The Collected Stories of Heinrich Boll (118 page)

Yes, coffee. Here she was, drinking coffee again, turning over the pages of the newspaper. Here in the café she could also smoke undisturbed, without inviting annoying glances or snide remarks. She thought of the shoving and chasing in the endless corridors of the courthouse, with all those hurrying people who had a sense of injury or had inflicted injury, who were owed rent or hadn’t paid rent, where everything was decided and nothing clarified, by nice attorneys and nice judges who couldn’t keep death at bay.

Again and again she caught herself smiling at the thought of the timing of the death that had separated them. It had started a year ago, when they were having dinner at the home of his boss, and he suddenly remarked that she was “involved in textiles,” which sounded as if she were a carpet or fabric weaver or designer, whereas she had simply been a saleswoman in a dry-goods store—and how happy she had been there, her hands unfolding, refolding, everything pleasing to the hands, the eyes and, when business was quiet, tidying everything up, putting things back into drawers, onto shelves and racks: towels, sheets,
handkerchiefs, shirts, and socks, and then one day that nice young man had turned up, the one who had just died, and had asked to see some shirts, although he had no intention of buying one or the money to do so—turned up simply because he was looking for someone to whom he could spill out his excitement over his success: three years after graduating from night school (“I’m involved in electrotechnology,” and all he’d been was an electrician) he already had his degree and had been given a subject for his doctoral thesis. And now that phrase, “my wife’s involved in textiles,” which was supposed to sound at least like applied arts if not art, and how angry, almost sick with rage, it had made him when she said, “Yes, I was a saleswoman in a dry-goods store, and I still help them out sometimes.” In the car on the way home not a word, not a syllable, icy silence, hands gripping the steering wheel.

The coffee was surprisingly good, the newspaper boring (“industrial profits too low, wages too high”), and what she picked up from the conversations around her all seemed to be about court cases. (“Facts twisted.” “I can prove that the sofa belongs to me.” “I’m not going to let them take away my son.”). Attorneys’ gowns, attorneys’ briefcases. An office messenger brought some files that were solemnly opened, carefully scrutinized. And then the young waitress bringing her a second cup of coffee actually put a hand on her shoulder and said, “Don’t take it too hard. It’ll pass. I cried my eyes out for weeks—weeks, I tell you.” She was ready to be angry, but then she smiled and said, “It’s already passed.” And the waitress went on, “And I was the guilty party too.” Too? she thought. Am I the guilty party, and if so how do I show it—because I smoke, maybe? Drink coffee, read the paper, and smile? Yes, of course she was guilty, she had refused to acknowledge the death soon enough and had continued to live out those deadly months with him. Until one day he brought home a new evening dress, bright red, very low-cut, saying, “Wear this to the company dance tonight—I’d like you to dance with my boss and show him everything you’ve got,” but she had worn her old silver-gray with the bead pattern she liked. A month later, when he found out about the affair with Strössel, she remembered his fury when he said, “What you refused to show my boss you’ve now shown to yours.”

Yes, so she had—not long after he had moved out of the bedroom into the guest room, and the next morning had come back into the
bedroom with all that porn stuff and a whip and had started a terrible row about his sexual achievements, which she was denying him but which he urgently needed; they were in such stark contrast to his professional achievements that he was developing a neurosis, almost a psychosis; there was no way she could offer him this satisfaction, she had taken away the whip and locked the door after him. The stuff had turned her ice cold, and she blamed herself for still not acknowledging the death, taking the child, ordering a taxi, and driving away. In actual fact she had gone on to share in the remodeling of the house—guest room, guest bathroom, TV room, study, sauna, children’s room—and it had been her idea to go to Strössel and ask for a discount, for bath and hand towels, sheets and pillowcases, drapery fabrics. Naturally she had felt a bit uneasy when Strössel looked deep into her eyes and increased the discount from twenty to forty percent; and when his eyes grew misty and he tried to grab her across the counter, she had murmured, “For heaven’s sake, not here, not here,” and Strössel got the wrong (or right) idea and thought that somewhere else she would be willing. She had actually gone upstairs with him, with that pudgy, bald bachelor who was twenty years older than she and blissful when she lay down with him. And meanwhile he had left the store open and the cash register unattended, and not even the unavoidable unbuttoning and buttoning of clothing had embarrassed her. And later when he packed up her purchases downstairs at the cash desk, he hadn’t given her a discount but had made her pay the full retail price, and when he held the door open for her, he hadn’t tried to kiss her. The opposing attorney had actually tried to have Strössel attest to her claim of “discount withheld after favors granted,” but then her nice attorney had succeeded in keeping Strössel out of it. Yes, she had gone back to Strössel several times. “Not to make purchases?” “No.” “How often?” She didn’t know, really she didn’t. She hadn’t counted. Marriage had never been spoken of, the word “love” never mentioned. It was that soft, deeply moved and moving bliss of Strössel’s that made her afraid of sinking back onto a rose-colored pillow.

No, she couldn’t go back to him, and his old-fashioned store would have been the right place for her, where she knew every case and box, every shelf and drawer, knew the stocks that genuinely did consist of only wool and cotton; she and her hands, that were infallible when
it came to spotting any adulteration by even the tiniest synthetic thread. No, she couldn’t work in one of those “cheap and nasty” stores either, as Strössel always called them. No, she wouldn’t marry again, be present again when a living person died and once again a death separated her. She supposed the time had come when husbands became brutally obscene, and lovers, in an old-fashioned way that was almost too rose-colored, became tender and blissful.

“See?” said the waitress when she paid her bill. “Now we’re feeling a bit better, aren’t we? After all, you’re still a young woman, nice-looking too, and”—here it came—“you’ve got all your life before you and your son’ll stick by you!” She smiled at the waitress again as she left the café.

She would bake her son a hazelnut cake, buy the ingredients on the way home, and if he asked her, “Do I really have to go to that woman?” (Connie, Gaby, Lotte?), she would say, “No.” And then there was still the firm of Haunschüder, Kremm & Co., Strössel’s old competitors, where the infallibility of her hands would be equally in demand. Only that it was more of a mail-order house, and she wouldn’t so often be able to unfold a shirt and smooth it out, as she had done for that attractive young man who had just received his degree and been given the subject for his doctoral thesis. Perhaps instead of cherries she would buy some smoked herring, he liked that just as much, and he would stand beside her while it turned crisp in the pan, while the pancake dough enfolded it and turned golden-brown. She could probably become a buyer at Haunschüder, Kremm & Co.; she knew she could rely on her hands, no adulterating thread would get past them.

It would seem idle to extol the obvious forms of courtesy: that naturally one holds the front door open for a child; that one not only refrains from pushing ahead of a child when shopping but steps back for him;

that one allows a tired, stress-ridden schoolchild traveling home on the streetcar, bus, or train to enjoy his seat in peace without disturbing that well-earned peace either verbally or even by so much as staring at him with an expression of moral disapproval.

Further, I take it for granted that one does not allow one’s child, one’s cat, dog, or bird, to go hungry, that one is prepared, if need be, to go out and steal food for them, and it goes without saying that one must not let one’s wife or girlfriend hunger or thirst either;

that none of them should be beaten, even when they ask for it, the courtesy of hands being one of the principal courtesies;

and that one should not pour the honored guest the first, second, or, if at all possible, even the third, but the fourth cup from the teapot, bearing in mind the Chinese proverb: Courtesy lies close to the bottom of the teapot.

Among those courtesies we take for granted is that when dealing with people of either sex who regard themselves as our inferiors—for
ESSENTIALLY
the concept of “inferior” is, obviously, unacceptable—one must use a slightly more subdued, more restrained tone of voice than when dealing with those who regard themselves as our superiors; of course, the concept of “superior” is also
ESSENTIALLY
unacceptable, since you cannot simply have a superior served up to you like a bowl of soup, and in dealing with these superiors one should not, need I say, be loud and rude but merely a shade less subdued and a shade less courteous; this behavior might slightly modify the structures.

Moreover, when confronted by a person one dislikes one should not simply make remarks to his face such as “I don’t like your mug!”
It is possible to express one’s aversion courteously, perhaps as follows, and preferably in writing, since the spoken word always carries with it the risk of rudeness:

“By reason of unfathomable, inscrutable, I will not say cosmic constellations, not wishing to make the stars and their ascendants solely responsible—by reason, therefore, of circumstances that are neither solely responsible nor solely predestined, the—shall we say—strands of sympathetic response between us have unfortunately (I would ask you to interpret this ‘unfortunately’ as an expression of my regret as well as of my abstract respect for your person) proved incapable of animation. Hence, although ‘essentially’ you are a most pleasant person and figure, I deem it advisable, indeed necessary, to restrict the number of our encounters to a minimum, to that minimum which compels us, for professional reasons, from time to time to shake hands, discuss details—encounters that are unavoidable in view of the increasing importance of the production of [here the product in question may be inserted, e.g.: novels, bolts, herrings in aspic]. Beyond this necessary minimum I suggest that we eschew the sound of each other’s voices, the sight of our skin and hair, the perception of the odors we emanate. It is with some regret that I advise you of this, in the hope that these unfathomable constellations and combinations may change, that the strands of sympathetic response between us may become animated, and that an altered overall situation of sympathetic exchange may possibly enable us to extend the necessary professional contacts to the private domain. Yours most respectfully …”

Such forms of courtesy appear to me too obvious to require more than a passing allusion.

By contrast, however, it seems to me as difficult as it is necessary to point to courtesy in unconventional, indeed illegal, situations. It must be emphasized that
ESSENTIALLY
the actions I should like to enlarge upon are not merely unconventional or immoral but downright criminal. Let us take, for example, a crime that
ESSENTIALLY
is as criminal as it is discourteous, such as a bank robbery or a bank holdup, and let us consider that lady, heretofore so law-abiding, respectable, and honorable, who in broad daylight—more precisely, at about 3:29 p.m.—
relieved a savings bank in the suburb of a large German city of seven thousand marks. Try to imagine the scene: a sixty-one-year-old lady of the type known as frail, whose appearance calls to mind solitaire or bridge, the widow of a lieutenant colonel, enters the branch of a savings bank in order to appropriate a sum of money by illegal means! If this lady became known as the “courteous bank robber,” was in fact described as such in the police files, the use of the adjective “courteous” was intended to convey her particularly dangerous quality. This lady did instinctively what the courteous bank robber must do: not even think of weapons, of violence, or shouting, not even consider such clumsy methods. After all, it is not merely discourteous, it is positively dangerous to brandish pistols or machine guns and shout, “Hand over the dough, or I’ll shoot!” And of course a lady such as ours does not enter just any old bank simply out of abstract greed, or because she has suddenly become unbalanced, but because in her extremity she has regained her balance. She has carefully considered this action and has her motives!

The dire plight that forces this lady to this, to put it mildly, unconventional act must be briefly outlined. She has a son who, having taken the wrong turn, has served a few minor prison sentences but has now, discharged once again from jail, found a girlfriend who exerts a stabilizing influence on him. He has a chance of being employed as a pharmaceuticals salesman—his mother has spent a small fortune on telephone calls and postage, has made use of all her connections (among them two generals still on active duty) to obtain this chance for him. And now, like a bolt from the blue and at the last moment, comes the company’s demand: a five-thousand-mark bond! His mother—that very lady who became known as the courteous bank robber—has found him a small apartment, developed an affection for his girlfriend, everything is going splendidly, and now that bombshell: a five-thousand-mark bond! Try to imagine the scene: the lady’s bank credit has already been strained to the utmost; her pension has shrunk to a bare subsistence level, the greater part going to pay off the bank; she has borrowed wherever she could—from bridge friends, her husband’s old fellow officers (among them two colonels and a general), all nice people; she has already eliminated the egg from her breakfast menu, and as she stands there in her apartment all she can think of is “Beg, borrow, or steal!” and this popular saying turns out to be relatively disastrous for the savings bank.