Dog Years

by Günter Grass

  “What business has Marx on an athletic field?” asks the executive committee unanimously.

  “Can we allow Eastern propaganda to be encouraged on our athletic fields?” runs the question which the field manager submits in writing to the Unterrath Athletic Club.

  “Our young athletes will not tolerate this state of affairs,” maintains the honorary chairman at the bar in Dorotheenplatz. He knows Matern from before the war. “He made the same kind of trouble even then. Can’t adapt himself. Poisons the atmosphere.” In his opinion, which is seconded by nods and murmurs of “exactly,” a true Unterrath athlete must not only give himself wholly and cheerfully to his elected sport, but must also be clean inside.

  After soandso many dog years, for the soandsomanieth time in Matern’s medium-length life, a court of honor takes up his case. Exactly like the Young Prussians on Heinrich Ehlers Field and the men of Langfuhr SA Sturm 84, the members of the Unterrath Athletic Club decide to expel Matern a second time. As in ’39, the vote to exclude him from club and athletic field meets with no opposition. Only members Ankenrieb and Tolksdorf abstain, an attitude which meets with silent approval on all sides. In conclusion the honorary chairman remarks: “He can be glad that these proceedings will remain among ourselves. The last time the affair had further repercussions, police headquarters on Kavalleriestrasse, if that rings a bell.” DON’T GO IN FOR SPORTS. YOU’LL BE MADE SPORT OF.

  O Matern, how many defeats must you check off as victories? What environment spat you out after you had subjected it? Will they someday print maps of both Germanies and unroll them in schoolrooms as a visual record of your battles, marked in the usual way—two crossed sabers? Will they say: Matern’s victory at Witzenhausen became evident on the morning of the? The battle of Bielefeld saw the victor Mater in Cologne on the Rhine the following morning? When Matern triumphed in Düsseldorf-Rath, the calendar read June 3, 1954? Or if your victories, marked with crosses and counted, do not find their way into history, will at least grandmothers surrounded by grandchildren remember half-truthfully: “Then, in the dog year ’47, a poor dog, who had a black dog with him, came to see us and tried to make trouble for Grampa. But I took the fellow, not a bad sort really, quietly aside until he calmed down and began to purr like a kitten, all cuddly.”

  Inge Sawatzki, for example, has often revived the tired victor Matern and nursed him back to health, which is just what she does now that the wounds inflicted on the Unterrath athletic field are in need of being dressed. It was bound to happen. Inge can wait. Every warrior comes home now and then. Every woman welcomes with open arms. Every victory demands to be celebrated.

  Even Jochen Sawatzki can see that. Accordingly he says to his wife Inge: “Go ahead if you can’t help it.” And they—the classical great lovers—do what they still can’t help. The apartment is big enough after all. And now that he’s kind of worn out, it’s actually more fun than in the days when you only had to look at his knob for the machine to spring into action and finish the job much quicker than necessary. Always that craving for records: “I’ll show you. I can do it any time, at high speed. I could show you seven times and climb the Feldberg when I’m through. That’s the way I am. All the Materns have been like that. Simon Materna, for instance, always had a big chunk of meat up front, even on horseback when he was on his way to wreak vengeance between Dirschau, Danzig, and Elbing. That was a man. And as for his brother Gregor Materna, you can still read in the Danzig city archives that ‘after al manner of mysdeedes, murther, and the sheddyng of Christian blode, lorde Materna cam that autumn to Danczk for to wreak al manner of fiercenesse, and eke to hank Claus Bartusch by the neck, at which tyme he set vp his passyng styffe peter for a gallows, whereat wondyrment was of alle the robboures and marchants.’ That’s the kind he was. And in the old days, in the Army, for instance, you could have hung, well, maybe not a sack of pepper, but anyway a twenty-pound weight on my handle without preventing it from giving you the works quickly and very effectively.”

  Nevermore would he hammer nails into the wall with turgid tool. Now she takes him in hand—slowly and gently. “Mustn’t panic right away, we have time. These are the best years of life, when potency levels off and we watch it like a savings account. After all there are other things in life. For instance, we could go to the theater sometime, you used to be an actor yourself. You don’t feel like it? Never mind, we’ll go to the movies, or we can go watch the Martinmas procession with Walli: lantern lantern, sun, moon, and stars. Or it’s nice having coffee in Kaiserswerth and looking out over the Rhine. We could go to Dortmund for the six-day bicycle race, and this time we’ll take Sawatzki with us. I’ve never been to the Moselle for the wine harvest. Ah, a beautiful beautiful year with you. It’ll be something I can feed on for the rest of my life. You seem so much more settled than you used to be. You even leave the dog home once in a while. Of course there are always exceptions, like at the last Men’s Garment Fair when we bumped into that tubby little Semrauman, and you went off your rocker and started arguing with him and Jochen behind our booth. But then you had a few beers together, and Jochen even closed a deal with Semrau: for several dozen duffel coats. Or in Cologne at the Mardi Gras parade: they’ve been marching by for over an hour, and then comes a float with a regular windmill on it, and a lot of nuns and knights in real armor are dancing around it. But headless the whole lot of them. They’re carrying their heads under their arms. Or playing catch with them. I’m just on the point of asking you what they’re suppose to symbolize when off you go, trying to break through the barrier and get at the nuns. Lucky they didn’t let you through. Heaven knows what you would have done to them, and they to you, because they don’t pull any punches on Mardi Gras. But then you calmed down, and at the station it was gay again. You went as some kind of medieval soldier; Sawatzki was a one-eyed admiral; and you made a regular robber’s moll out of me. Too bad the picture turned out so fuzzy. Because if it were clear, you could see what a bay window you’ve put on, my sugarbun. That’s because we take such good care of you. You’ve got nice and plump since you gave up athletics. It doesn’t agree with you—clubs and meetings and all that stuff. You’ll always be a lone wolf. The only reason you make out with Jochen is that he always does what you say. He’s even against the atom bomb because you’re against it and signed that petition. And I’m against it too, I wouldn’t want to get bumped off now that we’re so cozy together. Because I love you. Don’t listen. I could eat you up, because I, do you hear? Everything about you. The way you look through walls and the way you clutch a glass. When you cut bacon against your thumb. When you talk like an actor, trying to grab hold of heaven knows what. Your voice, your shaving soap, or when you cut your, or the way you walk, you walk as if you had an appointment with God knows who. Because sometimes I can’t make you out. But that doesn’t matter. Just don’t listen when I. But I would like to know how you spent the time with Jochen in the old days when. You don’t have to start up with your teeth right away. Didn’t I tell you not to listen? Say, there’s a shooting match on the Rhine Meadows, hear? Should we go? Tomorrow? Without Jochen? I’ve got to be over there in the branch store until six. How about seven at the Rhine Bridge? On the Oberkassel side.”

  Matern is on his way to his date, without dog. Good old Pluto, he isn’t allowed out in the street so often any more, for fear of his being run over. Matern walks quickly straight ahead, because he has an appointment at a definite time. He has bought cherries, a whole pound. Now he’s spitting cherry pits in the direction of his appointment. People walking toward him have to dodge. The cherries and minutes grow fewer. When you cross the bridge on foot, you notice how wide the Rhine is: from the Planetarium on the Düsseldorf side to Oberkassel: a good pound of cherries wide. He spits in the head wind, which pushes the cherry pits in the direction of Cologne; but the Rhine carries them down to Duisburg or farther still. Every cherry cries out for the next. Eating cherries puts you in a rage. Rage mounts from cherry to cherry. When Jesus chased the mo
ney-changers out of the Temple, He ate a pound of cherries before He. Othello also ate a whole pound before he. The Moor brothers, both of them, day in day out, even in winter. And if Matern had to play Jesus, Othello, or Franz Moor, he’d be obliged to eat a whole pound before each performance. How much hatred ripens with them or is preserved along with them in jars? They only seem to be so round; in reality cherries are pointed triangles. Especially sour cherries set the teeth on edge. As if he had any need of that. He thinks shorter than he spits. Ahead of him homeafteroffice-goers hold their hats tight and are afraid to look behind them. Those who look back have someone behind them. Only Inge Sawatzki, who also has an appointment, mirrors the ever more menacingly approaching Matern fearlessly and punctually in googoo eyes. How can she be expected to know that he has almost a pound of cherries under his belt? Fresh-white blows her flimsy dress. Tight above, wide below. Waist still twenty-one, though it takes a girdle. She can afford sleeveless expectation. Wind in Ingedress brushes jumpy knees, towardly knees: smiling toward, running toward, four-and-a-half Italian sandal steps: and then plunk between her towardly breasts; but nothing can get Inge Sawatzki down; under the impact she stands staunch and vertical: “Aren’t I punctual? The spot looks good on my dress. It needed some red. Were they sweet or sour cherries?”

  For the bag has vented all his rage. The cherry-pit spitter can drop it. “Should I buy you some more, there’s a stand over there.”

  But Inge Sawatzki would like “to ride the high-flier, for ever and ever.” So off across the Rhine Meadows. In amid the surge of others and instantly included in the count. But no description of the environment, for she doesn’t want ice cream, she doesn’t know how to shoot, the scenic railway appeals to her only when it’s dark, sideshows are always a disappointment, all she wants is the high-flier, for ever and ever.

  First he wins two roses and a tulip for her at the shooting gallery. Then she simply has to let herself be bumped around with him in a dodgem car. During which, hermetically sealed off against the outside world, he meditates on mass man, materialism, and transcendence. Then with three shots he wins her a little yellow bear for Walli, but it can’t growl. Then he has to drink two consecutive beers standing up. Then he buys her burnt almonds whether she wants them or not. A try at a target—it’ll only take a minute: two eights, a ten. At last she gets to ride the high-flier with him, but not for ever and ever. The high-flier is two-thirds empty, it’s gradually going out of style. But Inge is wild about old-fashioned things. She collects music boxes, dancing bears, cutouts, magic lanterns, whistling tops, decalcomanias, she’s just the type for the high-flier. Her dress and undies made specially to order for this circular journey. Hair loose, towardly knees anything but pressed together; for anyone who is as hot as Inge Sawatzki, obliged to carry a feverquiff around with her hour after hour, keeps wanting to hang it and herself out in the wind. But he doesn’t enjoy subjection to the laws of gravitation. Round and round for two and a half minutes, regardless of whether or not you roll up and let the change of direction unwind you: round and round until the music stops. But Inge wants to hang herself in the wind: “One more time. One more time!” Not to be a spoilsport for once in his life. There’s no cheaper way of making her dizzy. Take a look at the environment while it goes round and round. Still one and the same leaning St. Lambert’s Tower means Düsseldorf over there. Still the same ugly mugs crowded in a circle, with or without ice cream, with objects bought or won by shooting or dicing, and waiting for Matern’s return. Mass man believes in him and trembles at his approach. Slavish wisdom, slavish fears! all, without distinction, cooked according to the same recipe. Bankbooks in their hearts, jungle without claws, hygienic pipedreams, neither good nor evil, but phenomenal, all in one gravy. Scattered peas. Or if you prefer, raisins in a cake. Forgetful of Being, in search of an ersatz for transcendence. Taxpayers, all cut from the same cloth, excepting one. All identical; one stands out. Just an irregularity in the weave, but even so he stands out. From round to round, impossible to ignore. Got himself a sharpshooter’s hat like all the other members of the rifle club, and is nonetheless here again, gone, back again, gone: a very special sharpshooter. O names! why, that’s, of course, wait a minute! Gone—here again: that’s all I needed. The jig is up, sharpshooter police major. The revels will soon be ended, Police Major Osterhues. Shall we ride the high-flier? Chase murder motives with leitmotives? What do you say, Heinrich, shall we?

  Some of the sharpshooters want to, but this particular one doesn’t. He wanted to before, but now that someone jumps off the starting high-flier and shouts his name plus his super annuated rank to the ends of the world, the meanwhile alderman and sharpshooter Heinrich Osterhues has lost all inclination and wants only to make himself scarce. “Police major”; those are words he doesn’t like to hear. Even old friends aren’t allowed to. That was once upon a time and has no business here.

  Happened before and often filmed: nothing is easier than running away at a shooting match. For everywhere friendly fellow sharpshooters with their hats—half forester’s hats, half sou’westers—stand in readiness and take him under cover. They even run a few steps to lead the wolf up a false trail. Fool him by scattering, which just about halves or quarters the wolf. Split into sixteenths—that’s what Matern would have to do. Nab him, nab him! Leitmotive chases murder motive! Ah, if only he had Pluto with him, he’d know the way to Heinrich Osterhues. Ah, if only he had marked him, the police major of rib-smashing years, with cherry pit and cherry spot and not Ingedress. “Osterhues Osterhues!” Don’t turn around—cherry pit’s going around.

  Only after an hour of Osterhues-screeching and Osterhues-searching—he must have seized a whole regiment of sharp shooters by the buttons of their uniforms and released them in disgust—does he find the trail again: he picks up a photograph, badly trampled, from the trampled grass. It doesn’t show this one or that one or Osterhues the sharp shooter: no, it shows the onetime police major Osterhues, who in the year 1939 personally questioned Walter Matern, prisoner held for investigation, in the cellar of the Kavalleriestrasse police headquarters.

  With this photograph—it must have slipped out of the fleeing sharpshooter’s sharpshooter’s jacket—Matern makes the rounds of the beer tents. No sign of him. Or he threw it away—evidence! Armed with this warrant, he races through sideshow booths, pokes around under the trailers. Night is falling over the Rhine Meadows—white Ingedress follows him pleading respectfully and wants to ride on the scenic rail way, for ever and ever—when Osterhues-hungry, he enters a last beer tent. Whereas all the other tents, inflated like beer bellies, could scarcely hold the noise of the singing, under this tent silence prevails. “Psst!” warns, the monitor at the entrance. “We’re taking a picture.” With catlike tread Matern treads on beer-sour sawdust. Neither folding chairs nor rows of tables. Osterhues-seeking eyes take in the scene: What a picture, what a photograph, the rifle club photographer is planning! Amidst hushed emptiness a platform raises one hundred thirty-two sharpshooters toward the tent roof. Arranged into tiers—kneeling, sitting, standing, and in the very back row towering-over. One hundred thirty-two sharpshooters wear their sharpshooter hats—half forester’s hat, half sou’wester—slightly tilted to the right. Sharpshooter braid and rosettes are equitably distributed.

  None silvers more strikingly, no chest is less bemedaled. Not one hundred thirty-one sharpshooters and one sharp shooter king, but one hundred thirty-two brother sharp shooters of equal rank smile slyly goodnaturedly eagerly in the direction of Matern, who, armed with the police major’s photograph, is trying to distinguish and select. All resemblance is purely fortuitous. All resemblance is denied. All resemblance is admitted one hundred thirty-two times; for between raised platform and tent roof Sharpshooter Heinrich Osterhues smiles in tiers, kneels sits stands towers-over, wears his sharpshooter’s hat tilted slightly to the right, and is photographed one hundred thirty-two times with one flash bulb. A family portrait. One hundred thirty-twolets. “That’s all
, gentlemen!” cries the photographer. One hundred thirty-two Heinrichs rise chatting lumbering beer-sodden, rise from the festival-photograph platform, all bent upon shaking hands immediately and one hundred thirty-twofold with an old friend from one-hundred-thirty-twofold police-major days: “How’s it going? Back on the old stamping ground? Ribs mended O.K.? Those were rugged times all right. All hundred thirty-two of us will lay to that. It was hew to the line, boy, or else. But at least the guys sang when we took ’em in hand. They weren’t pampered like nowadays…”