The Collected Stories of Heinrich Böll

by Heinrich Böll

  I lugged my heavy sample case to the streetcar stop and waited a long time. The darkness was soft and clear, it was summer. Streetlights were on at the crossings, people were strolling about in the evening, it was quiet; I was standing beside a big circular traffic island fringed by dark, empty office buildings. Behind me was a little park; I heard the sound of running water, and on turning round I saw a great marble woman standing there, with thin jets of water spouting from her rigid breasts into a copper basin. I felt chilly and realized I was tired. At last the streetcar arrived; soft music poured from brightly lit cafés, but the station was in an empty, quiet part of town. All I could glean from the big blackboard there was the departure time of a train which would get me only halfway home and which, if I took it, would cost me a whole night of waiting room, grime, and a bowl of repulsive soup at the station in a little place with no hotel. I turned away, went outside again, and counted my money by the light of a gas lamp: nine marks, return ticket, and a few pfennigs. Some cars were standing there that looked as if they had been waiting there forever, and little trees, cropped like new recruits. Dear little trees, I thought, nice little trees, obedient little trees. Doctors’ white nameplates showed up against a few unlighted houses, and through a café window I looked in on a gathering of empty chairs for whose benefit a writhing violinist was producing sobs that might have moved stones but hardly a human being. At last, in a lane skirting the bulk of a dark church, I came upon a painted green sign: ROOMS. I stepped inside.

  Behind me I could hear the streetcar on its return trip to the better-lit, more populated part of town. The hall was empty, and I turned to the right into a little room containing four tables and twelve chairs; to the left, bottles of beer and lemonade stood in metal display stands on a built-in counter. Everything looked clean and plain. Green hessian, divided by narrow strips of brown wood, had been tacked to the walls with rosette-shaped copper nails. The chairs were green too, upholstered in some soft, velvety material. Pale-yellow curtains had been drawn closely across the windows, and behind the counter a serving hatch opened into a kitchen. I put down my suitcase, drew a chair toward me, and sat down. I was very tired.

  How quiet it was here, even quieter than the station which, strangely enough, was some distance from the business center, a gloomy, cavernous place filled with the muffled sounds of an invisible bustle: bustle behind closed wickets, bustle behind wooden barriers.

  I was hungry too, and I found the utter futility of this journey very depressing. I was glad of the few minutes to myself in this quiet, unpretentious room. I would have liked to smoke but found I had no cigarettes, and now I regretted having abandoned the cigar in the wholesale devotionalist’s office. Although I might well be depressed at having gone on yet another wild-goose chase, I was aware of a growing sense of relief that I couldn’t quite define or account for, but perhaps in my heart I rejoiced at my final expulsion from the devotional-supply trade.

  I had not been idle after the war. I had helped clear away ruins, remove rubble, scrape bricks clean, build walls, haul sand, shift lime; I had submitted applications—many, many applications—thumbed through books, carefully watched over my pile of stearin. On my own, with no help from those who might have given me the benefit of their experience, I had found out how to make candles, beautiful, simple, good-quality candles, tinted a soft yellow that gave them the luster of melting beeswax. I had done everything to get on my feet, as they say: to find some way of earning a living, and although I ought to have been sad, the very futility of my efforts was now filling me with a joy such as I had never known.

  I had not been ungenerous. I had given away candles to people living in cramped unlighted holes, and whenever there had been a chance of profiteering, I had avoided it. I had gone hungry and devoted myself single-mindedly toward this method of making a living; but although I might have expected a reward for what one might call my integrity, I almost rejoiced to find myself evidently unworthy of any reward.

  The thought also crossed my mind that perhaps we would have done better after all to manufacture shoe polish, as someone had advised us, to mix other ingredients with the basic material, to get hold of some formulas, acquire a stock of cardboard containers, and fill them up.

  In the midst of my musings the landlady entered the room, a slight, elderly woman. Her dress was green, the green of the beer and lemonade bottles on the counter. “Good evening,” she said pleasantly. I returned her greeting, and she asked, “What can I do for you?”

  “I would like a room, if you have one.”

  “Certainly,” she said. “What price had you in mind?”

  “The cheapest.”

  “That would be three marks fifty.”

  “Fine,” I said, relieved. “And perhaps something to eat?”

  “Certainly.”

  “Bread, some cheese and butter, and”—I ran my eyes over the bottles on the counter—“perhaps some wine.”

  “Certainly,” she said, “a bottle?”

  “No, no! A glass and—how much will that come to?”

  She had gone behind the counter and was already pushing back the hook to open the serving hatch, but she paused to ask, “All together?”

  “Yes, please, all together.”

  She reached under the counter, took out pad and pencil, and again it was very quiet while she slowly wrote and added up. Despite the reserve in her manner, her whole presence, as she stood there, radiated a reassuring kindness. And she endeared herself to me still further by apparently making several mistakes in her addition. She slowly wrote down the items, frowned as she added them up, shook her head, crossed them out, rewrote everything, added up again, this time without frowning, and in gray pencil wrote the result at the bottom, finally saying in her soft voice, “Six-twenty—no, six, I beg your pardon.”

  I smiled. “That’s fine. And have you any cigars?”

  “Certainly.” She reached under the counter again and held out a box. I took two and thanked her. The woman quietly gave the order through to the kitchen and left the room.

  Scarcely had she gone when the door opened and in walked a young man, of slight build, unshaven, wearing a light-colored raincoat; behind him was a girl in a brown coat, hatless. The couple approached quietly, almost diffidently, and with a brief “Good evening” turned toward the counter. The boy was carrying the girl’s shabby leather bag, and although he was obviously at pains to appear undaunted and to display the bravado of a man who regularly spends the night with his girl in a hotel, I could see his lower lip trembling and tiny beads of sweat on the stubble of his beard. The couple stood there like customers awaiting their turn in a store. The fact that they were hatless and that the bag was their only luggage made them look like refugees who had arrived at some transit camp. The girl was beautiful, her skin alive, warm, and slightly flushed, and her heavy brown hair hanging loosely over her shoulders seemed almost too heavy for her slender feet; she nervously moved her black dusty shoes, shifting her weight from one foot to the other more often than was necessary; the young man kept brushing back a few strands of hair as they fell over his forehead, and his small round mouth expressed a painful but at the same time elated determination. I could see they were deliberately avoiding each other’s eyes, and they did not speak to one another, while I for my part was glad to be busily occupied with my cigar, to be able to clip it, light it, look critically at the tip, relight it, and start smoking. Every second of waiting must be agony, I knew; for the girl, no matter how unabashed and happy she might look, continued to shift her weight as she tugged at her coat, while the boy continued to pass his hand over his forehead although there were no more strands of hair to brush back. At last the woman reappeared, quietly said “Good evening,” and placed the bottle of wine on the counter.

  I jumped up at once, saying, “Allow me!” She looked at me in surprise, then set down the glass, handed me the corkscrew, and asked the young man, “What can I do for you?” As I put the cigar between my lips and twiste
d the corkscrew into the cork, I heard the young man ask, “Can you let us have two rooms?”

  “Two?” asked the landlady. Just then I pulled out the cork and from the corner of my eye saw the girl flush, while the boy bit hard on his lower lip and, barely opening his mouth, said, “Yes, two.”

  “Oh, thank you,” the landlady said, filling the glass and passing it to me. I went back to my table, began to sip the gentle wine, and could only hope that the inevitable ritual would not be dragged out even further by the arrival of my supper. But the entries in the register, the filling out of forms, and the producing of gray-blue identity cards, all took less time than I had expected; and at one point, when the boy opened the leather bag to get out the identity cards, I saw that it contained greasy paper bags, a crumpled hat, some packets of cigarettes, a beret, and a shabby old red wallet.

  During all this time the girl tried to look poised and confident; with an air of nonchalance she surveyed the bottles of lemonade, the green of the hessian wall covering, and the rosette-shaped nails, but the flush never left her cheeks, and when everything was finally settled they took their keys and hurried upstairs without saying good night. A few minutes later my supper was passed through the hatch; the landlady brought me my plate, and when our eyes met she did not smile, as I had thought she would, but looked gravely past me and said, “I hope you enjoy your supper, sir.”

  “Thank you,” I replied. She remained standing beside me.

  I slowly began my meal, helping myself to bread, butter, and cheese. She still did not move. “Smile,” I said.

  And she did smile, but then she sighed, saying, “There’s nothing I can do about it.”

  “Do you wish there were?”

  “Oh, yes,” she said fervently, sitting herself down beside me, “indeed I do. I’d like to do something about a lot of things. But if he asks for two rooms … If he had asked for one, now …” She paused.

  “What then?” I asked.

  “What then?” she mimicked angrily. “I would have thrown him out.”

  “What for?” I said wearily, putting the last piece of bread in my mouth. She said nothing. What for, I thought, what for? Doesn’t the world belong to lovers, weren’t the nights mild enough, weren’t other doors open, dirtier ones perhaps, but doors one could close behind one? I looked into my empty glass and smiled …

  The landlady had risen, fetched her big book and a pile of forms, and sat down beside me again.

  She watched me as I filled everything out. I paused at the column “Occupation,” raised my eyes, and looked into her smiling face. “Why do you hesitate?” she asked calmly. “Have you no occupation?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “I don’t know whether I am a workman, a salesman, a manufacturer, unemployed, or only an agent … but whose agent?” Whereupon I quickly wrote down “Agent” and gave her back the book. For a moment I considered offering her candles—twenty, if she liked, for a glass of wine, or ten for a cigar. I don’t know why I didn’t; perhaps I was just too tired, or too lazy, but the next morning I was glad I hadn’t. I relit my dead cigar and got to my feet. The woman had shut the book, laying the forms between the pages, and was yawning.

  “Would you like coffee in the morning?” she asked.

  “No, thank you, I have to catch an early train. Good night.”

  “Good night,” she said.

  But next morning I slept late. The passage, which I had glimpsed the previous evening—carpeted in dark red—had remained silent throughout the night. The room was quiet too. The unaccustomed wine had made me sleepy but also happy. The window was open, and all I could see against the quiet, deep-blue summer sky was the dark roof of the church opposite; farther to the right I could see the colorful reflection of the town lights, hear the noise of the livelier district. I took my cigar with me as I got into bed so that I could read the newspaper, but fell asleep at once …

  It was after eight when I woke up. The train I had meant to catch had already left, and I was sorry I had not asked to be woken. I washed, decided to go out for a shave, and went downstairs. The little green room was now light and cheerful, the sun shining in through the thin curtains, and I was surprised to see tables set for breakfast, with breadcrumbs, empty jam dishes, and coffeepots. I felt as if I were the only guest in this silent house. I paid my bill to a friendly maid and left.

  Outside, I hesitated. The cool shadow of the church surrounded me. The lane was narrow and clean; to the right a baker had opened his shop, loaves and rolls shone pale brown and yellow in the glass cases, and farther on, jugs of milk stood at a door to which a thin, blue-white trail of milkdrops led. The other side of the street was entirely taken up by a high black wall built of great square blocks of stone; through a big arched gateway I saw green lawn and walked in. I was standing in a monastery garden. An old, flat-roofed building, its stone window frames touchingly whitewashed, stood in the middle of a green lawn, stone tombs in the shade of weeping willows. A monk was padding along a flagged path toward the church. In passing, he gave me a nod of greeting. I nodded back, and when he entered the church, I followed him, without knowing why.

  The church was empty. It was old, devoid of decoration, and when by force of habit I dipped my hand in the stoup and bent my knee toward the altar, I saw that the candles must have just gone out: a thin black ribbon of smoke was rising from them into the clear air. There was no one in sight; Mass seemed to be over for this morning. My eyes involuntarily followed the black figure as it bobbed an awkward genuflection in front of the tabernacle and vanished into a side aisle. I went closer and came to a sudden halt. I found myself looking at a confessional. The young girl of the previous evening was kneeling in a pew in front of it, her face hidden in her hands, while at the edge of the nave, showing no apparent interest, stood the young man, the leather bag in one hand, the other hanging slackly by his side, his eyes on the altar …

  In the midst of this silence I could hear my heart beating, louder, stronger, strangely unquiet, and I could feel the boy looking at me: our eyes met, he recognized me and flushed. The girl was still kneeling there, her face in her hands, a thin, faint thread of smoke still rising from the candles. I sat down in a pew, placed my hat beside me, and put my suitcase on the ground. I felt as if I were waking up for the first time, as if until now I had seen everything with my eyes only, a detached spectator—church, garden, street, girl, man—it had all been like a stage set that I had brushed by as an outsider, but now, looking at the altar, I longed for the young man to go and confess too. I wondered when I had last gone to confession, found it hard to keep track of the years, roughly it would be about seven, but as I went on thinking about it, I realized something much worse: I couldn’t put my finger on any sin. No matter how honestly I tried, I couldn’t think of any sin worth confessing, and this made me very sad. I felt unclean, full of things that needed to be washed away, but nowhere was there actually anything that in coarse, rough, sharp, clear terms could have been called sin. My heart beat louder than ever. Last night I had not envied the young couple, but now I did envy that ardent kneeling figure, still hiding her face in her hands, waiting. The young man stood completely motionless and detached.

  I was like a pail of water that has remained exposed to the air for a long time. It looks clean, a casual glance reveals nothing in it: nobody has thrown stones, dirt, or garbage into it, it has been standing in the hallway or basement of a well-kept, respectable house; the bottom appears to be immaculate; all is clear and still, yet, when you dip your hand into the water, there runs through your fingers an intangible repulsive fine dirt that seems to be without shape, without form, almost without dimension. You just know it is there. And on reaching deeper into this immaculate pail, you find at the bottom a thick indisputable layer of this fine disgusting formless muck to which you cannot put a name; a dense, leaden sediment made up of these infinitesimal particles of dirt abstracted from the air of respectability.
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br />   I could not pray; I could only hear my heart beating and wait for the girl to go into the confessional. At last she raised her hands, laid her face against them for an instant, stood up, and entered the wooden box.

  The young man kept his place. He stood there aloof, having no part in it, unshaven, pale, his face still expressing a mild yet insistent determination. When the girl emerged, he suddenly put down the bag and stepped into the confessional.

  I still could not pray, no voice spoke to me or in me, nothing moved, only my heart was beating, and I could not curb my impatience: I stood up, left my suitcase where it was, and crossed over to the side aisle, where I stood beside a pew. In the front pew the young woman was kneeling before an old stone Madonna standing on a bare, disused altar. The Virgin’s face was coarse-featured but smiling, a piece of her nose was missing, the blue paint of her robe had flaked off, and the gold stars on it were now no more than lighter spots; her scepter was broken, and of the Child in her arms only the back of the head and part of the feet were still visible. The center part, the torso, had fallen out, and she was smilingly holding this fragment in her arms. A poor monastic order, evidently, that owned this church.

  “Oh, if I could only pray!” I prayed. I felt hard, useless, unclean, unrepentant; I couldn’t even produce one sin; the only thing I possessed was my pounding heart and the knowledge that I was unclean …

  The young man brushing past me from behind roused me from my thoughts, and I stepped into the confessional.

  By the time I had been dismissed with the sign of the cross, the young couple had left the church. The monk pushed aside the purple curtain of the confessional, opened the little door, and padded slowly past me; once again he genuflected awkwardly before the altar.

  I waited until I had seen him disappear, then quickly crossed the nave, also genuflecting, carried my suitcase back to the side aisle, and opened it. There they all lay, tied in bundles by my wife’s loving hands, slim, yellow, unadorned, and I looked at the cold, bare stone plinth on which the Madonna stood and regretted for the first time that my suitcase was not heavier. I ripped open the first bundle and struck a match …