The Tin Drum

by Günter Grass

  So Greff too watched calmly and indulgently from year to year as his Lina turned into an increasingly foul-smelling slattern. I saw him smile when people who meant well called her that. Blowing on his hands, which were well kept in spite of the potatoes, and rubbing them together, I sometimes heard him say to Matzerath, who disapproved of Greff's wife, "Of course you're perfectly right, Alfred. She is a bit slovenly, our good Lina. But don't you and I have our faults too?" If Matzerath didn't let up, Greff would end such discussions in a firm yet friendly manner: "You may be right on the whole, but still she has a good heart. I know my Lina."

  And he may indeed have known her. But she hardly knew him at all. Like the neighbors and customers, she never saw anything more in Greff's relations with the young boys and striplings who visited him so often than their youthful enthusiasm for a nonprofessional yet ardent friend and mentor of the young.

  As for me, Greff neither roused my enthusiasm nor served as my mentor. Nor was Oskar his type. Had I chosen to grow, I might have grown into his type, for my son Kurt, who's now around thirteen, embodies in all his bony lankiness exactly what Greff liked, even though he takes after Maria on the whole, bearing little resemblance to me and none whatever to Matzerath.

  Greff and Fritz Truczinski, who was home on leave, served as witnesses at the wedding of Maria Truczinski and Alfred Matzerath. Since Maria, like her bridegroom, was Protestant, they simply went to the registry. This was in mid-December. Matzerath said his I do in Party uniform. Maria was in her third month.

  The stouter my beloved grew, the more Oskar's hate mounted. I had nothing against her pregnancy. But the fact that the fruit of my loins would one day bear the name of Matzerath destroyed any pleasure in my future son and heir. So when Maria was in her fifth month, much too late of course, I made my first attempt at an abortion. It was around Carnival time. Maria wanted to attach a few paper streamers and two clown masks with bulbous noses to the brass rod over the counter hung with sausages and bacon. The ladder, which normally leaned firmly against the shelves, was placed precariously against the counter. Maria far above, with her hands among the streamers, Oskar far below, at the foot of the ladder. Using my drumsticks as a lever, and helping with my shoulder and the firmest resolve, I lifted the steps up and to the side: Maria gave a soft and terrified cry from among the streamers and masks, the ladder swayed, Oskar sprang aside, and Maria, brightly colored streamers, sausage, and masks all came tumbling down.

  It looked worse than it was. She had only sprained an ankle, had to lie in bed and take it easy, but had suffered no other injury, grew bulkier still, and didn't even tell Matzerath who had helped her sprain her ankle.

  It wasn't till May, about three weeks before she was due, after I made a second try at abortion, that she spoke to her husband Matzerath, without revealing the full extent of the truth. At table, and in my presence, she said, "Little Oskar's so rough lately when he plays, and hits me in the belly sometimes. Maybe he should stay with Mama till the baby comes, she's got lots of room."

  Matzerath heard it and believed it. In reality a fit of murderous rage had led to a very different sort of encounter with Maria.

  She was lying on the sofa during the noon break. Having washed the lunch dishes, Matzerath was in the shop arranging the window display. All was silent in the living room. A fly perhaps, the clock as usual, the radio turned low, reporting the exploits of paratroopers on Crete. I pricked up my ears only when they put on the great boxer Max Schmeling. From what I could gather, he had sprained his world-champion ankle when he parachuted onto Crete's rocky soil, and had to lie down and take it easy now—like Maria, who had to take to bed after her fall from the ladder. Schmeling spoke calmly, modestly; then less prominent paratroopers came on and Oskar stopped listening: silence, a fly perhaps, the clock as usual, very low the radio.

  I sat by the window on my little bench and watched Maria's belly on the sofa. She was breathing heavily and had closed her eyes. From time to time I plied my drum morosely. She didn't stir, but still forced me to breathe in the same room with her belly. Of course there was still the clock, the fly between pane and curtain, and the radio with the rocky island of Crete in the background. All of that faded for me in a split second, I could see nothing but her belly, knew neither in what room that belly swelled nor to whom it belonged, scarcely knew who'd made that belly so big, knew only one desire: That belly has to go, it's a mistake, it's blocking your view, you've got to stand up and do something. So I stood up. You've got to see what can be done. So I went over to the belly and took something with me as I went. You need to let a little air out there, that's a bad case of flatulence. Then I raised what I'd brought with me and sought a spot between Maria's little paws as they breathed along on her belly. You've got to decide once and for all, Oskar, otherwise Maria is going to open her eyes. I could already sense I was being watched, but kept my eyes on Maria's slightly trembling left hand, noticed that she'd drawn back her right hand, that her right hand was planning something, and was not particularly astonished when Maria twisted the scissors from Oskar's grip with her right hand. I may have remained standing there for a few seconds with raised but empty hand, heard the clock, the fly, the announcer's voice on the radio concluding the report from Crete, then I turned and, before the next program could begin—light music from two to three—left our living room, which in view of that space-filling belly was now too crowded for me.

  Two days later Maria bought me a new drum and took me up to Mother Truczinski's second-floor flat, smelling of ersatz coffee and fried potatoes. At first I slept on the sofa, since Oskar declined to sleep in Herbert's former bed, which I feared might still bear traces of Maria's vanilla scent. A week later old man Heilandt lugged my wooden cot up the stairs. I let them set it beside the bed that had remained still and silent beneath me, Maria, and our shared fizz powder.

  Oskar grew calmer, or more apathetic, at Mother Truczinski's. After all, I no longer saw that belly, for Maria shied away from climbing stairs. I avoided our ground-floor flat, the shop, the street, even the courtyard of our building, where, as food shortages became increasingly serious, rabbits were again being raised.

  For the most part Oskar sat with the postcards Airman Second Class Fritz Truczinski sent or brought with him from Paris. They gave me various ideas about Paris, and when Mother Truczinski handed me a postcard of the Eiffel Tower, I began to drum up Paris, entering into the bold ironwork of that construction, began to drum a musette without ever having heard one.

  On the twelfth of June, fourteen days early, according to my calculations, in the sign of Gemini, and not as I had expected in the sign of Cancer, my son Kurt was born. The father in a Jupiter year, the son in a Venus year. The father ruled by Mercury in Virgo, which made him skeptical and ingenious; the son likewise ruled by Mercury, but in the sign of Gemini, endowed with a cold, ambitious intelligence. What in my own case was tempered by Venus with Libra in the house of the ascendant, was aggravated in my son by Aries in the same house; I would come to feel his Mars.

  Mother Truczinski delivered the news like an excited mouse: "Just think, little Oskar, the stork's brought you a little brother. And just when I was thinking, man, just so it's not a lass, with all sorts of trouble later." I scarcely interrupted my drumming on the Eiffel Tower and a newly arrived view of the Arc de Triomphe. Even now that she was Grandma Truczinski, Mother Truczinski didn't seem to expect me to congratulate her. Though it wasn't Sunday, she decided to put on a little rouge, reached for the good old chicory paper, rubbed it on her cheeks to color them, left her rooms freshly rouged, and went down to the ground floor to help Matzerath, the presumptive father.

  As I've said, it was June. A deceptive month. Victories on every front—if you want to call victories in the Balkans victories—but even greater victories lay ahead in the east. A massive army was advancing there. The railroads were kept busy. Even Fritz Truczinski, who had been having such a good time in Paris, had to set out on a journey eastward that would not s
oon end and could not possibly be mistaken for leave. But Oskar sat quietly before the shiny postcards, lingering in a mild, early-summer Paris, casually drumming "Trois jeunes tambours," with no connection to the German occupation army, and thus with nothing to fear from the partisans who might think of throwing him off the bridges of the Seine. No, clad as a civilian I climbed the Eiffel Tower with my drum, enjoyed the vista from the top as expected, felt so good and, in spite of the tempting height, so free from bittersweet thoughts of suicide, that it was only on descending, when I stood three foot one at the base of the Eiffel Tower, that I remembered the birth of my son.

  Voilà, a son! I thought to myself. When he's three years old, he'll get a tin drum. We'll see who the father is—this Herr Matzerath or me, Oskar Bronski.

  In the heat of August—I believe the successful conclusion of another encircling action had just been announced, at Smolensk this time—my son Kurt was baptized. But how did my grandmother Anna Koljaiczek and her brother Vinzent Bronski come to be invited? If I accept once more the version where Jan Bronski is my father, and the calm and increasingly eccentric Vinzent my grandfather on my father's side, there were ample grounds for the invitation. After all, my grandparents were the great-grandparents of my son Kurt.

  Of course this line of reasoning never occurred to Matzerath, who issued the invitation. Even in moments of greatest self-doubt—after losing his shirt in a game of skat, for example—he always regarded himself as a begetter, father, and provider twice over. Oskar saw his grandparents again owing to other factors. The two old people had been Germanized. They were no longer Poles, and only their dreams remained Kashubian. Ethnic Germans they called them, Ethnic Group Three. In addition, Hedwig Bronski, Jan's widow, had married a Baltic German who ran the Local Farm Association in Ramkau. Petitions had already been submitted which, once granted, would allow Marga and Stephan Bronski to take on the name of their stepfather Ehlers. Seventeen-year-old Stephan had volunteered, he was at the Infantry Training Camp at Groß-Boschpol, and chances were good he'd get to visit various European theaters of war, while Oskar, who would soon be of military age himself, would have to wait behind his drum until the army, navy, or perhaps even the air force could think of a way to use a three-year-old tin-drummer boy.

  Local Farm Leader Ehlers took the initiative. Two weeks before the baptism he pulled up at Labesweg in a carriage and pair with Hedwig on the box beside him. He was bowlegged, had a bad stomach, and didn't come close to measuring up to Jan Bronski. He sat a full head shorter beside the cow-eyed Hedwig at the living room table. Even Matzerath was surprised at his appearance. No one could think of anything to say. They discussed the weather, agreed that all sorts of things were happening in the east, that they were making good progress, much better than they had in nineteen-fifteen, as Matzerath, who'd been there in nineteen-fifteen, recalled. They were all at pains to avoid any mention of Jan Bronski till I drew a line through their silent calculations by giving a droll, childish pout and crying out loudly several times for Oskar's uncle Jan. Matzerath gave a start, and made a few amiable remarks followed by some thoughtful words about his former friend and rival. Ehlers quickly chimed in at some length, though he'd never laid eyes on his predecessor. Hedwig even produced a few authentic tears that rolled slowly down her cheeks and offered the concluding observation on Jan: "A good man he was. And wouldn't hurt a fly. Who'd think he'd end like that, he was always such a scaredy-cat, scared of the least little thing."

  Moved by these words, Matzerath asked Maria, who was standing behind him, to fetch a few bottles of beer, and asked Ehlers if he played skat. Ehlers was sorry to say he didn't, but Matzerath was magnanimous enough to forgive the Local Farm Leader this minor shortcoming. He even clapped him on the shoulder and assured him, with beer already in their glasses, that it didn't matter if he couldn't play skat, they could still be friends.

  So Hedwig Bronski found her way back to our flat as Hedwig Ehlers, and, along with her Local Farm Leader, brought her former father-in-law Vinzent Bronski and his sister Anna to my son Kurt's baptism. Matzerath seemed to be in the know, gave the old folks a loud, friendly welcome on the street, beneath the neighbors' windows, and said in the living room, when my grandmother reached under her four skirts and pulled out the baptismal gift, a fine fat goose, "You didn't have to do that, dearie. I'm just glad you came, even if you didn't bring a thing." But that didn't sit right with my grandmother, who wanted some appreciation for her goose. She slapped her flat palm on the fat bird in protest: "Don't be like that, Alfie. This is no Kashubian goose, it's ethnic German, and tastes just like before the war."

  That solved all the ethnic problems, and there were no further difficulties till the baptism, when Oskar refused to set foot in the Protestant church. Even when they fetched my drum from the taxi, used it as bait, and kept assuring me that drums could be carried openly in Protestant churches, I remained the blackest of Catholics and would sooner have poured a brief, summary confession into Father Wiehnke's pastoral ear than listen to a Protestant baptismal sermon. Matzerath gave in. He probably dreaded my voice and attendant claims for damages. So while the baptism took place in the church I stayed in the taxi and examined the back of the driver's head, scrutinized Oskar's face in the rearview mirror, and recalled my own baptism all those years ago and Father Wiehnke's repeated attempts to drive Satan from the infant Oskar.

  After the baptism we ate. Two tables were shoved together and we started with mock turtle soup. Spoons and bowl rims. The country folk slurped. Greff crooked his little finger. Gretchen Scheffler bit into the soup. Guste smiled broadly over her spoon. Ehlers talked with the spoon in his mouth. With a shaky hand Vinzent searched with his spoon. Only the old women, Grandmother Anna and Mother Truczinski, were devoting themselves wholly to their spoons, while Oskar, dropping the spoon so to speak, slipped off while they were still spooning, and sought his son's cradle in the bedroom, for he wanted to think about his son, while the others shriveled up behind their spoons with blank minds, spooned out, in spite of all the soup they were spooning in.

  Light blue tulle heavens over the little basket on wheels. Since the basket's rim was too high, all I could spot at first was something reddish blue and pinched. I placed my drum under me and watched my son twitching nervously in his sleep. O paternal pride, always seeking grandiose phrases. Since I could think of nothing in the infant's presence but the brief sentence, When he's three years old he'll get a drum—since my son offered no information about the inner world of his thoughts, since I could only hope that, like me, he might belong to the race of clairaudient infants, I again promised him a tin drum on his third birthday, repeated it several times, descended from my own drum, and tried my luck once more with the grownups in the living room.

  They were just finishing off the mock turtle soup. Maria brought out the sweet green canned peas in butter. Matzerath, who was responsible for the pork roast, served it himself from the platter: he removed his jacket, cut slice after slice in his shirtsleeves, and looked with such unabashed tenderness at the tender juicy meat that I had to avert my eyes.

  The greengrocer Greff was served separately. He was given canned asparagus, hardboiled eggs, and radishes with cream, since vegetarians don't eat meat. Like everyone else, however, he took a dollop of homemade mashed potatoes, but didn't pour sauce from the roast over them, using instead the browned butter an attentive Maria brought him from the kitchen in a sizzling pan. While the others drank beer, Greff had a glass of fruit juice. They talked about the encirclement of Kiev, counted up the number of prisoners on their fingers. Ehlers, the Baltic native, was particularly deft at this; he shot up a finger for each hundred thousand, and then when his spread hands had reached a million, he continued to count by lopping the top off one finger after another. When they'd exhausted the subject of Russian prisoners of war, who grew increasingly worthless and uninteresting as their numbers increased, Scheffler told us about the U-boats in Gotenhafen, and Matzerath whispered in my grandmother Anna's
ear that two submarines a week were being launched at Schichau. Upon which the greengrocer Greff explained to the guests why submarines had to be launched sideways rather than stern first. He tried to give them a vivid picture of the whole procedure, using gestures that a few of the guests, who were fascinated by U-boats, imitated attentively and awkwardly. Vinzent Bronski knocked over his beer glass with his left hand trying to duplicate a diving U-boat. My grandmother scolded him. But Maria calmed her down, said it didn't matter, the tablecloth was going into the wash tomorrow anyway; you had to expect a few stains at a baptismal dinner. And there came Mother Truczinski with a rag to sop up the puddle of beer, and in her left hand she held the big crystal bowl full of chocolate pudding with cracked almonds.

  Oh, if that chocolate pudding had only had some other sauce, or none at all! But it had to be vanilla. Vanilla sauce: flowing thick and yellow. A totally banal vanilla sauce, commonplace, yet unparalleled. There may be nothing in this world as joyous as vanilla sauce, nor anything as sad. The vanilla gently released its fragrance, enveloping me more and more in Maria, prime source of all vanilla, so that I could no longer bear to look at her, sitting there by Matzerath, holding his hand in hers.

  Oskar scooted down off his little chair, clinging tightly to Frau Greff's skirts as he did so, remained lying at her feet as she spooned away, and partook for the first time of Lina Greff's own particular effluvium, which instantly shouted down, swallowed up, killed off all vanilla.

  As sourly as it struck me, I persevered on this new aromatic course till all my memories connected with vanilla seemed numbed. Slowly, silently, and steadily, I was overcome by a liberating nausea. While the mock turtle soup, chunks of roast pork, nearly intact canned green peas, and a few small spoonfuls of chocolate pudding with vanilla sauce escaped me, I realized my helplessness, floundered in my helplessness, spread Oskar's helplessness out at the feet of Lina Greff—and decided from then on to carry my helplessness daily to Frau Greff.