The Call of the Toad

by Günter Grass

  I set aside my classmate’s ramblings about the twin tombs of the Mackensen brothers and the large porphyry slab in the center of which a leaping stag invites interpretation; nor do I pay attention to his notes on the runelike signum of the patrician Georg Brothagen, or to Reschke’s quotations from his own doctoral dissertation. These are merely diversions meant to keep me from the heart of the matter.

  Seeing the freshly moved floor slabs, Reschke inquired about the bones of the reburied, and the priest offered to let his guests visit a crypt under the left row of pews. With a crowbar that lay ready Wróbel pried two floorboards from the supporting joists. Alexandra decided that she needed to hear and see after all, and Reschke followed her through the hole. The priest stayed behind.

  “Jerzy soon found the light switch. Cool, dry air. No smell to speak of. Downstairs, under a masonry vault, a room no wider than the nave of the church. On the left, coffins were stacked to the ceiling and, by the steps where we stood, only halfway to the ceiling. We had barely room to stand and didn’t dare go into the narrow passage. Each coffin was marked with crudely painted numerals. The numerals in no particular order. Even so, the number of the unsystematically piled coffins may have corresponded to the thirty-odd newly laid floor slabs …”

  Alexandra wanted to know: “Is in there somebody?”

  Wróbel was sure the coffins were occupied, and Reschke conjectured that the occupants must be Brothagen, the Mackensen brothers, the patricians Moewes and Schmid, and Burgomaster Gralath.

  “Can’t we open this one?”

  “Do we have to?”

  “Well, seeing as we’re here …”

  “I don’t know …”

  “Just a little …”

  And Wróbel raised the lid of the coffin closest to him, the foot end of it, so that the lid formed an angle of about forty-five degrees, whereupon Reschke, not in response to any special wish of Alexandra but purely on his own, his very own, “because this had to be documented,” took flash pictures through the wide opening, several of them, with pauses required by the flash bulbs. Like this: Lid up, snap, snap, lid down. Wróbel breathed heavily as he held the coffin lid high—“A little higher, please.”

  In my possession are two photos in color, in brownish gray to be exact. From slightly different angles both show one and the same mummy, hands folded right over left, roughly on the level of the genitals, on a crumbling shroud, once white, now spotted with mildew. They are male, long-jointed hands whose bones, unlike the head, which is reduced to a naked skull, are held together by skin visible up to the folds of the sleeves; three fingernails of the top hand have survived. No ring, no rosary, only sand-colored dust on everything. The pillow, hardened to sandstone, raises the head, so that the chin is pressed against the frill of the shroud. Wróbel’s right hand, holding the coffin lid with the help of his left, which is outside the picture, appears in flesh color. I believe I can identify, on the right edge of the coffin, two hand-forged coffin nails that have come loose; just the thing for Reschke’s collection.

  Of course, he simply had to record in his diary “the touching beauty of that mummified man, the skull slightly inclined to one side, the still sumptuous drapery of the shroud down to the covered feet.” “I am grateful to Alexandra,” he writes, “for the opportunity to look upon these two hundred years, at least, of eternal peace, assuming the move from the nave to the crypt to be only a brief disturbance.”

  Having established that this peace cannot be surpassed and is reserved exclusively for death, Reschke conjectured that he had been standing over the mortal remains of Burgomaster Daniel Gralath, who died in 1767 and had gained recognition for planting the trees on Grosse Allee. “There was a dignity about the patrician’s mummy. Gralath was one of those who had endowed the organ in Corpus Christi Church, of which only the restored organ screen survives. The organ itself, as the Old-Catholic priest lamented, was removed after the war and shipped to Bytów.”

  The diary then says that the visit to the crypt and the sight of the male mummy revived Pitkowska’s flagging spirits and gave her the courage to carry on in the face of adversity. Outside the classical portal Alexandra seems to have laughed again. “I am better now. Now again idea is right. Only reburial is wrong, because reburial disturbs peace of dead.”

  Then Erna Brakup resigned. It is only now, to my mind, that she takes this step, though she had already resigned in words before the board of directors of the Cemetery Association. With her last word she started putting on her felt boots, which she habitually wore from autumn to April but preferred to remove in the overheated conference room of the hotel; first the left boot, then the right, not without groans but otherwise in silence.

  Up and down the table, the members looked on until she stood booted. Once booted, she walked backward step by step to the door. Heels first, one entire sole after another placed flat on the floor. To keep her balance, she held both arms up and slightly akimbo. And so she walked, not for one bootstep taking her eyes off the no-longer-full-strength board of directors. She wanted to impress upon them exactly what was happening; they all saw and heard, tap, tap, Erna Brakup irrevocably taking her leave. Thus in felt boots that she occasionally removed, and under her cloche hat that she never took off, she meted out her resignation like a punishment.

  And Wróbel, as well as Alexander and Alexandra, may have felt punished when Brakup found the door, opened it backward, and, once in the corridor, slammed it after a last hard look. Reschke writes: “A long silence. It would probably have been even longer if Vielbrand hadn’t cried out, ‘I call the meeting to order.’”

  If I, too, were to continue my account seamlessly by saying that the remainder of the board of directors came to order, I’d come to the end of my story too soon. That won’t do. I can’t drop Erna Brakup so quickly.

  In addition to the progress report which Vielbrand finally gave to the members, a photocopy of a hand-written letter has come into my possession, which on the day of her impressive resignation the old woman penned in a somewhat trembling hand in that variant of the Sütterlin script which Reschke and I also had drilled into us in our schooldays, and which stayed with us until some time after the war, when, thanks to democratic reeducation, we lost it along with other bad habits.

  Sharp angles, bold loops, yet not entirely free of Brakup’s intonation. “Honored Directors,” I read. “I was excited when I had to resign, so naturally I forget something else that I beg to tell You most respectfully. I’ve always been sincerely in support of the German Cemetery. Because Germans got to lie with Germans and Polacks with Polacks. But what is being done now ain’t human. It’s a kick in the face of humanity, like has often happened, before the war and after the war. I know, because I seen it. But the cemetery, that’s as beautiful now almost as it used to be, ain’t going to be for humans no more but only for business, and I don’t want to lie there when my time is up. I say this to all of You, but especially to Pan Wróbel, who has a kind heart. Very sincerely, Erna Brakup, née Formella.”

  This letter may have prompted the town clerk to resign at the next opportunity—which occurred in mid-April. But as long as. the current meeting is the substance of this record, he no doubt hoped, along with the priest of St. Peter’s Church, Karau, and our couple, that after sulking a short while Brakup would be with us again in her cloche hat and felt boots. In any case, called to order by Vielbrand, we immediately came to order.

  The progress report signed by Reschke and Piątkowska listed successes and voiced misgivings. It cited, with gratification, the founding of cemetery associations and the inauguration of cemeteries of reconciliation in the previously German cities of Breslau, Stettin, Landsberg an der Warthe, Küstrin, and Glogau. Difficulties were reported only from Posen. Bromberg sent a resounding no. “Nevertheless the idea has been sown, and the seed is sprouting on all sides. Openings can be expected in the near future in Stolp, Allenstein, Hirschberg, Bunzlau, and Gleiwitz …”

  The report was greeted with ap
plause. Marczak and Frau Dettlaff congratulated the couple. Since the number of applications from persons resettled from Silesia, East Prussia, and Pomerania had taken on a dimension that reduced the Danzig figures to medium size, Vielbrand and Marczak suggested the need for an additional supervisory board and proposed Warsaw as its headquarters. This would satisfy the Polish wish for central supervision.

  In German-Polish accord, consistory councilor Karau and Father Bieroński warned against the dangers of centralization. And Reschke, along with Wróbel, was opposed to central supervision. This problem sparked a long debate on the pros and cons of federalist state structures which heated up, finally subsided, and need not concern us here.

  In time the spread of retirement communities, which the newspapers had at first denounced as no better than death-houses, was welcomed, all the more so when some of the homes initiated what could be interpreted as social welfare programs. Reports came in of soup kitchens for needy old people. It appeared as if the Germans were following the example of the former Polish minister for social services, though without dunning the poor with the so-called Kuroniówka tax—not for the Germans such bureaucracy.

  The progress report was tedious in places. Attention began to flag. Bierónski and Wróbel, even Karau, were as good as absent. On the agenda: drafting of new cemetery regulations; addressing the shortage of hotel rooms due to the steady increase in the number of mourners; the Orthodox Church in the former crematorium. The addition of the phrase “space-consolidating reburial” made the regulations longer, and at Piątkowska’s urging they finally authorized anonymous burial. The Board decided to promote the construction of new hotels. In response to an appeal, Bieroński, who had made room for an Armenian minority in a side chapel of St. Peter’s, promised to do the same for the Orthodox minority. At the same time, he requested a contribution for the arch over the central nave of his church. Bieroński got his contribution. Point after point was ticked off. The meeting went well, too well.

  The introduction of a new project, however, caused alarm on the Polish side. Small wonder, since the couple had issued a warning against this section of the report: “The following motion is more than questionable, for it is hardly compatible with the principle of reconciliation. In our opinion it should be rejected.”

  It had to do with vacation bungalows and golf courses. On their visits to Gdańsk, the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the deceased had come to know and appreciate not only the city with its many towers but also its flat and hilly environs. Some of these younger people, their wealth acquired through investment or by inheritance, gradually conceived the desire to spend their vacations in this region where grandparents or great-grandparents had found eternal peace through burial or reburial. The gentle, hilly country between Karthaus and Berendt appealed to them. They were enchanted with the region, and since the vacation spots of southern Europe were overrun and its coasts all ruined by obsessive building, they chose to relax or, as Reschke put it, “recharge” in the land of their ancestors, this lovely country where it was still possible to lead a quiet, simple life.

  According to the report, the applicants promised to deal kindly with nature in building their bungalow colonies and laying out golf courses. There would be no repetition of the sins committed by builders on the Mediterranean coasts. In collaboration with Polish architects, whose blueprints were attached, they would develop the region caringly and only in places where agriculture had no future anyway; they would build environment-friendly golf courses, which, it went without saying, would be open to Polish members. God knows, they had no intention of making them exclusive. “On the contrary, they hope to extend the idea of reconciliation to spheres that are. accessible to the living …”

  A pilot project was appended. The first bungalow colony would hug the hilly, wooded lakeshore. The area set aside for the golf course measured one hundred and eighty acres, included valleys and hills, and spared stands of trees. No tall buildings would be allowed on the lakeshore, only flat-roofed bungalows rising in terraces to a pointedly simple clubhouse.

  The financial offer looked good to the Poles. Some two hundred prospective members were prepared to pay an advance of DM 30,000 for admission to the Bungagolf Club. The applicants assured that they would not ask for ownership of the land; in view of Polish reservations, they would be satisfied with a ninety-nine year lease, transferable to their heirs. Besides, all these ticklish questions of ownership would be rendered meaningless by European unity. And Poland, it seemed safe to assume, would want to be part of Europe.

  The debate over this last point proceeded smoothly, as though rehearsed. The objections raised by Reschke and Piątkowska were at first shared, then put into perspective; Wróbel’s unequivocal no was called hasty by the vice president of the National Bank, then changed to no but, and in the end modified to yes provided. The term of the Bungagolf lease should be shortened, the Cemetery Association should acquire a share in the capital stock, and job security should be given to Polish construction workers, gardeners, domestics, cooks, waiters …

  The couple said nothing. In the midst of the discussion, which grew more and more detailed, Reschke got up and walked to one of the windows on the seventeenth floor of the Hevelius. He looked down on the city and let his eyes roam from right to left, as if to count the towers in the evening mist and check their order: the gable of the Big Mill; the tip of the Kiek in de Köck tower over the roof of St. Catherine’s; the Dominican church behind the round roof of the covered market. The elongated Church of St. Bridget, with its vicarage, occupied the foreground. To the left, floating in the mist above the house gables, St. John’s with its massive tower and delicate steeple stood dark. Far away, barely an intimation, St. Peter’s in the suburbs. The slender Rathaus tower concealed by the hulk of St. Mary’s topping all. In a small space, many towers. Inky clouds drifting overhead. And oh yes, down below, as though at the feet of the tall boxlike hotel, the small half-timbered house on the bank of the Radaune inviting him to barroom conversation.

  When Reschke opened the window a crack, Piątkowska was standing beside him with a cigarette. Her smoke drifted away; the evening air smelled sweetly of gas. Later he wrote in his diary: “It seemed to me that the city was an illusion, and the only reality the exhaust-saturated air pouring in through the slightly open window. The longing for repose, for the ultimate repose last glimpsed in the crypt of Corpus Christi, rose up in me. But then it seemed that all the churches, the towers, the mill, the arsenal, and the covered market were possessed by an inner fire that would instantly blast the tall windows and the dormer windows … the whole city again in flame … firestorm in all the streets … the sky reddening … How good that Alexandra was beside me. She said: “Now they sell us piece by piece.”

  My classmate and I don’t always agree. He wanted to see the warning against “German land grabbing” voiced in the Sejm nailed to the notice board here, but the outcry of a few members of that parliament was not made public until later—too late; while I was against mentioning the motion for burial in Danzig Bay, which was brought forward at the meeting before last and already noted by him. I now add: Although this motion was rejected in view of the wretched quality of the water along the coast, it later turned out that fishermen from Putzig and Heisternest were making extra money performing unauthorized burials at sea from their cutters. And it is further reported that from February on, charter planes flew in corpses for which a refrigerated compartment had to be built in the freight depot of the Gdańsk Rembiechowo Airport.

  Details are missing; much was obscured or omitted altogether; the mess of paper my former classmate left me is marked by gaps. For instance, it is not clear precisely when a full-time planning manager became active on behalf of the Cemetery Association in a Düsseldorf office. Did Reschke appoint him? Or did the board of directors impose this young man on Reschke as a check? I don’t know. I’m not Reschke.

  It is certain that the new tasks put a strain on the couple. Casual telepho
ne contact with the aristocratic secretary in Bochum and all-too innocent faxes via Interpress would no longer do. A planning manager became necessary with the start of reburials, if not sooner. And since the couple had argued against such an appointment, the Board, represented by the entrepreneur Vielbrand, took action; as long as Frau von Denkwitz was in Bochum, Reschke may have noticed nothing or suspected only a little.

  All I know is that this young man, Dr. Torsten Timmstedt by name, had acquired management experience in a life insurance company. Age thirty-four, though himself not descended from refugees, he had seized upon the affairs of the homeland associations as a “genuine challenge” and outdid Reschke’s rather haphazard organizational talent with his professionalism. The last point in the progress report had been drafted in the Düsseldorf office; indeed, the daughter corporation Bungagolf was Timmstedt’s ticket to membership in the GPCA. His arrival had appreciably rejuvenated the Cemetery Association. From the end of March on, according to Vielbrand, “a fresh wind was blowing.”

  Our still-executive couple accepted, even encouraged, this diminution of their power, for Reschke praised the customer service introduced by Timmstedt. “A discreet attentiveness including house calls had long been my intention, but I was tied down in Gdańsk …”

  How true! That was his place. If he had grabbed the young manager’s tasks, moved his desk to Düsseldorf, said yes to Bungagolf, and built up a countrywide customer service, it would have meant a parting of the ways—unthinkable. But by yielding and by giving up responsibility, the couple avoided the break. On the other hand, they must have given offense by acting as a couple. The gildress had moved a part of her professional activity into the kitchen of her three-room apartment, the professor conducted himself there as man of the house, and Jerzy Wróbel was a frequent visitor to Hundegasse 78/79. Certain members of the Board felt that this was going too far and would lead to malicious gossip.