked through the grass and she let him carry her.

  “If you can do it,” she said.

  “No problem,” he said. And in fact, in his arms she wasn’t very heavy. But even if she had been, it wouldn’t have mattered to him. “You don’t weigh anything at all,” he said and carried her through the high grass. Just like three years ago, when his godmother had carried his little newborn brother to the priest who was waiting at the baptismal font to baptize the tiny child, Anselm. He thought of the beer deliveryman, too, who carried in his arms blocks of ice as big as railroad ties into the cellar. He wore red, slit-open automobile tires on his arms.