Detlev saw Odel’s face before him. Odel’s nose disappeared. The eyes swelled out. Foam appeared at the edges of his eyes with the strain. The eyes grew large as plates. Skin flaked from Odel’s eyes like enamel. Instead of the black tin of a plate lumps of red flesh appeared. Thick drops of blood ran over the bulging eyes into Odel’s noseless face.
Detlev saw Joachim’s back. Joachim had a black tail, under the tail a large, black hole. The hole widened until it occupied half his back. Blood flowed out of it.
In Hamburg when his mother said the prayer about the many angels, the big noses, the countless giant fingers jostled up against his mother’s feet.
— Two to my right, two to my left, two at my head, two, two, two…
Detlev didn’t cough any more. He rubbed his fingers together — as he did now with the bird dropping.
Odel struck the washroom door again with his slipper.
—Detlev, we are the three devils. And one devil is hammering the nails into your coffin, said all three at once. Odel into the chamber pot. Alfred into his hands, Joachim-Devil in a squeaky voice.
They spoke loudly and slowly. The words got mixed up. Joachim-Devil started before Alfred and Odel. Odel hadn’t finished the first word, when Alfred and Joachim-Devil were already saying the next one.
Alfred whispered :
— This isn’t they way to do it. He won’t believe us. We have to do it differently.
— One of us says it quietly first of all. The others repeat it loudly.
— Now wailing and moaning and chattering teeth first ! Have you got the paper and the combs?
They wrapped cellophane round the combs, as Anna had said they would, and held the combs and paper to their lips.
— Oh, oh, said Joachim-Devil quietly.
— Oh, oh, cried all three together.
Detlev thinks:
— Oh, oh, the cat’s got an ache, the dog’s in a rage. He’ll no’ go to school for an age. — The cat, the dog.
— We’re suffering.
— We’re suffering, were suffering, we’re suffering, we’re suffering.
— And now we’re here because of you.
— And now we’re here because of you.
— Because every Sunday evening you let yourself be washed, naked, by your mother.
— Because every Sundayeveningevening, Sundayeveningevening you let yourself be washed naked.
— Because you drew the Christ Child with something impure between his legs.
— Because you painted the Christ Child — in a drawing, in the drawing pad, on a sheet of paper — between the legs — painted him with something impure between his legs.
Detlev coughed. He sat up, coughing. Saliva and sweat soaked his nightshirt, the sheet.
— That’s not true, it wasn’t anything impure. It was only the Christ Child’s leg. I drew the Christ Child running.
— I saw it myself. It was impure.
— Alfred is right. I saw it.
— We are the three devils, sent by the eternal council. We are to fetch you.
— Knock, Odel.
— Knock, Odel.
— Do you believe that we are the three devils?
— Do you believe that we are the three devils?
— Yes.
Odel struck the washroom door.
— On the trip to Aichach you touched your impure place and wanted to show it to Anna.
— On the trip to Aichach you touched your impure place and wanted to show it to Anna.
— You wanted to lead Anna away from the true Catholic path. You promised her money and sausages and cakes.
— You wanted to lead Anna away from the true Catholic path. You promised her sausages and cakes and sausages and medals and money and cakes and sausages and cakes and medals.
— You said: I myself am a Christ Child. You said : My mother is the Virgin Mary. You said : My father is the dear Lord Jesus Christ.
— You said : I myself am the Christ Child. — Jesus Christ in the crib — on the cross.
My mother is the Virgin Mary. You said: My mother is the Virgin Mary. You said : My father is God in heaven. You said: Our Father in heaven. You said : My father is God the Father. You said :
—That is blasphemous pride. And even if you were him, what has happened to the flight to Egypt? Just because your father is dead. Because the Lord Jesus Christ — our beloved infant Jesus was not without a father at all. He has two fathers. Saint Joseph and our Father in Heaven.
— And that’s why we’re hammering the nails into your coffin.
— And that’s why we’re hammering the nails into your coffin.
— It’ll be ready right away.
— It’ll be ready right away.
— These are the final blows.
— These are the final blows.
Sweat ran into Detlev’s eyes. The flickering wings, the twinkling tails, the cracking noses, the exploding eyes pressed against his retina between eye and lid. Detlev opened his eyes wide. The dormitory was black.
— We’re going to fly to you now with the coffin and put you in it.
— We’re going to fly to you now with the coffin and put you into it.
— We’re coming.
— We’re coming. We’re coming. We’re coming. We’re coming.
— Mummy. Mummy. Mummy. Mummy. Mummy. Mummy.
As the rustling of the cellophane increased, as Odel struck the washroom door more quickly, as Alfred and Joachim-Devil threw their combs on the floor, Detlev could no longer scream out the whole word. Only the ee was left. He screamed ee, till the air gave out and the saliva suffocated the last syllable.
— Are you going to be humble from now on? Then it will be all right again.
— We have to be quick, otherwise Sister Silissa will be here, Odel, Alfred.
— Are you going to be humble from now on? Then it will be all right again. We have to be quick, otherwise Sister Silissa will be here, Odel, Alfred.
Joachim-Devil said:
— You’re stupid, Odel, Alfred. Odel, Alfred, wake up. I am the devil. There are three devils here. You listen too, Odel, Alfred and you as well Joachim, while Detlev swears. Swear, Detlev.
— I want to be humble. I want to be humble.
— Did you hear Joachim, Odel, Alfred, what Detlev has sworn. I am the devil. Answer, now.
Alfred said:
— Odel, Joachim-Devil, did you hear, the devils are here and want to fetch Detlev.
Detlev heard Odel and Joachim-Devil yawning.
Odel said :
— Joachim-Devil, Alfred says the three proper devils are here and want to fetch Detlev.
Joachim-Devil said:
— Well, why don’t you drive them away? We’ve got to help poor Detlev. The sign of the Holy Cross is enough, after all. And if that doesn’t work, then we’ll just have to fetch Sister Silissa and say that the three devils are here because of Detlev’s sins, and that we can’t get rid of them alone.
In the name of the Father -
— The name of the Father. What is the name of the Father?
— and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. They’re gone, we don’t need to tell Sister Silissa anything at all. You’d prefer that, wouldn’t you, Detlev?
— Yes.
— It was sufficient for them to pronounce the name of the Father. The name of the Father is very powerful — if they were three proper devils. If they weren’t three proper devils, I don’t know how powerful the name of the Father is. The name is powerful. Otherwise Sister Silissa wouldn’t pray. Otherwise Frieda wouldn’t have promised me the prayer of conversion. Otherwise there wouldn’t be a Catholic Church. Otherwise I wouldn’t need to pray, in order to be turned into a Catholic.
Alfred said :
— You cried for your mother.
— How do you know that?
— I heard it while I was half asleep. Your mother doesn’t care about you. Perhaps your mother would rather that you were dead. If we had a
mother, she would have protected us from the devils. Three devils can’t do anything at all against a proper Catholic mother even if they did have prickly, forked tails and bodies all covered in thick black hairs. We protected you. You have us to thank for that.
Detlev remembers:
The letters were printed on white sheets. A whole row of small U’s, a row of small E’s, a row of small I’s. The card was lightly punched between the rows, so that the rows with the small I and the small K and the large K and small P could be cleanly torn off. He had to cut out each I and Qu and R and S separately with the scissors.
— You’re not cutting them out carefully and neatly. Evenly and neatly like all the other boys.
A little red cellophane picture lay flat beside the sheets of letters. The Virgin Mary hovered on a narrow sickle moon above a sea of tall waves. A thin crooked devil with pointed horns and a long forked tail was wriggling along the sickle moon.
‘Star of the sea I greet thee,’ it said on the first line below the sea. On the next line was:
‘O Mary, come to our aid.’
— Because you’re a Protestant and despite that pay close attention in the Catholic religion lesson.
The small, hoarse priest had a box full of different coloured cellophane pictures.
The detached and cut out letters were squeezed into the compartments of the letter case. The large A’s by themselves. The small A’s by themselves. The large B’s by themselves. The small B’s by themselves. When he shouldered his satchel, swung it back and forward, ran, the letter case bounced up and down, the letters fell out and got mixed up. Then Detlev picked them from the frayed leather bottom of the satchel, between the chalk pencils and the pencil case with the painted ducks and the little exercise book with pen wipers and the reading book, the best writing book, the pen box.
He had to arrange the letters once again and fit the individual piles into the letter case again. ‘Our Führer was a mason,’ it said on one little cellophane picture. The Führer was printed on the cellophane picture in yellowish outline. The Führer gazed up at a half-finished house. Beams stuck into the air. No windows gleamed in the window cavities. A garland with fluttering ribbons hung on the roof frame. Flags billowed behind the Führer. The Führer bent down to a schoolboy. Detlev laid the little blue and red cellophane pictures on top of the undetached and uncut sheets of letters. The rows of letters could be made out through the tinted cellophane. The outlines of the Führer, of the house, of the Virgin Mary lay on top of the small I, the large B, the small B, the small Sh. The yellow lines of the drawings and the yellow letters of the captions ‘Star of the sea I greet thee, oh Mary, come to our aid’ and ‘Our Führer was a mason’ hid individual black letters on the sheets beneath.
— Your ears are as large as Jew ears, but you work hard, you have an Aryan expression on your face, and your hair is blonde.
Detlev breathed on the little blue cellophane picture. The Führer’s arm reached upwards. The beams of the house bent. The cellophane picture curled up like the roofing board in the potato fire. Detlev blew the Führer and the house and the flags and the schoolboy back and forward across the sheets of letters.
Detlev breathed on the red cellophane picture, blew till it rolled. One after the other the two little pictures became straight and flat again.
The pale priest had shouted at Detlev during the religion lesson, because Detlev hadn’t raised his arm high enough for the sign of the cross. One of the boys in the class helped Detlev:
— Detlev is a Protestant.
Detlev opened the letter case. Some compartments were empty. Detlev detached rows of letters and cut off the individual letters. He fitted a large S, a small T, a small A, a small R, a small O, a small F, then a small T, a small H, a small E, a large S, another small E, then a small A between the moulding on the lid of the letter case. He scratched the words away again with his nails.
‘The devil,’ he put on the first line.
‘Alfred is a devil,’ he placed on the line below.
‘Odel’ — he scratched the word away again.
‘Otto is a devil too.’
Below that :
‘Joachim-Devil is also a —’
Below that:
‘Devil’
The small E’s and the small L’s were used up. Detlev didn’t cut off any more. He scratched till the lid was empty again. On the middle line he put:
‘Our dear God.’
He took away the third word and the full stop again. He put the word together again. Pushed the full stop behind it again. Onto the line below he once more pushed a large G, a small O, a D.
Detlev tried to remember what the word ‘God’ had sounded like, before he had put it together on the lid of the letter case. He repeated the word quietly while he lifted up the letters and pushed them back and forward in the palm of his hand. There was nothing but a quietly pronounced G and O and D.
He put the words ‘Star of the Sea’ together again, and thought of a star over the sea near Hamburg.
Uncle Bruno had driven to the sea.
Detlev remembers that he also repeated the words star of the sea to himself again and again.
Finally he said:
— Sea
and:
— Star.
The two words clattered like the typewriter in the municipal finance department. He took the words away for the last time.
He had cut off too many letters. It was difficult to push them all into the compartments. Detlev bent the fastener of the letter case over the lid.
Detlev woke up. The moon was sticking to the church tower. A full moon. A waning moon. A waxing moon. It wasn’t a new moon. The moon shone on the cobble stones.
The siren howled. The sound rose from behind the black bushes in the churchyard. The moon shook from the howling in the clouds. The church tower shook above the shiny roof of the nave. The howling of the siren flowed over the church square. It hopped onto the window sills and scratched at the dormitory window panes. Detlev felt the howling in the cold bars of the bedstead. It slithered down the hall, up the stairs, past the enclosure, through the dining room, up the wooden body of the Lord Jesus Christ, over the balcony — here down the wall again, across the church square once again, up the church tower and turned the cross on top, the cock.
The siren sucked fog out of the black bushes, sand out of the joints in the walls, plaster fell from the ceiling in thin, white flakes. The siren sucked the coldness out of the graves in the churchyard, the damp, cold air out of the cellars, drew the air out of the tombs, out of the teeth of the skulls, drew the air through the orphanage, between Detlev’s skin and Detlev’s nightshirt.
Once the siren had reached the shaking moon, it slid down the church tower, crept behind the bushes, slipped under the cobblestones, ran between the pieces of coke, the briquettes, the bones, the preserving jars. The siren gurgled in the cellar for a long time. It gurgled like the water sprite in the book of fairy tales — not like the water sprite. It was a good water sprite. The siren gurgled in the square pit, under the cold tiles, by the lavatory.
— Air raid warning.
— Don’t shout, we know that ourselves. You don’t need to come from Hamburg to tell us that. We’ve got our own air raid warning. We know all about it. The Anglo-Americans are coming now.
— Where is the cellar? Where is my mummy? Where is the woollen blanket, the valerian drops. We have to go down the cellar quickly. Are you all wearing your pouches around your necks? The anti-aircraft guns will start shooting at once. The shell splinters are just as dangerous. They’ll start dropping Christmas-tree flares and mines by parachute in a moment.
— They never come here. You’re the only person here with one of those pouches. And there certainly isn’t a cellar here.
— If you don’t have a cellar then we’re in deadly danger, perhaps then we’ll even have to die.
— I don’t want to die.
— I don’t want to die either.
&
nbsp; — I know what to do. We often used to do it in Hamburg. You have to stay quite calm and sit down on the floor. And when the bombs or parachute mines come down, you have to pull the woollen blankets over your heads — to protect yourselves against flying debris.
— We have to pray. But they never come here.
— Sister Silissa, Alfred says there’s no cellar here. In Hamburg we all have a cellar.
— We don’t believe that. Sister Silissa, Detlev says we have to sit down on the floor and pull the woollen blankets over our heads.
— What a terrible fuss that would be!
— They never come here, do they, Sister Silissa?
— If you pray hard, they’ll never come here. Get dressed, we’re going to the church. Our parish church is stronger than ten million air raid shelters and concrete bunkers put together. Detlev, you’ll see that our parish church wards off any bombs — if any really do fall, but they never come here. If we all just pray nicely.
— Quick, quick, get dressed. We can pray over there. We must have some discipline. When the siren sounds every citizen has to seek out a bomb-proof shelter. For us that means the tower of the parish church.
Sister Appia looked from one to the other. Her black habit fluttered round the bedsteads. She stuffed Alfred’s shirt into the back of his trousers. She gave Odel his jacket. She looked for Erwin’s shoes under his bed.
Sister Silissa prayed in the doorway. From time to time she sprinkled holy water across the dormitory.
— Get dressed, damn it, get dressed. This is an air raid, said Sister Appia.
The children were silent. They pulled their things from the bedposts. Sister Silissa locked the holy water into the little cupboard by the door again. She looked past Sister Appia, because Sister Appia had sworn. Sister Silissa unbuttoned little Xaver’s braces, untwisted them and buttoned them onto his trousers again.
Sister Appia said :
— Nit picker.
— Sister Appia, you lose your head because once a year we have an air raid warning. In our Fatherland there are towns which have air raid warnings twice a day and the people there stay calm and devout.
The Orphanage Page 7