“Yes,” said the man.
On a table to his right lay the crutches of an amputee. Beside the fat amputee, who had pushed his hat to the back of his head, sat a man and a woman with troubled expressions, their hands clasped wearily round their beer glasses. Over in a corner some men were playing cards, and on the radio a woman was now singing, “Mamma says it’s wrong to kiss, Mamma says it isn’t done …” The landlord brought the beer, and the man said, “Thanks.” He put his bundle down on the chair beside him and fumbled in his breast pocket for a crumpled cigarette.
So this is it, he thought, this is the bar. This is where he sang his “Rosemarie” and his “Green are the Meadows”; where he cursed yet proudly showed off his decorations, where he bought cigarettes and stood singing at the counter.
Then all he could see was the man, whose name had been Gärtner, being shot to death by a sergeant called Stevenson. That little, red-haired Stevenson with the cheeky face had shot him right in the stomach with his machine pistol, four shots one above the other, and he had never seen a mouth that had once sung “Rosemarie” so distorted with pain. They had dragged him round the corner of a building, taken off his tunic and ripped open his trousers; a mass of blood and faeces had welled out of his stomach, and the mouth that had once sung “Rosemarie” and “Green are the Meadows” in this very bar had been silenced by pain. They had heard no more shooting, they had taken his paybook from his pocket, and he had jotted down: Gärtner, 14 Bülow-Strasse, with the idea of telling the wife if he should ever find himself in this town. Gärtner hadn’t said another word, that horrible mass of blood and faeces came slowly welling out of his stomach, and they—the other man and himself—could only look on helplessly until suddenly a voice behind them shouted “Hands up!” and they discovered that this red-haired sergeant was called Stevenson. The next moment twelve trembling Americans were standing round them, and he had never seen men tremble like that; they trembled so much that he could hear the light tinkling of their machine pistols, and one of the Americans said: “That’s one gone, Stevenson …”
Stevenson made a swift, discarding gesture; he and the other man understood and threw their weapons behind them. The other man—he had never found out his name, they had only known each other for half an hour—had been carrying a machine gun like a big black cat under his arm; now he flung the machine gun behind him into a broad puddle of wet ordure. He heard it splash, just as in the old days their swimming instructor had demonstrated a dive, and in his mind’s eye he could still see the bald, yellow globe of the gas lamp. He only came to when one of the Americans in his excitement fired a shot right past his nose, and they saw that Gärtner was dead and heard tanks rumbling towards them …
He looked at his beer and noticed a little vase of flowers next to his glass—a twig with yellow, plump, but fading pussy-willow, and he realized that spring had come round again, just as it had done so long ago. It must be exactly four years since Stevenson had shot Gärtner in the stomach until blood and faeces poured out. The amputee gave a brutal shrug, and the expressions of the man and woman became still more troubled. The youths outside the door must now have been joined by the girls: he could hear the girls’ high laughter, and then they all began to sing, and the man and woman sitting with the fat amputee, their hands still miserably clasping their beer glasses, now looked through the open door and listened to the singing. “Max!” the amputee called out to the landlord. “Bring us three more beers, will you?”
The man could hear that the couple sitting with the amputee were trying to whisper their objections. Outside the young people were singing songs whose words he couldn’t make out, soft, soothing, sentimental tunes.
The landlord came past his table, picked up the empty glass, and asked: “Same again?”
“Yes.”
The man glanced at the cigarettes he had wrapped in a pair of blue work trousers. Outside the laughing, singing voices of the boys and girls gradually moved away. From the radio now came a talk, and the landlord twiddled the knobs doggedly until music came on again.
“I’d like to pay!” the man called out.
The landlord came over. While putting down the money he asked in a low voice: “Gärtner—didn’t Gärtner use to come here quite often?”
“That’s right,” the landlord said at once, smoothing out the note the man had given him. “Did you know him? Willi Gärtner?”
“Yes. Is he still alive?”
“No, he got killed in the war.”
“When?”
“Oh, I don’t know—quite late, I think, towards the end. Where did you meet him?”
“We worked together.”
“At Plattke’s?”
“Yes, at Plattke’s … and his wife, what’s she doing?”
The landlord looked at him in surprise: “But she’s at Plattke’s now! Aren’t you there any more?”
“No, I’m not …”
“I see,” said the landlord indifferently. He picked up the empty glass and called out to another customer: “Just a moment—I’m coming!”
The man got up, quietly said, “Goodnight,” and, without looking back, left the bar.
Here and there in the unlit, open windows he could see the glow of cigarettes, and he could hear the distant wail of radio sets. The building next door to the bar was number 28. It was a grocery. In the dim half-light he could see the cardboard signs for Maggi and Persil, and in the gloom beyond the shop window a basket of eggs, a pile of cereal packages, and a big glass jar with sour pickles and onions floating around in it. It was like looking through the glass of a neglected aquarium. The objects seemed to float and sway, mollusc-like, slimy creatures carrying on their lecherous existence in the dim half-dark.
So this is it, he thought. This is where his wife bought her vinegar and soup packets and cigarettes, and somewhere round here there’ll also be a butcher and a baker … a stomach like that must, after all, be nourished for a long time before it can be shot up so expertly that blood and faeces come pouring out in a viscous stream. Everything must be done in its proper order. For at least eighteen years a stomach like that must be regularly filled with all those things to be bought for a week’s wages from the butcher, the baker and the grocer; and sometimes that stomach must also drink beer and sing, and the mouth belonging to that stomach is also allowed to smoke cigarettes, everything in its proper order …
The people sitting outside their doors have no idea that somewhere in the world there is an American who shot up their Willi—right through the stomach—flutch … flutch … flutch … flutch … he would never forget that sound, the demonic mildness, that gentle flopping which had riddled Gärtner’s stomach.
The people didn’t seem to notice him. He was just someone going home with a pair of blue work trousers under his arm. He stopped and fumbled in his breast pocket for another crumpled cigarette. The crumpled ones were his, that had been agreed. As he stood there he glanced at the next front door and saw that it was number 18. Then came a gap, so the next house must be number 14. He saw lighted windows there and some chairs outside the door.
Glowing ashes had been scattered all over the bomb site, and here and there the remains of briquets were smouldering and there was a smell of rags and potato peelings that had caught fire. In a lighted window he had a fleeting glimpse of a heavy, stout fellow with a cigar in his mouth, and behind his back a woman standing at a stove in front of a smoking frying pan.
Four years ago it had also been spring, it had also been April, everything had turned green again after a terrible winter. They had been aware of that in the chill nights when they had crouched futilely in their holes, guarding bridges over rivers that in many thousands of places could be waded across: they had been aware of it: it was spring. And when the grey dawn came they retreated, attacked and were attacked. The troop units were torn apart, patched together again. Whole regiments cleared out or went over to the enemy; many of the men were caught again at street corners and rounded up, and t
here was always some officer there to take command. They were posted at street corners or shoved at night into holes just so they could be well and truly shot to pieces. As a result one found oneself with new comrades every day. He had known Gärtner for only half an hour. A lieutenant had arrived and said, “Come with me!” and had stationed him at the intersection beside Gärtner and the man with the machine gun. Gärtner had given him a cigarette, which at that time was worth more than all the decorations put together. Grenades had burst somewhere, tanks had rumbled, there had been some shooting, and suddenly those bullets had flopped into Gärtner’s stomach …
He was still staring at the glowing piles of ashes, breathing in the repulsive stench of scorched rags. Outside number 14 two women were sitting on chairs, dark, stoutish figures in whispered conversation. In the doorway itself stood a young fellow, smoking; he walked towards the youth and said: “Could I have a light, please?”
In silence the fellow casually held his glowing butt against the cigarette, and while the kitchen odours that permeated the youth’s clothing rose into the man’s nostrils together with the smell of cheap soap, he looked beyond his cigarette into the open, unlit corridor, and then—in that half-second he needed for lighting his cigarette—he heard a couple embracing in there in the dark; he heard those indescribable sounds of wordless tenderness, that gentle groaning that was like suppressed pain; he felt the blood mounting, hot and tormenting, to his head. He hurriedly thanked the youth and walked quickly, very quickly, back, past the glowing ash heaps, past the undamaged houses, the gaps and the grocery. By the time he reached the corner he was almost running because he could hear the tram screeching towards him from behind; and when he glanced over his shoulder and saw its dim yellow lights approaching in the gentle, spring darkness, he broke into a run.
He was so afraid of missing the tram that before reaching the tram stop, where he paused for a moment, he caught only snatches of the young people’s singing: the group now seemed to be standing somewhere near the allotment gardens. Now they were singing “Green are the Meadows” so earnestly and meltingly that no more laughter was to be heard between the verses.
The tram came to a stop and he was glad to be able to get on. He wiped away his sweat, had one more passing glimpse of the lumber yard’s neatly lettered fence, and wished that the tram could have continued on and on, forever …
THE RAIN GUTTER
For a long time they lay awake smoking while the wind swept through the house, loosening tiles and tumbling bricks; pieces of plaster sailed down with a crash from the upper floors, shattering below and spreading into rubble.
He saw only a dim sheen of her, a warm, reddish hue when they drew on their cigarettes: the soft outlines of her breasts under her nightgown and her calm profile. The sight of the narrow, firmly closed crease between her lips, that little valley in her face, filled him with tenderness. They tucked the covers in firmly at the sides, nestled close together, and knew that they would keep warm all night long. The shutters rattled, and the wind whistled through the jagged holes in the window panes; above them it howled in the remains of the attic, and somewhere there was the sound of an object slapping noisily and steadily against a wall, something hard, metallic, and she whispered: “That’s the gutter, it’s been broken for a long time.”
She was silent for a moment, then took his hand and softly went on: “The war hadn’t started yet, and I was already living here, and whenever I came home I’d see the piece of gutter hanging there, and I’d think: they must have it repaired; but they never did. It hung crooked, one of the clamps had come loose, and it always seemed about to fall at any moment. I always heard it when there was a wind, every night when there was a storm and I was lying here. And when the war started it was still hanging there. On the grey house wall you could clearly see where the water had flowed sideways into the wall after every rain: a white path, with a grey border leading down past the window, and on either side there were big round patches with white centres surrounded by darker grey rings. Later on I went far away, I was put to work in Thuringia and Berlin, and when the war was over I came back here, and the gutter was still hanging there: half the building had collapsed—I’d been far away, far, far away, and I’d seen so much pain, death and blood, they had shot at me with machine guns from airplanes, and I’d been scared, so scared—and all that time that piece of galvanized iron had been hanging here, sending the rain into empty space because the wall below was almost completely gone. Roof tiles had fallen off, trees had been toppled, plaster had come crumbling down, bombs had fallen, so many bombs, but that piece of galvanized iron had continued to hang from that one clamp, it had never been hit, its crooked slant had never given way to the blasts.”
Her voice became even lower, almost a chant, and she pressed his hand. “So much rain came raining down,” she said, “in those six years, so many deaths were died, cathedrals destroyed, but the gutter was still hanging there when I came back. Once again I heard it clattering at night whenever there was a wind. Can you believe that I was happy?”
“I can,” he said.
The wind had subsided, it was quiet now, and the cold crept closer. They pulled up the covers and hid their hands inside. In the darkness he could no longer distinguish anything, he couldn’t even see her profile, although she was lying so close that he could feel her breath, her calm, regular breathing warm against his skin, and he thought she had fallen asleep. But suddenly he could no longer hear her breathing and he groped for her hands. She moved her hand down and grasped his and held onto it, and he knew they would be warm and he wouldn’t have to shiver all night long.
Suddenly he became aware that she was crying. There was nothing to be heard, he just knew from the movements of the bed that she was wiping her face with her left hand. Even that wasn’t certain, but he knew she was crying. He sat up, bent over her and felt her breath again: it seemed to spread over his face like a current gently flowing past him. Even when his nose touched her cold cheek, he still could see nothing.
“Lie down,” she whispered, “you’ll catch cold.”
He remained leaning over her, he wanted to see her, but he saw nothing until she suddenly opened her eyes: then he saw the glint of her eyes in the darkness, the shimmering tears.
She cried for a long time. He took her hand, held it, and firmly tucked in the covers again. He held her hand for a long time, until her grip relaxed and her hand slowly slipped out of his—he put his arm round her shoulder, drew her close, and then he too fell asleep, and as they slept their breathing alternated like caresses …
AUTUMN LONELINESS
How long we spent standing there at the corner I can’t tell you. I was filled with a sense of anticipation that was really quite unjustified. It was now autumn, and each time a tram stopped at the corner people came streaming towards us, their footsteps rustling in the dead leaves, and in their steps was joy, the joy of people going home.
We must have stood there for a long time. It had been still quite light when suddenly, without a word, we had stopped, as if to mount guard over the deepening melancholy of autumn, a mood caught in the tops of the plane trees as they slowly shed their leaves.
There was no real reason for it, but each time the tram rang its bell at the corner and people came streaming into the avenue towards us and the tram drove on ringing its bell—each time I was convinced that someone was about to come, someone who knew us, who would ask us to join him, whose homeward steps would force our own weary, aimless footsteps to keep up with the tempo of his happy excitement.
The first ones always came singly and walked very fast; then came the groups, in twos or even threes in animated conversation, and finally another trickle of weary individuals passing us with their heavy burdens before dispersing into the houses scattered among gardens and avenues.
It was a constant suspense that held me spellbound, for after the last person had passed by there was only a brief respite before we heard the distant ping-pinging of the next tr
am at the previous stop—clanking and screeching its way to the corner.
We stood under the branches of an elderberry tree that reached out over the street far beyond the fence of a neglected garden. Rigid with tension, he had his face turned in the direction of the people approaching through the rustling leaves—the face which, mute and set, had been accompanying me for two months, which I had loved, and also hated, for two months …
During the time it took four trams to arrive, the tension and anticipation felt wonderful as we stood there in the steadily deepening melancholy of dusk, in the soft, exquisite, damp decay of autumn; but all of a sudden I knew that no one to whom I might belong would ever come …
“I’m leaving,” I said huskily, for I had been standing there much too long as if rooted to the bottom of some swampy bowl that was about to close imperceptibly over me with a velvety, relentless force.
“Go ahead,” he said without looking at me, and for the first time in two months he forgot to add: “I’ll come with you.”
His eyes narrowed to slits; without moving, he kept his hard, metallic gaze fixed on the deserted avenue where now only a few single leaves were slowly circling to the ground.
All right, I thought, and at that moment something happened to me, something was released, and I felt my face collapsing, felt sharp, bitter lines forming round my mouth. It was almost as if my inner tension had been tightly wound up and was now being released as if by a blow: uncoiling inside me with incredible speed, leaving nothing behind but that hollow, mournful void that had been there two months ago. For at that moment it dawned on me: he was standing here waiting for something quite specific; this spot, this street corner under the spreading branches of the elderberry tree, was his objective, the goal of an arduous flight, of a journey lasting two months, while for me it was just another street corner, one of many thousand.