The Tin Drum

by Günter Grass

  We didn't set that fire. Perhaps the Schichau apprentices did, or it may have been members of the Westerland Society. The Dusters were no arsonists, though I, their spiritual rector, may have tended toward arson on my grandfather Koljaiczek's side.

  I remember well the mechanic who'd been transferred to Schichau from the Deutsche Werke in Kiel and visited us shortly after the gangs split up. Erich and Horst Pietzger, sons of a docker on Fuchswall, brought him to us in the cellar of the Puttkamer villa. He examined our storehouse carefully, deplored the absence of usable weapons, but still found a few grudging words of praise, and when he asked to see the gang leader and was directed, at once by Störtebeker and more hesitantly by Moorskiff, to me, he succumbed to such a gale of arrogant laughter that Oskar was within a hair of turning him over to the Dusters for a dusting.

  "What kind of gnome is that?" he said to Moorskiff, jerking his thumb over his shoulder at me.

  Before Moorskiff, who smiled awkwardly, could reply, Störtebeker answered with ominous calm, "That's our Jesus."

  This proved too much for the mechanic, whose name was Walter, and he felt free to burst out angrily right in our own headquarters, "Say, are you political activists or a bunch of choirboys practicing for a Christmas play?"

  Störtebeker opened the cellar door, gestured to Pinchcoal, let the blade of his paratrooper knife spring from the sleeve of his jacket, and said, more to the gang than to the mechanic, "We're choirboys practicing for a Christmas play."

  But the mechanic suffered no harm. He was blindfolded and led from the villa. Soon we were left to ourselves, for the apprentices from the Schichau shipyards dropped out and started a gang of their own under the mechanic's leadership, and I'm sure they're the ones who set the training submarine on fire.

  From my point of view, Störtebeker had answered correctly. We were politically neutral, and once the Hitler Youth patrols were intimidated enough that they rarely left their quarters, or at most checked the identity papers of flighty young girls hanging around Central Station, we shifted our field of action to the churches and, in the words of the radical left-wing mechanic, began rehearsing for Christmas plays.

  Our first concern was to find replacements for the apprentices, good members all, who had been wooed away. At the end of October, Störtebeker swore in the brothers Felix and Paul Rennwand, choirboys from the Church of the Sacred Heart. Störtebeker had approached them through their sister Luzie. In spite of my protests, this young girl, who was not yet seventeen, was at the swearing-in ceremony. The Rennwand brothers had to place their left hands on my drum, which the gang, overly romantic as they could sometimes be, regarded as some sort of symbol, and repeat the Duster oath: a text so daft and filled with hocus-pocus that I can no longer remember it.

  Oskar watched Luzie during the ceremony. She hunched her shoulders, held a slightly trembling sausage sandwich in her left hand, gnawed on her lower lip, held her triangular fox face rigid, burned her eyes into Störtebeker's back, and I feared for the future of the Dusters.

  We started redecorating our cellar. Operating out of Mother Truczinski's flat, working with the choirboys, I directed the acquisition of our furnishings. From St. Catherine's we brought in what turned out to be an authentic sixteenth-century half-size Joseph, a few candelabra, some utensils from the Mass and a Corpus Christi banner. A nocturnal visit to Trinity Church yielded a trumpet-blowing wooden angel of no particular artistic interest and a colored tapestry to decorate our walls. A copy based on an earlier work, it showed a foppish young lady with a mythical beast known as the unicorn, who was entirely devoted to her. Though Störtebeker was right when he said that the woven smile of the lady in the tapestry had the same playful cruelty as the smile on Luzie's fox face, I still hoped my lieutenant was not as prone to devotion as that fabulous unicorn. When the tapestry was hanging on the far wall of the cellar, which had formerly been decorated with all sorts of nonsense like Black Hands and Death's Heads, and the unicorn motif at last dominated our deliberations, I asked myself: Why oh why, Oskar, when Luzie sniggers behind your back, why this second woven Luzie, who turns your lieutenants into unicorns, when living and woven she has eyes for you alone, for you alone, Oskar, are truly fabulous, the solitary beast with the decoratively spiraled horn.

  How fortunate that Advent season was upon us, allowing me to block off the tapestry with life-size, crudely carved nativity figures evacuated from neighborhood churches, so the tapestry's fable no longer incited the boys. In mid-December Rundstedt began his offensive in the Ardennes, and we completed preparations for our major coup.

  After attending ten o'clock Mass several Sundays in a row hand in hand with Maria, who to Matzerath's consternation was entirely immersed in Catholicism, and having ordered the entire Duster gang to attend church too, I was well enough acquainted with the layout that, on the night of the eighteenth to the nineteenth of December, with the help of the choirboys Felix and Paul Rennwand, and without Oskar's having to singshatter any glass, we were able to break into the Church of the Sacred Heart.

  Snow fell but didn't stick to the ground. We stowed the three handcarts behind the sacristy. The younger Rennwand had the key to the main entrance. Oskar went in first, led the gang one by one to the holy-water font, had them kneel toward the high altar in the central nave. Then I ordered them to cover the statue of Jesus of the Sacred Heart with a Labor Service blanket, lest his blue gaze interfere with our work. Thumper and Mister carried the tools down the left nave to the left side-altar. First the stable full of nativity figures and evergreen boughs had to be evacuated to the central aisle. We already had all the shepherds, angels, sheep, asses, and cows we needed. Our cellar was filled with extras; only the leading players were still missing. Belisarius cleared the flowers off the altar table. Totila and Teja rolled up the carpet. Pinchcoal unpacked the tools. Oskar knelt behind a small prayer stool and supervised the dismantling.

  First the boy Baptist in his chocolate-colored shaggy pelt was sawed off. It's a good thing we'd brought along a hacksaw. Inside the plaster, finger-thick metal rods connected the Baptist to the cloud. Pinchcoal sawed. He did it like a grammar-school boy, awkwardly. Once again the apprentices from the Schichau shipyards were sorely missed. Störtebeker took over for Pinchcoal. Things went a little better, and after half an hour's rasping we were able to shift aside the boy Baptist, wrap him in a wool blanket, and immerse ourselves in the nocturnal silence of the church.

  Sawing off the boy Jesus took longer, since his whole bottom was attached to the Virgin's left thigh. Thumper, the elder Rennwand, and Lionheart spent a good forty minutes at it. But where was Moorskiff? He'd planned to come straight from Neufahrwasser with his gang and meet us at the church so our approach wouldn't attract too much attention. Störtebeker was in a bad mood and seemed nervous. He kept asking the Rennwand brothers about Moorskiff. When, as we all had expected, Luzie's name came up, Störtebeker asked no more questions, grabbed the hacksaw from Lionheart's clumsy hands, and finished off the boy Jesus in a grim and savage flurry.

  While the figure was being shifted its halo broke off. Störtebeker apologized to me. With difficulty I repressed the irritability that had taken hold of me and had them gather the pieces of gilded plaster plate in two caps. Pinchcoal thought he could repair the damage with a little glue. The sawed-off Jesus was cushioned with pillows, then wrapped in two wool blankets.

  Our plan was to saw off the Virgin above the pelvis and then make a second cut between the soles of her feet and the cloud. We would leave the cloud in the church and cart the two halves of the Virgin, Jesus for sure, and if possible the boy Baptist to the Puttkamer cellar. As it turned out, we had overestimated the weight of the plaster pieces. The entire group was hollow cast, the walls were no more than an inch thick, and only the iron framework posed difficulties.

  The boys were exhausted, especially Pinchcoal and Lionheart. They had to be given a break, since the others, even the Rennwand brothers, couldn't saw. The gang sat scattered on the pews
, shivering. Störtebeker stood crumpling his velour hat, which he'd removed upon entering the church. I didn't like the mood. Something had to be done. The gang was suffering from the effects of the sacred architecture, empty and nocturnal. Moorskiff's absence was causing some tension too. The Rennwand brothers seemed to be afraid of Störtebeker; they stood off to one side whispering till Störtebeker ordered them to quiet down.

  Slowly, and with a sigh as I recall, I rose from my prayer cushion and went straight up to the Virgin, who was still in her place. Her gaze, meant for John, now rested on the altar steps filled with plaster dust. Her right forefinger, hitherto aimed at Jesus, pointed off into the void, or, rather, into the darkness of the left nave. I climbed one altar step after another, then looked back, sought Störtebeker's deep-set eyes; they were lost in thought till Pinchcoal jabbed him and awakened him to my summons. He looked at me with an uncertainty I'd never seen before, didn't understand, then finally understood, or understood in part, approached slowly, much too slowly, but took the altar steps in a single bound and lifted me onto the white, somewhat jagged surface of the Virgin's left thigh, which bore witness to a poorly wielded saw and roughly reproduced the impression of the boy Jesus' behind.

  Störtebeker turned round at once, was on the flagstones in a single stride, ready to immerse himself again in his thoughts, but then turned his head, narrowed his closely set eyes to flickering pilot lights, and along with the rest of the gang in the pews, could not conceal the impact I made sitting there so matter-of-factly in Jesus' place, ready for and worthy of their worship.

  He soon saw what I was after, quickly grasped my plan and even enlarged upon it. He ordered Narses and Bluebeard to aim the two flashlights they'd used during the dismantling directly at me and the Virgin, and since the torches blinded me, told them to use the red beam, waved the Rennwand brothers over, whispered with them, he wanted something they didn't want, Pinchcoal approached without being summoned by Störtebeker and bared his knuckles for a dusting; the brothers gave in and disappeared into the sacristy, shadowed by Pinchcoal and Mister. Oskar waited calmly, adjusted his drum, and was by no means surprised when Mister, who was tall, came back in priest's robes, along with the Rennwand brothers got up as red and white choirboys. Pinchcoal, wearing most of the curate's garb, had everything necessary for a Mass, spread the equipment out on the cloud, and slipped away. The older Rennwand held the censer, the younger the bells. In spite of the robes, which were much too large for him, Mister gave a fair imitation of Fa ther Wiehnke, at first with schoolboy cynicism, but then, carried away by the text and sacred ritual, offered us all, and myself in particular, not some silly parody but a Mass that the court always referred to later as a Mass, albeit a black one.

  The three boys began with the preparatory prayers at the altar steps: the gang in the pews and on the flagstones genuflected and crossed themselves, and Mister, who knew most of the words and was backed up by the trained choirboys, began to sing the Mass. With the Introitus I had already begun cautiously plying the tin with my drumsticks. The Kyrie I accompanied more forcefully. Gloria in excelsis Deo — I praised on my drum, summoned to prayer, substituted a long drum solo for the Epistle from the daily mass. I was particularly pleased with my performance for the Hallelujah. During the Credo I could see that the boys believed in me, drummed rather more softly during the Offertory, had Mister present bread, mix wine with water, waft incense over me and the chalice, watched to see how Mister would handle the Lavabo. Orate, fratres, I drummed in the red glow of the flashlights, led up to the Transubstantiation: This is My body. Oremus, sang Mister, reminded by holy pattern — the boys in the pews offered me two different versions of the Lord's Prayer, but Mister managed to unite Catholics and Protestants in one Communion. While they were still partaking, I drummed the Confiteor into them. The Virgin pointed her finger at Oskar, the drummer. I took up the Imitation of Christ. The Mass went smooth as silk. Mister's voice rose and fell. How beautifully he pronounced the benediction — pardon, absolution, and remission — and when he confided the final words, ite, missa est — Go, it is the dismissal — to the church's interior, the dismissal was a true spiritual release, and secular imprisonment could henceforth only befall a gang of Dusters strong in faith, strengthened in Oskar's and Jesus' name.

  I had heard the cars during the Mass. Störtebeker turned his head too, so we were the only ones not surprised when voices sounded at the entrance, the sacristy, and from the right side door, and boot heels rang out on the flagstones.

  Störtebeker wanted to lift me off the Virgin's thigh. I waved him away. He understood Oskar, nodded, forced the band to keep kneeling, to await the cops kneeling, and the boys stayed down, a few trembling fell to both knees, but all waited silently till they made their way to us down the left aisle of the central nave and from the sacristy and surrounded the left side-altar.

  Several harshly glaring flashlights, not set on red. Störtebeker rose, crossed himself, stepped toward the flashlights, handed his velour hat to the still kneeling Pinchcoal, and advanced in his raincoat toward a bloated shadow with no flashlight, toward Father Wiehnke, pulled something skinny that flailed about from the shadow into the light, Luzie Rennwand, and slapped away at the girl's pinched triangular face under the beret till a blow from a policeman sent him flying into the pews.

  "Man, Jeschke," I heard one of the cops cry from my perch on the Virgin, "that's the chief's son!"

  Oskar, with a sense of modest satisfaction at having had the son of a police chief as an able lieutenant, let himself be taken into custody without a struggle, playing the role of a whimpering three-year-old misled by teenagers: Father Wiehnke picked me up in his arms.

  The police were the only ones shouting. The boys were led away. Father Wiehnke, feeling faint and sinking onto the nearest pew, had to put me down on the flagstones. I stood by our equipment and discovered, behind the chisels and hammers, the basket full of sausage sandwiches that Thumper had prepared before we started on our mission.

  I grabbed the basket and went up to Luzie, who was shivering in her thin coat, and offered her the sandwiches. She picked me up, held me in her right arm, hung the basket with the sausage sandwiches over her left, a sandwich moved rapidly from her fingers to her teeth, and I watched her burning, beaten face with its crowded features: the eyes restless behind two black slits, the skin as if hammered, a chewing triangle, doll, Black Cook, devouring sausage and skin, growing skinnier as she fed, more ravenous, more triangular, more doll-like—a look that left its mark upon me. Who will remove that triangular mark from my brow, and from my mind? How long will it chew away inside me, chewing sausage, skin, and men, and smiling as only that triangle and ladies in tapestries taming unicorns can smile?

  As Störtebeker was led away between two officers and turned his blood-smeared face to Luzie and Oskar, I looked right past him, no longer recognized him, and surrounded by four or five cops, was car ried along behind my former Duster gang in the arms of the sandwich-eating Luzie.

  What stayed behind? Father Wiehnke stayed behind with our two flashlights, still set on red, surrounded by hastily cast-off choir robes and priest's garments. Chalice and monstrance remained on the altar steps. A sawed-off John and a sawed-off Jesus remained with the Virgin once meant to serve as a counterweight to the tapestry with lady and unicorn in our Puttkamer cellar.

  Oskar, however, was carried away toward a trial that I still call the second trial of Jesus, a trial that ended with my acquittal, and hence that of Jesus.

  The Ant Trail

  Imagine, if you please, a swimming pool tiled in azure blue, and in that pool, feeling suntanned and athletic, people swimming. At the edge of the pool men and women recline outside the bathing cabins. Some music from a loudspeaker perhaps, playing softly. Healthy boredom, an easygoing, casual eroticism that tautens swimsuits. The tiles are smooth, but no one slips. A few signs with rules; but these too are unnecessary, for those who swim have come for just an hour or two and break the rules elsewhe
re. Now and then someone dives from the three-meter board but does not merit the attention of those swimming or tempt those lying at poolside to look up from their magazines. Suddenly a breeze. No, not a breeze. A young man, slowly, resolutely climbing the ladder of the ten-meter tower, rung by rung. The magazines with commentaries from Europe and abroad droop, eyes rise with him, bodies at rest now stretch, a young woman shades her eyes, someone loses his train of thought, a word remains unspoken, a minor flirtation, barely begun, comes to a sudden end in midsentence—for now he stands on the platform, well built, virile, takes a little hop, leans against the gently curving tubular steel railing, gazes down as if bored, casts off from the rail with an elegant thrust of the hips, ventures out upon the diving board towering high above, which dips at each step, looks down, his gaze tapering to an azure, startlingly small pool below in which red, yellow, green, white, red, yellow, green, white, red, yellow bathing caps constantly rearrange themselves. His friends must be sitting there, Doris and Erika Schüler, Jutta Daniels with her boyfriend, who's not at all right for her. They wave, Jutta waves too. Careful not to lose his balance, he waves back. They call out. What do they want? Do it, they call out, dive, cries Jutta. But he wasn't planning on that at all, just wanted to see what it looked like from up there and then climb back, slowly, rung by rung. And now they're shouting to him, so that everyone can hear, shouting loudly: Jump! Go on! Jump!