Dog Years

by Günter Grass

  He has set up housekeeping, he has an address: new building, two rooms, incinerator, kitchenette, built-in cupboards, bar, wide couch; for over the weekend inalienable Ingewife turns up, alone or with Walli. Sawatzki, the gentlemen’s outfitter, sends his best. The dog is in the way. It’s high time they had a little privacy. The mutt is a nuisance—like a grandmother who can’t contain her water. Though still alert and well trained. How can there be any domestic wellbeing with this animal on the scene? Bleary-eyed, gone to fat in places, and even so, the skin sags on his neck. Still, no one says: “He ought to be done away with.” On the contrary, Matern, Ingewife, and Wallichild are agreed: “Let him enjoy his pittance. Our Pluto won’t be with us very long anyway. While there’s enough for us, there’ll always be enough for him.” And Matern remembers at his shaving mirror: “He was always a friend in need. Stuck by me in hard times, when I was restless and unstable, when I was chasing a phantom that had many names and yet refused to be captured. The dragon. Evil. Leviathan. The Nothing. Errancy.”

  Yet occasionally, for all his fine-checked vests, Matern sighs over his omelet. At such times his hunter’s eye excepts Ingewife and searches the wall for wallpaper script. But the Bauhaus pattern is unequivocal, and despite their ambivalent modernism the framed prints disclose no secrets. Or there’s a pounding in the radiators, Matern pricks up an ear, Pluto stirs, the signals stop, and once again sighs blow copious bubbles. Not until early spring, when the first flies begin to stir, does he find an avocation that makes him forget to sigh for hours on end. Even the doughty little tailor started out with a flyswatter and went on to capture the unicorn. No one will ever know the names he gives to what he catches on the panes, what names he cracks between fingers, the names of his transmigrated enemies, from whom he plucks flyleg after flyleg and lastly the wings, without regret. The sighing persists, wakes up with Matern, goes to bed with him, sits with him at tables in the Radio Building canteen, while he is rehearsing his scoundrelly lines for the last time. Because he’ll be going on the air in a minute. Matern will have to speak rumble roar. He will have to abandon this half glass of beer. Around him the ladies of the forthcoming programs: the woman’s touch. The farmer’s voice. Music in the afternoon. The good word for Sunday. Band music. Fifteen minutes of meditation. Our sisters and brothers behind the Iron Curtain. Sports news and racetrack news. Poetry before midnight. Water-level report. Jazz. The Gürzenich Orchestra. The children’s program. Colleagues and their colleagues: that one over there, or that one, or the one in the checked shirt without a tie. You know him. Or you might know him. Wasn’t he the one who in ’43 on the Mius front? Or the one in black and white with the milkshake? Didn’t he once? Or wouldn’t he have? The whole lot of them! Checked flies, black-and-white flies. Fat blue-bottles over skat chess crosswordpuzzles. Interchangeable. Keep cropping up. O Matern, slowly cicatrizing names are still itching you. There he sighs in serenely bored broadcasting room, and a colleague who hears Matern’s heavily laden sigh rising from the center of the earth, pats him on the back: “Man, Matern. What have you got to sigh about? You have every reason to be pleased. You’re working full time. Happened to turn on the agony box yesterday, and whom do I hear? This morning I look into the children’s room. They’ve moved the box in there. The kids are sitting there with their tongues hanging out, and whose voice do I hear? You lucky bastard!”

  Matern, the booming radio pedagogue, speaks rumbles roars as a permanent robber, wolf, rabble rouser, or Judas. Hoarse as a polar explorer in a snowstorm. Louder than wind velocity 12. As a coughing prisoner with rattling radio chains. As a grumbling miner just before the awful explosion. As the ragingly ambitious mountain climber on the inadequately organized Himalaya expedition. As the gold prospector, the refugee from the East zone, the martinet, the SS guard, the Foreign Legionary, the blasphemer, the slave overseer, and a reindeer in a Christmas play; this last role he has played once before, on the stage as a matter of fact, in his dramatic school days.

  Harry Liebenau, his countryman, who directs the children’s program under Dr. R. Zander’s guidance, says to him: “I’m rather inclined to think that was my first meeting with you. Stadttheater. Children’s show. The little Brunies girl, you remember, danced the part of the Snow Queen, and you did the talking reindeer. Made an enormous impression on me, a lasting impression. A fixed point in my development, so to speak. Decisive childhood experience. All sorts of things can be traced back to it.”

  That shithead with his file-card memory. Wherever he goes stands sits, always shuffling cards. Nothing he hasn’t got the dope on: Proust and Henry Miller; Dylan Thomas and Karl Kraus; quotations from Adorno and sales figures; collector of details and tracker down of references; objective onlooker and layer-bare of cores; archive hound and connoisseur of environments; knows who thinks left and who has written right; writes asthmatic stuff about the difficulty of writing; flashbacker and time-juggler; caller-into-question and wise guy; but no writers’ congress can dispense with his gift of formulation, his urge to recapitulate, his memory. And the way he looks at me: Interesting case! He thinks I’m grist for his mill. He pinpoints me, closely written, on file cards. Seems to think he knows all about me, because he saw me that time as a talking reindeer and maybe twice in uniform. He was much too young to. When Eddi and I. He couldn’t have been more than. But his kind think they know. That capacity for patient listening, for playing the gumshoes with a knowing smile: “Never mind, Matern, I know. If I’d been born a couple of years sooner, I’d have fallen for it just like you. I’m certainly the last one to moralize. My generation, you know, has seen a thing or two. Besides, you adequately demonstrated that you could also. Someday we ought to go over the whole thing objectively and without the usual resentment. Maybe in the ‘Discussion’ series we’ve been planning. How does it appeal to you? These children’s programs may be useful, but they can’t satisfy us in the. Noises, to help people put their children to bed. When you come right down to it, they’re nothing but ground-out hokum. The beep-beep between programs is more meaningful. Why not put some life on the air? What we need is facts. How about really spilling your guts? Unburdening your heart. Stuff that hits you in the kidneys!”

  Only the spleen is missing. And what the asshole will wear! English custom-made shoes and ski sweater. Maybe a homo too. If I could only remember the guy. Goes on the whole time about his cousin and blinks at me: suggestively. Says his father was the carpenter with the dog—“Hm, you know!”—“And my cousin Tulla—her real name was Ursula—was crazy about you, back in the shore battery, remember, and later on in Kaiserhafen.” He even claims that I was his gunnery instructor—“The Number 6 mans the fuze setter”—and that I introduced him to Heidegger’s calendar mottoes—“Being withdraws, losing itself in the…” The guy has collected more facts on the subject of Matern than Matern himself could dream up. Yet smooth and affable on the surface. Just thirty, going fat around the chin, and always ready for a joke. He’d have done fine as a Gestapo dick. He dropped in on me recently—ostensibly to go over a part with me—and what does he do? He grabs Pluto by the muzzle and feels his teeth or what’s left of them. Like a vet. And with an air of mystery: “Strange, very strange. The stop too, and the line between withers and croup. Old as the animal is—my guess is twenty or more dog years—it’s obvious from the structure of the forequarters and the excellent carriage of the ears. Tell me, Matern, where did you dig up that dog? No, better still, we’ll discuss the question publicly. In my opinion this is a situation—I’ve told you about my pet idea—that ought to be developed dynamically and in public. But not in a dull naturalistic vein. The subject calls for formal ingenuity. If you want to hold an audience, you’ve got to stand your intellect on its head but still let it declaim. A kind of classical drama. Boiled down to one act, but keeping the good old structure: exposition peripeteia castastrophe. Here’s how I visualize the set: a clearing in the woods, beeches if you like, birds twittering. You remember Jäschkental Forest, don’t you? W
ell then: the clearing around the Gutenberg monument. We’ll throw out old Gutenberg. But we’ll keep the temple. And where the father of the printed book used to be, we’ll put you. That’s right, you, for a starter we drop you, the phenotype Matern, into the temple. So you’re standing there under the roof, looking toward the Erbsberg, two hundred and fifty feet above sea level. On the other side of the Erbsberg there’s Steffensweg, villa after villa, but we won’t show that, only one set, the clearing. Facing the former Gutenberg monument, we’ll put up a grandstand for the public, big enough for, well, in round numbers, thirty-two persons. All children and young people between the ages of ten and twenty-one. To the left we might have a small platform for the discussion leader. And Pluto—amazing animal, troubling resemblance—the dog can sit beside his master.”

  And that’s exactly how this character—with hardly any musical trimmings—sets up his show. Zander is wildly enthusiastic, all he can talk about is this “exciting new form of broadcast.” From the start he detects—“over and above the radio”—possibilities for the theater: “Neither picture-frame nor three-dimensional stage. Orchestra and stage merge for all time. After a centuries-long monologue, man finds a way back to dialogue; nay, more—this great Western debate warrants a new hope of exegesis and catharsis, interpretation and purification.”

  Rolf Zander points, in no end of articles, to the future; but the wisenheimer is thinking entirely of today. He isn’t out to save the theater from subsidized stagnation, but to crucify Matern and dog. He is knitting a pitfall, but questioned as to his intentions, he lays it on smoothly, confidentially: “Believe me, Matern, with your help we will work out a valid technique for getting at the truth. Not only for you, but for every one of our fellow men, this is a matter of vital necessity: we must break through between master and dog, design a window that will give us back our perspective; for even I—you can tell by my modest literary efforts—lack the vital grip, the quivering flesh of reality; the technique is there but not the substance: I’ve been unable to capture the this-is-how-it-was, the substantial reality that throws a shadow. Help me, Matern, or I’ll lose myself in the subjunctive.”

  And this play is enacted under trees. The fellow has even succeeded in scaring up some beeches and a cast-iron temple, in which the phenotype Johannes Gutenberg waits for his relief. For six weeks, not counting rehearsals, Matern with dog is squeezed to the last drop in the presence of a changing audience. The final manuscript, with which this wisenheimer and his Dr. Rudolf Zander have tinkered a bit, but solely for artistic reasons, reads as follows. Matern—“You’re an actor after all!”—is expected to memorize the main part, so as to be able to speak, rumble, roar it on the specified recording date.

  AN OPEN FORUM

  PRODUCER : West German Broadcasting Station, Cologne.

  SCRIPTS : R. Zander and H. Liebenau.

  DATE OF BROADCAST : (approximate) May 8, 1957.

  PARTICIPANTS IN THE DISCUSSION :

  HARRY L.—Discussion leader.

  WALLI S.—Assistant with miracle glasses.

  WALTER MATERN.—The Topic under discussion.

  SUPPORTING ROLE : Pluto, the black shepherd.

  Thirty-two children and young people of the postwar generation participate more or less actively in the open forum. None is under ten or over twenty-one.

  TIME : Approximately one year ago, when the so-called miracle glasses, or knowledge glasses, were withdrawn from the market.

  SCENE : An oval clearing in a beech forest. To the right rises a grandstand in four tiers, on which the children and young people, boys and girls, take their places without formality. A platform to the left bears a table, behind which sit the discussion leader and his assistant. To one side a black board. Between grandstand and platform, but somewhat farther to the rear, a small cast-iron temple with chain garlands and a mushroom roof. Three granite steps lead up to the temple.

  Inside the temple a cast-iron statue—obviously of Johannes Gutenberg—is laid on its side by movingmen, wrapped in woolen blankets, and finally carried away. “Heave-ho,” the workmen call to each other. A hubbub among the younger generation.

  The discussion leader spurs on the workers with such cries as: “We’ve got to get started, gentlemen. The old man can’t be any heavier than a Bechstein piano. You can have breakfast as soon as the temple is clear.”

  Over it all the twittering of birds.

  As the movers exit, Matern enters the clearing with a black shepherd.

  Walli S., the assistant, a little girl of ten, removes a pair of glasses from their case, but does not put them on.

  Matern’s entrance is greeted by enthusiastic stamping on the part of the younger generation. He does not know where to go.

  The discussion leader points to the temple and the younger generation explains, speaking in chorus: “Matern will have to stay in the printer’s house today. In Gutenberg’s old place Matern will show his face! Matern just loves to answer questions. A topic will be discussed, where stood old Johann in his rust! With man and beast, we’ll have a discussion feast! Matern has come. Welcome! Welcome!”

  The verses of greeting are followed by applause and stamping. The assistant toys with her glasses. The discussion leader rises, makes a gesture that sweeps away all sound except for the twittering of the birds, and opens the discussion:

  DISCUSSION LEADER : Fellow participants in this forum! Young friends! The word has become flesh again and has come to dwell among us. In other words: we have come here to discuss. Discussion is our generation’s medium of expression par excellence. In former times discussions were carried on at the family board, in circles of friends, on playgrounds: they were secret, muffled, or aimlessly playful; but today we have succeeded in liberating the great, dynamic, never-ending discussion from the four walls that formerly confined it, and in putting it out into the open, under the sky, among the trees!

  A BOY : The discussion leader has forgotten the birds!

  CHORUS OF BOYS AND GIRLS :

  A discussion feast

  with man and beast.

  DISCUSSION LEADER : Yes indeed! They, too, the sparrows, blackbirds, and wood pigeons, answer us. Rookedykroo, rookedykroo! All speak! All demand to be informed. Every stone gives us information.

  CHORUS :

  What’s the stone’s name today?

  Stones are people too, I say.

  TWO BOYS :

  If it’s Fritz, let him go,

  if it’s Emil, let him blow.

  Let Hans and Ludwig run away,

  if it’s Walter, let him stay.

  DISCUSSION LEADER : That’s it! Walter Matern has come among us in order that we may discuss him through and through. And when I say “him” I mean the reality that casts a shadow and leaves footprints.

  A BOY : Has he come of his own free will?

  DISCUSSION LEADER : Because we are alive, we discuss. We do not act, we…

  CHORUS : … discuss!

  DISCUSSION LEADER : We do not die…

  CHORUS : We discuss death.

  A BOY : I ask again: Has Matern come of his own free will?

  DISCUSSION LEADER : We do not love…

  CHORUS : We discuss love!

  DISCUSSION LEADER : Consequently there is no topic we can not discuss dynamically. God and liability insurance; the atomic bomb and Paul Klee; to us the past and the provisional constitution are not problems but topics of discussion. Only those who welcome discussion are fit…

  CHORUS : … to be members of human society.

  DISCUSSION LEADER : Only those who enjoy discussion be come, through discussion, human beings. Therefore, to be a man is…

  CHORUS : … to be willing to discuss!

  A BOY : But is Matern?

  CHORUS :

  Is Matern willing to discuss

  his kidneys with us?

  TWO GIRLS :

  We girls are curious to see

  Matern’s heart spout poetry.

  TWO BOYS :

 
And Matern’s spleen we fondly hope

  to study through a microscope.

  CHORUS :

  Nibble nibble, crunch crunch,

  from secret pockets let us munch.

  TWO GIRLS :

  Another thing we wouldn’t miss:

  to see how thoughts and feelings kiss.

  CHORUS :

  If Matern says: I’m willing!

  it will be just thrilling.

  DISCUSSION LEADER : And so we ask you, Matern, are you willing to be open, uncoded, and dynamically aired? Are you willing to think what you say; are you willing to speak out what you have buried? In other words: Are you willing to be the topic of this dynamic open forum? If so, answer loudly and plainly: I, Walter Matern, welcome discussion.

  A BOY : He’s not willing. I told you so: he’s not willing.

  A BOY : Or he hasn’t understood yet.

  A BOY : He doesn’t want to understand.

  CHORUS :

  If Matern won’t understand,

  make him discuss by command.

  DISCUSSION LEADER : I must request you to give your comments a choral form or to state them in writing. Mob emotions cannot be permitted to erupt in a public discussion.—I ask you for the second time: Walter Matern, do you feel the need of communicating yourself to us in order that the public…

  (Whispering among the younger generation. Matern is silent.)

  A BOY : Close the temple if he’s not willing.

  A BOY : I demand a compulsory discussion. The Matern case is of general interest and must be discussed.

  DISCUSSION LEADER (to the assistant) : Members number fourteen to twenty-two are obstructing discussion and therefore barred from discussion. (Walli S. takes down the numbers on the margin of the blackboard.) In line with the dynamism we are aiming at, the chair has decided to take account of certain comments that have not been cast in the proper form. If the topic of discussion persists in his hostility to discussion, a state of compulsory discussion will be declared. In other words: our assistant will make use of a special device, the so-called knowledge glasses, and so provide us with the facts, for every discussion must be based on facts.