Billiards at Half-Past Nine (30 page)

“No, no,” said Ruth, “I’m going to wait out here. Please let me.”

In the evenings when I sit in the living room with Father, Grandmother could be there. I read and he drinks wine and fumbles in his card indexes, laying the postcard-size prints out in front of him, as if playing solitaire. Father, always correct, tie never loose, waistcoat never unbuttoned, never relaxing
into paternal joviality. Restrained and solicitous. ‘Do you need books, clothes, money for the journey? Aren’t you bored, child? Would you rather go out? To the theater, to the cinema, out dancing? I’d be glad to take you. Or would you prefer to ask in your school friends for coffee again, up on the roof garden, now the weather’s so fine?’ And before going to bed, the evening walks, round the block, up Modest Street to the Modest Gate, then down Station Street to the station. ‘Can you smell the far-off places, child?’ And on through the underpass, past St. Severin’s and the Prince Heinrich Hotel. ‘Gretz has forgotten to wash the bloodstains off the pavement.’ Boar’s blood turned hard and black. ‘It’s half-past nine, child, time to go to bed now. Good night.’ A kiss on the forehead. Always kind, always correct. ‘Would you rather we hired a housekeeper, or aren’t you tired of restaurant food yet? Frankly, I don’t much like strangers in the house.’ Breakfast. Tea, rolls, milk. A kiss on the forehead and, sometimes, in a very low voice, ‘Child, child’—‘what is it, Father?’ ‘Come on, we’re going away.’ ‘What, now, right now?’ ‘Yes, let school be for today and tomorrow, we’re not going far. Just to Amsterdam. It’s a lovely city, child, and the people are quiet and very kind—you only have to get to know them.’ ‘Do you know them?’ ‘Yes, I know them. It’s so nice walking along in the evenings by the canals.’ ‘Glass. Glass. Stillness. Do you hear how quiet the people are here? Nowhere are they as noisy as at home, always bawling and shouting and boasting. Would it bore you if I went and played billiards? Come along if it amuses you.’

I never understood the fascination with which old and young men alike watched him play, when he stood there, amidst the cigar smoke, a glass of beer near him on the edge of the table, and played billiards, billiards. Did they really use the familiar “thou” with him, or was it just a peculiarity of Dutch speech that it sounded like “thou” when they spoke to him? They did know his first name. They rolled the R of Robert like a hard piece of candy on the tongue. Silence. So much glass
by the canals. My name is Ruth, half-orphan, my mother was twenty-four when she died. I was three, and when I think of her, I think of seventeen or of two thousand years. Twenty-four is a figure that doesn’t suit her; it should rather be something under eighteen or over eighty. She always looked to me like Grandmother’s sister. I know that big, well-guarded secret, that Grandmother’s crazy, and I don’t want to see her so long as she’s like that. Her craziness is a lie, grief behind thick walls, I know it, I get drunk on it sometimes myself and swim away in a lie. The house at the rear, No. 8 Modest Street, inhabited by ghosts.
Love and Intrigue
, Grandfather built the monastery, Father blew it up, and Joseph has rebuilt it. All right with me; you’ll be disappointed how little it upsets me. I saw them bringing the dead out of the cellars, and Joseph tried to convince me they were sick, and only being taken to the hospital, but does one simply throw the sick onto trucks like sacks? And I saw Krott, the teacher, sneaking into the classroom during recess and stealing Konrad Gretz’s sandwiches out of his desk, and I saw Krott’s face and was scared to death, and prayed, ‘Please God don’t let him find me here, please, please,’ because I knew he would kill me if he found me. I was standing behind the blackboard looking for my barrette, and he could have seen my legs, but God had mercy and Krott didn’t notice me. I saw his face, and I also saw how he bit into the bread, then went out. Anyone who has looked into faces like that doesn’t get upset any more about blown-up abbeys. And then the scene afterwards, when Konrad Gretz discovered his loss and Krott exhorted us all to be honest: ‘Now children, be honest. I’ll give you a quarter of an hour, and the culprit will have to have owned up, or else’—eight minutes more, seven minutes more, six,—and I looked at him, and he caught my eye, and bore down on me, ‘Ruth, Ruth,’ he yelled. ‘You? Was it you?’ I shook my head and began to cry, because I was scared to death again. And he said, ‘Good heavens, Ruth, tell the truth.’
I wanted to say yes, but then he would have seen that I knew, and I shook my head through the tears; four more minutes, three, two, one, time. ‘You’re a bunch of damnable thieves, a gang of liars. For punishment you can write out “I must not steal” two hundred times.’ You and your abbeys. I’ve had to keep more awful secrets than that and stuck out being scared to death. They threw them on the trucks like sacks.

Why did they have to treat that nice Abbot so coolly? What did he do, did he kill somebody or steal a sandwich from someone? Konrad Gretz had enough to eat, liver paté and herb-flavored butter on white bread. What devil suddenly possessed the teacher’s gentle, reasonable face? Murder was crouched between his eyes and nose, nose and mouth, between his ears. They threw the bodies onto the trucks like sacks, and I enjoyed it when Father scoffed at the mayor in front of the big wall map, when he drew marks with his black chalk and said, ‘Get rid of it, blow it up.’ I love him; I don’t love him any the less now that I know about it. Has Joseph at least left his cigarettes in the car? And I also saw how the man handed over his wedding ring for two cigarettes—how many would he have wanted for his daughter, and how many for his wife? The price list was written on his face: ten, twenty, he’d have been ready to discuss it. They’re all ready to do business. I’m sorry, Father, but I still like the taste of the honey and bread and butter, even after I know who did it. We’ll go on playing father and daughter. Precise as a ritual dance. After the refreshments, there should have come the walk up Cossack’s Hill: Joseph, Marianne and me far ahead, and Grandfather behind, like every Saturday.

‘Are you all right, Grandfather?’

‘Yes, thank you.’

‘Aren’t we walking too fast?’

‘No, don’t worry, children. I wonder if I could sit down a little, or do you think it’s too damp?’

‘The sand’s dry as dust, Grandfather, and it’s still quite warm, don’t worry, you can sit down; here, give me your arm.’

‘Of course, Grandfather, light yourself a cigar; we’ll see to it nothing happens.’

Luckily Joseph has left his cigarettes in the car, and the lighter works, too. Grandfather gave me such pretty dresses and sweaters, much prettier than those from Father whose taste is old-fashioned. Easy to see Grandfather understands something about girls and women. I don’t want to understand Grandmother, I don’t want to; her craziness is a lie. She wouldn’t give us anything to eat, and I was glad when she’d gone and we were given more. Maybe you’re right, maybe she was great and still is, but I don’t want to know about greatness. One white-bread sandwich with liver paté and herb-flavored butter nearly cost me my life. Let her come back again and sit with us in the evenings, but please don’t give her the key to the kitchen, please don’t. I’ve seen hunger on the teacher’s face and I’m scared of it. Dear God, always give them something to eat, always, so the horribleness won’t ever come back on their faces. It’s a harmless Mr. Krott who gets into his little car Sundays and drives his family out to St. Anthony’s to attend High Mass. Today is how many Sundays after Pentecost, how many Sundays after Epiphany, after Easter? A dear man with a dear wife and two dear little children, ‘Look, Ruth, hasn’t our little Frankie grown?’ ‘Yes, Mr. Krott, your little Frankie’s grown.’ And I never think any more about my life hanging by a thread. No. And I also wrote out very nicely two hundred times, ‘I must not steal.’ And of course I don’t say no when Konrad Gretz gives a party; they have wonderful paté de foie gras with herb-flavored butter and white bread, and when someone treads on your toes or spills your glass of wine they don’t say,
‘Entschuldigen Sie bitte
,’ and they don’t say,
‘Excusez moi
,’ they say, ‘Sorry.’

The grass by the roadside ditch is warm, and Joseph’s
cigarette has a spicy smell, and I still liked the taste of bread and honey after I learned it was Father who blew the Abbey sky-high; Denklingen is lovely back there in the evening sun. They ought to hurry, we’ll need at least half an hour to change.

“Come on over here, General. Don’t be embarrassed, they introduce all newcomers to me first. I’m the oldest inhabitant here, in this fine house. Why do you keep hacking away with your walking-stick at our garden soil that never did you any harm, and shaking your head all the time and muttering ‘field of fire’ at every wall, at the chapel, the hothouse—it’s a nice phrase, by the way, ‘field of fire.’ Make way for bullets and shells. Oh, is it Otto? Kösters? No, no familiarities, name no names; and besides, the name Otto is already being used. So may I call you ‘Field-of-Fire’? I can see from looking at you, and can hear from your voice, and smell on your breath, that you’ve not only tasted the
Host of the Beast
, you’ve lived on it. Regular diet with you. Listen, new one, tell me, are you a Catholic? Of course, I’d have been surprised if not. Can you serve at Mass? Of course, you were brought up by the Catholic Fathers. Forgive me if I laugh. We’ve been looking for a new altar boy here for three weeks. They decided Ballosch was cured and let him go. How would you like to make yourself useful a little bit? You’re a pretty harmless lunatic, not violent, with
your one and only tic of muttering ‘field of fire’ at every occasion, suitable and unsuitable. You’ll surely be able to carry the Missal from the right to the left and the left to the right of the altar. You can manage a genuflection in front of the tabernacle, can’t you? You’re in splendid health, after all that’s part of your profession; you can beat the
mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa
on your breast and say the
kyrie eleison
. You see how useful an educated general brought up by Catholic priests can be. I’ll tell the sanatorium priest to make you our new altar boy. All right with you, isn’t it?

Thank you. You can tell right away when a man’s a gentleman. No, round this way, please, this way to the hothouse, I just want to show you something, part of your stock-in-trade. And please, no uncalled-for gallantries; don’t work off your dancing-class complexes on me, if you please. I’m seventy-one and you’re seventy-three, so no hand-kissing, no senile flirtations, just lay off the nonsense. Now listen. See what’s there behind that light green pane of glass? Yes, weapons; that’s our good chief gardener’s arsenal. It’s used for shooting hare and partridge, crows and deer, because our chief gardener’s a passionate hunter, and there between the guns and rifles lies such a pretty, handy, black object, a pistol. Now remember what you learned when you were a cadet, or a lieutenant, and tell me, is a thing like that really deadly dangerous, can you really kill somebody with it? Now don’t turn pale on me, old warhorse; you’ve swallowed the
Host of the Beast
by the ton, and now when I ask you a couple of simple questions you turn weak. Don’t start trembling, I know I’m a bit crazy, but I’m not going to stick the pistol into your seventy-three-year-old chest and save the State your pension. I’ve no intention of saving the State anything. I’ve asked you a clear, military question, so give me a clear, military answer: could that thing kill anybody? Yes? Good. At what range, for the greatest accuracy? Ten yards, twelve, at the very most twenty-five.

Good God, now, don’t get so upset! What a timid old
General you are! Report me? What’s there to report? They’ve poured so much reporting into you, you can’t get it out of your system, can you? Kiss my hand if you have to, but do hold your tongue, and there’s a Mass early tomorrow morning, right? They’ve never had such a fine, handsome, white-haired, well-bred altar boy here before. Can’t you take a little joke? I’m only interested in weapons the way you’re interested in fields of fire. Don’t you realize that one of the unwritten laws in this excellent institution is that we all let each other have our little hobbies? You’ve got yours, with your field-of-fire tic; be discreet, Field-of-Fire, remember your fine education
—and forward with Hindenburg, hurrah
—there you are, you like that, don’t you, just a matter of choosing the right words—let’s go round here, by the chapel; wouldn’t you like to go in and have a look round the scene of your future operations? Quietly now, old man, you know what to do: hat off, right finger in the font, now the sign of the cross, that’s fine, fine. Kneel down now, eyes on the sanctuary light, pray, say one
Ave Maria
and one
Pater Noster
—nice and soft. You can’t beat a Catholic education. Stand up, finger in the font, sign of the cross, let the lady go first, hat on. Very nice, here we are again. What a lovely summer evening, lovely trees in the lovely park; there’s a bench.
Forward with Hindenburg, hurrah
, you do like that, don’t you? How do you like the other one,
got to get a gun, get a gun
, you like that one, too, do you? Let’s stop joking, that joke was worn out in any case,
after
Verdun. They were the last knights—killed in battle, too many knights, too many lovers, all at once—too many well-brought-up young people. Have you ever thought of how much pedagogical sweat was wasted in the space of a few months? All in vain. How was it none of you ever had the idea of setting up a machine gun at the entrance of the trade schools and colleges, right after the exams, and shoot dead all those radiant successful graduates? You think that’s exaggerated? Well, then let me say that the truth is pure exaggeration. I danced with the graduates of
1905, 1906 and 1907. They wore their caps, they drank their beer and I drank with them at their student parties—but more than half the students of those three years fell at Verdun. And how many do you think are left of all who graduated in 1935, or 1936 or 1937? Or in 1941 or 1942? Pick any year you like. And don’t start shaking again—I’d never have thought an old General like you could be so nervous. No, don’t do this; don’t put your hands in mine—what’s my name? Remember, you don’t ask that kind of question here, no one here keeps visiting cards, we don’t ask each other out for drinks and a chat; here, we call each other by our first names and no further questions. All of us here know that all men are brothers, even if they be hostile ones. Some have tasted of the
Host of the Lamb
, only a few of us of the
Host of the Beast
, and my name is
got to get a gun, get a gun
, and my Christian name is
forward with Hindenburg, hurrah
. Forget all your bourgeois prejudices for good, your conversational clichés; here the classless society rules. And stop complaining about losing the war. Good heavens, did you really lose two wars, one after the other? You could have lost seven for all of me. Stop your sniveling, I wouldn’t give five cents for all the wars you lost; losing children is worse than losing wars. You can be an altar boy here in the Denklingen Sanatorium, it’s a highly respectable occupation, and don’t make speeches to me about the German future. I read about it in the newspapers: the German future is all pegged out. If you have to weep, don’t blubber. So they’ve been unjust to you, too? Impaired your honor, yes, what’s the use of honorableness when any stranger can make dents in it? But now relax, in this booby hatch they take care of you fine, in this place they go into it every time your soul lets out a squeak, all complexes respected here. Just a question of money: if you were poor, it would be cold water and a good thrashing, but here they cater to every one of your whims. They even let you go out, you can go and drink beer in Denklingen. All you have to do is holler, ‘field of fire, field of fire for the second army, field
of fire for the third army,’ and someone or other will answer, ‘Yessir, General.’ Here we don’t think of time as an indefinite continuous concept but rather as separate units which must not be related and become history. Do you understand? I quite believe you that you’ve seen my eyes before, in someone with a red scar on the bridge of his nose, but statements and associations like that aren’t allowed here. With us, time is always
today
, Verdun is today and today Heinrich died and Otto fell, it’s May 31, 1942, today, and today Heinrich whispered in my ear, ‘… 
and forward with Hindenburg, hurrah
.’ You knew Heinrich, you shook his hand, or rather he shook yours. Fine. But now we’re going to get some work done. I can still remember which prayer was the hardest for an altar boy to learn. I learned it myself with my son Otto, when I had to hear him recite it:
‘Suscipiat Dominus sacrificium de manibus tuis ad laudem et gloriam nominis sui’
—here comes the hardest part, old man—‘
ad utilitatem quoque nostram, totiusque Ecclesiae suae sanctae
’—say it after me, old man—no, ‘
ad utilitatem
,’ not ‘
utilatem
’—they all make that mistake—I’ll write it down for you if you like, or you can look it up in a prayer book—goodbye now, Field-of-Fire, see you later, it’s suppertime;
bon appétit.
”