“Yes,” he said, “I’ll be late getting back,” and drove off with a laugh.
He liked those sleepy hamlets, too small for a tavern or too far away from the next tavern, weary cattle among the fruit trees; unloading full beer crates, loading empty ones, money into the big leather bag; lethargic women with whom he negotiated, lively ones who usually became over-familiar. Toward two in the afternoon, just outside Frauenbroich, he drove off onto a forest path, drank some wine from his bottle, ate some bread and cheese, smoked a cigarette, switched on the motor to back out. He saw her coming along the path toward the truck, put on the brake, let the motor idle in neutral, jumped off, and ran toward her. Brief shyness before he took her in his arms; he was surprised to find that her hair was dark, he had imagined her blond. It bothered her that he smelled of car. “Come,” he said softly, “let us vanish.”
The truck was found by a pair of lovers that night, the motor still running. Schmitz came back into time, all apprehension fell away from him. No trace of those two. They had vanished in the forests.
THE STAECH AFFAIR
The “ae” in Staech is pronounced like a long, faintly aspirated “a,” as in Bach. It bothers the inhabitants of the place—consisting almost entirely of Benedictine monks—to hear the “ae” pronounced as in aerobatics. Hence this preamble. There are some further antagonisms associated with the name “Staech” which I can only mention in passing: a heated dispute among onomatologists, for instance, some maintaining that the “ae” is an unmistakable sign of Germanic origin, while their opponents claim that the final “ch” is an unmistakable sign of Celtic origin. I plead the Celtic cause, knowing only too well how corruptible vowels are; and besides, there is the telltale dialect in and around Staech. Staech is located in the Rhineland. I must dispense with a definition of what constitutes Rhenish, restricting myself to the line of demarcation given to the Rhineland at the time of the Prussian occupation, which has persisted since 1815, and according to this line of demarcation Staech is located in the Rhineland. It is ancient, renowned, beautiful, idyllic; in the midst of tall trees, the incomparable gray of medieval Rhenish romanesque; a robust little river by the name of Brülle provides the landscape’s essential ingredient of water. (Brülle is in no way related to the German verb brüllen, to roar. Beware of jumping to false etymological conclusions! The name probably derives from bruhlen, in turn a local corruption of the amply familiar buhlen, to consort illicitly: it has almost been established that here, in the midst of these venerable forests, a medieval prelate built an abode for his concubine.)
Staech has two hotels—one luxury, one modest—a youth camp, and a hostel that is used for conferences. The most important feature is the Benedictine abbey. There one can play at being a temporary monk. Tranquillity, Gregorian chants, peace within and without. And then there are the monks in their noble garb, one or other of whom, at any given moment, either at prayer or meditation or in conversation with a guest, embellishes landscape or garden. Everything extremely simple, almost austere; the soil is tilled, orchards are tended. The climate is too harsh for wine.
I can forgo further details and merely point out that Staech is extolled by the protocol officials of the nearby capital as being “a sheer delight.” A high-ranking—perhaps even the highest-ranking—official of the protocol department is said to have remarked, “What more can we ask for? The Occident in one of its most cultivated articulations is only fifty Mercedes-minutes away.”
Indeed, Staech is virtually irreplaceable. Eleventh (possibly tenth or twelfth) century, gray Rhenish romanesque, Gregorian chants, the opportunity to become a temporary monk or to stay in a luxury hotel and at the same time participate in all the delights of the liturgy and the consolations of almost all the sacraments. An area—again I quote a protocol official—abounding in “positively unique opportunities for country rambles” in which, depending on the condition of the heart, lungs, or glands, one can spend half an hour, an entire hour, an hour and a half, three hours, in fact a whole day walking or hiking, equipped with a handy foolproof local map obtainable free of charge from the hall porter at the luxury hotel. The fact that in the luxury hotel one can also be a temporary husband or wife is familiar to cynics, who know that the management there is both discreet and broad-minded.
Only the protocol department is in a position to appreciate the invaluable role Staech performs for the benefit of wives of prominent visitors to the nation’s capital. While their husbands get down to the nitty-gritty in the capital, the ladies enjoy being driven out to Staech in the protocol Mercedes. Departure is timed for the visitor to arrive in the morning for the Terce or Sext services and thus admire the nobly clad monks both aurally and visually (it is said that there have even been attempts at tactile perception). This is followed by light refreshments or lunch, and then, depending on time, mood, and stamina, a stroll through the truly magnificent woods, and in the afternoon attendance at Nones or Vespers, followed by tea and a drive back, filled with a deep spiritual peace, to the capital. And German as well as foreign politicians find Staech unique as a place of meditation and purification; some very strong-minded men have been seen humbly and tearfully kneeling there. Guests from the United States and Africa are particularly enchanted with Staech, it has even been claimed that spontaneous conversions have taken place there. And, needless to say, where Ora is demonstrated with such credibility, Labora is not forgotten either: brothers with rough hands, mud on their hands and feet, their habits sometimes even bespattered with cow dung, are to be seen from time to time, and the strange part about it is: these working monks are not merely on show, they are genuine.
One surprising aspect is that the monks are always so willing to leave this idyllic spot. The travel itch of the monks of Staech has not escaped the affectionate mockery of the good Rhenish people in the neighborhood: a well-to-do local wag with an unpaid debt of gratitude to the monks is said to have once presented them with a whole collection of suitcases for Christmas. The monks really do love to travel; they lecture, with and without slides, participate in conferences, seminars, panel discussions; some of them contribute as free-lance writers to the supplements of serious national journals, discussing matters of theology, religion, and Christianity; and they seize every opportunity of going off to Hamburg, Munich, or Frankfurt. Yes, they love to go away, these monks, and they are not always happy to come back. Some are motorized, most are not. Hence the nominal full strength, amounting at present to forty-seven monks and brothers, is seldom achieved.
There have been occasions when only eleven, and once only nine, were present at afternoon Nones. After one such service a very prominent lady from Thailand apprehensively asked the protocol official whether there was some contagion in the air and whether—she had been nourished on early nineteenth-century literature—the reverend gentlemen were “stricken.” The official found himself obliged to seek an explanation from the abbot and was given the devastating information that only one was sick, the others were all away on their travels.
Since in this age of technology the number of salaried workers is perforce steadily increasing (farming, hotel staff, administration), Staech is not financially self-supporting. It is liberally subsidized by state and diocese; and, moreover, the fact that it is supported is taken for granted. Not once has this fact been challenged in the finance committee, not even by the most religiously emancipated of its members. Who would want to see Staech deprived of its subsidies? That would be like suggesting that Cologne Cathedral be sold as a quarry. Even rabid freethinkers, irreligious Socialists (there are still some of those about), have never thought of withholding approval of the funds earmarked for Staech. Paradoxically enough, in latter years a contrary trend has become noticeable: the representatives of the classic Christian parties are hesitating somewhat longer, whereas the others are consenting with almost embarrassing alacrity. Of one thing there can be no doubt: even the most pettifogging atheist in the capital would not refuse Staech his support. Staech is somet
hing it ought not to be: dependent on the state and on the diocese in whose territory it is located. Of course, state and diocese are in a way dependent on Staech, but who could ever plumb the depths of such dialectics of varying interdependence?
One thing is certain: the abbot collects, and not too badly either. But in return state and diocese want to see something, or rather: they feel there should be something to see and hear. What, after all, is the use of a vast abbey like that, with all its complex economy (which is more complex than its tradition), if, as happened one foggy autumn day during the visit of a (non-Catholic) queen, only fifteen nobly garbed monks were present and the choral singing, even though each one “gave it all he had,” sounded thin? Moreover, the participants included two aged bedridden monks who had been pressed somewhat forcibly into service. The queen was disappointed, very disappointed. During the ensuing informal lunch at the hotel she looked almost miffed, like a girl who has been done out of a date. After all, Staech stands for something. At home the queen had requested a thorough briefing on the history, tradition, and function of Stacch.
As was inevitable, the news of the choir’s poor numerical showing reached the ears of the head of state. He—the head of state—was most annoyed and passed on his annoyance to the archbishop, who communicated the incident in a handwritten document beginning “Scandalum fuisse …” to the order’s abbot general in Rome: the latter took up the matter with Staech and insisted on a list of those present and those absent, with detailed information on the absent monks’ reasons for travel. The inquiries were, naturally, somewhat protracted, and even after some pretty massive interpolations the results were meager. Only sixteen of the absent monks could come up with an adequate alibi: eight had been occupied in a completely bona fide pursuit—conducting religious exercises in a convent—and eight had been away on lecture tours for Christian educational projects, some with, some without, colored slides. Five of the younger monks had left to attend a writers’ conference (“We must seek contacts with the progressive elements of our own country”), the topic of which had caused both head of state and bishop considerable raising of eyebrows: “Orgasm as Depicted in Contemporary German Literature.” It turned out later that four of these young monks had found the topic boring and spent most of their time at the movies, and in the balcony at that, where they could smoke. The alibis for the remaining eleven monks remained obscure. Two had ostensibly gone off to another monastery with which Staech was on friendly terms, to consult some volumes of the Acta Sanctorum, those in the Staech library having been stolen during the years of postwar confusion; the two monks had never arrived at the other monastery and, what was more, stubbornly refused to say where they had actually been (as yet unclarified). One monk had gone to Holland, with a purpose but no destination: purpose—to study the changes in Dutch Catholicism. This objective was termed by the bishop “rather vague.” The objective of four other monks was given as: the study of Bavarian and Austrian baroque; they may have been traipsing around anywhere between Würzburg and the Hungarian border, but they did bring back an alibi in the form of a pretty good crop of colored slides. One monk had gone to a North German university town ostensibly to encourage an eminent physicist in his desire to convert to Catholicism; what had actually happened (as the physicist himself subsequently told the head of state at a reception) was that the monk tried to prevent the conversion.
Well, there was trouble. The abbot could not be deposed, only voted out of office, and this was something the monks refused to do. They liked their abbot. For a while the abbot managed to curb the monks’ travel itch. The next state visitor was a president from Africa, who turned out to be an expert, having been educated by Benedictines. There were thirty-two monks present, but even thirty-two monks do not make the Staech choir seem exactly overcrowded. The effect is roughly that of a hundred and fifty bishops inside St. Peter’s: something like a sightseeing group of elderly sacristans. The head of state, amazed at the African guest’s fund of knowledge about the order, expressed distinct annoyance to the head of protocol and raised the question of whether Staech was still fulfilling its function … The result was a verbal confrontation between protocol officials and the diocesan secretariat.
The topic remained a secret, but some things inevitably leaked out: the curbing of travel itch at Staech had been followed by accesses of kleptomania and exhibitionism. Eleven of the younger monks had had to be consigned to a private psychiatric clinic. The abbot’s request that notice of important state visits be given well in advance, in order that he might adjust the monks’ travel movements accordingly, was refused. He was tersely informed that it was up to Staech to be “ready for action” at all times, since guests, such as journalists from the Eastern European bloc, often turned up at short notice, eager to see the sights.
What might be called the “Staech affair” ran on for about a year, when suddenly, one crisp but sunny spring day, head of state and bishop made an unannounced appearance. How these two old codgers had managed to keep their arrangements a secret was never divulged. Well-informed circles assume these must have been made during the solemn reading of the petition for beatification of the nun Huberta Dörffler; the two men had been seen whispering together. Both men had simply given orders after breakfast to “harness” their Mercedes 600s and be driven to Staech, where they had met, and, without first calling on the abbot, immediately entered the church, Terce having just begun. Present in the church were fourteen monks.
During the subsequent serving of light refreshments (bread, wine, olives), the abbot not only seemed relaxed, he was relaxed. He said that, after having managed to achieve almost a full complement during the visit of an eminent Scandinavian guest—forty-three monks in the choir!—he had been obliged to reopen the “safety valve.” In reply to the bishop’s sarcastic question as to what relevance the words “safety valve” had to the monastic rule, the abbot responded with a cordial invitation to have a look at the medical reports of the psychiatric clinic. The two gentlemen who had come to inflict a defeat on the abbot suffered one themselves. The abbot declared that he for his part couldn’t care less about state visits, and that he found the politicians who from time to time fled to Staech in search of consolation and tranquillity a nuisance. He expressed his willingness, in the case of state visits of special importance, to allow alumni and minor orders to take part in choral prayer as guests dressed in monks’ habits. Transportation for such auxiliary personnel, as well as the procurement of monks’ habits, would be a matter for the Most Reverend Lord Bishop and/or the Right Honorable Herr President to arrange. “And should you wish,” he added, with irreverent frankness, “to resort to actors, by all means do so! I decline any further responsibility.”
At the next state visit (a Catholic dictator from southwestern Europe), seventy-eight monks could be counted in the Staech choir, by far the majority youthful. In the car, on his way back to the capital, the dictator remarked to his escort, “These Germans! There’s no one like them! Even their new generation of ascetic young monks can’t be beaten.” What he never found out, and what could never be confirmed in the capital, was that sixty of the young monks had been students who had demonstrated there in protest against the dictator’s visit and had been arrested; they had been promised release and, in return for a honorarium of forty marks (they had first demanded seventy but finally consented to forty), had been persuaded to have their hair cut.
Meanwhile people have been saying in the capital that the chief of protocol came to a verbal agreement with the chief of police: to be more generous in the arrest of student demonstrators during state visits and more generous in their release. Since a relationship exists between state visits and student demonstrations analogous to that between state visits and sightseeing tours of Staech, the Staech problem is regarded as solved. On the occasion of a visit of an Asian statesman, who then evinced an almost churlish lack of interest in monks, eighty-two monks could be counted. It seems there are now also some freeloaders, who obtain
more accurate information on the dates of pending state visits than the abbot has as yet been able to do, and who then proceed to demonstrate rather too demonstratively (in the opinion of objective observers)—even investing now and again in a few tomatoes or eggs—in order to be arrested, then released, and acquire a free haircut plus forty marks and a copious lunch at Staech which, at the express wish of the abbot, is charged to diocesan rather than state funds.
Musically speaking, neither freeloaders nor students have so far presented any problem. Gregorian chants seem to come naturally to them. The only problems are those arising between the demonstrating groups, one group denouncing the other as “mercenary consumer-opportunists” and the latter denouncing the former as “abstract fantasists.” The abbot of Staech gets along well with both groups, some of the young men—seven so far, apparently—have already entered the monastery as novices, and the fact that now and again during choir practice they slip a Ho Chi Minh into the Gregorian rhythm has so far gone unnoticed, even by a recently converted American statesman who, weary of NATO talk, spent a longer period at Staech than had been provided for by the protocol department. In a farewell communiqué he intimated that his visit to Staech had enriched his image of Germany by an important facet.
TILL DEATH US DO PART
In the draft from the swing door her first match went out, a second one broke on the striking surface, and it was nice of her attorney to offer her his lighter, shielding the flame with his hand. Now at last she could smoke—both felt good, the cigarette and the sunshine. It had taken barely ten minutes, an eternity, and perhaps it was that eternity as well as the permanence of those endless corridors that put the hands of the clock out of action. And the crowds, all those people looking for room numbers, reminded her of a summer clearance sale at Strössel’s. What was the difference between divorces and bath towels at a clearance sale? Lineups for both, only that—so it seemed to her—in divorces the final decision was announced more speedily, and speed, after all, was what she had been after. Schröder vs. Schröder. Divorced. Naumann vs. Naumann. Divorced. Blutzger vs. Blutzger. Divorced.
The Collected Stories of Heinrich Böll Page 93