The Safety Net

by Heinrich Böll

  She arrived with mother, child, and not much luggage, yet it was a permanent move—you could see it, feel it. He was just returning from his round through the park, an inspection of the orangery, and he had stopped in the corner of the inner courtyard so as not to run right into their path, yet stood close enough to permit himself a brief salute: the child raised her arms to wave back—mudhole! And from Sabine’s shoulders and arms, in her face, he could read the finality of the move, and he thought of Fischer: what could have happened? It reminded him of those movies with their silent forebodings, not guilt but fate, tragedy, and his fear was not fear for Sabine, or of job complications, not fear of Fischer, only fear for Helga and his son, who wouldn’t be able to understand any of it. Fear of the millstone around his neck. Who, who could he explain it to?

  6

  In the evenings, after work, the daily ritual Holger insisted upon: walking to the Hermeses’ for the milk. Regardless of the weather, he had to set off between seven and seven-thirty, holding Holger’s hand with his right and the milk pitcher with his left, while Katharina prepared supper: usually soup, bread, and a dessert, and later tea beside the stove before the boy was put to bed. On warm evenings they ate outside, in the garden between the vicarage and the wall, and they always lit a fire, the boy insisted on that, maintaining that “the fire tells such nice stories.” Sometimes they would be joined by the priest, Father Roickler, young and, in a serious way, tense, restless, unable to sit still, always hinting at problems but never talking about them, smoking his cigar, smiling, never letting on that he found the surveillance a nuisance, sitting there quietly after a glass or two, with such a strange, wistful expression in his eyes when he looked at Katharina or the wives of their friends. Sometimes he brought along his housekeeper, an elderly woman, presumably his aunt, who remained suspicious in a confused kind of way, she didn’t know what sort of people they were, was completely bewildered when Father or Mother showed up and the guards with their transceivers stationed themselves around the garden. She “couldn’t understand the world these days,” and she may have been right; who could understand the world, had ever understood it? So old Mr. Tolm senior would sit there humbly accepting tea and cookies from the hands of the woman who wasn’t even really his daughter-in-law. With the woman, the women, one could discuss knitting patterns, or canning and cooking, yet they were—well, what were they? Communists certainly, if not worse, if not “putatively” all kinds of things; vain attempts to explain to the housekeeper the difference between protection and surveillance, no attempts to discuss systems analyses. She was probably surprised, and occasionally implied as much, at the “respectable behavior,” by which she must mean no sex orgies, no obscene language. She gave him the hottest tips whenever any “modernization” was going on in the village: people were again dismantling their old windows and doors somewhere, replacing old beams, even ripping out old paneling and closets, and were glad to have the stuff taken away. All it needed was to be hoisted onto the cart, cut up, chopped up; some of it would be carefully stacked in the shed to be reconditioned and sold—at any rate there was no shortage of firewood, so that baking bread was, if not profitable, certainly without financial risk and helped to save money when their friends turned up regularly to buy it, also when the odd customer in the village bought the tasty loaves, while the priest would hardly eat any other kind. The little bake oven that he had dismantled at Klüver’s and installed in the shed was beginning to pay off. While the women were discussing canning, he remembered how, years ago—it must be at least ten—at Eickelhof, Heinrich had shown Mother figures to prove that, in spite of advertising to the contrary, home canning was cheaper than commercially canned goods; he had called the craze for canned goods and convenience foods a “pseudo-proletarianization,” all those years ago, and had extolled the virtues of the lower middle class: storing potatoes for the winter, home canning, making jam, preserving fruit, and the best way to buy shoes; besides, not only was baking fun, the bread quite simply tasted better, and Katharina was already beginning to consider sharing in a whole side of beef or pork such as was constantly being offered to them, a sort of “home sausage factory, since it looks as if we’ll have to settle in here permanently.”

  The word “permanently” made him uneasy. The priest’s eyes seemed to tell him that there was no guarantee of permanency, and the ritualization of their lives was beginning to lose its soothing effect: in the mornings, work in the garden, work in the shed, pick the crop, store it properly, or clean it or prepare it for sale, while Katharina was out with the children or keeping them occupied in the old vicarage parlor. Here and there he would lend a hand with repairs or the harvest, for which he was generously rewarded in kind; collect wood, chop wood, cut it up—there was plenty to do. He interpreted his desire for the largest possible supply of wood as a desire for security, warmth, and peace—although he had little confidence in that peace, or even in his own peace of mind. No worries about food, rent, clothing, and rarely, very rarely, an allusion to or even a memory of the difficulties, the tensions, of their first year here when there had still been groups that not only were hostile and abusive but had even systematically tried to drive them away. That had been ugly, a nuisance too, and only the fact that Katharina had never whined or complained but instead constantly “put herself in those people’s place” and had thus been able to present her intelligent, sympathetic arguments, had saved them and given them this peace.

  The day’s concluding ritual, going for the milk in the evening, was the strongest and, apart from his casual jobs, the only dependable contact with the farmers. On entering the Hermeses’ dairy with Holger and handing over the pitcher, he was usually served by the grandmother, a shrunken old woman with pale eyes and straggly eyebrows, taciturn like himself. For months, each had interpreted the other’s taciturnity as hostility: wordless handing over of the pitcher, wordless pouring of the liter and a half of milk, wordless handing over of the exact amount of money, and only on reaching home did he discover that it wasn’t a liter and a half but two liters, in fact a bit more, for there was always an extra “titch,” as the farmers called it, and over the years he had learned to judge the quantity of milk by the weight of the pitcher. Since the pitcher held only two and a half liters, and at times—for baking or cooking—two and a half liters were needed, leaving no room for that extra, let alone the titch, they had had to acquire a larger pitcher, one that would take three or four liters, for of course that extra—and even the titch, which, as Katharina said, was at least enough for their coffee—meant a considerable saving, and they needed that. Besides, it so happened that Katharina, although not a farmer’s daughter, had grown up in the annex to a farmhouse, at her Uncle Kommertz’s, and saw no reason why they should let themselves be done out of that extra and the titch. It took a while for him to discover the curiosity in Grandma Hermes’s eyes, ironic curiosity which in due course Katharina explained to him: “Don’t you realize that you happen to be an oddity to these people? You must see that! Setting fire to cars, prison—plus a father they all know and regard as one of themselves.…”

  Later the old woman passed a few remarks about the weather, received an answer, and he even began to find amusement in this litany with its prescribed responses. Then she showed Holger and himself the automatic milking machines, the refrigerating plant, gave Holger an apple, told him about her grandsons’ schools and their varying scholastic achievements. Much later, after almost a year, she shyly asked for the first time after her daughter, “who lives next door to your sister—Mrs. Breuer,” and he had to confess that he had never, not once, been to see his sister and didn’t know Mrs. Breuer, adding: “Trouble with my brother-in-law, you know.” What never ceased to surprise him was: no gossip, not from the other farmers either; they would make their dry comments, but gossip—never, and Katharina had an explanation for that too: among themselves they would gossip about each other, but to an outsider with no knowledge of the life of the village in all its complex
ities: never! Odd: that the men were more talkative, more given to gossip, than the women, hinting, whispering even about the priest, “who does make quite a few trips to Cologne, perhaps too many,” and again Katharina had to explain this, being familiar with it from Tolmshoven: “a trip to Cologne”—that was an ambiguous, maybe more than ambiguous expression that could mean: confession or bordello, in the case of women, of course, it meant shopping or confession, but since a priest never went shopping, and in his (Roickler’s) case a bordello seemed unlikely—mind you, he was still young and “good-looking”—there were only two other possible reasons: a woman or confession, or both; in the old days, the occasional visit to a movie might have been considered possible and accepted, but now with TV the need was less urgent.

  For young Hermes, the farmer, he was quite clearly an amusing figure, also a rich source of information. He asked only once after his sister, quizzed him quite openly about his “former activities,” wanted to know more about Vietnam, was surprised to hear that the people there were farmers just like himself—scorched earth, burned forests, dying cattle—he could still remember the state of fields and forests after World War II; war is always war against farmers—and he also supplied the extra and the titch; both of these were at their smallest when young Mrs. Hermes poured, she was jittery, probably even nervous, would sometimes even spill the milk, she was evidently afraid of him, sorry for Holger, and she would stroke his hair with a gesture as much as to say: He can’t help it, the poor child, and seemed also to regard Katharina as somehow led astray, gave him a little something to take home to her: an egg, or a few nuts. At least he could talk to her about the garden—even though the nervous flicker in her eyes remained; he could ask for tips, also give tips regarding the planting and raising of chard, for instance, or Chinese cabbage, which he had so to speak introduced to the village; but the designation “Chinese”—that already sounded suspect, and he still felt more apprehensive than Katharina on the rare occasions when they went to the tavern in the evening.

  Sometimes the peace in their own home became too oppressive for them, too “woolly,” Katharina would say. At least Katharina spoke their dialect, that made for confidence, and a basis too, and if someone then sat down beside them at the table or the bar they would not react to political questions, even when they weren’t meant as a provocation. They would speak only when asked—about money, interest rates, amortization, currency, and would even risk explaining to them that the interest on savings almost always corresponded to the rate of inflation. Amortization, tax savings, investments—they liked hearing about that, knew he was knowledgeable, and he spoke without polemics, quietly, relying on the system to reveal itself, out of itself, to them: how interest rates were lowered to entice them to spend money. They couldn’t understand why the politicians tried to dissuade them from saving, and he tried to explain why they were doing it, actually had to do it, tried to explain to them more than the stereotype “We’re always being gypped anyway,” and into their eyes came fear of losing the security they had laboriously built up for themselves: house and property and the clothes closets filled, the savings accounts they were now trying to make unattractive by reducing the interest rates in such a mean, drastic way. They had no reason to be afraid, not the least, yet they were, and he began to understand them, helped by Katharina, who found it easier because she spoke their dialect and everyone knew she was a Communist. There was nothing “putative” about her, not the least bit, after all they knew her father, had known her uncle, knew her mother, “pious Luise,” spoke admiringly of his father, his mother: “You bet we’re proud of the Tolms, of Käthe Schmitz!” and they asked him whether it was true that one day Hubreichen, too—and made a sweeping gesture and he shook his head: he knew nothing, yet as soon as they left to go home he was apprehensive again. It was no longer that outright fear, as in the early days: fear that they would smash his windows, set fire to the place, drive them out by force in spite of the priest’s intercession—it was fear of the silence, also of the cleanliness, those clean streets where even during harvest time not a wisp of straw, not a handful of hay, not a turnip leaf, was to be found—nowhere even the vestiges of a cow pat.

  Not that he objected to cleanliness, of course, that was a good, a pleasant thing, or to the flower beds outside the houses, the attractively painted old wagon wheels, the wheelbarrows planted with flowers—but silence and cleanliness within the farm walls seemed like a silence of the grave. Everything was as well tended as the graves in the little cemetery—that was it, a silence of the grave, and in the midst of this silence the son of farmer Schmergen suddenly strung himself up in the stable, for no discernible reason: nothing was ever discovered, no girl, no woman, no trouble in the army—a nice, quiet boy, well liked and a good dancer—never had any problems, never hinted at any—no motive was ever discovered—and yet on a Sunday afternoon, in the quietest hour, he strung himself up in the stable behind the farmhouse: in the silence of the grave and out of a clear blue sky. And then farmer Halster suddenly killed his wife: a giant of a fellow with a big, well-organized, financially sound farm, and in the interminably long wall a little shrine to the Madonna where there were always fresh flowers and lighted candles—affluent, respected, a taciturn man who treated his employees so well that he had almost become a legend. The Halsters had been on this farm for three hundred years, and the number of priests and lawyers, teachers and civil servants, who had gone out in the world from this family, to Cologne and to Australia, was almost beyond computation. There was no war in which a few Halsters hadn’t given their lives, including the Napoleonic and earlier wars—an extended clan, almost a dynasty. And his wife, a handsome creature, almost a beauty, dark-haired, known to be “prudent”—and he shot her dead between his morning pint and dinner. Granted, there were rumors that she had been “depraved,” but that was never properly explained, there was merely talk about their childlessness—but to “Why? Why?” there was no answer. Tragedy, sensation, horror—and even before the news got around the village Halster had driven over to Blückhoven and given himself up to the police—from this quiet, clean village where no wisp of straw was to be found on the street, a pretty village with its ordinary churchgoers, the morning pint, the annual rifle competitions and village fair—and in the evening at Hermes’s that extra half liter with a titch on top.

  A scarifying vision: thinking five or ten years ahead—fear of the loss of permanence, and fear of permanence: gardening, carrots, onions, renewing the wood supply, over and over again: for years, perhaps decades—to reach the age of forty, perhaps fifty, in Hubreichen.…

  Holger was feeling the cold today, he put first his left, then his right hand into Father’s coat pocket: “It looks as if we’ll soon have to get our gloves out of the drawer”; and the milk pitcher had to be switched from left to right. He promised the boy they would roast some chestnuts, they were best for warming the hands, and of course there would be baked apples with custard sauce and playing with him in the evening—building houses—why did children love to build houses, why did they love to sit with their parents beside the warm stove, listening to stories, to songs? Today it was young Hermes who poured the milk, he was pleasant, curious, gave an extra-generous titch, almost like his mother—talked about his children, none of whom wanted to take over the farm: Rolf consoled him: “That’ll change, things will change, before your children are old enough to decide. The day will come when they’ll be fighting each other for the farm.” That made young Hermes laugh: “I hope you’re right!”

  “Just wait and see.…”

  “If I knew you’d still be here then, I’d make a bet: three months’ free milk, if you’re right.”

  “In another five years your Konrad will be eighteen, and probably I won’t be here anymore.…”

  “I wish you’d stay.” That was spoken so forthrightly that they were both embarrassed. Holger squeezed his hand, as much as to say: Yes, stay.

  “That doesn’t depend only on me,” s
aid Rolf.

  “On us? I mean, on the village?”

  “I have a profession,” said Rolf, “I’m a qualified banking expert, what’s more, with some practical experience—but I don’t think they’re about to entrust me with the local branch here.” They could both laugh again, and Hermes said: “My sister, maybe she’ll want to take over the farm—my sister.”