The Tin Drum

by Günter Grass

  In response to my request, the accused, after some hesitation, slipped the ring off the ring finger—it came off easily—and onto the little finger of my left hand. It fit well and pleased me. Of course I had descended from my customary fork before trying the ring on. We stood on either side of the fence, introduced ourselves, chatted, touching on various political topics, till we felt comfortable, and then he gave me the ring. He kept the finger, holding it carefully. We agreed that it was a woman's finger. While I wore the ring and let the light play on it, the accused began tapping out a lively little dance rhythm on the fence with his free left hand. The fence in front of my mother's garden is so naturally unstable that it responded in its wooden way to the drumming of the accused by rattling and vibrating. I don't know how long we stood like that, conversing with our eyes. We were engaged in this most innocent of games when an airplane's engines sounded at midrange above us. It was probably coming in for a landing at Lohausen. Though we were both curious to know if the incoming plane would land with two engines or four, we kept our eyes on each other and didn't look up at the plane; later on, when we had occasion to play the game now and again, we named it Crazy Leo's Asceticism, since the accused claims that he had a friend by that name some years ago with whom he played this little game, mostly in cemeteries.

  When the plane had found its landing field—whether on two or four engines I really can't say—I gave back the ring. The accused placed it on the ring finger, used his handkerchief as packing material again, and asked me to come with him.

  This was on the seventh of July, nineteen fifty-one. At the tram terminal in Gerresheim we took a taxi instead of a tram. The accused demonstrated his generosity toward me on many subsequent occasions as well. We drove into the city, asked the taxi to wait outside the dog-rental agency near St. Roch's Church while we turned in the dog Lux, reentered the taxi, which took us straight across the city, through Bilk and Oberbilk, to Wersten Cemetery, where Herr Matzerath had a fare of more than twelve marks to pay; only then did we visit the gravestone shop of the stonecutter Korneff.

  The place was filthy and I was glad when the stonecutter had completed my friend's commission, which took about an hour. While my friend described the various tools and types of stone to me in loving detail, Herr Korneff, who said not a word about the finger, made a plaster cast of the finger, without its ring. I watched him work with only half an eye, but saw the finger had to be prepared; it was smeared with grease, sewing thread was run around it, then plaster was poured on and the mold split in two with the string before the plaster hardened. I'm a window dresser by trade, so making a plaster cast is nothing new to me, but the moment the stonecutter picked up the finger I felt it took on an unaesthetic quality, which it did not shed until the cast was made and the accused retrieved the finger, wiped the grease off and tucked it away in his handkerchief. My friend paid the stonecutter. At first he didn't want to take anything, since he considered Herr Matzerath a colleague. He also said Herr Oskar had popped his boils for him a while back and hadn't asked anything for that. When the plaster had hardened, the stonecutter opened the mold, placed the cast next to the original, promised to make more castings from the mold in the next few days, and accompanied us through his display of gravestones out onto Bittweg.

  A second taxi ride brought us to the central train station. There the accused treated me to a lavish dinner at a fine restaurant. From his familiar tone with the waiters I gathered Herr Matzerath must be a regular guest there. We ate breast of ox with fresh horseradish, then Rhine salmon, followed by cheese, and finished with a small bottle of champagne. When the conversation drifted back to the finger and I advised the accused to regard it as lost property and turn it in, since he now had a plaster cast of it, the accused stated firmly and decisively that he considered himself its rightful owner, since he'd been promised just such a finger on the occasion of his birth, though in coded form, using the word drumstick; he also mentioned the finger-length scars on his friend Herbert Truczinski's back which had prophesied the ring finger; and then there was that empty shell at Saspe Cemetery, it too had the size and significance of a future ring finger.

  Though I smiled at first at my newfound friend's reasoning, I have to admit that any open-minded person would easily grasp the sequence: drumstick, scar, shell, ring finger.

  A third taxi took me home after dinner. We agreed to meet again, and when, three days later, I kept my appointment with the accused, he had a surprise in store for me.

  First he showed me his flat, or rather his rooms, for Herr Matzerath lives as a lodger. He seems to have rented a shabby former bathroom to begin with, but later, when his percussive artistry brought him prestige and prosperity, he also paid rent on a windowless room he called Sister Dorothea's chamber, and did not balk at paying for a third room as well, which had been occupied by a certain Herr Münzer, a musician and colleague of the accused, laying out a huge sum, for Herr Zeidler, the landlord of the flat, had raised the rents shamelessly, knowing how prosperous Herr Matzerath had become.

  It was in Sister Dorothea's so-called chamber that the accused had prepared his surprise. On the marble top of a mirrored washstand stood a jar the size my mother Alice von Vittlar uses for canning the applesauce she makes from our cooking apples. But this jar contained a ring finger floating in alcohol. The accused proudly showed me several thick medical books that had guided him in preserving the finger. I leafed quickly through the books, barely glancing at the illustrations, but admitted that the accused had done an excellent job of preserving the ring finger's appearance, and that the jar with its contents looked quite pretty and decorative in front of the mirror, which, as a professional window dresser, I was in a position to confirm.

  When the accused saw I had accustomed myself to the sight of the jar, he confessed that he occasionally prayed to the jar. Curious, I inquired somewhat boldly if he could give me a sample of his prayers. He requested a favor in return, gave me pencil and paper, and asked me to write down his prayer and pose questions about the finger, which he would answer to the best of his ability as he prayed.

  I herewith offer in testimony the words of the accused, my questions, his answers—the Adoration of a canning jar: I adore. Which I? Oskar or I? I piously, Oskar distractedly. Devotion, perpetual, without fearing repetition. I discerning, lacking all memory. Oskar discerning, filled with memories. I cold, hot, warm. Guilty if questioned. Innocent if not. Guilty because, came to grief because, guilty in spite of, absolved myself from, shifted all onto, fought my way through it, kept myself free of it, laughed over at in, cried about for without, blasphemed in speaking, blasphemed in silence, don't speak, don't stay silent, adore. I adore. What? Jar. What jar? That jar. What does the jar hold? The jar holds the finger. What finger? Ring finger. Whose finger? Blond. What blond? Medium height. Medium height five foot four? Medium height five foot five. Distinguishing features? A mole. Mole where? Inner upper arm. Left right? Right. Ring finger where? Left. Engaged? Yes, but not married. Religion? Protestant. Virgin? Virgin. Born when? Don't know. When? Near Hanover. When? In December. Sagittarius or Capricorn? Sagittarius. Character? Timid. Good-natured? Hardworking, talkative. Sensible? Thrifty, levelheaded but cheerful. Shy? Likes sweets, sincere and bigoted. Pale, dreams of travel, irregular periods, lazy, likes to suffer and talk about it, lacks imagination, passive, takes things as they come, a good listener, nods in agreement, folds her arms, lowers eyelids when speaking, opens eyes wide when addressed, light gray with brown near the pupil, ring was a gift from her boss, a man who was married, refused it at first and then took it, shocking event, fibrous, Satan, lots of white, took trip, moved out, came back, couldn't stop, jealous for no reason, illness but not mine, death but not mine, yes, no, don't want to, picking cornflowers, came later, no, took her there first, can't go on ... Amen? Amen.

  I, Gottfried von Vittlar, append this copy of the prayer to my testimony before the Court only because, as confused as it may appear when read, the details regarding the owner
of the ring finger coincide in large part with the official description of the murdered woman, the hospital nurse Sister Dorothea Köngetter. I am not trying to cast doubt on the accused's statement that he neither murdered the nurse nor saw her face to face.

  The devotion with which my friend knelt before the canning jar, which he had placed on a chair, and plied his tin drum, which he held clamped between his knees, still strikes me today as a noteworthy fact that speaks well for him.

  I had numerous opportunities over the following year or so to watch the accused pray and drum, for he hired me as a traveling companion at a generous salary and took me along on his tours, which he had interrupted for a considerable period but resumed shortly after finding the ring finger. We traveled all over West Germany, received offers from the East Zone as well, and even from abroad. But Herr Matzerath wanted to remain within the borders of the Federal Republic, wishing to avoid, as he put it, getting caught up in the usual concert-tour racket. He never drummed or prayed to the jar before a performance. But after an appearance and a leisurely meal we would repair to our hotel room: he drummed and prayed, I asked questions and wrote, and afterward we compared the prayer with those of previous days and weeks. Of course there are longer and shorter prayers. At times the words clash violently, then the next day they flow, almost tranquil and expansive. Nevertheless all the prayers I've gathered here and submit herewith to the High Court tell us nothing more than the first transcript I appended to my statement.

  During this year of travel, between one tour and the next, I met in passing several friends and relatives of Herr Matzerath. He introduced me to his stepmother, Frau Maria Matzerath, whom the accused adores, though with a certain restraint. The half brother of the accused, Kurt Matzerath, also greeted me that day, a well-behaved eleven-year-old schoolboy. Frau Maria Matzerath's sister, Frau Auguste Köster, made an equally positive impression on me. As the accused confessed to me, relationships with his family had been more than a little strained during the early postwar period. It was only when Herr Matzerath set up a large delicatessen for his stepmother, one that even carried tropical fruit, and helped out financially whenever the store ran into difficulties, that a friendly relationship developed between stepmother and stepson.

  Herr Matzerath also introduced me to a few of his former colleagues, mostly jazz musicians. Though Herr Münzer, whom the accused calls Klepp, struck me as cheerful and easygoing, to this day I've had neither the heart nor the will to develop these contacts further.

  Even though, thanks to the generosity of the accused, I had no need to continue my career as a window dresser, I still decorated a few shop windows whenever we returned from a tour, out of sheer love for the profession. The accused was kind enough to take a personal interest in my craft, often standing on the street late into the night, and never tired of providing an audience for my modest talents. Now and then, when my work was finished, we would stroll through nighttime Düsseldorf, avoiding the Altstadt, since the accused didn't like the sight of bull's-eye windows and old-fashioned German tavern signs. One such post-midnight stroll through nighttime Unterrath—and here I come to the final portion of my statement—led us to the tram depot.

  We stood side by side, at peace with the world, watching the last of the scheduled trams arrive. It was a pleasant show. The darkened city about us. In the distance, since it's Friday, a drunken construction worker roars. Otherwise all is silent, for the last trams, even if they jangle and make the curved rails squeal, are silent. Most of the trams continued directly into the depot. A few, however, sat there pointing in different directions, empty, but festively lit. Whose idea was it? We both had it, but I was the one who said, "Well, my friend, what do you think?" Herr Matzerath nodded and we boarded without haste, I took over the driver's stand, settled in at once, took off gently, quickly gaining speed, proved to be a skilled motorman, as Herr Matzerath—the brightly lit depot already behind us—acknowledged with these friendly words: "You must surely have been baptized a Catholic, Gottfried, or you couldn't drive a tram so well."

  I did indeed enjoy this little part-time job. Apparently the depot had not noted our departure, for no one came after us, and they could easily have ended our journey by simply cutting off the power. I headed the tram toward Flingern, passed right through it, considered turning left at Haniel's for Rath and Ratingen, but Herr Matzerath suggested the stretch toward Grafenberg and Gerresheim. Though I feared the hill at the Löwenburg dance hall, I acceded to the accused's wishes, made it up the hill, and had left the dance hall behind when I had to hit the brakes; three men were standing on the line, not so much requesting as forcing us to stop.

  Shortly after Haniel's, Herr Matzerath retired to the interior of the car to smoke a cigarette. So it was I, as motorman, who had to call out, "All aboard, please!" I noticed that the third, hatless man, whom the two others, both in green hats with black bands, held between them, kept missing the running board, either because he was clumsy or had poor eyesight. His companions, or guards, guided him almost brutally onto my driver's platform, and from there into the car.

  I had started off again when I heard behind me, from the interior of the car, a pitiful whimpering and what sounded like someone being slapped, then, to my reassurance, the firm voice of Herr Matzerath, admonishing the newly arrived passengers, warning them not to strike an injured, half-blind man who had lost his glasses.

  "You stay out of this," I heard one of the green hats roar. "He's going to get what's coming to him now. It's taken long enough."

  As I continued on slowly toward Gerresheim, my friend Herr Matzerath asked what the poor man had done wrong. The conversation quickly took a strange turn: within two sentences they were back in the war, or more specifically at its outbreak, on the first of September in thirty-nine; it seems the half-blind man was an irregular who had illegally defended a Polish post office. Strangely enough, Herr Matzerath, who couldn't have been more than fifteen at the time, knew all about it, and even recognized the man as Viktor Weluhn, a poor, nearsighted fellow who had carried money orders for the post office, lost his glasses in the course of the fighting, fled without them, and escaped the bloodhounds, who had never given up, however, but pursued him instead till the end of the war, even into the postwar years, and now produced a document issued in thirty-nine ordering his death by firing squad. We've finally caught him, one of the green hats shouted, and the other one said he was damned glad to see this account settled. It seems he'd devoted all his free time, including holidays, to making sure a document issued in thirty-nine was finally enforced; he had his own job as a salesman, and his friend, an Eastern refugee, had his troubles too, since he'd lost a successful tailoring business back East and had to start life all over again, but now their work was done and they could relax; we'll carry out that order and put paid to the past tonight—good thing we caught this last tram.

  So, against my will, I became the motorman on a tram carrying a condemned man and two executioners with an order for death by firing squad toward Gerresheim. When I reached the deserted, somewhat irregularly shaped marketplace in the suburb, I turned right, heading for the terminal near the glassworks, where I planned to drop off the green hats and the half-blind Viktor, then return home with my friend. Three stops before the terminal Herr Matzerath left the car and placed his briefcase, in which, as I knew, the jar stood upright, on the spot where professional motormen usually keep lunch boxes with their sandwiches.

  "We've got to save him. It's Viktor, poor Viktor!" Herr Matzerath was clearly upset.

  "He still hasn't found glasses that fit. He's very nearsighted. He'll be looking the wrong way when they shoot him." I thought the execution ers had been unarmed. But Herr Matzerath had noticed bulges in the coats of both green hats.

  "He delivered money orders for the Polish Post Office in Danzig. He's doing the same thing now in the Federal Republic. But they hound him after working hours because they still have an order to shoot him."

  Though I couldn't follow eve
rything Herr Matzerath said, I promised to be at his side at the execution and, if possible, help him prevent it.

  Beyond the glassworks, just before the first of the allotment gardens—I could have seen my mother's garden with its apple tree in the moonlight—I stopped the tram and called into the interior: "All out, end of the line." They emerged at once with their green hats and black hatbands. The half-blind man had trouble with the running board again. Then Herr Matzerath got off, first pulling his drum from under his overcoat, and asked me as he descended to bring along his briefcase with the canning jar.

  We left the tram glowing brightly far behind us and stuck to the heels of the executioners and their victim.

  We passed along garden fences. I was getting tired. When the three men came to a stop ahead of us, I noticed they had chosen my mother's garden as the execution site. Herr Matzerath and I both protested. They paid no attention, knocked down the fence, which was rotten anyway, bound the half-blind man Herr Matzerath called poor Viktor to the apple tree beneath my fork, and, since we kept up our protest, showed us again by flashlight the tattered execution order signed by a military court officer named Zelewski. It was dated, as I recall, Zoppot, the fifth of October, thirty-nine, the stamps seemed right too, there was little we could do; nevertheless we talked about the United Nations, democracy, collective guilt, Adenauer, and so on; but one of the green hats swept all our objections aside with the remark that we had no right to get mixed up in this, there was still no peace treaty, he'd voted for Adenauer just like us, but the order was still valid, they'd taken the document to the highest authorities, consulted with them, they were doing their damned duty, and we should just leave.

  We didn't leave. Instead Herr Matzerath lifted his drum as the green hats opened their coats and swung out their tommy guns—at that same moment a nearly full moon with only a slight dent broke through the clouds, causing the edges of the clouds to gleam metallically like the jagged edge of a tin can—and Herr Matzerath began desperately stirring his sticks on similar but undamaged tin. It sounded strange and yet familiar. Again and again the letter O rounded itself: lost, not yet lost, is not yet lost, Poland is not yet lost! But that was poor Viktor's voice, he knew the words to Herr Matzerath's drum: Poland is not yet lost, as long as we still live. And even the green hats seemed to know that rhythm, for they cowered behind their metal guns outlined in moonlight, as well they might, since the march Herr Matzerath and poor Viktor struck up in my mother's garden plot awakened the Polish cavalry. The moon may have helped as drum, moon, and the cracked voice of the nearsighted Viktor called forth all those stamping horsemen from the soil: hooves thundered, nostrils snorted, spurs jingled, stallions whinnied, hurrah, hooray!...but not in the least, nothing thundered, snorted, jingled, whinnied, nothing cried hurrah, hooray; silently they glided over the harvested fields outside Gerresheim, yet still it was a squadron of Polish uhlans, for red and white like Herr Matzerath's lacquered drum the pennants tugged at their lances, no, didn't tug, but floated instead, just as the whole squadron floated beneath the moon, perhaps came from the moon, wheeled to the left toward our garden, floated, seemed neither flesh nor blood, yet floated, like homemade toys for children, conjured up, akin perhaps to the knotworks Herr Matzerath's keeper makes from string: a knotted Polish cavalry, silent yet thundering, bloodless, flesh-less, yet Polish and unbridled, heading right toward us, so that we threw ourselves to the ground, submitted to the moon and Poland's squadron as they swept over my mother's garden, over all the other carefully tended gardens, but laying waste to none, took only poor Viktor and his executioners, and were lost in the open fields beneath the moon—lost, not yet lost, riding off eastward, toward Poland, toward the far side of the moon.