by Günter Grass
In the cozy laundry room the sugarbeets cook away, spreading sweetness. Matern sprawls in the deck chair and has something between his teeth that can’t come out because the two of them are so pleased and besides they’re cooking syrup with four hands. She stirs the washtub with a shovel handle: pretty strong, though she’s only a handful; he keeps the fire burning evenly: they have piles of briquettes, black gold. She’s a regular Rhenish type: doll face with goo-goo eyes and can’t stop googooing; he has hardly changed, maybe a little stouter. She just makes eyes and doesn’t say boo; he bullshits about old times: “The storm troops march with firm and tranquil tread… Remember? Shoilem, boil ’em!” Why can’t she stop making eyes? The bone I have to pick is with him, not with Ingewife. Cooking. What a racket! Out in the fields at night, stealing beets, peeling them, cutting them up, and so on. You won’t see the last of Walter Matern so soon, because Walter has come to judge you with a black dog and a list of names incised in his heart, spleen, and kidneys, one of them exhibited for all to read in the Cologne Central Station, in the piss-warm part with the tiled floor and the cozy enameled bays: Sturmführer Jochen Sawatzki led the popular and notorious 84th SA Sturm, Langfuhr-North, through hell and high water. His terse but spirited speeches. His boyish charm when he spoke of the Führer and Germany’s future. His favorite songs and favorite liquor: The Argonne Forest at midnight and for steady drinking gin with or without a plum. A good worker all the same. Energetic and trustworthy. Thoroughly disillusioned with the Commies, which is what made him so staunch a believer in the new idea. His operations against the Sozis Brill and Wichmann; the brawl at the Cafe Woike, the Polish student hangout; the eight-man action on Steffensweg…
“Say,” says Matern across the dog reclining at his feet and through the sugarbeet mist. “What ever became of Amsel? You know whom I mean. The guy that made the funny figures. The one you beat up on Steffensweg, remember, that’s where he lived.”
This gets no rise out of the dog, but provokes a brief lull in the beet corner. “Man, whatcha asking me for? That little visit was your idea. I never could get it straight, seeing he was a friend of yours, wasn’t he.”
The deck chair answers through the steam: “There were certain reasons, private reasons that I won’t go into. But this is what I want to know: What did you do with him afterwards, I mean after the eight of you on Steffensweg…”
Inge wife makes googoo eyes and stirs. Sawatzki doesn’t forget to put briquettes on the fire: “Whassat? We din’t do nothing else. And whatcha asking questions for anyway, when there wasn’t eight of us but nine, including you. And you were the one that really pasted him so there wasn’t much left. Anyway, he wasn’t the worst. Too bad we never caught Dr. Citron. He cleared out for Sweden. What am I saying, too bad? To hell with the final solution and final victory routine. It’s finished and good riddance. Forget it. Forget all that crap, and don’t try to put the finger on me or I’ll get mad. Because, sonny boy, you and I were tarred with the same brush, and neither of us is any cleaner than the other, right?”
The deck chair grumbles. The dog Pluto looks up, faithfulasadog. Chunks of sugarbeet boil unthinking: Don’t cook beets, or you’ll smell of beets. Too late, by this time all smell in unison: Fireman Sawatzki, Ingewife with eyes in her head, the inactive Matern—even the dog has ceased to smell of dog alone. The washtub has begun to glug heavily: Syrup syrup thick and sweet is—flies are dying of diabetes. Ingewife’s stirring shovel handle meets with resistance: Never when syrup is being stirred, stir up the past with a single word. Sawatzki puts on the last briquettes: Sugarbeets need husbandry—God has sugar in his pee!
Then Sawatzki decides it’s done and sets up a double row of pot-bellied two-quart bottles. Matern wants to help but they won’t let him: “No, my boy. When the bottles are full, we’ll go upstairs and pour a little something under our belts. An occasion like this needs to be celebrated, whatcha say, Ingemouse?”
They do it with potato schnapps. Eggnog liqueur is on hand for Ingemouse. Considering their circumstances, the Sawatzkis have set themselves up pretty nicely. A large oil paint ing, “Goats,” two grandfather clocks, three club chairs, a Persian carpet under their feet, the “people’s radio” turned down low, and a glassed-in heavy-oak bookcase, containing an encyclopedia in thirty-two volumes: A as in “After birth.”—Aw, don’t cry, maybe you’ll get another sometime. B as in “Beerhouse brawl.”—I’ve been through maybe fifty of them, ten for the Commies and at least twenty for the Nazis, but do you think I can even keep the places straight, Ohra Riding Academy, Café Derra, Bürgerwiese, Kleinhammerpark. C as in “Cuckold.”—Hell no, nobody’s jealous around here. D as in “Danzig.”—In the East it was nicer, but in the West it’s better. E as in “Eau de Cologne.”—Believe you me. The Russians used to lap it up like water. F as in “Father.”—They sent mine down with the Gustlow. What about yours?— G as in “Gunsight.”—I took a bead on him, ping ping. Out like a light. H as in “Hard feelings.”—Aw, stop stirring up the old shit. I as in “Inge.”—Go on, give us a little dance, something oriental. J as in “Jacket.”—Take your coat off, man. K as in “Kabale und Liebe.”—You used to be an actor, whyn’t you do something for us? L as in “Laughing gas.”—Cut the giggling, Inge. He’s doing Franz Moor. M as in “Merriment.”—If you ask me, we should crack another bottle. N as in “Neutral.”—Matern’s steam has subsided. O as in “Oasis.”—Here let us settle down. P as in “Palestine.”—That’s where they should of sent them, or Madagascar. Q as in “Question mark.”—What’s on your mind, man? R as in “Rabbi.”—And he wrote on the paper that I’d treated him decently. His name was Dr. Weiss and he lived at Mattenbuden 25. S as in “Square.”—Take it from me, three is more fun than four. T as in “Tobacco.”—For twelve Lucky Streeks we got the whole dinner set with the cups thrown in. U as in “U-boat.”—A hell of a lot of good they did us. V as in “Victory.”—Well, that’s for the birds. W as in “Walter.”—So go sit on his lap instead of wearing your eyes out. X as in “Xanthippe.”—That was a dame for you, but I’ll settle for Ingemouse. Y as in “Yankee.”—No Ami ever got his mitts on her, or any Tommy either. Z as in “Zero hour.”—And now let’s all go beddy-by together. Bottoms up! The night is young. Me on the right, you on the left, and Ingemouse snug as a bug in a rug in the middle. But not the dog. He can stay in the kitchen. We’ll give him something to eat to make it nice for him too. If you feel like washing, Walter boy, here’s the soap.”
And after drinking potato schnapps and eggnog liqueur out of coffee cups, after Ingemouse has done a solo dance and Matern some solo acting and Sawatzki has told them both stories from times past and present, after making up a bed for the dog in the kitchen and washing themselves sketchily but with soap, three lie in the broad seaworthy marriage bed, which the Sawatzkis call their marriage fortress, purchase price: seven two-quart bottles of syrup brewed from sugarbeets. NEVER SLEEP THREE IN A BED—OR YOU’LL WAKE UP THREE IN A BED.”
Matern prefers to lie on the left. As host Sawatzki contents himself with the right. To Inge belongs the middle. Oh, ancient friendship, grown cold after two and thirty beer house brawls, now rewarmed in lurching marriage fortress. Matern, who came with black dog to judge, explores Inge-pussy with affectionate finger: there be meets his friend’s goodnatured husbandfinger; and both, friendly affectionate goodnatured, as long ago on the Bürgerwiese, at the Ohra Riding Academy or the Kleinhammerpark bar, join forces, find a cozy nook, and take turns. She’s having a fine time: so much choice and variety; and emulation spurs the friends on—for potato schnapps makes a body sleepy. A race is run in friendly competition: neck and neck. O night of open doors, when Ingemouse lies on her side, so the friend in front, with the husband politely following up from the rear: so spacious, though slight and Rhenish-maidenly, Ingepussy offers shelter and comfort. If only there weren’t this restlessness. O friendship, so complex! Each the other’s phenotype. Intentions, leitmotives, murder motives, the difference in education, th
e yearning for intricate harmony: so many arms and legs! Who’s kissing whom around here? Did you—did I? Who in such a case can stand on possession? Who pinches himself to make his counterpart yell? Who has come here to judge with names incised in his heart, spleen, and kidneys? Let us be fair! Each wants to crawl across to the sunny side. Each wants a chance at the buttered side. Three in a bed always need a referee: Ah, life is so rich: nine and sixty positions has heaven designed, has hell granted us: the knot, the loop, the parallelogram, the seesaw, the anvil, the preposterous rondo, the scales, the hop-skip-jump, the hermitage; and names kindled by Ingepussy: Ingeknee—Suckinge—Ingescream—Snapinge Ingefish Yesinge Spreadumslegsinge, Blowinge Biteinge Ingetired Ingeclosed Ingeintermission—Wakeupinge Openupinge Visitorsinge Bringingcodliveringe Twofriendsinge Yourlegmyarminge Don’tfallasleepinge Turnaroundinge Itwassolovelyinge It’slateinge She’sworkedhardtodayinge: Sugarbeetsinge—Syrupinge—Dog-tiredinge—Goodnightinge—Godinhisheaven’swatchinginge!
Now they are lying in the black, formerly square room, breathing unevenly. No one has lost. All have won: Three victors in one bed. Inge holds her pillow in her arms. The men sleep with open mouths. It sounds roughly as if they were sawing tree trunks. They are felling the whole Jäschkental Forest, round about the Gutenberg monument: beech after beech. Already the Erbsberg is bare. Soon Steffensweg can be seen: villa after villa. And in one of these Steffensweg villas lives Eddi Amsel in oak-paneled rooms, building life-sized scarecrows: one represents a sleeping SA man; the second represents a sleeping SA Sturmführer; the third signifies a girl, splattered from top to toe with sugarbeet syrup which attracts ants. While the plain SA man grinds his teeth in his sleep, the SA Sturmführer snores normally. Only the syrup girl emits no sound, but thrashes her arms and legs, because everywhere ants. While outside the beautiful smooth beeches of Jäschkental Forest continue to be felled one by one—to make matters worse, it would have been a good beechnut year—Eddi Amsel in his villa on Steffensweg builds the fourth life-size scarecrow: a black mobile twelve-legged dog. To enable the dog to bark, Eddi Amsel builds in a barking mechanism. And then he barks and wakes up the snorer, the grinder, the ant-maddened syrupfigure.
It’s Pluto in the kitchen. He demands to be heard. The three of them roll out of bed without saying good morning. “Never sleep three in a bed—or you’ll wake up three in a bed.”
For breakfast there’s coffee with milk and bread spread with syrup. Each chews by himself. All syrup is too sweet. Every cloud has shed rain. Every room is too square. Every forehead is against. Every child has two fathers. Every head is somewhere else. Every witch burns better. And that for three weeks, breakfast for breakfast: Each chewing by himself. The triangle play is still on the program. Secret and semi-overt designs to turn the farce into a one-man play: Jochen Sawatzki soliloquizes as he cooks sugarbeets. Into a whispering twosome: Walterkins and Ingemouse sell a dog, grow rich and happy; but Matern doesn’t want to sell and turn into a whispering twosome, he’d rather be alone with the dog. Sick of rubbing shoulders.
Meanwhile, outside the square bedroom-livingroom, that is to say, between Fliesteden and Büsdorf, between Ingendorf and Glessen, and similarly between Rommerskirchen, Pulheim, and Quadrath-Ichendorf, a hard postwar winter has set in. Snow is falling for reasons of de-Nazification: everybody is putting objects and facts out into the severe wintry countryside to be snowed under.
Matern and Sawatzki have made a little birdhouse for the innocent birds, who aren’t to blame. They are planning to set it up in the garden so they can watch it from the kitchen window. Sawatzki reminisces: “I’ve never seen so much snow piled up except once. That was in ’37-’38, the time we paid Fatso a visit on Steffensweg. It was snowing like today, it just went on snowing and snowing.”
Later on, he’s down in the laundry room, corking two-quart bottles. Meanwhile the stay-at-home couple have counted all the outdoor sparrows. By that time their love needs an airing. They and the dog make tracks in the famous triangle: Fliesteden-Büsdorf-Stommeln, but see none of those villages, because of the snow drifting and steaming round about. Along the Büsdorf-Stommeln highway, only the telegraph poles coming from Bergheim-Erft and running toward Worringen on the Rhine, remind Walterkins and Ingemouse that this whiter is numbered, that the snow is earthly, and that under the snow sugarbeets once grew, on whose coveted substance they are still living; all four of them, for, says he, the dog needs proper care; whereas she says we ought to sell it, it’s a revolting mutt, she doesn’t love anybody but him him him: “If it weren’t so cold, I’d do it with you right here in the open, day and night, under the open sky, in the bosom of nature—but the dog has to go, see? He gets on my nerves.”
Pluto is still black. The snow becomes him. Ingemouse wants to cry, but it’s too cold. Matern is patient and speaks, between one-sidedly snow-laden telegraph poles, about parting, which must always be anticipated. He also pours forth his favorite poet. Self-immortelle, says the leavetaker, and: Last rose’s dying. However, he doesn’t lose himself in the causal-genetic, but transfers in the nick of time to the ontic. Ingemouse loves it when, snapping snowflakes, he roars, grinds, hisses, and squeezes out strange words: “I exist self-grounded! World never is, but worldeth. Freedom is freedom to the I. I essent. The projecting I as projecting midst. I, localized and encompassed. I, world-project! I, source of grounding! I, possibility—soil—identification! I, GROUND, GROUNDING IN THE GROUNDLESS!”
Ingemouse learns the meaning of these obscure words shortly before Christmas. Though she has got together any number of attractive and useful little presents, he leaves. He shoves off—“Take me with you!”—He wants to celebrate Christmas, I I I, alone with the dog—“Take me with you!”—Consequently, lamentations in the snow shortly before Stommeln: “Me with you!” But thinly as she threads her little voice into his hairy masculine ear: Every train pulls in. Every train pulls out. Ingemouse stays behind.
He who had come to judge, with a black dog and with names incised in his heart, spleen, and kidneys, leaves the sugarbeet environment and takes the train, after crossing off the names of Jochen Sawatzki and wife, to Cologne on the Rhine. In the holy Central Station, in view of the avenging double finger, master and dog stand once again, centrally on six feet.
THIRD TO EIGHTY-FOURTH MATERNIAD
This was Matern’s idea: We, Pluto and I, will celebrate Christmas all alone with sausage and beer in the big silent drafty holy Catholic waiting room in Cologne. We will think, alone, in the midst of humanity, about Ingemouse and Ingepussy, about ourselves and the Glad Tidings. But things turn out differently, they always do: There in Cologne’s tiled men’s toilet a message has been scratched on the wall in the sixth enameled bay from the right. Amid the usual meaningless outcries and proverbs Matern reads, after buttoning up, the significant entry: Captain Erich Hufnagel, Altena, Lenneweg 4.
And so they celebrate Christmas Eve not in Cologne’s Central Station, but with a family in the Sauerland. A hilly wooded Christmas countryside, where for the rest of the year it mostly rains. A wretched climate that induces specifically regional ailments: isolated forest Westphalians succumb to melancholy and work and drink too-much too-quickly too-cheap.
To avoid too much sitting, master and dog leave the train in Hohenlimburg and start uphill early in the Holy Night. An arduous climb, for here too snow has fallen abundantly and gratis. Across Hohbräcker Rücken and on toward Wibblingswerde, Matern recites himself and Pluto through a forest made for robbers: by turns Franz and Karl Moor invoke fate, Amalie, and the gods: “Another complainant against God!—Continue.” Step by step. Snow grinds, stars grind, Franz Moor grinds, virgin branches grind, nature grinds: “Do I hear you hissing, adders of the abyss?”—but from the sparkling valley of the Lenne Altena’s unsmelted bells ring in the second postwar Christmas.
Lenneweg leads from homeofmyown to homeofmyown. Every homeofmyown has already lighted its Christmas tree candles. All Christmas angels lisp. All doors can be opened: Captain Hufna
gel, wearing bedroom slippers, opens in person.
This time it doesn’t smell of sugarbeets but instantly and overpoweringly of gingerbread. The slippers are new. The Hufnagels have already distributed their Christmas gifts. Master and dog are requested to wipe their six feet on the door mat. Without effort it becomes manifest that Frau Dorothea Hufnagel has been made happy with an immersion heater. The thirteen-year-old Hans-Ulrich in turn is immersed in a book on submarine warfare, and Elke, the gorgeous daughter, is trying out, on Christmas wrapping paper which in her mother’s opinion really ought to be smoothed out and put away for next Christmas, a genuine Pelikan fountain pen. In capitals she writes: ELKE ELKE ELKE.