The Safety Net

by Heinrich Böll

  For their coffee they moved to the living room, which Käthe also called “our tearoom” ever since they had been advised not to use the balcony. Eva Klensch insisted on making the coffee: “Turkish, if that’s all right with you.” It was all right, and they even found some little copper pots in Käthe’s kitchen cabinet. Turkish? She must have picked that up in Lebanon. Or Turkey or Syria? Did she know he was fully informed about her background? That he knew almost everything there was to know about how often she went to church and what she had for Sunday breakfast, her business transactions and her career, her enthusiasm for archery? A sudden wave of embarrassment made him blush. This nice young woman, who was so obviously enjoying the evening, who was a little cockier than he had judged from her photograph, this efficient, friendly little person: there was a dossier on her, and he had perused it, against regulations, driven by curiosity about Blurtmehl, who, there was no denying, was physically closer to him every day than anyone else. What concern of his were Blurtmehl’s motorbikes, his friendship, his love affair? He felt embarrassed, yet had been unable to curb his curiosity.

  In the living room they regrouped: Käthe at last next to Luise, Schröter next to Blurtmehl, and himself at last next to Eva Klensch, who wasn’t much older than Sabine. The coffee had turned out well, was probably too strong but he drank it anyway, apologized with a smile for getting up once again to offer cigars and cigarettes, while Käthe placed brandy and liqueurs on the table for them to help themselves. Schröter spoke of the cigar, at which he sniffed voluptuously, as “a fantastic thing, almost too good to smoke.” Eva took a cigarette, also a liqueur, inquired after his grandchildren, immediately blushed and bit her lip, but he reassured her. “Yes,” he said, “one of them, my oldest grandson, he’s off somewhere, probably in North Africa. Why not talk about it? Now the fourth grandchild is on the way—by my daughter Sabine.” He swallowed the question of whether she didn’t want any children, swallowed what lay on the tip of his tongue and heavily on his mind: Sabine’s worries, and the worries he had about Sabine. He asked her about her work, her business, admired her courage, her enterprise, and was afraid to look really deeply into her eyes. She told him about how quickly fashions changed, about the risks—“It’s like vegetables that wilt”—about competition and struggle, costings and costs, and he discovered that her apparent cockiness was merely the obverse of shyness, and she spoke of Alois, “who is such a faithful and beloved companion to me,” and of her nostalgia for Berlin.

  “Now there’s a real city for you!”

  Käthe and Luise seemed to have had a bit too much to drink, they were not talking now but whispering, village names sounded through the whispering—Kohlschröder again and again—and in the end it was Schröter who said it was time to leave, firmly, simply got to his feet, also not quite steady on his legs, hesitantly holding the half-smoked cigar. No, he couldn’t offer old Schröter another cigar to take along, it would have seemed like a handout, a charitable gesture; one, yes, not two, but if he went about it carefully he might be able to send him a box of them; that would be all right, then it was no longer a handout but a gift. Apparently the two ladies had made some progress after all, they were now openly using first names, for as they were leaving Käthe asked: “Isn’t there something else we can do for you, Luise?” And Luise said: “I’d just love to have a ride in your car, Käthe.”

  “Right now?”

  “Yes, if that’s possible.”

  It could be arranged, only it wasn’t quite far enough to the Kommertz farm, and a detour was decided upon to which Blurtmehl agreed. Eva Klensch insisted on clearing up in the kitchen, wouldn’t take no for an answer, and although he would have preferred to go off to bed he felt obliged to go along on the drive, and the security officer had to be informed. Luise unblushingly observed that the “huge car purrs like a pussycat—you hardly know you’re sitting in a car!” She enjoyed the short drive—Blurtmehl made a few detours, calling it a “lap of honor”—and Käthe showed Luise the built-in conveniences: automatic windows, the little bar, and finally the phone, which she asked to be allowed to use. She called up Katharina, first spoke to Rolf, then to her daughter: “Greetings from the flying carpet to all of you, including dear Mrs. Fischer—and don’t take it too seriously—right? Politics, I mean.” Blurtmehl, who was obviously enjoying Luise’s naïve pleasure, turned on the stereo, inserted a Bach cassette, and Luise actually had tears in her eyes: “See Him, Whom? the Bridegroom Christ, See Him, How? a spotless Lamb.” Schröter, who found all this somewhat embarrassing, wiped away her tears and murmured gently: “My dear, does it really move you so much?” “Yes,” she said, “I’ve never heard it like that, and I’ve sung it so often in the choir.” She accepted the cassette when they reached the Kommertz farm, and Käthe asked Blurtmehl to rewind the tape. Käthe said: “Believe me, I’ve never known anyone to enjoy Bach that much—you must accept it.…”

  “I’d no idea,” said Luise, “that there were such things on tape. I’ll be only too happy to accept it.”

  Behind them the security car, from which two officers jumped out; dogs barking, awkwardness, and Luise’s parting words: “Now you’ll have to come and see us too, we’re relatives, aren’t we? They’re not married, mind you, but they’re our children, and they’re living together properly.”

  He would have preferred to take Käthe’s arm and walk the few hundred yards to the manor, but he got back into the car; the trouble caused by such a nocturnal walk would spoil any possible pleasure in it. Tolmshoven was open on four or five sides, clumps of trees, shrubs, the willows beyond the Hellerbach stream: limited visibility, the road poorly lighted. He could feel the anxiety of the officers, the tension in their courtesy, as he hesitated: he helped Käthe into the car, then followed her, supported by Blurtmehl: that seven- or eight-minute nocturnal stroll through the village was not feasible.

  Blurtmehl was already undergoing a transformation, not yet quite the servant and chauffeur, no longer quite the guest; in any case the solicitude, one might almost say empathy of his touch and movements went beyond the professional; a man, he thought, whose wealth of nuances I am only now discovering, I always considered him a bit aloof.

  It took only two minutes to reach the brightly lit courtyard of the manor: again they got out, again Blurtmehl’s hands, his arm, and Käthe pale again, serious too—as he was about to say something in the elevator she shook her head and pointed to the ceiling, where there was no doubt a microphone, her lips hung slackly, she’d probably had a bit too much to drink. Blurtmehl had run up the stairs and was waiting at the top, concerned for them, in a gentle voice offering treatment, a few exercises, a sponging down, and when they refused with a smile, asked them to “ring if you need me.”

  Eva Klensch had retired for the night: kitchen, living room, dining room, were all neat as a pin. Käthe went into the bathroom, opened the window, looked out: “It struck me,” she said, “that from the Schröters’ you can look straight up here, almost into here, and down there—look—you can see the light in their house. Now Luise is sitting in Katharina’s room, listening to the Bach on a cheap cassette deck, or whatever those things are called. Have you ever been in Katharina’s old room?”

  “No.”

  “It’s almost like a little museum. On the wall there’s her First Communion photo, next to it a reproduction of a Lochner Madonna—Mao, Che Guevara, Marx too, and an Italian whose name I’ve forgotten—and on the bedside table is her old cassette deck. And she’s sitting there now, our good Luise, with tears in her eyes, listening to the Saint Matthew Passion. I’ll get her a better set, a nice new one with a full, rich tone. I’m very tired, Fritz, very tired—and you must be half dead after all those goings-on this morning, those interviews—you did very well.…”

  He came and stood beside her, placed his hand on her shoulder, and looked over to where the light was still burning in the Schröters’ house. “You know, during those interviews I had an idea: one could prepare them in advanc
e, for radio and television, as a sort of stockpile: on amalgamation, wages, cultural affairs, on domestic and foreign policy, on security matters. One could even introduce slight variations to provide a semblance of actuality. While chatting away there I was thinking of something quite different and hardly ever gave a direct answer to a direct question, only where it concerned the children. I must talk to Amplanger about it someday, to see whether that couldn’t be arranged: spending an afternoon to produce a stockpile of interviews. Of course I would have to change my clothes several times: the clothes are more important than the words, the clothes distinguish the various situations more clearly. The background would also have to vary: that’s easily arranged, sometimes a few books in the background, sometimes pictures, sometimes modern furniture, sometimes antiques—that would save a lot of work, a lot of bother—for radio interviews I could change my voice a little, sometimes a bit hoarse, then clear, sometimes alert, sometimes tired.… That would make it possible to tape enough interviews for several years in seven or eight hours. I could tape obituaries as well: for Kortschede, for Pottsieker, Pliefger—maybe for Bleibl, too—for cardinals and presidents—what do you think? Of course, someone from the union would have to agree to a similar manipulation.”

  “They won’t do that, you know how they want everything—what do they call it?—alive.”

  “Live they call it, but then it’s possible that the taped word sounds more alive than the live word—Veronica once tried to explain to me that artificial birds, mechanical ones, can walk more naturally than live birds—I keep thinking about that—in the same way a sound or video tape might sound much more spontaneous than a live interview—what they call live is deader than dead. As dead as the little paper that died under my hands—and proliferates.…”

  “Afraid again?”

  “Afraid of boredom, Käthe, that’s the disease Grebnitzer has not yet discovered. Afraid of the growth that’s like a prairie fire. The next to throw himself at my feet or on my breast will be Küster. With its inexorable logic the computer has predicted Küster’s surrender, up to now Amplanger has always been right in these things. So, after Blume, we’ll swallow Küster, then Bobering, and it will all turn into a gray, horrible newspaper mush, with a few tiny dashes of liberalism. I have allowed our little paper to decay, I have allowed it to die.…”

  “And if you were to retire—completely, once and for all?”

  “I was very close to it, but now—Bleibl must have suspected, or he may have even known from Amplanger. And that’s why he nabbed me at the very last moment—nailed me, if you like. Why is it that I am never bored at Rolf and Katharina’s, not even at Herbert’s, there at least I get annoyed—but at the Bleibls’, not at Kortschede’s, no, or Pottsieker’s, not even at Pliefger’s, but at the Fischers’, and of course never with you. If only we could go for walks together more often. I have a lot of things I’d like to tell you that I wouldn’t exactly care to see immortalized on tape.”

  “So have I—d’you think that here—I don’t think so, we’re talking half out of the window, aren’t we … Rolf explained to me that when you hold your head out of the window, speak and hear outside the window …”

  “He may be right—so let’s talk.…” Mist obliterated the view, a wind came up, banks of fog drifted past, even the trees became invisible, a foggy dampness that turned into rain. The light in the Schröters’ house was no longer to be seen.

  “So if you want to confess a few things to your wife, you have to stick your head out in the rain, and she must stick her head out in the rain to hear them: you’re still the best remedy against boredom—the children, the grandchildren, and I can’t tell you how glad I am Sabine has left Fischer. There have been times when I’ve been bored at her place, at my own daughter’s: I don’t like the kind of houses they build for themselves, don’t like their taste, let alone Fischer’s. Even the finest paintings they have hanging there, paintings I even like, seem like forgeries to me even when they’ve been proved to be genuine—especially then. There’s something about them that kills art, even music—I’m glad our child has left all that behind. Let her stay for a while at Rolf’s.… Come along, we’ll catch cold—d’you hear the screech owls? Don’t be afraid.”

  He closed the window, it was raining harder now, splashing against the panes, and Käthe went over to the corner of the room and turned up the thermostat. “Perhaps you can soon resign—not right now, of course, but in three or four months: illness or something—then they can finally elect Amplanger; why you?”

  “I have an invaluable image—and you know that. Moreover, I’m vulnerable and open to attack—Rolf and Veronica and Holger I—and you know that.… I’ve even been successful.”

  “You? Successful?”

  “Now listen.… Inherited a little newspaper, obtained a license, newsprint, even the journalists to go with it. And expanded … bought a manor house, made president—I’m even efficient, not only successful.…”

  “You efficient?”

  “Now, Käthe …”

  “You gave Eickelhof away without lifting a finger, you’ve already given up Tolmshoven—you can’t get either of your sons even the smallest job on the paper, your daughter’s unhappy.…”

  “Unhappy? It’s years since I’ve seen her so happy. But I won’t claim to be the cause of her happiness.”

  “You’re scared stiff of Bleibl, you’re afraid of Zummerling—oh, Tolm, dear Fritz. We should move from here—drive away, move away.”

  Already in her nightgown, Käthe helped him with his shoes, undid the laces, pulled off his shoes, then his socks—the rest he could manage himself, even hung his jacket, shirt, and trousers on the stand, threw his underwear on the chair, put on his pajamas.…

  He lay down beside her, took her hand, knew she was praying, was silent, listened to the rain, waited until Käthe crossed herself and sent a sigh after her prayer.

  “Sad, old dear?”

  “Yes, it’s my legs. Because I can’t bend down anymore. But it really was a nice evening. I’m glad we finally got together with the Schröters, we must go over there sometime. My children don’t make me sad: Sabine is on the right path, at least I’ll be able to help her. I’m not worried about Rolf and even less about Katharina. Herbert, there’s a lot I don’t understand about him, we shouldn’t have sent him to that boarding school, although that’s what he wanted. Maybe we should move to his place, into that high rise that we own somehow.…”

  “And is ghastly …”

  “Horrible—maybe we should take a whole floor there, with a little apartment for Blurtmehl. But then there would be a helicopter circling over the place, day and night, at least half a police detachment permanently on the balconies and stairs and in the elevators—the people would move out, move away. That’s not a bad idea, Käthe, move away before we’re forced to—why don’t you look for a real estate agent, a house that’s big enough but not too big …?”

  “There are supposed to be some lovely old vicarages around, one could convert them, modernize them. They’re all building those new, bungalow-type things.… I’m so tired, Tolm, don’t forget: Dresden, and the children, and your fourth grandchild is on the way.” Her hand dropped out of his as she fell asleep. He listened to the rain, after a while got out of bed, opened the window a bit, set the thermostat lower, stood by the open window and smoked one more cigarette, he would talk to Holzpuke.… Move away, that was a good idea. Tolmshoven—he had already taken leave of it, it wasn’t all that painful.… Perhaps move to a hotel, a suite for themselves, a smaller one for Blurtmehl. But hotels were hard to keep under surveillance.…

  10

  It was still raining, almost harder than the evening before, and when he looked through the window in the dim early-morning light he could see the puddles in the garden that had formed in the usual places; he could also see the officer pacing up and down between vestry and vicarage under the glass overhang, not the same one as last night, a younger man, with transceiver a
nd machine pistol, a loden cape hanging loosely over his shoulders.

  While holding the telephone to his ear with his right hand and listening to Holzpuke’s elaborate courtesies, he gathered up some kindling as he squatted on his heels, stuffed crumpled paper into the cold stove, piled the kindling on top, and, placing the matchbox upright against the cast-iron foot of the stove, tried to strike a match with his left hand. It worked, the paper flared up, the dry wood immediately started to crackle, he put on some more, placed the larger chunks in readiness, stood up, wiggled his feet into his slippers, pulled his bathrobe tighter, cocked an ear to the left where Sabine was sleeping with the children, to the right where Katharina was sleeping. Fortunately he had heard the phone at once, and no one had been roused; it was still early, just past six-thirty, and he kept repeating: “Yes,” said: “But of course,” said: “By all means—do come over.” This mixture of extreme tension, in fact agitation, and courtesy with which Holzpuke tried again and again to explain his early telephone call, asked for an immediate interview, was nothing new. The only thing new was a certain dejection in Holzpuke’s voice, as he kept asking whether he hadn’t woken the children and the ladies at this early hour, and he seemed barely reassured by Rolf’s soothing “No, no, really you didn’t.”

  “I suppose the simplest way would be for me to come to your place, but where can we talk without being disturbed?”