A Gushing Fountain

by Martin Walser

  Anita said, “Safe trip home.”

  At least he was able to shake his head no. He managed to say that he would come to the performance that night and then say goodbye. Where was he going to spend the night? With relatives. In Apflau. It was right nearby.

  “Wait a second,” she said, disappeared behind the wagons, and returned with a red ticket. COMPLIMENTARY ADMISSION, it said. “Well, Johann,” she said, “see you soon.”

  He said, “Yes, see you soon.” She waved. He walked his bike toward the lake, returning the same way he had just come with Anita. Then he sat on the bench where he had sat with Anita. And although he didn’t open his mouth, two lines took shape in his head:

  Oh, that early in the day

  I should be so lonely.

  He didn’t try to stop those two lines repeating themselves over and over inside him. He even allowed them to rise to his lips. Quietly, but nevertheless still audibly, he said over and over and every time with a feeling of acquiescence,

  Oh, that early in the day

  I should be so lonely.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The Miracle of Wasserburg

  WHEN JOHANN TOOK A SEAT on a bench in the third row and saw that, in Langenargen, they had room for five rows of benches around the circus ring and all five were filling up with people—in fact, there were even more people who had to stand to watch the performance—he felt ashamed of their courtyard back home and of Wasserburg in general. Langenargen was really a different story entirely. That was already obvious at the bridge suspended from four piers that could have been the towers of a castle. You could already hear the hum of the town to be reached by crossing a bridge such as this before you even got there. And how the Argen foamed over the rocks! He had greeted the water of the Argen as an old friend, because when he and Josef visited the great-uncle they called Cousin during school vacations, the first thing they did was to run down to the Argen (which also flowed past there), dive headlong into the dark green stream from the outcroppings of bright rocks, and swim straight across. Whoever was driven farthest downstream by the current was the loser. That was always Johann, of course—so far.

  People in Langenargen laughed louder and clapped more than people in Wasserburg. Compared to the people in Langenargen, the people in Wasserburg now seemed to him cowering, suspicious, and almost furtive, as if they weren’t there to have a good time but to decide whether everything was being done as they thought they had a right to expect. Or was it because he couldn’t forget the way Herr Brugger had scratched the back of his left hand with his right instead of clapping? Or because Axel Munz had been mistreated? There was no question that people in Langenargen were better dressed. Or did he only think that because he knew everyone in Wasserburg, so their clothes didn’t seem so fine? People were laughing so hard at the ringmaster and Dumb August that they couldn’t stop making jokes. This time the ringmaster kept confusing “I” and “me.” When August said something right, he got a slap that knocked him over every time. Then August would peer up at the ringmaster and say, “What if it turns out I’m right after all?” And every time the ringmaster would shout, “Me never confuse ‘I’ and ‘me.’ Come with I and me will teach you to speak German.” The lesson, larded with slaps, didn’t end until Dumb August couldn’t say anything right, either.

  Johann realized the only thing he was interested in was Anita’s performances—the way she floated in as a dove; the way she whirled around the pole with her father and brother, her pink costume lit from below and fluttering against the night sky; the way she was carried around by Vishnu as the goddess Devi! Again, he gazed at her armpits and knew he would never ever see anything as beautiful as Anita Devi’s armpits, the hair in Anita Devi’s armpits. Fortunately, everything was decided now. He would follow her and gaze into her armpits every night when she made her entrance as the Hindu goddess. He was happy when suddenly it became so clear to him why he had been born and what he was to do. He would tell Anita about it right away. And if he couldn’t get it out, well, she would see him sitting in the audience night after night and see that he was always the one clapping longest and loudest.

  When everyone had left, the lights were turned off, and the ring lay bathed in moonlight, Anita came out of her trailer. She was wearing the yellow robe and the red turban. Then Johann knew that he could not tell her now. Now he could only say something about the performance.

  He said, “Great.”

  She said, “Thanks.”

  He said, “It was so great.”

  She said, “It was better today than in Wasserburg. Maybe Axel Munz will stay after all, because he sees how much people like him.” Then she hummed the melody the circus band had played today as the lights were gradually dimmed: “Sag beim Abschied leise Servus.” Johann realized he couldn’t stand there forever facing Anita like that. He had already shaken her hand and said—he couldn’t remember what.

  “So,” he said.

  “So,” she said.

  Again he moved his head as he did when rubbing noses, but without expecting her to come closer with her nose. Instead, he turned around, went over to his bicycle, and then turned back to her. Anita stood there and even raised her hand and waved. Then she called out, “Tell Adolf hi from me. He should’ve come to see me again, too!” Turned, and walked toward her trailer.

  Johann didn’t get on his bike. He pushed it toward the lake, then along the shore in the direction of the mouth of the Argen. Because the lake multiplied the moonlight, it was much brighter here than in town. He found the fisherman’s hut again. So much moonlight was pouring through the open door from the sky and the lake that he could see the nets he was going to spend the night on. Johann took a heavy rubber apron that was hanging from a nail and used it to make a sort of cave in the mountain of nets. Then he lay down and howled quietly, like Tell. Whenever Tell knew he was innocent, although everyone was scolding him, he howled quietly like that. It sounded like he was only howling to himself. But of course he knew that they heard him and would respond sometime. Johann knew that nobody heard his howling and that no one would respond. Still, he couldn’t help howling. He didn’t want to think anything now, he just wanted to howl.

  When he opened the door, it was already light outside. His saddle was wet with dew. He dried it with the scarf he’d used to dry off Anita. He had dried her up as far as the whale and the volcano. He started riding toward town. Toward the Hirschenwies. No sign of life. As hard as he looked, nothing was stirring. The ponies lay on the straw, the buffalo stood beneath a tree. Luckily, no one was awake yet. The worst thing that could happen would be to see Anita again. Tell Adolf hi from me. He should’ve come to see me again, too. Oh, that early in the day, I should be so lonely. That sentence popped up again and wouldn’t go away. Johann had to sing it. And so he rode out of Langenargen, and as he pedaled across the castle-like suspension bridge, he sang out loud, but fairly quietly: Oh, that early in the day, I should be so lonely. He sang it the way Karl Erb, the meterman from Ravensburg, sang Wer nie sein Brot mit Tränen ass. As the big onion-domed tower of the Wasserburg church loomed above the trees, he switched to the Mass. He rode along the upper path called the Langgasse. For half a mile, it was bordered left and right by a dense wall of blossoms, flowering trees standing in the fields like bouquets. If he were to write a composition in school about riding between these walls of bloom, he would write: There are three kinds of white. The greenish white of pear blossoms, the pinkish white of apple blossoms, and the pure white of cherry blossoms. Unconsciously he slipped back into his old “Von Apfelblüten einen Kranz.” The coloratura felt good. The more confidently he sang, the lighter he felt. He had the feeling it was lifting him from his saddle, or with his saddle and bike into the air. Basically, he was riding in the air above all the blossoming trees. Down there on his right: the lake, the bay, the long peninsula presided over by the church.

  What would he say when he got home? Mother had probably not been to bed all night. For sure she had telephon
ed Stadler, the rural constable, and had him call around asking after Johann. By now, Rural Constable Stadler was surely sitting at the regulars’ table, and from the inside breast pocket of the coat he never took off (when he sat down, he didn’t even undo the coat corners he had clipped up for bicycle riding, because despite a companionable nature, he was always in a hurry to get somewhere else) he was taking out his notebook and writing down the case: Unexplained disappearance of the second oldest son of the widow, etc.

  Johann rode as fast as he could. If the rural constable had not yet arrived, Mother would be standing outside on the terrace or on the side facing the station. She would be pacing up and down between the two chestnut trees, both hands balled up in the pockets of her apron. And to every passerby she calls out: Have you by any chance seen Johann? He’s been missing since yesterday morning. Maybe even since the evening of day before yesterday, with Josef’s bicycle. Without leaving a note behind. It’s not like him at all. Something must have happened to him, but what? Perhaps she could not even imagine he was still alive. If Johann was still alive, he surely would have sent her some sign. The guardian angel! What else could she do but implore Johann’s angel to protect him and see to it that Johann returned halfway unharmed—a thing, however, she really no longer thought possible.

  He stayed on the road that ran into the village from the west and led directly to the linden tree, where he turned and started uphill in order to approach from below, turn into the courtyard, walk the bicycle around the house, carry it up the back stairs, and leave it in the passageway. As if nothing had happened. Then he would go into the kitchen, let the storm break over his head, and not defend himself. Pull a long face and maybe cry. Before he could even turn into the courtyard, Tell raced down from the terrace. Johann had to lean the bike against the gate post and brace himself for the assault. And how he did bark! And howl! And leap at him! Until finally, with his paws on Johann’s shoulders, he calmed down and licked Johann’s neck.

  Obviously alerted by the barking, Niklaus came out of the carriage house where he was filling sacks and asked what was wrong with the dog. Johann said he had no idea.

  “First he doesn’t eat anything for two days,” said Niklaus, “then he goes crazy.”

  “Didn’t he eat anything?” asked Johann.

  “As if you didn’t know. You were complaining yourself that he didn’t touch a bite.”

  Johann looked at Niklaus. Maybe Niklaus was getting a little soft in the head after all. When Johann saw that Niklaus hadn’t left a single speck of sawdust or blade of straw from La Paloma Circus, he praised him. Niklaus had also mowed the trampled grass and carried away the cuttings. That could not have been an easy job. Niklaus said he couldn’t have done it without Johann. Or anyway, not so quickly. Johann patted Niklaus on the shoulder, pushed the bike to the rear stairs, and carried it up and into the house. As he entered, he saw his school bag on the landing. He picked up the bag and took it into the kitchen as if he were coming from school. He gave the bag a shove so it slid into the corner and then slid down the bench himself. He felt Tell’s head between his knees and thought that now the trouble would start.

  Mina was alone in the kitchen. She asked if school had let out early today.

  Johann said, “Yes.” Tell pushed his nose against Johann’s knee and thigh, repeatedly. And in between, he barked.

  “He’s hungry,” said Johann.

  “About time,” said Mina. “I’d let him beg a little more if I were you. Yesterday he turned down everything like we were trying to poison him, and now he acts like he’s complaining.”

  Johann dashed off to get Tell’s bowl, filled it, filled his water bowl too, and put both on the landing by the back door, then watched Tell eagerly devour his food and quench his thirst with noisy slurps.

  Mina watched out the kitchen window. “Can you believe it? Yesterday he wouldn’t touch a bite and now he can’t get enough.”

  “Didn’t he eat anything yesterday?” asked Johann.

  “What’s the matter,” said Mina, “are you losing your memory? Yesterday he acted like you were some stranger. I guess the beasts have their moods just like us, right?” Johann nodded, then came back into the kitchen with Tell. Tell laid his head on Johann’s feet.

  Johann opened his school bag and took out the notebooks he needed: math and composition and geography and history. He opened his composition notebook and read the essay he hadn’t written, “How Much Homeland Do We Need?” It was dated yesterday and written in Johann’s handwriting.

  Things started to dance in front of Johann’s eyes. He clapped the notebook shut and stuffed it into his school bag like something he had to hide. Mina said his mother was waiting for him. I’ll bet she is, thought Johann.

  “I’m sure she wants to tell you herself,” said Mina. And the words were barely out of her mouth when Mother was standing there in the doorway. Oh jeez, thought Johann. Mother sat down across from him.

  “I’m glad you’re home early,” she said. She told him how happy it made her that now he had gained the confidence not just of the farmers, but of Herr Witzigmann too. Since he must have been gaping at her like a half-wit, she went on: Yes, that morning Herr Witzigmann had come by with the paper on which he added up the weights. Thirty-two separate weighings and the sum of the thirty-two net weights was the same—down to the pound—as the net weight of the straw that had been unloaded from the boxcar yesterday and distributed to thirty-two farmers. And last night, some farmers at the regulars’ table who had picked up straw and had it weighed by Johann had praised him to the skies, saying how friendly he was and how precisely and quickly he worked. They had downright congratulated her on her son. It really did her good to hear it, because she was always afraid one of her children would do something other people wouldn’t understand. She had already had enough of that with Papa. If things had gone on like that, she would have been at her wits’ end. That’s why she was so relieved today. My God, you can’t live against people when you have to live from them, can you? And when Herr Witzigmann said things like that about Johann, then it meant something. Johann could picture him. At Father’s funeral, he had spoken on behalf of the choral society. Since he had praised Father’s voice and musicality, Johann had been able to listen to what he said. “Now that his warm and soulful voice has fallen silent, we are the poorer for it.” That’s what he said, the strict Herr Witzigmann, whom one always anxiously awaits because he always comes with the list on which he compares the weighed loads with the total net weight. A certain difference in weight is to be expected, as long as it’s not too big. And especially if it isn’t to the disadvantage of the savings and loan! For instance, when the waybill says that a boxcar with 135 hundredweights has been delivered, and the loads that Johann and Mother weigh come to only 129 or 131 hundredweights! So when you weigh, you always have to weigh a little bit in favor of the savings and loan. But the farmer you’re weighing is, of course, standing right next to you and watching to see that the two pointers on the scale are right next to each other when the weighing is done. And now, this great triumph. Herr Witzigmann said he was glad to see that Johann was growing up to be a boy one could count on.

  When Josef limped into the kitchen, he said his bicycle was back again. He just wished he knew who had taken it.

  Mother said, “Well, thank goodness for that.”

  When Josef saw Tell lying under the table, he said, “Is he back to normal again?”

  Mina answered right away, “At least he’s eating again.”

  Mother said, “Thank the Lord.”

  Josef said that yesterday, he really thought they would have to shoot Tell.

  “Are you crazy?” said Johann.

  “Don’t pretend you didn’t think he had rabies, too. He’d never barked at you like that. I could see you were afraid of your own dog. And he wouldn’t take a bit of food. Maybe he had just a touch of it and now he’s gotten over it.”

  Johann stroked Tell’s head. Tell laid his head be
tween Johann’s knees. Johann jumped up and went to the office. From one of the lower drawers of the highboy, he took out a purchase ledger for the restaurant and hotel trade in which each new month started on a new verso, even if the previous month had only filled up half the two-page spread. At the end of every month, there was a lot of blank space below Mother’s unsteady handwriting. On the two-page spread for January, he drew a line from the left to the right margin and wrote, more in his father’s handwriting than his mother’s:

  Oh, that early in the day

  I should be so lonely.

  Then he hid the book in the lowest drawer. Now, if lines like that popped into his head again, he would know where to put them.

  When Johann returned to the kitchen to eat with the others, Josef said, “Herr Jutz said if you always played the way you did yesterday, maybe he could make a pianist out of you after all. He’d never heard you play with such a fine touch before.”

  Johann said, “Oh, sure.”

  “I’m just telling you what he said,” Josef replied. Then he said he had talked to Edi Fürst last night. The attack on Dumb August hadn’t been Edi’s doing. Dumb August was a rum customer, all right, but it was people from outside who had beaten him up. He guessed they were SS militia.

  “Hush now,” said Mother.

  “Axel Munz is a great artist,” said Johann.

  “You think anyone who can make a funny face is a great artist,” said Josef. But that didn’t mean you had to beat them up, and Edi Fürst agreed.

  “That’s enough now,” said Mother. “There’s lots of other things to talk about.” And she started to cry. Everyone was silent. Little Anselm, who was sitting on her lap, raised his eyebrows and looked reproachfully from one person to the next. It’s all your fault that she’s crying. That’s how he looked at his brothers. Mother said it was all she could take that Father had nothing but trouble with the new people and they had almost lost everything. Wasn’t that enough? Couldn’t they be quiet now? Hadn’t the family been in enough trouble already?