The Collected Stories of Heinrich Boll (108 page)

The one who has removed himself the least from the rest of the family is, in spite of some repulsive traits, Uncle Franz, although it is true that, in spite of his advanced age, he has a mistress, and his commercial practices are of a nature of which, while we may admire them, we can by no means approve. Recently he unearthed an out-of-work stage manager who supervises the evening ritual and sees to it that everything goes like clockwork. And it really does.

Meanwhile almost two years have passed: a long time. And I could not refrain, on one of my evening strolls, from walking past my uncle’s house, where normal hospitality is no longer possible, now that unknown artist types are milling around in there every evening and the members of the family indulge in strange-seeming amusements. It was a warm summer’s evening when I passed by there, and even as I turned the corner into the chestnut avenue I could hear the words “Christmas glitter decks the forests …” A passing truck rendered the remainder inaudible. I crept slowly up to the house and looked through a gap in the curtains into the room: the resemblance of the playactors to the relatives they were representing was so startling that for a moment I could not make out who actually was in charge—as they call it—that evening. I could not see the dwarfs, but I could hear them. Their chirping tinkle is on wavelengths that penetrate every wall. The whispering of the angel was inaudible. My aunt seemed genuinely happy: she was chatting with the prelate, and it took a while for me to recognize my brother-in-law as the only, if I may so put it, real person. I recognized him by the way he puckered his lips when he blew out a match. There do seem to be unmistakable traits of individuality. It occurred to me that the actors are treated to cigars, cigarettes, and wine; moreover, asparagus is served every evening. If they take advantage of this—and which artist would not?—it means a considerable additional expense for my uncle. The children were playing with dolls and toy wagons in a corner of the room: they looked pale and wan. Perhaps something really should be done about them, after all. It occurred to me that they might be replaced by wax dummies, the kind used in drugstore windows to promote milk powder and skin cream. They always seem very lifelike to me.

So I decide to draw the attention of the family to the possible effects of this unusual daily stimulation on childish minds. Although, of course, a certain amount of discipline can do no harm, it would seem that inordinate demands are being placed upon them in this instance.

I left my observation post when they started to sing “Silent Night.” I really couldn’t stand that carol. The air was so mild—and for a moment I had the impression of being present at a gathering of ghosts.
I was suddenly seized by a craving for pickles, which gave me an inkling of how greatly Lucie must have suffered.

Meanwhile I have been successful in having the children replaced by wax dummies. The acquisition proved to be expensive—Uncle Franz balked at it for a long time, but it would have been irresponsible to continue to allow the children to be fed marzipan every evening and make them sing carols that may eventually cause psychological damage. The acquisition of the dummies proved fortunate, since Karl and Lucie really did emigrate, and Johannes also withdrew his children from his father’s household. Standing amid big steamer trunks, I said goodbye to Karl, Lucie, and the children; they seemed happy, although somewhat apprehensive. Johannes has also moved away from our city. He is busy somewhere reorganizing one of the regional branches of his party.

Uncle Franz is tired of life. In a plaintive voice he recently told me that they keep forgetting to dust the dummies. The servants are giving him enough trouble as it is, and the actors are beginning to get out of hand. They are drinking more than they are entitled to, and some of them have been caught pocketing cigars and cigarettes. I advised my uncle to serve them colored water and to obtain some cardboard cigars.

The only reliable ones are my aunt and the prelate. They chat about the good old days, titter, and seem to be having a good time, and they only break off their conversation when a carol is struck up.

In any event: the ritual is being continued.

My cousin Franz’s career has taken a strange turn. He has been accepted as a lay brother in a nearby monastery. The first time I saw him in his monk’s habit I got a shock: that tall figure with the broken nose and swollen lips, those brooding eyes—he reminded me more of a convict than of a monk. It almost seemed as if he had divined my thoughts. “Our life is our punishment,” he said in a low voice. I followed him into the visitors’ room. Our conversation was stiff and halting, and he was obviously relieved when the bell summoned him for prayers in the chapel. I stood there pensively as he left: he was hurrying, and his haste seemed to be genuine.

At the age of thirteen I was proclaimed King of Capota. I happened to be sitting in my room, busy trying to erase the “un” from the “unsatisfactory” at the bottom of one of my essays. My father, Pyg Gy the First of Capota, was off for a month’s hunting in the mountains, and I had been told to forward my essay to him by royal express courier. So I was counting on the poor lighting in hunting lodges and busily erasing when I suddenly heard loud cries outside the palace: “Long live Pyg Gy the Second!”

A few minutes later my personal valet came rushing into the room, prostrated himself in the doorway, and whispered devoutly, “May it please Your Majesty not to hold it against me that I once reported Your Majesty to His Excellency the prime minister for smoking.”

I found the valet’s servility obnoxious, sent him away, and went on erasing. It was my tutor’s custom to mark my work with a red indelible pencil. I had just rubbed a hole in the paper when I was interrupted again: the prime minister entered, knelt down by the door, and cried, “Three cheers for Pyg Gy the Second!” He added, “Your Majesty, the people wish to see you.”

I was quite bewildered, put down the eraser, dusted off my hands, and asked, “Why do the people wish to see me?”

“Because you are the king.”

“Since when?”

“Since half an hour ago. Your most gracious father was fatally shot by a Rasac while hunting.” (Rasac is the abbreviation for “Radical Sadists of Capota.”)

“Oh, those Rasacs!” I exclaimed. Then I followed the prime minister out onto the balcony and showed myself to the people. I smiled, waved my arms, and felt quite bewildered.

This spontaneous demonstration lasted two hours. It was already beginning to grow dark before the crowd dispersed; a few hours later it came past the palace again in the form of a torchlight procession.

I went back to my rooms, tore up my essays, and threw the scraps into the courtyard of the royal palace. There—as I later found out—they were gathered up by souvenir hunters and sold to foreign countries where today the evidence of my weakness in spelling is displayed under glass.

There now followed some strenuous months. The Rasacs attempted a putsch but were suppressed by the Misacs (“Mild Sadists of Capota”) and the army. My father was buried, and I had to attend sessions of Parliament and sign new laws—but on the whole I enjoyed being king because I could now deal differently with my tutor.

When he asked me at lesson time, “May it please Your Majesty to recite the rules regarding improper fractions?” I would say, “No, it does not please me,” and he could do nothing about it. When he said, “Would Your Majesty find it intolerable if I were to ask Your Majesty to write down, on about three pages, the motives of William Tell when he murdered Gessler?” I would say, “Yes, I would find it intolerable,” and I would require him to enumerate William Tell’s motives for my benefit.

Thus, almost effortlessly, I acquired a certain education, burned all my textbooks and copybooks, and devoted myself to my true passions: I played ball, threw my pocketknife at the door panel, read thrillers, and had long conferences with the manager of the royal movie theater. I gave instructions for all my favorite movies to be obtained, and in Parliament I proposed some educational reforms.

It was a glorious time, although I found the parliamentary sessions wearisome. I succeeded in giving an outward impression of the melancholy youthful king and relied entirely on Prime Minister Pelzer, who had been a friend of my father and was a cousin of my deceased mother.

But after three months Pelzer urged me to get married, saying, “You must set an example to the people, Your Majesty.” Marriage as such didn’t scare me: the bad part was that Pelzer offered me his eleven-year-old daughter Jadwiga, a skinny little girl whom I often saw playing ball in the courtyard. She was considered dumb, was repeating the fifth grade, was pale and looked spiteful. I asked Pelzer for time to think it over and now became genuinely melancholy, spending hours leaning on my windowsill watching Jadwiga playing ball or hopscotch. She was a little more attractively dressed now and from time to time would glance up at me and smile. But her smile seemed to me artificial.

When my decision was due, Pelzer appeared before me in gala uniform: he was a big strapping man with a sallow complexion, black beard, and flashing eyes. “May it please Your Majesty,” he said, “to inform me of your decision? Has my child found favor in Your Majesty’s eyes?” When I replied with a point-blank “No,” something terrible happened: Pelzer ripped the epaulets from his shoulders, the decorations from his chest, threw his portfolio—it was made of synthetic leather—at my feet, tore at his beard, and shouted, “So that is the gratitude of Capotian kings!”

I was in an awkward situation. Without Pelzer, I was lost. Quickly changing my mind, I said, “May I ask you for Jadwiga’s hand?”

Pelzer threw himself at my feet, fervently kissed the tips of my shoes, and picked up the epaulets, decorations, and the synthetic-leather portfolio.

We were married in Huldebach Cathedral. There was beer and sausage for the populace as well as eight cigarettes per head and, at my personal suggestion, two free tickets for the carrousel; for a whole week, noise surged around the palace. From now on I helped Jadwiga with her homework, we played ball, played hopscotch, went horseback riding together, and, whenever we felt like it, ordered marzipan from the royal confectioner’s or went to the royal movie theater. I still enjoyed being a king; but a serious incident finally put paid to my career.

On reaching the age of fourteen, I was made a colonel and commander in chief of the 8th Cavalry Regiment. Jadwiga was made a major. From time to time we had to inspect the regiment, attend functions at the officers’ mess, and on every high holiday pin decorations on the chests of deserving soldiers. I myself received a good many decorations. But then came the Poskopek affair.

Poskopek was a soldier in the fourth squadron of my regiment who deserted one Sunday evening to follow a female circus rider across the border. He was caught, detained, and sentenced to death by a court-martial. As regimental commander it was my job to sign the death warrant, but I simply wrote at the bottom: “Sentence commuted to two weeks’ detention, Pyg Gy II.”

This note had terrible consequences. The officers of my regiment all ripped their epaulets from their shoulders, the decorations from their chests, and had them scattered about my room by a young lieutenant.
The entire Capotian army joined in the mutiny, and by the evening of that day my entire room was full of epaulets and decorations: it looked a mess.

True, the populace cheered me lustily, but that very night Pelzer informed me that the army had gone over in a body to the Rasacs. There was the crack of rifle shots, and the frantic hammering of machine guns rent the silence around the palace. Although the Misacs had sent me a bodyguard, Pelzer went over to the Rasacs during the night, which meant that I was forced to flee with Jadwiga.

We hastily gathered up clothing, bank notes, and jewelry, the Misacs requisitioned a taxi, and we barely made it to the railway station of the neighboring country, where we sank exhausted into a second-class sleeping compartment and moved off toward the west.

From across the border with Capota came the sound of rifle shots, frantic yelling, the whole terrible music of rebellion.

We traveled for four days and left the train at a city called Wickelheim. Wickelheim—dim memories from my geography lessons told me—was the capital of our neighboring country.

By this time Jadwiga and I had experienced things that we were beginning to appreciate: the smell of the train, acrid and pungent, the taste of sausages at railway stations of which we had never even heard. I could smoke to my heart’s content, and Jadwiga began to blossom now that she was relieved of the burden of homework.

On the second day of our stay in Wickelheim, posters appeared everywhere that caught our attention: “Hunke Circus—Hula, the famous equestrienne, with her partner Jürgen Poskopek!” Jadwiga became all excited. “Pyg Gy,” she said, “think of our livelihood. Poskopek will help you!”

At our hotel, telegrams were arriving hourly from Capota announcing the victory of the Misacs, the execution of Pelzer, a reorganization of the military.

The new prime minister—he was called Schmidt and was the leader of the Misacs—implored me to return and once again to accept the steel crown of the kings of Capota from the hands of the people.

For a few days I wavered, but ultimately Jadwiga’s dread of homework won out. I went to the Hunke Circus, asked for Poskopek, and was welcomed by him ecstatically. “You saved my life!” he cried, standing in the doorway of his trailer. “What can I do for you?”

“Provide me with a livelihood,” I said modestly.

Poskopek could not do enough for me: he interceded on my behalf with Herr Hunke, and I began by selling lemonade, then cigarettes, later goulash at the Hunke Circus. I was given a trailer and within a short time was made a cashier. I adopted the name Tückes, Wilhelm Tückes, and from then on ceased to be bothered by telegrams from Capota.

I am regarded as dead, as having disappeared without trace, whereas actually I am roaming the country in Hunke Circus’s trailer with my blossoming Jadwiga. I get to sniff the air of foreign lands, to see them, I enjoy the great confidence placed in me by Herr Hunke. And if it were not for Poskopek visiting me now and then and telling me about Capota, if it were not for his wife, Hula, the beautiful equestrienne, assuring me over and over again that her husband owes his life to me, I would never give so much as a thought to having once been a king.