A Gushing Fountain

by Martin Walser

  When Herr Brugger showed up at the restaurant, Johann often recalled what Elsa had told him and his mother when they came back from the savings and loan. Herr Brugger had just left the restaurant, loudly proclaiming: We’re gonna pull the plug on that piano player tonight.

  Johann had hoped that as soon as the boys and girls reached their houses or the side streets where they lived, they would disappear one after the other. Well, the boys did turn off. And if the girls had also turned off where they should have, Johann would have been alone with Anita. The last ones would have been gone by the time they reached the linden tree. But the girls didn’t turn off or disappear into their houses. They led Anita through the courtyard gate and up to the circus entrance and didn’t go home till they had promised to come to the performance that evening. Johann had heard it as he passed them. Then he ran into the house and up to his room and threw himself on the bed. He lay on his stomach, and when Tell jumped onto the bed, he pulled him close. Tell licked him, and that was all right with Johann. When he raised his eyes, he saw that beneath the picture of the guardian angel that was as wide as the chest of drawers, someone had put a bouquet of primroses. That was Mina. Mina thought of such things. Mother thought of what would prevent foreclosure.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Anita, Anita

  JOHANN WAS SITTING IN THE CORNER where he always shoved his school bag after school. Today he was looking at the book lying open before him, but he wasn’t reading. The grownups counted on him reading. Herr Brugger wouldn’t be saying the things he was to Johann’s mother right now if he wasn’t confident that Johann was reading his Winnetou.

  “Remember, you’re not even thirty-eight yet,” Herr Brugger said in a loud voice. “Count your blessings you’re rid of that namby-pamby. He would have voted No for sure. Someone should have reported him to the police long ago. And someone would have, if he hadn’t been such a pitiful specimen. You voted Yes, I know you did,” said Herr Brugger, “but he would have voted No.”

  “I don’t think so,” said Mother, much quieter than Herr Brugger. “It would have been all right with him if Austria was back in again,” said Mother. “After all, he was in the alpine club.”

  “And the Führer managed to do all that without a war,” said Herr Brugger in a loud voice. “Not a drop of blood spilled. A stroke of genius. And that know-it-all namby-pamby of yours, what did he leave you with? Bills and more bills. And who’s going to keep you from going down the drain and maybe losing your whole business? Strength through Joy and the German Workers’ Front, that’s who. They’ll bring you more customers than you’ve ever had. But Mr. Know-It-All, that idiot, that namby-pamby, that fool . . .”

  Johann’s mother went “Shh, shh.” She must have been trying to remind him that Johann was sitting there.

  “Don’t worry,” said Herr Brugger. “He’s reading. Just like his old man. Stick a pin in him and out would come ink instead of blood. I’d whip some sense into my boy if he had his head stuck in a book all the time.”

  Mother said that Johann would be going to the grammar school in Lindau soon, just like his older brother Josef.

  “Waste of money,” said Herr Brugger. “They’ll both end up with ink in their veins, and we’ll have to support them when they can’t afford to feed themselves.”

  Johann was afraid he was going to blush. Often he really would get so absorbed in his reading he didn’t hear what they were talking about. But he couldn’t help listening. Finally, Herr Brugger left.

  Almost immediately the music started drifting up from the courtyard. Johann wished he could run at once to the lavatory window on the first floor. But the Princess (who seldom turned around but still managed to keep an eye on everything) would have known why he left and might have called out after him in a loud voice.

  An accordion, a trumpet, and assorted drums. Hit tunes. Sad tunes. Funny tunes. The funny ones were played by the accordion, the sad ones by the trumpet. Suddenly, Anita was there in the doorway. She already had on her makeup, was wearing a gaudy yellow bathrobe, and had some kind of turban on her head, a red one. Johann shushed Tell. Anita said she just wanted to see how many complimentary tickets they needed. “One,” said Johann. The others would watch from the windows. Anita put the ticket on the table, wished him lots of fun, and was gone.

  Mina said, “What a sweet little thing.”

  “And a poor little thing, too,” said Mother. Mina didn’t think so. Mother insisted that a girl who went from village to village in a trailer and had to perform for people every night was a poor thing. She came to Communion, at least. Thank goodness for that.

  Johann shut Tell in the bedroom, then stood outside, by the entrance to the courtyard, waiting for Adolf, Ludwig, Paul, Helmut and Helmut, and Guido and Berni. The girls were already standing around laughing at what one of them was saying.

  Johann would rather have sat in the third row, but Adolf said, “First come, first served.” So far just a few little colored lights were on, which merely made the circus ring that much darker. Only the three musicians were brightly lit. Behind a set of drums and cymbals and triangles sat the Little Giant with his head of curly hair corkscrewing in all directions. Whenever he belabored the drums and cymbals, he rolled his eyes deliriously. Everything he did was exaggerated. He started a drum roll on a little snare drum and let it swell until just before the peak, then ended it with a cymbal crash that he gently extinguished with piously cupped hands. He stretched and twisted his large body as if the music wasn’t being made by the instruments but by that body itself. Next to the Little Giant with his head of hair, the other two musicians were almost invisible. The muscleman with the glistening bald head who had driven the Roman chariot played trumpet. He had changed into a shiny silver suit with a hat to match. Golden ringlets peeked out from beneath it. Anita’s mother played the accordion. Suddenly, a musical flourish and the lights went up: in the ring stood a gentleman in tails and top hat, the tails deep blue and the hat light blue, with a whip in his hand that he proceeded to crack several times. He bid everyone in the audience welcome, he said, large and small, fat and skinny—but he couldn’t continue with clever and dumb, for whoever came to a performance of La Paloma Circus proved thereby they had a good head on their shoulders. The music swelled. People clapped. He promised them an international program that evening: Cuba, India, Italy, Vienna, and the Orient were all represented in La Paloma Circus. But not only Cuba, India, Italy, the Orient, and Vienna. No, even—listen closely now, be amazed, and rejoice—even Mixnitz on Murr. A brief drum solo by the Little Giant made it clear that he himself was from Mixnitz on Murr. People clapped. Then the rhythm turned Cuban, the trumpet struck up “La Paloma,” the accordion fell in with a sigh, the drums intimated mystery. “Cuba,” cried the ringmaster, cracking his whip and bowing toward two boys dressed in shining white who led the black buffalo into the ring. And immediately, with a solemn beat of her wings, there floated or flew in from one side a white dove: Anita. In she glided, evidently suspended from a wire, and once above the buffalo, she stopped beating her wings and settled into a small golden nest the buffalo carried on its back. Hardly had she landed when she shed the winged costume with a single sweep of her hand and tossed it to the ringmaster, who caught it and bowed deferentially. Now Anita stood in her nest as a Cuban girl, swaying to the music of “La Paloma” and urging herself on to ever more daring twists and turns with a pair of black castanets. Suddenly, the wings were passed back to her, the music subsided into pure languor, and Anita was a dove again, beating her wings quite slowly, as the buffalo bore her from the ring. Everyone clapped. Anita returned with her wings but without the buffalo, and bowed. The ringmaster was applauding as well and cried again and again, “La Paloma in person, Anita Wiener, Anita Wiener from the internationally renowned Wiener family of circus artistes.” Then two ponies pulled in a cage. Inside knelt the muscleman, now wearing a sleeveless jersey and tight-fitting breeches and bound and shackled with multiple ropes and chains. Blond ringle
ts fell to his shoulders. The ringmaster introduced him as Samson, Strongest of the Strong, and asked for volunteers from the audience to inspect the ropes and chains tying Samson down. Adolf, first in line, examined and nodded and said, “They’re real, all right.” The ringmaster thanked Adolf and said he was the kind of young person we had need of today, a lad who couldn’t be hoodwinked.

  Samson flexed his muscles, and with each exertion one of his bonds snapped off. A drum roll celebrated the triumphant bursting of each rope or chain. When all his fetters were broken, he seized the chain, tore it in two, bent apart the bars of his cage, and sprang into the ring to thunderous applause. But the ringmaster acted frightened. He ran around in the ring as Samson came after him with powerful, ominous strides. The ringmaster cried, “Delilah, help! Delilah, help!” And in came an oriental woman who began to swivel her hips in front of Samson: Anita. She performed a belly dance, and Samson knelt down in front of her. She pulled out a dagger glittering with jewels, scalped Samson, held up his wig, and threw a slender noose around his neck. Samson was so weak he could hardly lift his arms, and she led him from the ring. Thunderous applause. The ringmaster called after her, “Thank you, Delilah. You rescued us from the terrible Tartar. Thank you, Delilah.”

  Of course, this scalping scene reminded Johann of Karl May’s first Winnetou novel and the farewell banquet for the greenhorn from Germany, when Sam Hawkens removes his hat and his hair comes off with it. An absolutely bare skull appears—scalped by the Pawnees. But the muscleman’s skull wasn’t as bloody red as the skull of the frontiersman Sam Hawkens, whose every other sentence ended with: Unless I’m very much mistaken. Johann loved Sam Hawkens because he always said, Unless I’m very much mistaken.

  Anita wasn’t in the next number. Johann watched but didn’t really take it in. He only woke up again when the Little Giant and his head of hair reappeared, this time as Dumb August the clown. The ringmaster was his straight man. On top of his mop of hair, the Giant wore a little metal basin with a lip, and he had on a tailcoat stitched together from burlap bags over a shirt hung with tiny bells. When he shook himself, they jingled. He shook himself whenever he didn’t agree with what the ringmaster said. The ringmaster said, “My dear Herr August . . .” August shook himself. The ringmaster: “Herr August . . .” August shook himself. “August, you are . . .” August kept still, and nothing jingled. “Aha, so we’re on familiar terms with each other,” said the ringmaster.

  August: “If you like, Herr Director, sir.”

  Ringmaster: “But then you have to be on familiar terms with me, too.”

  August: “Your wife is on familiar terms with you, and when I see the way you treat her, I think I’d prefer to be on formal terms.”

  Ringmaster: “Why? How do I treat my wife?”

  August: “Just the other day, after the doctor examined her, he said, ‘Herr Director, I don’t like the way your wife looks,’ and you replied, ‘Then we have the same taste in women, Herr Doctor.’”

  Ringmaster: “August, I’ve always said that my wife has a unique inner beauty.”

  August: “Then maybe you should have her turned inside out.”

  Ringmaster: “Is that possible?”

  August: “Nowadays, anything’s possible. Two months ago I was an Austrian from Mixnitz on Murr, and today I’m a German.”

  Ringmaster: “But that’s completely different, August.”

  August: “Not at all, Herr Director. Your wife has her beauty on the inside, just like we Austrians had our Germanity on the inside, but now it’s on the outside. Sunday before last, 99.7 percent of all Austrians said Yes to their inner Germanity.”

  Ringmaster: “My dear August . . .” August shook himself, setting all his bells ajingle.

  Ringmaster, cautiously: “August . . .” When nothing jingled, he continued, “I only hope you, too, voted Yes on April 10th.”

  August: “Of course, Herr Director, I simply overthrew myself.”

  Ringmaster: “How’s that? Overthrew yourself?”

  August: “You know what the expression ‘throw up’ means. Well, it’s just like that. Except that when you throw up it comes out, and when you overthrow it goes in. I told myself right away: now you’re going to overthrow yourself, just like 99.7 percent of all Austrians.”

  Ringmaster: “But August, there was no way you could already know on election Sunday that 99.7 percent of all Austrians would vote Yes.”

  August shook himself indignantly and said, “None of that argumentative tone, if you please, Herr Director! Of course I knew the Austrians would outdo the Germans in Yes-saying. Next time, I swear it’ll be 102 percent.”

  Ringmaster: “A hundred and two percent? That’s impossible.”

  August: “Not very good at math, eh, Herr Director? A hundred and two per cent is 102 out of 100.”

  Ringmaster: “You must take me for a bit retarded, August.”

  August: “But Herr Director, I don’t judge a book by its cover.” People laughed. The ringmaster gave August a slap in the face, and August pretended to be almost knocked down by it, but he transformed being almost knocked down into searching for something in the sawdust on his hands and knees.

  Ringmaster: “Did you lose something, August?”

  August: “Nothing much, just my faith in humanity.”

  Ringmaster: “You’ve lost your faith in humanity and you call that nothing much?”

  August: “I only had a little bit left, anyway.”

  Ringmaster: “August, what’s your job in La Paloma Circus?”

  August: “I’m Dumb August, the clown.”

  Ringmaster: “And what about me?”

  August: “You’re the ringmaster.”

  Ringmaster: “And what’s the difference between Dumb August and the ringmaster?”

  August: “The same as the difference between coconuts and hazelnuts?”

  Ringmaster: “And what would that be?”

  August: “They’re both nuts.”

  Ringmaster: “I see you can’t do it, you’re too dumb to figure out the difference between a ringmaster and a Dumb August.”

  August: “I don’t like figs any more than I like Wagner.”

  Ringmaster: “What in the world do figs have to do with Wagner?”

  August: “I don’t like either of them, isn’t that enough? I bet you like Der Freischütz! But I don’t, see?”

  Ringmaster: “But August, Der Freischütz is by Weber, not Wagner.”

  August: “So, he didn’t even write Der Freischütz. What about Die Zauberflöte? Didn’t he write that, either?”

  Ringmaster: “That’s by Mozart, August.”

  August: “At least he was an Austrian.”

  Ringmaster: “So today he’d be a German.”

  August: “Right, they’re all nuts.”

  Ringmaster: “That’s enough politics, August. The weather . . .”

  August: “. . . is getting better and better.”

  Ringmaster: “Finally we agree on something, August. I was walking by the lake today . . .”

  August: “The water’s rising higher and higher.” August raised his hand higher and higher, like giving the Hitler salute.

  August: “It’s almost up to our necks already.”

  Ringmaster: “It’s like that every spring. The snow’s melting.”

  August: “Well, as an Austrian—”

  Ringmaster: “As a former Austrian.”

  August: “Right. As a former Austrian, I must protest your trying to make the snow melt responsible for the level of Lake Constance getting higher and higher! All you had to do was bend down and dip your hand into that water rising higher and higher to feel at once that it’s Austrian tears of joy making Lake Constance rise higher and higher and still higher, our tears of joy at rejoining the Reich. Shake a leg, Herr Director, romance calls, the Führer needs more soldiers.”

  Ringmaster: “Agreed, August, I’m with you a hundred percent.”

  August: “A hundred and two, Herr D
irector. In the meantime we can’t accept anything under a hundred and two.”

  The ringmaster: “Count me in!”

  He goes to embrace August, but August pushes him away and cries, “Röhm’s turning over in his grave!” Protecting his behind with both hands, August waddles out of the ring. Fanfare, applause.

  Johann saw that Herr Brugger and his wife weren’t clapping. Herr Brugger’s right hand was playing piano on the back of his left hand. His wife waited to see if he would clap.

  Then the ringmaster presented four ponies that could count and dance and stand on their hind legs. One pony could even cry when the ringmaster told him a sad story. And another could laugh when the ringmaster told him a pony joke. The ringmaster introduced the Wiener family as the high point of the program. Anita’s father came leaping into the ring, flanked by his two cart-wheeling children. Drum roll, furious glissandos on the accordion, the trumpet blew a charge. Anita and her brother followed their father up the white pole in the center of the ring. They shinnied up so fast that everyone clapped in astonishment. All three were wearing loose costumes of pink silk. Half-way up, brother and sister undid purple belts and fastened them around the pole. The belts allowed them to lean out away from the pole and act as counterweights to their father, whose tricks overhead made the pole bend perilously. But there were other tricks in which they clung to each other and wheeled around it, the father holding on to the pole, the son to the father, Anita to her brother. She flew in a circle, far out from the pole. Their silk pants and tunics fluttered. The audience clapped and clapped. Johann clapped loudest and longest. “All without a net!” cried Adolf. As the three of them climbed back down to the ring at last, the applause swelled to a roar.