by Günter Grass
Strange to say, I expected more inspiration from literature than from real, naked life. Jan Bronski, whom I had often enough seen kneading my mother’s flesh, was able to teach me next to nothing. Although I knew that this tangle, consisting by turns of Mama and Jan or Matzerath and Mama, this knot which sighed, exerted itself, moaned with fatigue, and at last fell stickily apart, meant love, Oskar was still unwilling to believe that love was love; love itself made him cast about for some other love, and yet time and time again he came back to tangled love, which he hated until the day when in love he practiced it; then he was obliged to defend it in his own eyes as the only possible love.
Maria took the fizz powder lying on her back. As soon as it bubbled up, her legs began to quiver and thrash and her nightgown, sometimes after the very first sensation, slipped up as far as her thighs. At the second fizz, the nightgown usually managed to climb past her belly and to bunch below her breasts. One night after I had been filling her left hand for weeks, I quite spontaneously—for there was no chance to consult Goethe or Rasputin first—spilled the rest of a package of raspberry powder into the hollow of her navel, and spat on it before she could protest. Once the crater began to seethe, Maria lost track of all the arguments needed to bolster up a protest: for the seething, foaming navel had many advantages over the palm of the hand. It was the same fizz powder, my spit remained my spit, and indeed the sensation was no different, but more intense, much more intense. The sensation rose to such a pitch that Maria could hardly bear it. She leaned forward, as though to quench with her tongue the bubbling raspberries in her navel as she had quenched the woodruff in the hollow of her hand, but her tongue was not long enough; her bellybutton was farther away than Africa or Tierra del Fuego. I, however, was close to Maria’s bellybutton; looking for raspberries, I sank my tongue into it and found more and more of them; I wandered far afield, came to places where there was no forester to demand a permit to pick berries; I felt under obligation to cull every last berry, there was nothing but raspberries in my eyes, my mind, my heart, my ears, all I could smell in the world was raspberries, and so intent was I upon raspberries that Oskar said to himself only in passing: Maria is pleased with your assiduity. That’s why she has turned off the light. That’s why she surrenders so trustingly to sleep and allows you to go on picking; for Maria was rich in raspberries.
And when I found no more, I found, as though by chance, mushrooms in other spots. And because they lay hidden deep down beneath the moss, my tongue gave up and I grew an eleventh finger, for my ten fingers proved inadequate for the purpose. And so Oskar acquired a third drumstick—he was old enough for that. And instead of drumming on tin, I drummed on moss. I no longer knew if it was I who drummed or if it was Maria or if it was my moss or her moss. Do the moss and the eleventh finger belong to someone else and only the mushrooms to me? Did the little gentleman down there have a mind and a will of his own? Who was doing all this: Oskar, he, or I?
And Maria, who was sleeping upstairs and wide awake downstairs, who smelled upstairs of innocent vanilla and under the moss of pungent mushrooms, who wanted fizz powder, but not this little gentleman whom I didn’t want either, who had declared his independence, who did just what he was minded to, who did things I hadn’t taught him, who stood up when I lay down, who had other dreams than I, who could neither read nor write and nevertheless signed for me, who goes his own way to this very day, who broke with me on the very day I first took notice of him, who is my enemy with whom I am constrained, time and time again, to ally myself, who betrays me and leaves me in the lurch, whom I should like to auction off, whom I am ashamed of, who is sick of me, whom I wash, who befouls me, who sees nothing and flairs everything, who is so much a stranger to me that I should like to call him Sir, who has a very different memory from Oskar: for today when Maria comes into my room and Bruno discreetly slips off into the corridor, he no longer recognizes Maria, he can’t, he won’t, he sprawls most phlegmatically while Oskar’s leaping heart makes my mouth stammer: “Listen to me, Maria, tender suggestions. I might buy a compass and trace a circle around us; with the same compass, I might measure the angle of inclination of your neck while you are reading, sewing, or as now, tinkering with the buttons of my portable radio. Let the radio be, tender suggestions: I might have my eyes vaccinated and find tears again. At the nearest butcher shop Oskar would put his heart through the meat grinder if you would do the same with your soul. We might buy a stuffed animal to have something quiet between us. If I had the worms and you the patience, we might go fishing and be happier. Or the fizz powder of those days? Do you remember? You call me woodruff, I fizz up, you want still more, I give you the rest—Maria, fizz powder, tender suggestions.
“Why do you keep playing with those radio knobs, all you care about nowadays is the radio, as though you were taken with a mad passion for special communiqués.”
Special Communiqués
It is hard to experiment on the white disk of my drum. I ought to have known that. My drum always wants the same wood. It wants to be questioned with drumsticks and to beat out striking answers or, with an easy, conversational roll, leave questions and answers open. So you see, my drum is neither a frying pan which, artificially heated, cooks raw meat to a crisp, nor a dance floor for couples who do not know whether they belong together. Consequently, even in the loneliest hours, Oskar has never strewn fizz powder on his drum, mixed his saliva with it, and put on a show that he has not seen for years and that I miss exceedingly. It is true that Oskar couldn’t help trying an experiment with said powder, but he proceeded more directly and left the drum out of it; and in so doing, I exposed myself, for without my drum I am always exposed and helpless.
It was hard to procure the fizz powder. I sent Bruno to every grocery store in Grafenberg, I sent him to Gerresheim by streetcar. I asked him to try in town, but even at refreshment stands of the sort you find at the end of streetcar lines, Bruno could find no fizz powder. Young salesgirls had never heard of it, older shopkeepers remembered loquaciously; thoughtfully—as Bruno reported—they rubbed their foreheads and said: “What is it you want? Fizz powder? That was a long time ago. Under Wilhelm they sold it, and under Adolf just in the beginning. Those were the good old days. But if you’d like a bottle of soda or a Coke?”
My keeper drank several bottles of soda pop or Coke at my expense without obtaining what I wanted, and nevertheless Oskar got his fizz powder in the end: yesterday Bruno brought me a little white package without a label; the laboratory technician of our mental hospital, a certain Miss Klein, had sympathetically agreed to open her drawers, phials, and reference works, to take a few grams of this and a few grams of that, and finally, after several attempts, had mixed up a fizz powder which, as Bruno reported, could fizz, prickle, turn green, and taste very discreetly of woodruff.
And today was visiting day. Maria came. But first came Klepp. We laughed together for three-quarters of an hour about something worth forgetting. I was considerate of Klepp and spared his Leninist feelings, avoided bringing up current events, and said nothing of the special announcement of Stalin’s death, which had come to me over my little portable radio—given to me by Maria a few weeks ago. But Klepp seemed to know, for a crepe was sewn incompetently to the sleeve of his brown checked overcoat. Then Klepp arose and Vittlar came in. The two friends seem to have quarreled again, for Vittlar greeted Klepp with a laugh and made horns at him. “Stalin’s death surprised me as I was shaving this morning;” he said sententiously and helped Klepp into his coat. His broad face coated with unctuous piety, Klepp lifted up the black cloth on his sleeve: “That’s why I am in mourning,” he sighed and, giving an imitation of Armstrong’s trumpet, intoned the first funereal measures of New Orleans Function: trrah trahdaha traah dada dadada—then he slipped through the door.
But Vittlar stayed; he didn’t want to sit down, but hopped about in front of the mirror and for a few minutes we exchanged understanding smiles that had no reference to Stalin.
I don�
��t know whether I meant to confide in Vittlar or to drive him away. I motioned him to come close, to incline an ear, and whispered in his great-lobed spoon: “Fizz powder! Does that mean anything to you, Gottfried?” A horrified leap bore Vittlar away from my cage-bed; he thrust out his forefinger and in tones of theatrical passion that came easy to him, declaimed: “Wilt thou seduce me with fizz powder, O Satan? Dost thou not know I am an angel?”
And like an angel, Vittlar, not without a last look at the mirror over the washbasin, fluttered away. The young folks outside the mental hospital are really an odd and affected lot.
And then Maria arrived. She has a new tailor-made spring suit and a stylish mouse-grey hat with a discreet, sophisticated straw-colored trimming. Even in my room she does not remove this objet d’art. She gave me a cursory greeting, held out her cheek to be kissed, and at once turned on the portable radio which was, to be sure, a present from her to me, but seems to have been intended for her own use, for it is the function of that execrable plastic box to replace a part of our conversation on visiting days. “Did you hear the news this morning? Isn’t it exciting? Or didn’t you?” “Yes, Maria,” I replied patiently. “They haven’t kept Stalin’s death secret from me, but please turn off the radio.”
Maria obeyed without a word, sat down, still in her hat, and we spoke as usual about little Kurt.
“Just imagine, Oskar, the little rascal don’t want to wear long stockings no more, when it’s only March and more cold weather coming, they said so on the radio.” I ignored the weather report but sided with Kurt about the long stockings. “The boy is twelve, Maria, he’s ashamed to go to school in wool stockings, his friends make fun of him.”
“Well, as far as I’m concerned, his health comes first; he wears the stockings until Easter.”
This date was stated so unequivocally that I tried another tack. “Then you should buy him ski pants, because those long woolen stockings are really ugly. Just think back to when you were his age. In our court in Labesweg. Shorty always had to wear stockings until Easter, you remember what they did to him? Nuchi Eyke, who was killed in Crete, Axel Mischke, who got his in Holland just before the war was over, and Harry Schlager, what did they do to Shorty? They smeared those long woolen stockings of his with tar so they stuck to his skin, and Shorty had to be taken to the hospital.”
“That wasn’t the fault of the stockings, Susi Kater was to blame,” cried Maria furiously. Although Susi had joined the Blitz Girls at the very beginning of the war and was rumored to have married in Bavaria later on, Maria bore Susi, who was several years her senior, a lasting grudge such as women and only women can carry with them from childhood to a ripe old age. Even so, my allusion to Shorty’s tar-daubed stockings produced a certain effect. Maria promised to buy Kurt ski pants. We were able to go on to something else. There was good news about Kurt. The school principal had spoken well of him at the parents’ and teachers’ meeting. “Just imagine. He’s second in his class. And he helps me in the shop, I can’t tell you what a help he is to me.”
I nodded approval and listened as she described the latest purchases for the delicatessen store. I encouraged Maria to open a branch in Oberkassel. The times were favorable, I said, the wave of prosperity would continue—I had just picked that up on the radio. And then I decided it was time to ring for Bruno. He came in and handed me the little white package containing the fizz powder.
Oskar had worked out his plan. Without explanation I asked Maria for her left hand. She started to give me her right hand, but then corrected herself. Shaking her head and laughing, she offered me the back of her left hand, probably expecting me to kiss it. She showed no surprise until I turned the hand around and poured the powder from the package into a pile between mound of the Moon and mound of Venus. But even then she did not protest. She took fright only when Oskar bent down over her hand and spat copiously on the mound of fizz powder.
“Hey, what is this?” she cried with indignation, moved her hand as far from her as possible, and stared in horror at the frothing green foam. Maria blushed from her forehead down. I was beginning to hope, when three quick steps carried her to the washbasin. She let water, disgusting water, first cold, then hot, flow over the fizz powder. Then she washed her hands with my soap.
“Oskar, you’re really impossible. What do you expect Mr. Münsterberg to think of us?” She turned to Bruno, who during my experiment had taken up a position at the foot end of the bed, as though pleading with him to overlook my insane behavior. To spare Maria any further embarrassment, I sent the keeper out of the room, and as soon as he had closed the door behind him, called her back to my bedside: “Don’t you remember? Please remember. Fizz powder! Three pfennigs a package. Think back! Woodruff, raspberry, how beautifully it foamed and bubbled, and the sensation, Maria, the way it made you feel.”
Maria did not remember. She was taken with an insane fear of me, she hid her left hand, tried frantically to find another topic of conversation, told me once again about Kurt’s good work in school, about Stalin’s death, the new icebox at Matzerath’s delicatessen, the projected new branch in Oberkassel. I, however, remained faithful to the fizz powder, fizz powder, I said, she stood up, fizz powder, I begged, she said a hasty good-by, plucked at her hat, undecided whether to go or stay, and turned on the radio, which began to squeak. But I shouted above it: “Fizz powder, Maria, remember! “
Then she stood in the doorway, wept, shook her head, and left me alone with the squeaking, whistling radio, closing the door as cautiously as though she were leaving me on my deathbed.
And so Maria can’t remember the fizz powder. Yet for me, as long as I may breathe and drum, that fizz powder will never cease to fizz and foam; for it was my spittle which in the late summer of 1940 aroused woodruff and raspberry, which awakened feelings, which sent my flesh out questing, which made me a collector of morels, chanterelles, and other edible mushrooms unknown to me, which made me a father, yes indeed, young as I was, a father, from spittle to father, kindler of feelings, gathering and begetting, a father; for by early November, there was no room for doubt, Maria was pregnant, Maria was in her second month and I, Oskar, was the father.
Of that I am convinced to this day, for the business with Matzerath happened much later; two weeks, no, ten days after I had impregnated the sleeping Maria in the bed of her brother Herbert, rich in scars, in plain sight of the postcards sent by her younger brother, the corporal, and then in the dark, between walls and blackout paper, I found Maria, not sleeping this time but actively gasping for air on our sofa; under Matzerath she lay, and on top of her lay Matzerath.
Oskar, who had been meditating in the attic, came in from the hallway with his drum and entered the living room. The two of them didn’t notice me. Their heads were turned toward the tile stove. They hadn’t even undressed properly. Matzerath’s under-drawers were hanging down to his knees. His trousers were piled up on the carpet. Maria’s dress and petticoat had rolled up over her brassiere to her armpits. Her panties were dangling round one foot which hung from the sofa on a repulsively twisted leg. Her other leg lay bent back, as though unconcerned, over the head rest. Between her legs Matzerath. With his right hand he turned her head aside, the other hand guided him on his way. Through Matzerath’s parted fingers Maria stared at the carpet and seemed to follow the pattern under the table. He had sunk his teeth into a cushion with a velvet cover and only let the velvet go when they talked together. For from time to time they talked, though without interrupting their labours. Only when the clock struck three quarters did the two of them pause till the last stroke, and then, resuming his efforts, he said: “It’s a quarter of.” Then he wanted to know if she liked it the way he was doing it. She said yes several times and asked him to be careful. He promised. She commanded, no, entreated him to be particularly careful. Then he inquired if it was time. And she said yes, very soon. Then she must have had a cramp in her foot that was hanging down off the sofa, for she kicked it up in the air, but her panties still
hung from it. Then he bit into the velvet cushion again and she screamed: go away, and he wanted to go away, but he couldn’t, because Oskar was on top of them before he could go away, because I had plunked down my drum on the small of his back and was pounding it with the sticks, because I couldn’t stand listening any more to their go away go away, because my drum was louder than their go away, because I wouldn’t allow him to go away as Jan Bronski had always gone away from my mother; for Mama had always said go away to Jan and go away to Matzerath, go away, go away. And then they fell apart. But I couldn’t bear to see it. After all, I hadn’t gone away. That’s why I am the father and not this Matzerath who to the last supposed himself to be my father. But my father was Jan Bronski. Jan Bronski got there ahead of Matzerath and didn’t go away; he stayed right where he was and deposited everything he had; from Jan Bronski I inherited this quality of getting there ahead of Matzerath and staying put; what emerged was my son, not his son. He never had any son at all. He was no real father. Even if he had married my poor mama ten times over, even if he did marry Maria because she was pregnant. That, he thought, is certainly what the people in the neighborhood think. Of course they thought Matzerath had knocked up Maria and that’s why he’s marrying her though she’s only seventeen and he’s going on forty-five. But she’s a mighty good worker for her age and as for little Oskar, he can be very glad to have such a stepmother, for Maria doesn’t treat the poor child like a stepmother but like a real mother, even if little Oskar isn’t quite right in the head and actually belongs in the nuthouse in Silberhammer or Tapiau.