The Collected Stories of Heinrich Böll

by Heinrich Böll

  “It’s a disgrace,” said the director, “that you’ve never had a program about dogs; after all, that’s your department. What was the title of your last program?”

  “The title of my last program was—” stammered Krochy.

  “You don’t have to repeat every sentence,” said the director, “we’re not in the army.”

  “ ‘Owls in the Ruins,’” said Krochy timidly.

  “Within the next three weeks,” said the director, gentle again now, “I would like to hear a program about the canine soul.”

  “Certainly, sir,” said Krochy. He heard the click as the director put down the receiver, sighed deeply, and said, “Oh, God!”

  The director picked up the next letter.

  At this moment Bur-Malottke entered the room. He was always at liberty to enter unannounced, and he made frequent use of this liberty. He was still sweating as he sank wearily into a chair opposite the director and said, “Well, good morning.”

  “Good morning,” said the director, pushing the letter aside. “What can I do for you?”

  “Could you give me one minute?”

  “Bur-Malottke,” said the director, with a generous, dynamic gesture, “does not have to ask me for one minute; hours, days, are at your disposal.”

  “No,” said Bur-Malottke, “I don’t mean an ordinary minute. I mean one minute of radio time. Due to the changes, my talk has become one minute longer.”

  The director grew serious, like a satrap distributing provinces. “I hope,” he said sourly, “it’s not a political minute.”

  “No,” said Bur-Malottke, “it’s half a minute of ‘Neighborly News’ and half a minute of Light Entertainment.”

  “Thank God for that,” said the director. “I’ve got a credit of seventy-nine seconds with Light Entertainment and eighty-three seconds with ‘Neighborly News.’ I’ll be glad to let someone like Bur-Malottke have one minute.”

  “I am overcome,” said Bur-Malottke.

  “Is there anything else I can do for you?” asked the director.

  “I would appreciate it,” said Bur-Malottke, “if we could gradually start correcting all the tapes I have made since 1945. One day,” he said—he passed his hand over his forehead and gazed wistfully at the genuine Kokoschka above the director’s desk—“one day I shall”—he faltered, for the news he was about to break to the director was too painful for posterity—“one day I shall … die,” and he paused again, giving the director a chance to look gravely shocked and raise his hand in protest, “and I cannot bear the thought that after my death, tapes may be run off on which I say things I no longer believe in. Particularly in some of my political utterances, during the fervor of 1945, I let myself be persuaded to make statements which today fill me with serious misgivings and which I can only account for on the basis of that spirit of youthfulness that has always distinguished my work. My written works are already in process of being corrected, and I would like to ask you to give me the opportunity of correcting my spoken works as well.”

  The director was silent; he cleared his throat slightly, and little shining beads of sweat appeared on his forehead. It occurred to him that Bur-Malottke had spoken for at least an hour every month since 1945, and he made a swift calculation while Bur-Malottke went on talking: twelve times ten hours meant one hundred and twenty hours of spoken Bur-Malottke.

  “Pedantry,” Bur-Malottke was saying, “is something that only impure spirits regard as unworthy of genius; we know, of course”—and the director felt flattered to be ranked by the We among the pure spirits—“that the true geniuses, the great geniuses, were pedants. Himmelsheim once had a whole printed edition of his Seelon rebound at his own expense because he felt that three or four sentences in the central portion of the work were no longer appropriate. The idea that some of my talks might be broadcast which no longer correspond to my convictions when I depart this earthly life—I find such an idea intolerable. How do you propose we go about it?”

  The beads of sweat on the director’s forehead had become larger. “First of all,” he said in a subdued voice, “an exact list would have to be made of all your broadcast talks, and then we would have to check in the archives to see if all the tapes were still there.”

  “I should hope,” said Bur-Malottke, “that none of the tapes has been erased without notifying me. I have not been notified, therefore no tapes have been erased.”

  “I will see to everything,” said the director.

  “Please do,” said Bur-Malottke curtly, and rose from his chair. “Goodbye.”

  “Goodbye,” said the director as he accompanied Bur-Malottke to the door.

  The freelancers in the coffeeshop had decided to order lunch. They had had some more drinks, they were still talking about art, their conversation was quieter now but no less intense. They all jumped to their feet when Wanderburn suddenly came in. Wanderburn was a tall, despondent-looking writer with dark hair, an attractive face somewhat etched by the stigma of fame. On this particular morning he had not shaved, which made him look even more attractive. He walked over to the table where the three men were sitting, sank exhausted into a chair, and said, “For God’s sake, give me a drink. I always have the feeling in this building that I’m dying of thirst.”

  They passed him a drink, a glass that was still standing on the table, and the remains of a bottle of soda water. Wanderburn swallowed the drink, put down his glass, looked at each of the three men in turn, and said, “I must warn you about the radio business, about this pile of junk—this immaculate, shiny, slippery pile of junk. I’m warning you. It’ll destroy us all.” His warning was sincere and impressed the three young men very much; but the three young men did not know that Wanderburn had just come from the accounting department, where he had picked up a nice fat fee for a quick job of editing the Book of Job.

  “They cut us,” said Wanderburn, “they consume our substance, splice us together again, and it’ll be more than any of us can stand.”

  He finished the soda water, put the glass down on the table, and, his coat flapping despondently about him, strode to the door.

  On the dot of noon Murke finished the splicing. They had just stuck in the last snippet, a genitive, when Murke got up. He already had his hand on the doorknob when the technician said, “I wish I could afford a sensitive and expensive conscience like that. What’ll we do with the box?” He pointed to the flat tin lying on the shelf next to the cardboard boxes containing the new tapes.

  “Just leave it there,” said Murke.

  “What for?”

  “We might need it again.”

  “D’you think he might get pangs of conscience all over again?”

  “He might,” said Murke. “We’d better wait and see. So long.” He walked to the front paternoster, rode down to the second floor, and for the first time that day entered his office. His secretary had gone to lunch; Murke’s boss, Humkoke, was sitting by the phone reading a book. He smiled at Murke, got up, and said, “Well, I see you survived. Is this your book? Did you put it on the desk?” He held it out for Murke to read the title, and Murke said, “Yes, that’s mine.” The book had a jacket of green, gray, and orange and was called Batley’s Lyrics of the Gutter; it was about a young English writer a hundred years ago who had drawn up a catalog of London slang.

  “It’s a marvelous book,” said Murke.

  “Yes,” said Humkoke, “it is marvelous, but you never learn.”

  Murke eyed him questioningly.

  “You never learn that one doesn’t leave marvelous books lying around when Wanderburn is liable to turn up, and Wanderburn is always liable to turn up. He saw it at once, of course, opened it, read it for five minutes, and what’s the result?”

  Murke said nothing.

  “The result,” said Humkoke, “is two hour-long broadcasts by Wanderburn on ‘Lyrics of the Gutter.’ One day this fellow will do a feature about his own grandmother, and the worst of it is that one of his grandmothers was one of mine too. Please
, Murke, try to remember: never leave marvelous books around when Wanderburn is liable to turn up, and, I repeat, he’s always liable to turn up. That’s all, you can go now, you’ve got the afternoon off, and I’m sure you’ve earned it. Is the stuff ready? Did you hear it through again?”

  “It’s all done,” said Murke, “but I can’t hear the talks through again, I simply can’t.”

  “ ‘I simply can’t’ is a very childish thing to say,” said Humkoke.

  “If I have to hear the word ‘art’ one more time today, I’ll become hysterical,” said Murke.

  “You already are,” said Humkoke, “and I must say you’ve every reason to be. Three hours of Bur-Malottke—that’s too much for anybody, even the toughest of us, and you’re not even tough.” He threw the book on the table, took a step toward Murke, and said, “When I was your age I once had to cut three minutes out of a four-hour speech of Hitler’s, and I had to listen to the speech three times before I was considered worthy of suggesting which three minutes should be cut. When I began listening to the tape for the first time I was still a Nazi, but by the time I had heard the speech for the third time I wasn’t a Nazi anymore. It was a drastic cure—a terrible one, but very effective.”

  “You forget,” said Murke quietly, “that I had already been cured of Bur-Malottke before I had to listen to his tapes.”

  “You really are a vicious beast!” said Humkoke with a laugh. “That’ll do for now. The director is going to hear it through again at two. Just see that you’re available in case anything goes wrong.”

  “I’ll be home from two to three,” said Murke.

  “One more thing,” said Humkoke, pulling out a yellow biscuit tin from a shelf next to Murke’s desk. “What’s this scrap you’ve got here?”

  Murke colored. “It’s …” he stammered, “I collect a certain kind of leftovers.”

  “What kind of leftovers?” asked Humkoke.

  “Silences,” said Murke. “I collect silences.”

  Humkoke raised his eyebrows, and Murke went on, “When I have to cut tapes, in the places where the speakers sometimes pause for a moment—or sigh, or take a breath, or there is absolute silence—I don’t throw that away, I collect it. Incidentally, there wasn’t a single second of silence in Bur-Malottke’s tapes.”

  Humkoke laughed. “Of course not, he would never be silent. And what do you do with the scrap?”

  “I splice it together and play back the tape when I’m at home in the evening. There’s not much yet, I only have three minutes so far—but then people aren’t silent very often.”

  “You know, don’t you, that it’s against regulations to take home sections of tape?”

  “Even silences?” asked Murke.

  Humkoke laughed and said, “For God’s sake, get out!” And Murke left.

  When the director entered his studio a few minutes after two, the Bur-Malottke tape had just been turned on:

  … and wherever, however, why ever, and whenever we begin to discuss the Nature of Art, we must first look to that higher Being Whom we revere, we must bow in awe before that higher Being Whom we revere, and we must accept Art as a gift from that higher Being Whom we revere. Art …

  No, thought the director, I really can’t ask anyone to listen to Bur-Malottke for a hundred and twenty hours. No, he thought, there are some things one simply cannot do, things I wouldn’t want to wish even on Murke. He returned to his office and switched on the loudspeaker just in time to hear Bur-Malottke say, “O Thou higher Being Whom we revere …” No, thought the director, no, no.

  Murke lay on his chesterfield at home smoking. Next to him on a chair was a cup of tea, and Murke was gazing at the white ceiling of the room. Sitting at his desk was a very pretty blonde who was staring out of the window at the street. Between Murke and the girl, on a low coffee table, stood a tape recorder, recording. Not a word was spoken, not a sound was made. The girl was pretty and silent enough for a photographer’s model.

  “I can’t stand it,” said the girl suddenly. “I can’t stand it, it’s inhuman, what you want me to do. There are some men who expect a girl to do immoral things, but it seems to me that what you are asking me to do is even more immoral than the things other men expect a girl to do.”

  Murke sighed. “Oh, hell,” he said, “Rina dear, now I’ve got to cut all that out; do be sensible, be a good girl, and put just five more minutes’ silence on the tape.”

  “Put silence,” said the girl, with what thirty years ago would have been called a pout. “Put silence, that’s another of your inventions. I wouldn’t mind putting words onto a tape—but putting silence …”

  Murke had got up and switched off the tape recorder. “Oh, Rina,” he said, “if you only knew how precious your silence is to me. In the evening, when I’m tired, when I’m sitting here alone, I play back your silence. Do be a dear and put just three more minutes’ silence on the tape for me and save me the cutting; you know how I feel about cutting.”

  “Oh, all right,” said the girl, “but give me a cigarette at least.”

  Murke smiled, gave her a cigarette, and said, “This way I have your silence in the original and on tape, that’s terrific.” He switched the tape on again, and they sat facing one another in silence till the telephone rang. Murke got up, shrugged helplessly, and lifted the receiver.

  “Well,” said Humkoke, “the tapes ran off smoothly, the boss couldn’t find a thing wrong with them … You can go to the movies now. And think about snow.”

  “What snow?” asked Murke, looking out onto the street, which lay basking in brilliant summer sunshine.

  “Come on, now,” said Humkoke, “you know we have to start thinking about the winter programs. I need songs about snow, stories about snow—we can’t fool around for the rest of our lives with Schubert and Stifter. No one seems to have any idea how badly we need snow songs and snow stories. Just imagine if we have a long hard winter with lots of snow and freezing temperatures: where are we going to get our snow programs from? Try to think of something snowy.”

  “All right,” said Murke, “I’ll try to think of something.” Humkoke had hung up.

  “Come along,” he said to the girl, “we can go to the movies.”

  “May I speak again now?” said the girl.

  “Yes,” said Murke, “speak!”

  It was just at this time that the assistant drama producer had finished listening again to the one-act play scheduled for that evening. He liked it, only the ending did not satisfy him. He was sitting in the glass booth in Studio 13 next to the technician, chewing a match and studying the script.

  (Sound effects of a large empty church)

  ATHEIST (in a loud clear voice): Who will remember me when I have become the prey of worms?

  (Silence)

  ATHEIST (his voice a shade louder): Who will wait for me when I have turned into dust?

  (Silence)

  ATHEIST (louder still): And who will remember me when I have turned into leaves?

  (Silence)

  There were twelve such questions called out by the atheist into the church, and each question was followed by—? Silence.

  The assistant producer removed the chewed match from his lips, replaced it with a fresh one, and looked at the technician, a question in his eyes.

  “Yes,” said the technician, “if you ask me, I think there’s a bit too much silence in it.”

  “That’s what I thought,” said the assistant producer; “the author thinks so too and he’s given me leave to change it. There should just be a voice saying ‘God’—but it ought to be a voice without church sound effects, it would have to be spoken somehow in a different acoustical environment. Have you any idea where I can get hold of a voice like that at this hour?”

  The technician smiled, picked up the metal container which was still lying on the shelf. “Here you are,” he said, “here’s a voice saying ‘God’ without any sound effects.”

  The assistant producer was so surprised he almost swa
llowed the match, choked a little, and got it up into the front of his mouth again. “It’s quite all right,” the technician said with a smile. “We had to cut it out of a talk, twenty-seven times.”

  “I don’t need it that often, just twelve times,” said the assistant producer.

  “It’s a simple matter, of course,” said the technician, “to cut out the silence and stick in ‘God’ twelve times—if you’ll take the responsibility.”

  “You’re a godsend,” said the assistant producer, “and I’ll be responsible. Come on, let’s get started.” He gazed happily at the tiny, lusterless tape snippets in Murke’s tin box. “You really are a godsend,” he said. “Come on, let’s go!”

  The technician smiled, for he was looking forward to being able to present Murke with the snippets of silence: it was a lot of silence, all together nearly a minute; it was more silence than he had ever been able to give Murke, and he liked the young man.

  “Okay,” he said with a smile, “here we go.”

  The assistant producer put his hand in his jacket pocket, took out a pack of cigarettes; in doing so he touched a crumpled piece of paper. He smoothed it out and passed it to the technician. “Funny, isn’t it, the corny stuff you can come across in this place? I found this stuck in my door.”

  The technician took the picture, looked at it, and said, “Yes, it’s funny,” and he read out the words under the picture:

  “I prayed for you at St. James’s Church.”

  BONN DIARY

  Monday

  Unfortunately I arrived too late to go out again or pay any calls; it was 2330 hours when I got to the hotel, and I was tired. So I had to be satisfied with looking out of the hotel window at the city lying there scintillating with life—bubbling, throbbing, boiling over, one might say: there are vital forces hidden there just waiting to be released. The city is still not all it might be. I smoked a cigar, abandoning myself wholly to this fascinating electric energy; I wondered whether I should phone Inna, finally resigned myself with a sigh and had one more look through my important files. Toward midnight I went to bed: I always find it hard to go to bed here. This city is not conducive to sleep.