The Safety Net

by Heinrich Böll

  4

  The fear kept returning, growing, fear for him, later fear of him too, that alternated, merged, when he came home “all in, simply all in,” made cutting remarks about the house and neatness in the home, often quite grumpy, almost gruff, something he had never, never been before. He complained about the small house being cramped, the garden too tiny; pulled and plucked and grumbled at every scrap of weed and, with a mere, the merest, trace of disapproval, scrutinized her hair—which, naturally, wasn’t always as tidy as it should be if she happened to have been working in the garden, the basement, or the kitchen or romping with Bernhard and the dog in the garden. Then there was the occasional bead of moisture on her forehead, or something that looked like perspiration around her nose; there might be garden soil on Bernhard’s shoes, blades of grass lying on the driveway or the concrete paths; and he would poke around in his food—which he had never done before—finding the soup too hot or not hot enough, the salad dressing too sour or not sour enough, though she had put in all the ingredients in exactly the usual quantity, knowing that that was how he liked it; or he would find too much gristle in the stew, though he knew the price of meat and that she had to save up for the celebration of Bernhard’s First Communion. Besides: they had overextended themselves again, the new car, the payments on the house, the credit that had been much too hastily applied for and so quickly granted and that was turning out to be more expensive than they had been led to believe. And since he had been on this special assignment, always in plain clothes now, never in uniform, his clothing—and he was so fussy!—cost more these days despite the supplement. Without exactly barking at Bernhard, he growled at him, found the boy—strange word—not “graceful” enough, said he was too clumsy the way he rode around the driveway or on the garden paths on his little bike, talked about gym lessons for the boy, shook his head in abject despair when he inspected Bernhard’s homework.

  He had never been like that—serious, yes, and sometimes strict, too strict she felt, when he tore up the boy’s comics, calling them “filthy porn” when really it was comparatively harmless stuff considering what the kids could see at every newsstand. There were worse things than those overblown blondes with their teased hair—at least only their cleavage was visible. What could that possibly mean to an eight-year-old boy who need only go to the public swimming pool to see more—not even the public one, he had only to look through the garden fence to watch their neighbor Ilse Mittelkamp sunbathing or mowing the lawn; he saw more there than at the pool, more than in those dreadful comics with those little blondes with all their “uplift” who might equally well be seven, seventeen, or twenty-seven. Vulgar little bitches, that they most certainly were, a sort of combination of child and prostitute, their vulgar pouting mouths sometimes as naïvely rounded as a little girl’s, sometimes as cynical as a tart’s. “Consumer hookers,” “consumer vampires,” that they most certainly were, their heads empty of everything but travel, dancing, champagne, music—“poolside nymphets”—true, but she couldn’t very well let the boy loose in the world with blinkers on, could she? Granted things were pretty dreadful; chaos, disintegration all around, and in the midst of it all the boy was supposed to be undergoing preparation for his first Holy Communion: chastity and all that, while if one were to believe even half of what one heard, the clergy themselves hardly lived like that anymore, and the boy himself probably didn’t even know what unchastity meant. For Bernhard was certainly—at least she was certain, Hubert had his doubts, and there had been some loathsome arguments about it—not yet sexually arousable. And Hubert had talked to Kiernter, the police psychologist, had obtained some literature on infantile sexuality, and all he had to do was look in the boy’s eyes, where he would find only fear and bafflement at the reason for Hubert’s anger, not fear about the thing itself, whatever that might be. And needless to say, the monthly payments continued to be too high, they had to economize, and of course the shirts he bought himself were too expensive, simply too expensive, now that Hubert, too, had gone on what Monika called a “cotton kick.” Surely it couldn’t be the job that made him come home so “all in, all in”: standing around outside those fancy villas, or wandering around the manor house, keeping an eye on entrances and exits—ever on the alert. Of course he took it all very seriously—took everything seriously, too much so—and of course the responsibility was great, she could see that, yet she still felt that his irritability and brusqueness toward her were out of all proportion.

  He never told her any details about his work, he never had, never any details about his period of training. She knew they all underwent regular psychological examinations and tests, there was a lot of stress, she knew that. Yet his recent preoccupation with cleanliness and neatness seemed to her almost pathological—no longer merely pedantic but almost pathological, the way he sometimes spent almost an hour under the shower, found fault with his freshly pressed trousers, and—this was really an insult—sniffed at his socks before putting them on and, if he discovered the tiniest crease in those expensive cotton shirts, made a face as if seriously offended.

  Not so long ago she had looked forward to his coming home, to their evening meal, to having coffee, sitting down with Bernhard and helping him with his homework, drinking a glass of beer on the terrace, chatting over the fence with the neighbors about the housing shortage and keeping up with payments, about bringing up children and the times in general. Sometimes the neighbors had also asked him for a bit of advice, almost always something to do with cars, No Parking and No Stopping zones, or speed limits, and they’d also been asked over by the Hölsters on their right and the Mittelkamps on their left; and they had themselves invited the neighbors, for beer and pickles or coffee and dessert. The whole atmosphere had cooled considerably, not exactly hostile but cooler because Hubert was so touchy about obscenities, which Mrs. Hölster had a way of quietly but rather vulgarly weaving into her conversation. And from time to time the word “fuzz” had been used, when they forgot that he was one of them himself and didn’t notice their faux pas, although they would then pretty soon want to know what his duties were, since he was constantly “going off all dressed up in his new car.” That was enough to make him clam up completely.

  The Mittelkamps were coarser, more outspoken, by no means more agreeable and, when he was briefly attached to the vice squad, wanted details, talked about “hookers and fags” and “this new job of yours—that must really be something—security unit, hm?” To such a question, neither yes nor no was possible, and silence was probably taken for assent. The Mittelkamps were young, in their late—more likely their middle—twenties, he was a warehouse foreman, she a supermarket cashier, with no children, few if any financial worries. The Hölsters were older, getting on for fifty, he worked in the revenue department, while she, when their daughter had finished her training, had “gone back to the office,” just for a short time, and was then unemployed, and had once whispered to her at the garden fence, “I simply can’t break myself of the habit, that porn stuff, I simply can’t—you mustn’t mind, Helga, when now and again something slips out.” The Hölsters with that daughter of theirs who at first had seemed a bit of a mystery, in her middle twenties, always smartly dressed and driving a smart car, with marvelous hairdos and always a pleasant smile—apparently with no steady or regular occupation. At times she was to be heard typing away for hours, then she would be away again for long periods, sometimes she would sleep late and have a copious breakfast on the balcony; then, at hours when other people were working, she was to be seen sitting in the garden reading, and finally, when asked outright by Mittelkamp, she divulged that she was a convention secretary, taking home taped speeches and letters as well as shorthand minutes of conventions and negotiations and transcribing them at home. Her work was steady, all right, but not regular.

  Claudia was a nice girl who didn’t seem to like her mother’s off-color jokes at all, and she did think Hubert went too far and was unfair in once calling Claudia a “convention hoo
ker.” Once he had also called her own sister Monika a hooker, at a time when there was some justification for this description—Monika, who insisted on being called Monka because that name was now “in,” had meanwhile really turned over a new leaf, in fact she never had been a hooker, she had merely moved in circles where such suspicions were not entirely unjustified. Monka was now working for, sometimes in, a boutique, sewing, knitting, designing; she lived with Karl, who was still going to the university and earning money wherever he could. Karl spoke and thought pretty freely about many things, but never, as Monka still sometimes did, flippantly. And anyway: this business of living together without being married, Mrs. Hölster and the Mittelkamps—she felt like such an outsider, yet she was only twenty-nine herself, and that apparently (or maybe genuinely) scientific way of discussing sex sometimes revolted her more than Mittelkamp’s crudeness—once, when his wife was at work and Bernhard at school, he had had the nerve to ask her over for “fun and games.” She had never told Hubert, all hell would have broken loose. She could hardly stand it when a certain occurrence, which she still called fulfillment, was discussed in appropriate scientific terms—or when Hubert once actually speculated on whether their boy, their dear little Bernhard, was already having erections: horrible word!

  There had been days when she had been on the point of going off to her mother’s, who had at last found her own cottage and garden in Hetzigrath and dreamed of a Silesia that no longer existed, if it ever had: it always sounded as if life there had consisted solely of apples and honey, linen and the Catholic faith, incense and the Blessed Virgin—no tensions, no problems; never war, only peace. And the dreadful experience, of course, of having to flee, leaving behind the apples, honey, incense, and the Blessed Virgin, and needless to say “they” had been to blame, no one else. A fairy tale, and she wouldn’t have minded putting up with this Silesian fairy tale for a while if it hadn’t been for Bernhard’s school. Now at last he had this nice, firm Mr. Plotzkehler for a teacher, a friend of Karl’s from the university who was taking such an interest in the boy. No, she couldn’t risk changing schools now.

  Things were becoming more and more difficult with Hubert, and there was something else of which the mere thought made her blush, and she couldn’t talk about it to anybody, anybody at all, not even to Monka, for fear she would laugh at her. She couldn’t confess it either, for there was no question of guilt, and the rumors one heard about the clergy increased her doubts about advice from that quarter. Perhaps she could have talked to Karl about it, but he was a man, although undoubtedly discreet and understanding, and would probably have just spouted a lot of scientific words. Fulfillment—not fulfillment of duty—was what she lacked; after all, she did have a sex, female, wasn’t ashamed of it, enjoyed it, and had enjoyed Hubert, just as he had enjoyed her, as she well knew. He had always been loving, nice in his quiet, serious way, never crude, had in fact sometimes lost that deep seriousness and been almost merry; never crude, neither before their marriage nor after; gladly had she been fulfilled by him, given him fulfillment, and now she longed for it so much that she was beginning to feel ashamed. She caught herself looking through magazines for appropriate columns and articles, was ashamed of the devices she used, felt like a loose woman when she undressed in front of him, left the bathroom door open after Bernhard had been put to bed and she took a shower, didn’t care for such tricks yet used them: scantily dressed and perfumed, with something like an “enticing look,” and sometimes he would kiss her on the shoulder, perhaps on her cheek, never on her mouth, her breast, and then sometimes he would start to sob against her shoulder and for a while even give up his grumbling and grousing, didn’t even get mad when Bernhard knocked over the can of creosote for the garden fence onto the driveway.

  Hubert became even more silent, sat in front of the TV watching the stupidest things for hours on end, stupid junk, “celebrity cackle” he used to call it—that contrived wittiness, that “halfwit-nitwit dingdong.” Sports—he watched it all, everything, without seeing it. Sometimes, when she had finished in the kitchen and came to sit by him, she saw him with his head in his hands, his face covered with his hands and not even looking at programs that should have interested him: crime reports, security matters, police deployment, helicopter patrols, brother officers, perhaps even himself on the screen—he didn’t even bother to look. And he had stopped going to church choir practice, meeting colleagues for a beer, and she was almost ready to phone Kiernter the psychologist, or Holzpuke, Lühler, or Zurmack, with whom he was now spending most of his time. Yet she preferred this silent phase to the earlier one when he could turn vicious, downright nasty.

  Now she was afraid, not of him, but for him. There was something weighing on his mind, and there was only one thing it could never be, never: a woman. Not that, not with him. It had to be the job, something to do with the job, and she recalled what Zurmack had spilled the last time they had all met for a beer—it must have been all of four weeks ago—when he had been pretty drunk, before Hubert had stopped him: how on one occasion he had had to go shopping for shoes with that young Mrs. Bleibl. “It’s his Number Four, we could never afford that many.… Just put yourself in their place—they must feel pretty lonely, sitting around in their huge offices, and on trips too they’re lonely, and the secretaries are the only ones who know where it hurts, what’s hurting them, and then it happens, and she was his secretary too, and the next will be one too, just put yourself in their place”—and the way she sat there having forty—no, fifty—no, sixty pairs of shoes brought to her and trying them on, smoking and leafing through a magazine, being served coffee, and Zurmack had had to check every single shoe-box before it was opened; the boxes came from the basement or the warehouse, to which there were several rear entrances. How easily someone could have made one of those shoeboxes “hot”—as had happened with the cake for Pliefger. There were plenty of hidden accesses and entrances through which they could easily have slipped in and forced one of the girls, or even taken her place—and so he had not only had to guard the private fitting room but also to open and search every box, and he saw “shoes you only get to see in movies, regular sex sandals of every color and shape, and they weren’t cheap either”—and described in detail how the salesgirls’ faces turned white with anger when, after hours of strutting and stalking around in front of the mirror—and “gold slippers and purple slippers and ‘Oh’s’ and ‘Ah’s’ and slippers that were hardly even slippers”—the “old girl” walked out without buying a single pair. He also told them about going with her to Breslitzer Fashions, all that rustling and whispering “and the lewd giggling in the fitting rooms” and pinning and tucking—“And she’s not that pretty, mind you, certainly not beautiful”—and then the salesgirls at the shoe store and at Breslitzer’s got a dressing down because they hadn’t sold anything, “hadn’t palmed anything off on the old girl.” Then Lühler also started in, talking about his experiences at “certain parties,” describing women “who are practically topless when they meet you as you come on duty—but just watch out if you behave even remotely like you were a normal man appreciating an offer!” and he was just beginning to tell them about a woman who was always drunk and whom he had had to guard in bars—but at that point Hubert intervened and forbade any further discussion of official secrets.

  Good heavens, surely she had enough imagination to know what it must be like, weeks of duty around swimming pools, or at parties where they had to stand at the doors inside and out—watching, listening, being ignored as if they were lampposts or wax figures; always on the alert, unable to relax even for a second, while things were bound to become pretty lively at times, with all that food, liquor, dancing, kissing, and probably worse—and somewhere there must lie the cause of Hubert’s changed nature. Some people—including Mother, Monka, and Karl too, she supposed—had always found him a bit too serious, too severe, had always been surprised when he’d suddenly shown his genial side, his wit and his charm. Hadn’t he danced delightfu
lly with Monka, not exactly flirting but paying her such nice compliments? Everyone had been so surprised that he could be like that too; never angry, rarely annoyed, only on those occasions when he couldn’t avoid being with his parents and his brother Heinz, who had never got over the fact that he had become “only a policeman.” Yes, the father was a “member of the legal profession,” though it turned out later that he was a bailiff; the brother was a lecturer in philosophy, and they let him feel it, that annoyed him, and he sharply reminded his father of the connections between the courts and the police, and demonstrated to his brother the vagueness of his ideas. And the worst thing was when, at any place at any time, regardless of the context, the word “fuzz” was uttered—once Bernhard had been called a “fuzz brat,” and the boy had come home in tears; and on a summer evening one of the guests at a party in the Mittelkamps’ garden had called across the fence: “Come on over and join us, Mr. and Mrs. Fuzz!”—he would go white with rage, ready to start a fight; he was touchy, very touchy—and could be so nice, so kind. Now he was so silent, sad, tired, apathetic, stared at the box, not even interested in sports or police reports. Had even stopped grumbling about those who were responsible for it all, were the cause of it all. Gone was the enthusiasm with which he used to go to church—sometimes, it had seemed to her, a bit ostentatiously; that solemn but joyous insistence on liturgical forms which he described as “his right”; that pride in his Church with which he countered the scoffing of brother officers and neighbors. Expressions such as “Bible wielder” had been used, and at the beer table one of his colleagues had once said: “Good God, Hubert—the priests don’t have that much clout these days—so why all the fuss?” And he had tried to explain, earnestly but in vain, that it had nothing whatever to do with his career, that it was simply a “deep inner need.” And it was true, he had never thought of it in those terms, and the last thing he could be called was an opportunist. After all, he hadn’t joined the police for want of something better: he had gone through all that training and the rigorous drill because he prized order, desired it, wanted to defend order. He desired to be a custodian of order, serious but never without mercy: many a time—as she well knew—he had let petty thieves and shoplifters go and as a result had landed himself in a lot of trouble, and he had explained to her that such people were actually the victims of seduction. He hadn’t even been very hard on streetwalkers when he was on the beat. No, serious he was, but not hard; he had never been hard on her either, apart from that early phase of his change when he had been constantly finding fault.