by Günter Grass
Joseph Koljaiczek remained in hiding for three weeks, trained his hair to take a new part, shaved off his mustache, provided himself with unblemished papers, and found work as a raftsman named Joseph Wranka. But why did Koljaiczek find it necessary to appear before timber merchants and sawmills with Wranka's papers in his pocket, a man who, unbeknownst to the local authorities, had been shoved off a raft in a scuffle above Modlin and then drowned in the Bug River? Because, having given up rafting for a time, Koljaiczek worked in a sawmill near Schwetz and got into a row with the mill boss over a fence Koljaiczek had painted a provocative red and white. No fence sitter himself when it came to politics, the mill boss ripped two slats from the fence, one white and one red, and smashed them to Polish kindling across Koljaiczek's Kashubian back, grounds enough for the battered man, on the following no doubt starry night, to set the newly constructed, whitewashed sawmill ablaze in red, to the greater glory of an indeed partitioned but therefore even more firmly united Poland.
So Koljaiczek was an arsonist, and this several times over, for in the days that followed, sawmills and woodlots all over West Prussia provided tinder for the flare-up of bicolored nationalist feelings. As always when the future of Poland was at stake, the Virgin Mary appeared in the crowd at these conflagrations, and there were eyewitnesses—a few might still be alive today—who claimed to have seen the Mother of God, adorned with the crown of Poland, atop the collapsing roofs of several sawmills. The crowd that always gathers at such great conflagrations is said to have burst out in the Hymn to Bogurodzica, Mother of God—Koljaiczek's fires, we have every reason to believe, were affairs of great solemnity: solemn oaths were sworn.
While Koljaiczek was pursued as an arsonist, the raftsman Joseph Wranka—with an unblemished past and no parents, a harmless, even slow-witted fellow no one was looking for and hardly anyone even knew—had divided his chewing tobacco into daily rations till the Bug swallowed him up, leaving behind his jacket with three days' worth of chewing tobacco and his papers. Since Wranka, having drowned, could no longer show up, and no embarrassing questions were raised about him, Koljaiczek, who was about the same size and had the same round head as the drowned man, crept first into his jacket, then into his skin, complete with official papers and free of any prior conviction, gave up his pipe, took to chewing tobacco, even adopted Wranka's most characteristic trait, his speech impediment, and in the years that followed played the part of an honest and thrifty raftsman with a slight stutter who conveyed entire forests down the Niemen, the Bobr, the Bug, and the Vistula. To which must be added that he even rose to Private First Class in the Crown Prince's Leib-Hussars under Mackensen, for Wranka had not yet done his service, while Koljaiczek, who was four years older than the drowned man, had left a checkered record behind in the artillery at Thorn.
Even as they steal, murder, and set fires, the most dangerous of thieves, murderers, and arsonists are on the lookout for a more respectable trade. By effort or luck, some get that chance: Koljaiczek in the guise of Wranka made a good husband, and was so thoroughly cured of the fiery vice that the mere sight of a match made him tremble. A box of matches lying openly and smugly on the kitchen table was never safe from him, even though he might well have invented them. He cast temptation out the window. My grandmother had a hard time getting a hot lunch on the table by noon. The family often sat in darkness for lack of a match to light the oil lamp.
Yet Wranka was no tyrant. On Sunday he took his Anna Wranka to church in the lower city and allowed her, his legally wedded wife, to wear four skirts one atop the other, as she had in the potato held. In winter, when the rivers were frozen over and times were lean for the raftsmen, he sat like a good fellow on Troyl, where only raftsmen, stevedores, and dockers lived, and watched over his daughter Agnes, who seemed to take after her father, for when she wasn't crawling under the bed, she was hiding in the wardrobe, and when there were visitors she sat under the table with her rag dolls.
Thus little Agnes tried to keep hidden, seeking in her hiding place the same security, though not the same pleasure, that Joseph found under Anna's skirts. Koljaiczek the arsonist had been burned badly enough to understand his daughter's need for shelter. So when it became necessary to build a rabbit hutch on the balcony-like porch of their one-and-a-half-room flat, he added a small addition just her size. In such housing my mother sat as a child, played with dolls, and kept growing. It's said that later, when she was already at school, she threw her dolls away and, playing with glass beads and colored feathers, revealed her first taste for fragile beauty.
Since I'm burning to announce the beginning of my own existence, perhaps I may be permitted to leave the Wrankas' family raft drifting peacefully along without further comment till nineteen-thirteen, when the Columbus was launched at Schichau's; that's when the police, who never forget, picked up the trail of the false Wranka.
It all began in August of nineteen-thirteen, when, as he did toward the end of each summer, Koljaiczek helped man the great raft that floated down from Kiev by way of the Pripet, through the canal, along the Bug as far as Modlin, and from there on down to the Vistula. Twelve raftsmen in all, they steamed upriver on the tugboat Radaune, operated by the sawmill, from Westlich Neufähr along the Dead Vistula as far as Einlage, then up the Vistula past Käsemark, Letzkau, Czattkau, Dirschau, and Pieckel, and tied up that evening at Thorn. There the new sawmill manager came on board, sent to oversee the purchase of timber in Kiev. When the Radaune cast off at four that morning he was said to be on board. Koljaiczek saw him for the first time at breakfast in the galley. They sat opposite each other, chewing, and slurping barley coffee. Koljaiczek recognized him at once. The stout, prematurely bald man had vodka brought for the empty coffee cups. Still chewing, and while the vodka was being poured at the end of the table, he introduced himself: "Just so you know, I'm the new boss, Dückerhoff, and I run a tight ship."
At his bidding the raftsmen reeled off their names in turn as they sat, then drained their cups with bobbing Adam's apples. Koljaiczek gulped his down first, then said "Wranka" and looked Dückerhoff straight in the eye. The latter nodded just as he'd done before, repeated the name Wranka just as he had repeated those of the other men. Yet it seemed to Koljaiczek that Dückerhoff had spoken the name of the drowned raftsman with special emphasis, not pointedly but with a thoughtful air.
The Radaune pounded along against the muddy tide that knew but one direction, deftly avoiding sandbanks with the aid of constantly changing pilots. To right and left, beyond the dikes, the same flat landscape with occasional hills, already harvested. Hedges, sunken lanes, a hollow basin with broom, a level plain between the scattered farms, just made for cavalry attacks, for a division of uhlans to wheel in from the left onto the sand table, for hedge-vaulting hussars, for the dreams of young cavalry officers, for battles long past and battles yet to come, for an oil painting: tartars leaning forward, dragoons rearing up, Brethren of the Sword falling, grandmasters staining their noble robes, not a button missing from their cuirasses, save for one, struck down by the Duke of Mazowsze, and horses, no circus has horses so white, nervous, covered with tassels, sinews rendered with precision, nostrils flaring, crimson, snorting small clouds impaled by lowered lances decked with pennants, and parting the heavens, the sunset's red glow, the sabers, and there, in the background—for every painting has a background—clinging tightly to the horizon, with smoke rising peacefully, a small village between the hind legs of the black stallion, crouching cottages, moss-covered, thatched, and inside the cottages, held in readiness, the pretty tanks, dreaming of days to come when they too would be allowed to enter the picture, to come out onto the plain beyond the Vistula's dikes, like slender colts among the heavy cavalry.
At Włocławek, Dückerhoff tapped Koljaiczek on the jacket: "Say, Wranka, didn't you work at the mill in Schwetz a few years back? The one that burned down afterward?" Koljaiczek shook his head slowly, as if he had difficulty turning it, and his eyes were so sad and tired that Dückerhoff, expo
sed to that look, kept any further questions to himself.
When Koljaiczek, as all raftsmen used to do, leaned over the railing at Modlin and spat three times into the Bug as the Radaune entered the Vistula, Dückerhoff was standing beside him with a cigar and asked for a light. That little word, like the word match, got under Koljaiczek's skin. "You don't have to blush when I ask for a light, man. You're not some little girl, are you?"
Modlin was far behind them before Koljaiczek's blush faded, which was not a blush of shame but the lingering glow of sawmills he'd set on fire.
From Modlin to Kiev—up the Bug, through the canal linking the Bug and the Pripet, till the Radaune, following the Pripet, made its way to the Dnieper—nothing passed between Koljaiczek-Wranka and Dückerhoff that could be recorded as an exchange. It's of course possible that things happened on the tug, among the raftsmen, between the raftsmen and the stokers, between the stokers, the helmsman, and the captain, between the captain and the constantly changing pilots, as one assumes, perhaps rightly, they always do among men. I could imagine disputes between the Kashubian raftsmen and the helmsman, who came from Stettin, perhaps even the beginnings of a mutiny: a meeting in the galley, lots drawn, passwords given out, frog stickers sharpened.
But enough of that. There were no political disputes, no knife fights between Germans and Poles, nor a true mutiny born of social injustice to add local color. The Radaune chugged along eating her coal like a good girl, got hung up on a sandbank once—just beyond Ploch, I think it was—but freed herself under her own power. A brief but bitter exchange between Captain Barbusch from Neufahrwasser and the Ukrainian pilot, that was about it—and the log had little more to add.
But had I wanted or needed to keep a log of Koljaiczek's thoughts, or perhaps even a journal of Dückerhoff's inner life as a master miller, there would have been plenty of incidents and adventures to describe: suspicions aroused, suspicions confirmed, distrust, and distrust quickly quelled. They were both afraid. Dückerhoff more than Koljaiczek: for now they were in Russia. Dückerhoff could have gone overboard, as poor Wranka once had, or—by now we are in Kiev—in lumberyards so vast and confusing that a man can lose his guardian angel in the wooden labyrinth and wind up under a pile of suddenly shifting logs that can no longer be held back—or instead be saved. Saved by Koljaiczek, first to fish the mill master from the Pripet or the Bug, or, in that Kiev lumberyard bereft of guardian angels, yank Dückerhoff back in the nick of time from an avalanche of logs. How touching it would be if I could now report that a half-drowned or nearly crushed Dückerhoff, still breathing heavily, the lingering trace of death in his eyes, whispered in the ear of the ostensible Wranka, "Thanks, Koljaiczek, thanks, old man!" and then, after the obligatory pause, "We're quits now—the slate's clean."
And with gruff bonhomie, smiling awkwardly into each other's manly eyes, blinking back what might have been a tear, they exchange a shy but callused handshake.
We know this scene from magnificently filmed movies, when directors decide to turn two finely portrayed rival brothers into steadfast comrades, who now make their way together through thick and thin to face a thousand adventures.
Koljaiczek, however, found neither the opportunity to drown Dückerhoff nor to snatch him from the claws of death-dealing logs. Ever attentive and alert to his firm's advantage, Dückerhoff bought lumber in Kiev, oversaw the assembly of the nine rafts, distributed, as was customary, a large sum of Russian pocket money for the trip downriver, then boarded the train that took him by way of Modlin, Deutsch-Eylau, Marienburg, and Dirschau back to his firm, whose sawmill lay in the timber port between the shipyards of Klawitter and Schichau.
Before I bring the raftsmen, after weeks of grueling toil, from Kiev back down the rivers, through the canal, and finally into the Vistula, I ask myself if Dückerhoff had positively identified Wranka as the arsonist Koljaiczek. I would say that as long as the mill master was sitting on a steamer with the harmless, good-natured, somewhat slow-witted but generally well-liked Wranka, he hoped his traveling companion was not the hot-blooded criminal Koljaiczek. He only relinquished this hope once he had settled back into the cushions of his train compartment. And by the time the train reached its destination and rolled into Central Station at Danzig—there, now I've named it—Dückerhoff had reached the Dückerhoff Resolutions, had his luggage loaded onto a carriage, sent it rolling homeward, strode briskly, relieved of that luggage, to the nearby police station on Wiebenwall, sprang up the steps to the main entrance, and, after a brief and focused search, found the office, which functioned well enough to wring from Dückerhoff a brief report of the basic facts. Not that the mill master issued a formal complaint. He simply requested that they look into the Koljaiczek-Wranka case, which the police promised to do.
Over the following weeks, as the logs slowly glided downstream with their reed huts and raftsmen, paperwork flowed through various offices. There was the military record of Joseph Koljaiczek, a private in the such-and-such West Prussian Field Artillery Regiment. Twice the unruly private had served the standard three days in the guardhouse for shouting anarchist slogans, half in Polish, half in German, at the top of his lungs while in a state of intoxication. Those were stains not to be found on the papers of Private First Class Wranka, who had served in the Second Leib-Hussar Regiment in Langfuhr. Wranka had performed admirably, making a favorable impression on the Crown Prince during maneuvers as a battalion dispatch runner, and receiving from the Prince, who always carried a few thalers in his pocket, one Crown Prince thaler as a reward. The thaler in question was not, however, mentioned in the military record of Private First Class Wranka, but was instead reported by my loudly complaining grandmother Anna as she was being interrogated along with her brother Vinzent.
Not with that thaler alone did she dispute the term arsonist. She produced a series of documents showing that Joseph Wranka had joined the Volunteer Fire Brigade in Danzig-Niederstadt as early as ought-four as a firefighter, in the winter months, when all the raftsmen were off work, and battled blazes large and small. There was also a certificate declaring that during the great conflagration at the main rail factory on Troyl in ought-nine, Fireman Wranka not only put out the fire but also rescued two apprentice mechanics. Similar testimony was offered by Captain Hecht of the Fire Brigade, who was called as a witness. He stated for the record: "How can someone be an arsonist when he puts out fires? I can still see him now, standing there on the ladder while the church in Heubude was ablaze! A phoenix rising from ashes and flame, extinguishing not only the fire but the conflagration of this world and the thirst of our Lord Jesus Christ! Verily I say unto you: He who dares accuse this man in fireman's helmet, who always has the right of way, beloved by all insurers, bearer always of ash in his pocket, be it residue or symbol of his calling, he who dares call this splendid phoenix a firebug, deserves to have a millstone tied about his neck and..."
You will have noticed that Captain Hecht of the Volunteer Fire Brigade was a preacher, amply endowed with the power of the Word. Each and every Sunday he stood at the pulpit of the Church of St. Barbara in Langgarten and never missed a chance, as long as Koljaiczek-Wranka was under investigation, to hammer home to his congregation in similar terms parables of the heavenly firefighter and the infernal arsonist.
Since, however, the agents of the crime squad didn't attend church at St. Barbara's, and because the word phoenix would have sounded more like lèse majesté to them than a justification of Wranka's actions, the overall effect of Wranka's volunteer firefighting was simply to incriminate him further.
Evidence was gathered from various sawmills, reports sent in from hometowns: Wranka first saw the light of day in Tuchel; Koljaiczek was a native of Thorn. Minor discrepancies in the statements of older raftsmen and distant relatives. The pitcher kept going to the well; what else could it do but crack? When the interrogations had reached this point, the large raft had just entered German territory, and from Thorn on was discreetly monitored and kept under surveillance wherev
er it docked.
It was only below Dirschau that my grandfather first noticed those shadowing him. He'd been expecting them. A temporary spell of lethargy verging on melancholy may well have kept him from making a break for it, at Letzkau, say, or Kâsemark, where, given the familiar territory and the help of a few well-disposed raftaks, as the Polish raftsmen were called, it might still have been possible. Beyond Einlage, as the rafts slowly thumped and bumped their way into the Dead Vistula, an obviously overmanned fishing boat, making a conspicuous effort to be inconspicuous, ran alongside the rafts. Just beyond Plehnendorf, the two motor launches of the harbor police shot forth from a bank of reeds and, tearing back and forth several times, slashed open the increasingly brackish water of the Dead Vistula that heralded the harbor. Beyond the bridge to Heubude the cordon of blue uniforms began. Timber fields facing the Klawitter yards, the smaller shipyards, the timber port spreading outward toward the Mottlau, the landing stages of various sawmills, their own company's dock with their families waiting for them, and blue uniforms everywhere, except across the way at Schichau, where flags were flying, where something else was going on, where something was likely being launched, where a big crowd was stir ring up the gulls, where some sort of celebration was under way—a celebration for my grandfather?
Only when my grandfather saw the timber port filled with blue uniforms, when the motor launches began crisscrossing more and more ominously, sending waves washing across the rafts, only when he grasped the full extent of the costly effort devoted to him, only then did Koljaiczek's old arsonist heart awaken, and he spewed forth the gentle Wranka, sloughed off Wranka the volunteer fireman, loudly and fluently renounced Wranka the stutterer, and fled, fled over the rafts, fled over broad, shifting surfaces, barefoot over unfinished parquet, from long log to long log toward Schichau's, where flags in the wind gaily waved, on over the logs, where something lay in the slips, you can walk on water after all, where they were making fancy speeches, where no one was shouting Wranka, let alone Koljaiczek, where instead it was: I christen you HMS Columbus, America, forty thousand tons, thirty thousand horsepower, His Majesty's Ship, First-Class Smoking Salon, Second-Class Larboard Dining Room, marble gymnasium, library, America, His Majesty's Ship, stabilizers, promenade deck, Heil dir im Siegerkranz, flag of the home port flying, Prince Heinrich at the Helm, and my grandfather Koljaiczek barefoot, barely grazing the logs now, heading toward the brass band, a land that has such princes, from raft to raft, the people cheer him on, Heil dir im Siegerkranz, and all the shipyard sirens and the sirens of all the ships lying in the harbor, the tugboats and the pleasure boats, Columbus, America, liberty, and two launches frantic with joy running along beside him, from raft to raft, His Majesty's Rafts, cut off his path, play spoilsport, force him to stop when things had been going so well, and all alone on a raft he stands and can see America, then the launches are alongside and he has to fling himself off—and they saw my grandfather swimming, swimming toward a raft that was gliding into the Mottlau. And had to dive down because of the launches and stay down because of the launches, and the raft passed over him and seemed without end, gave birth to raft after raft: raft of thy raft, for all eternity, raft.