Dog Years

by Günter Grass

  And cousin and cousin left after securing the site with one large and several small stones against crows, foresters, foxes, treasure seekers, and witches.

  A little lighter, they left; and at first Harry was allowed to support Tulla’s arm. Distant practice shots continued irregularly to punctuate the written-off afternoon. Their mouths were fuzzy. But Harry had a roll of raspberry drops in his breast pocket.

  When they were standing at the “White Lamb” car stop and the car coming from Oliva grew yellow and larger, Tulla said out of gray face into his rosy face: “We’ll wait till it starts to move. Then you jump in front and me on the rear platform.”

  There was once an abortion

  named Konrad, and no one heard about him, not even Jenny Brunies, who, under the name of Jenny Angustri, was dancing in Salonika, Athens, Belgrade, and Budapest in pointed slippers for sound and convalescent soldiers and knitting little things from unraveled wool, pink and blue, intended for a girl friend’s baby who was supposed to be named Konrad, the name by which they had called the girl friend’s little brother before he drowned while swimming.

  In every letter that came fluttering Harry Liebenau’s way—four in January, in February only three—Jenny wrote some thing about slowly growing woolies: “In between I’ve been working hard. Rehearsals drag out dreadfully, because there’s always something wrong with the lighting and the stage hands here act as if they didn’t understand a word. Sometimes, when they take forever to shift scenes, one’s tempted to think of sabotage. At any rate the routine here leaves me lots of time for knitting. One pair of rompers is done and I’ve finished the first jacket except for crocheting the scallops on the collar. You can’t imagine how I enjoy doing it. Once when Herr Haseloff caught me in the dressing room with an almost finished pair of rompers, he had a terrible scare, and I’ve kept him on the hook by not telling him whom I was knitting for.

  “He certainly thinks I’m expecting. In ballet practice, for instance, he sometimes stares at me for minutes on end, in the weirdest way. But otherwise he’s nice and ever so considerate. For my birthday he gave me a pair of fur-lined gloves, though I never wear anything on my fingers, no matter how cold it is. And about other things, too, he’s as kind as he could be: for instance, he often talks about Papa Brunies, in the most natural way, as if we were expecting him back any minute. When we both know perfectly well that it will never be.”

  Every week Jenny filled a letter with her babbling. And in the middle of February she announced, apart from the completion of the third pair of rompers and the second jacket, the death of Papa Brunies. Matter-of-factly and without making a new paragraph, Jenny wrote: “The official notice has finally come. He died in Stutthof camp on November 12, 1943. Stated cause of death: heart failure.”

  The signature, the unvarying “As ever, your faithful and somewhat tired Jenny,” was followed by a postscript with a bit of special news for Harry: “Incidentally, the newsreel came, the one with the Führer’s Headquarters and your Harras’ pup in it. Herr Haseloff ran the scene off at least ten times, even in slow motion, so as to sketch the dog. Twice was as much as I could bear. Don’t be cross with me, but the news of Papa’s death—the announcement was so awfully official—has affected me quite a lot. Sometimes I feel like crying the whole time, but I can’t.”

  There was once a dog,

  his name was Perkun, and he belonged to a Lithuanian miller’s man who had found work on the Vistula delta. Perkun survived the miller’s man and sired Senta. The bitch Senta, who belonged to a miller in Nickelswalde, whelped Harras. The stud dog, who belonged to a carpenter in Danzig-Langfuhr, covered the bitch Thekla, who belonged to a Herr Leeb, who died early in 1942, shortly after the bitch Thekla. But the dog Prinz, sired by the shepherd male Harras and whelped by the shepherd bitch Thekla, made history: he was given to the Führer and Chancellor for his birthday and, because he was the Führer’s favorite dog, shown in the newsreels.

  When dog breeder Leeb was buried, the carpenter attended his funeral. When Perkun died, a normal canine ailment was entered on the studbook. Senta had to be shot because she grew hysterical and did damage. According to an entry in the studbook, the bitch Thekla died of old age. But Harras, who had sired the Führer’s favorite dog Prinz, was poisoned on political grounds with poisoned meat, and buried in the dog cemetery. An empty kennel was left behind.

  There was once a kennel

  which had been inhabited by a black shepherd by the name of Harras until he was poisoned. Since then the kennel had stood empty in the yard of the carpenter shop, for carpenter Liebenau had no desire to acquire a new dog; as far as he was concerned, Harras had been the one and only.

  Often on his way to the machine shop, the imposing man could be seen to hesitate outside the kennel, long enough to draw a few puffs from his cigar or even longer. The wall of earth which Harras, on taut chain, had thrown up with his two forepaws had been leveled by the rain and the apprentices’ wooden shoes. But the open kennel still gave off the smell of a dog who, in love with his own smell, had deposited his spent marks in the yard and all over Langfuhr. Especially under the piercing August sun or in the damp spring air, the kennel smelled pungently of Harras and attracted flies. Not a suitable ornament for an active carpenter shop. The tar paper of the kennel roof had begun to fray around roofing nails, which seemed to be coming loose. A sad sight, empty and full of memories: once when Harras still lay keen and chained, the carpenter’s little niece had lived beside him in the kennel for a whole week. Later, photographers and news papermen came, snapped the dog’s picture and described him. Numerous papers termed the yard of the carpenter shop a historical site because of the celebrated kennel. Celebrities, even foreigners, came and tarried as much as five minutes on the memorable spot. Later a fatso by the name of Amsel spent hours drawing the dog with pen and brush. He didn’t call Harras by his right name, he called him Pluto; the carpenter’s little niece didn’t call Amsel by his right name, but reviled him as “Sheeny.” Then Amsel was turned out of the yard. And once a disaster was barely averted. But an article of clothing belonging to a piano teacher, who lived in the right-hand rear apartment on the ground floor, was badly ripped and had to be paid for. And once, or several times, somebody came around reeling drunk and insulted Harras in political terms, louder than buzz saw and lathe could scream to high heaven. And one time somebody who was good at grinding his teeth tossed poisoned meat from the roof of the lumber shed and it landed right in front of the kennel. The meat was not left lying.

  Memories. But let no one try to read the thoughts of a carpenter who hesitates in front of an empty kennel and stops in his tracks. Maybe he’s thinking back. Maybe he’s thinking about lumber prices. Maybe he isn’t thinking about anything in particular, but losing himself, while smoking his fifteen-pfennig cigar, between memories and lumber prices. And this for half an hour until the machinist cautiously calls him back: time to cut panels for prefabricated Navy barracks. Empty and full of memories, the kennel doesn’t run away.

  No, the dog had never been sick, only black: coat and undercoat. Short-haired like the five other members of his litter, who were doing well in police work. The lips closed dry. Neck taut and without dewlap. Croup long and gently sloping. Ears always erect and slightly tilted. And once again now: every single Harras hair straight, smooth, harsh, and black.

  The carpenter finds a few stray hairs, now dull and brittle, between the floorboards of the kennel. Sometimes, after closing time, he bends down and pokes about in the moldy warm hole, paying no attention to the tenants hanging out the windows.

  But when one day the carpenter lost his purse, containing aside from change a bundle of faded dog hairs; but when the carpenter went to see the Führer’s favorite dog, whom Harras had sired, in the newsreel, but next week’s newsreel unrolled before his eyes without the Führer’s dog; but when news came that a fourth former journeyman of the Liebenau carpenter shop had met a soldier’s death; when heavy oak buffets, walnut sideboards, e
xtensible dining-room tables on richly carved legs could no longer be turned out at the carpenter’s workbenches, and the only operation permitted was the nailing together of numbered pine boards: parts for Army barracks; when the year 1944 was in its fourth month; when people said: “Now they’ve done old Herr Brunies in too”; when Odessa was evacuated and Tarnopol was encircled and had to surrender; when the bell rang for the next-to-last round; when food tickets stopped keeping their promises; when carpenter Liebenau heard that his only son had volunteered for the Navy; when all this—the lost purse and the flickering newsreel, the fallen journeyman and the lousy barracks parts, Odessa evacuated and the lying food tickets, old Herr Brunies and his enlisted son—when all this added up to a round sum demanding to be written off, carpenter Friedrich Leibenau walked out of his office, picked up an ax that was new and still coated with grease, crossed the yard on April 20, 1944, at two in the afternoon, planted himself with parted legs in front of the empty kennel of the poisoned shepherd Harras, and with steady overhead strokes, lonely and speechless, smashed the edifice into kindling.

  But because the fifty-fifth birthday of the selfsame Führer and Chancellor, to whom the young shepherd dog Prinz of Harras’ line had been presented ten years before, was celebrated on April 20th, everybody at the apartment house windows and at the workbenches in the shop understood that more had been smashed than rotting wood and torn tar paper.

  After this deed the carpenter had to stay in bed for a good two weeks. He had overtaxed himself.

  There was once a carpenter,

  who with practiced overhead strokes chopped into kindling a dog kennel that stood for a good many things.

  There was once an assassin, who packed a bomb, experimentally, in his brief case.

  There was once an Air Force auxiliary who was waiting impatiently to be inducted into the Navy; he wanted to submerge and to sink enemy ships.

  There was once a ballet dancer who, in Budapest, Vienna, and Copenhagen, was knitting rompers and jackets for a baby that had long lain buried at the edge of Oliva Forest, weighted down with stones.

  There was once an expectant mother who liked to jump off moving streetcars and in so doing, although she had jumped nimbly and not against the motion of the car, lost her two-months child. Thereupon the expectant mother, again a flat young girl, went to work: Tulla Pokriefke became—as one might have expected—a streetcar conductress.

  There was once a police president whose son, generally known as Störtebeker, who intended to study philosophy later on, who might almost have become a father, and who, after projecting the world in sand, founded a teenagers’ gang, which later became famous under the name of the Dusters. He stopped drawing symbols in the sand; instead, he drew the rationing office, the Church of the Sacred Heart, the Post Office Administration Building: all angular buildings into which he later, and at night, led the self-grounded Dusters. The conductorette Tulla Pokriefke belonged halfway to the gang. Her cousin didn’t belong at all. At the most he stood lookout when the gang met in the storage sheds of the Baltic Chocolate Factory. A permanent possession of the gang appears to have been a three-year-old child, their mascot, who was addressed as Jesus and survived the gang.

  There was once a tech sergeant who trained Air Force auxiliaries as AA gunners and quasi-philosophers, who limped slightly, had a way of grinding his teeth, and might almost have become a father, but was tried, first by a special, then by a general court-martial, was broken of his rank and transferred to a punitive battalion, because, while in a state of drunkenness between the barracks of the Kaiserhafen battery, he had insulted the Führer and Chancellor in sentences marked by such locutions as: forgetful of Being, mound of bones, structure of care, Stutthof, Todtnau, and concentration camp. As they were taking him away—in broad daylight—he bawled mysteriously: “You ontic dog! Alemannic dog! You dog with stocking cap and buckled shoes! What did you do to little Husserl? What did you do to tubby Amsel? You pre-Socratic Nazi dog!” On account of this unrhymed hymn, he was compelled, in spite of his bad leg, to dig up mines on the steadily advancing Eastern front and later, when the invasion had begun, in the West; but the demoted tech sergeant was lucky and wasn’t blown sky-high.

  There was once a black shepherd, his name was Prinz. He was transferred, along with the Führer’s headquarters, to Rastenburg in East Prussia. He was lucky, he didn’t step on any mines; but the wild rabbit he was chasing jumped on a mine and could be retrieved only very partially.

  Like “Camp Werewolf” northeast of Vinnitsa, the Führer’s Headquarters in East Prussia bordered on mined woods. The Führer and his favorite dog lived a secluded life in Zone A of the “Wolf’s Lair.” To give Prinz exercise, the officer in charge of dogs, an SS captain, who had owned a well-known dog kennel before the war, took him for walks in Zones I and II; but the Führer had to stay in his constricted Zone A, because he was always busy with staff conferences.

  Life was tedious at the Führer’s headquarters. Always the same barracks, where the Führer Escort Battalion, the Army Chiefs of Staff, or guests come to comment on the situation, were lodged. Some distraction was provided by the goings-on at the gate of Zone II.

  It was there that a rabbit ran between the sentries on the perimeter of the Zone, was shooed away amid hoots of laughter, and made a black shepherd forget the lessons learned in his school days at the police kennel: Prinz broke loose, bounded through the gate, past the still laughing sentries, crossed with dragging leash the road leading to the camp—rabbits pucker up their noses, which is something no dog can stand—resolved to follow a pucker-nosed rabbit which luckily had a good head start; for when the rabbit lit out into the mined woods and disintegrated on an exploding mine, the dog incurred little danger, although he had taken a bound or two into the mined area. Cautiously, step by step, the officer in charge of dogs led him back.

  When the report was drawn up and had found its way through channels—first SS Major Fegelein appended comments, then it was submitted to the Führer—the officer in charge of dogs was broken to private and assigned to the very same punitive battalion as the demoted tech sergeant reduced to clearing mines.

  The onetime officer in charge of dogs took an unlucky step east of Mogilev; but when the battalion was transferred to the West, the tech sergeant, with limping yet lucky leg, deserted to the Allies. He was moved from one PW camp to the next and finally found peace in an English camp for antifascist prisoners, for along with the usual guardhouse peccadilloes the reason for his demotion was noted in his paybook. Shortly after, at a time when the Götterdämmerung recording was all ready to be put on, he and some like-minded companions organized a camp theater. On an improvised stage he, a professional actor, played leading roles in plays by German classical authors; a slightly limping Nathan the Wise and a teeth-grinding Gotz.

  But the would-be assassin, who months before had concluded his experiments with bomb and brief case, couldn’t get himself admitted to a camp for antifascist prisoners of war. His attempt at assassination was also a failure, because he wasn’t a professional assassin, because in his inexperience he neglected to go the whole hog, because he decamped before his bomb had plainly said yes, and tried to save himself for great tasks after a successful assassination.

  There he stands between General Warlimont and Navy Captain Assmann as the Führer’s staff conference drags on, and can’t figure out where to put his brief case. A liaison officer of the Field Economic Office concludes his talk on the fuel question. Materials in short supply, such as rubber, nickel, bauxite, manganese, and wolfram are listed. The ball-bearing shortage is general. Somebody from the Foreign Office—is it Ambassador Hewel?—speculates on the situation in Japan now that the Tojo cabinet has resigned. Still the brief case has found no satisfactory resting place. The new alignment of the Tenth Army after the evacuation of Ancona, the fighting strength of the Fourteenth Army after the fall of Livorno are discussed. General Schmundt asks for the floor, but He does all the talking. Where to put the brief
case? A freshly arrived report creates animation in the group around the card table: the Americans have entered Saint-Lô! Hastily, before the Eastern front, the position around Bialystok for instance, can come up, action is taken: hapazardly the assassin puts the brief case with contents under the card table, on which lie the general staff maps with their complicated markings, around which Messrs. Jodl, Scherff, Schmundt, and Warlimont stand calmly or bob up and down on booted toes, around which the Führer’s black shepherd rambles restlessly, because his master, likewise restless, wants to stand now here now there, rejecting this, demanding that with hard knuckle, talking constantly, about those defective 152-millimeter howitzers, then a moment later about the excellent 210-millimeter Skoda howitzer. “Had all-round firing capacity; with the trailer mount removed, just the thing for coastal fortifications, Saint-Lô, for instance.” What a memory! Names, figures, distances pell-mell, and moving about the whole time, always with the dog at heel, all over the place except in the vicinity of the brief case at the feet of Generals Schmundt and Warlimont.