The Collected Stories of Heinrich Boll (55 page)

When I did that I got a bad cold, thought Heemke. This boy will get through, and if I, if I—if I what?

Hostility and emotion, Alfred my friend, these are not the words to express what I feel.

He entered the common room, greeted the other teachers who had been waiting for him, and said to the janitor who helped him off with his coat, “Have the children come in now.”

He could tell from the faces of the other teachers how strange his behavior had been. Perhaps, he thought, I was standing out there on the street for half an hour watching the Wierzok boy, and he glanced nervously at his watch: but it was only four minutes past eight.

“Gentlemen,” he said aloud, “bear in mind that for many of these children, the test they are about to undergo is more crucial and decisive than university finals will be for some of them twelve years from now.” They waited for more, and those who knew him were waiting for the word he was so fond of using whenever he could, the word “justice.” But he said no more, merely turned to one of the teachers and quietly asked, “What is the essay theme for the candidates?”

“ ‘A Strange Experience.’”

Heemke stayed behind as the room emptied.

Those childish fears of his, that in two years the kitchen bench would be too short for him, had been superfluous, for he had not passed the exam, although the essay theme had been “A Strange Experience.” Right up to the moment when they had been let into the school he had clung to his confidence, but as soon as he entered the school, his confidence had melted away.

When he came to write the essay, he tried in vain to grasp hold of Uncle Thomas. Thomas was suddenly very close, too close for him to be able to write an essay about him; he wrote down the title, “A Strange Experience,” and underneath he wrote, “If only there were justice in this world,” but as he wrote “justice” what he really meant was “vengeance.”

It had taken him more than ten years not to think of vengeance whenever he thought of justice.

The worst of those ten years had been the year after he failed his entrance exam: the people he had left behind when he embarked on what merely seemed to promise a better life could be just as unsympathetic as those who were completely unaware, completely ignorant, and whom a phone call from his father saved from becoming involved in months of pain and effort. A smile from his mother, a clasp of the hand on Sunday after Mass, and a hasty word or two: that was the justice of this world—and the other, the thing he had always wanted but had never achieved, was what Uncle Thomas had so desperately longed for. The desire to achieve that had earned him the nickname “Daniel the Just.” He was roused by the door opening, and the janitor ushered in Uli’s mother.

“Marie,” he said, “what—why …”

“Daniel,” she said, “I,” but he interrupted her, “I’ve got no time now, no, not even a second,” he said fiercely, and he left his room and went up to the second floor: up here the sounds of the waiting mothers were muted. He went to the window overlooking the playground, put a cigarette between his lips but forgot to light it. It has taken me thirty years to get over it and arrive at a knowledge of what it is I want. I have eliminated vengeance from my idea of justice; I make a good living, I put on my grim face, and most people believe this means I have reached my goal; but I have not reached my goal. I have only just begun—but now I can take off my grim face, as you put away a hat you no longer need. I shall wear a different face, perhaps my own …

He would spare Wierzok this year; he did not want to make any child go through what he had gone through, any child at all, least of all this one—whom he had met as if it were himself.

None of my friends can understand the care with which I preserve a scrap of paper that has no value whatever. It merely keeps alive the memory of a certain day in my life, and to it I owe a reputation for sentimentality which is considered unworthy of my social position: I am the assistant manager of a textile firm. But I protest the accusation of sentimentality and am continually trying to invest this scrap of paper with some documentary value. It is a tiny, rectangular piece of ordinary paper, the size, but not the shape, of a stamp—it is narrower and longer than a stamp—and although it originated in the post office it has not the slightest collector’s value. It has a bright red border and is divided by another red line into two rectangles of different sizes; in the smaller of these rectangles there is a big black R, in the larger one, in black print, D
ÜSSELDORF
and a number—the number 634. That is all, and the bit of paper is yellow and thin with age, and now that I have described it minutely I have decided to throw it away: an ordinary registration sticker, such as every post office slaps on every day by the dozen.

And yet this scrap of paper reminds me of a day in my life which is truly unforgettable, although many attempts have been made to erase it from my memory. But my memory functions too well.

First of all, when I think of that day, I smell vanilla custard, a warm, sweet cloud creeping under my bedroom door and reminding me of my mother’s goodness: I had asked her to make some vanilla ice cream for my first day of vacation, and when I woke up I could smell it.

It was half past ten. I lit a cigarette, pushed up my pillow, and considered how I would spend the afternoon. I decided to go swimming; after lunch I would take the streetcar to the beach, have a bit of a swim, read, smoke, and wait for one of the girls at the office, who had promised to come down to the beach after five.

In the kitchen my mother was pounding meat, and when she stopped for a moment I could hear her humming a tune. It was a hymn.
I felt very happy. The previous day I had passed my test, I had a good job in a textile factory, a job with opportunities for advancement—but now I was on vacation, two weeks’ vacation, and it was summertime. It was hot outside, but in those days I still loved hot weather: through the slits in the shutters I could see the heat haze, I could see the green of the trees in front of our house, I could hear the streetcar. And I was looking forward to breakfast. Then I heard my mother coming to listen at my door; she crossed the hall and stopped by my door; it was silent for a moment in our apartment, and I was just about to call “Mother” when the bell rang downstairs. My mother went to our front door, and I heard the funny high-pitched purring of the buzzer down below; it buzzed four, five, six times, while my mother was talking on the landing to Frau Kurz, who lived in the next apartment. Then I heard a man’s voice, and I knew at once it was the mailman, although I had only seen him a few times. The mailman came into our entrance hall, Mother said, “What?” and he said, “Here—sign here, please.” It was very quiet for a moment, the mailman said “Thanks,” my mother closed the door after him, and I heard her go back into the kitchen.

Shortly after that I got up and went into the bathroom. I shaved, had a leisurely wash, and when I turned off the faucet I could hear my mother grinding the coffee. It was like Sunday, except that I had not been to church.

Nobody will believe it, but my heart suddenly felt heavy. I don’t know why, but it was heavy. I could no longer hear the coffee mill. I dried myself off, put on my shirt and trousers, socks and shoes, combed my hair, and went into the living room. There were flowers on the table, pale pink carnations, it all looked fresh and neat, and on my plate lay a red pack of cigarettes.

Then Mother came in from the kitchen carrying the coffeepot and I saw at once she had been crying. In one hand she was holding the coffeepot, in the other a little pile of mail, and her eyes were red. I went over to her, took the pot from her, kissed her cheek, and said, “Good morning.” She looked at me, said, “Good morning, did you sleep well?” and tried to smile, but did not succeed.

We sat down, my mother poured the coffee, and I opened the red pack lying on my plate and lit a cigarette. I had suddenly lost my appetite. I stirred milk and sugar into my coffee, tried to look at Mother, but
each time I quickly lowered my eyes. “Was there any mail?” I asked, a senseless question, since Mother’s small red hand was resting on the little pile on top of which lay the newspaper.

“Yes,” she said, pushing the pile toward me. I opened the newspaper while my mother began to butter some bread for me. The front page bore the headline “Outrages Continue Against Germans in the Polish Corridor!” There had been headlines like that for weeks on the front pages of the papers. Reports of “rifle fire along the Polish border and refugees escaping from the sphere of Polish harassment and fleeing to the Reich.” I put the paper aside. Next I read the brochure of a wine merchant who used to supply us sometimes when Father was still alive. Various types of Riesling were being offered at exceptionally low prices. I put the brochure aside too.

Meanwhile my mother had finished buttering the slice of bread for me. She put it on my plate, saying, “Please eat something!” She burst into violent sobs. I could not bring myself to look at her. I can’t look at anyone who is really suffering—but now for the first time I realized it must have something to do with the mail. It must be the mail. I stubbed out my cigarette, took a bite of the bread and butter, and picked up the next letter, and as I did so I saw there was a postcard lying underneath. But I had not noticed the registration sticker, that tiny scrap of paper I still possess and to which I owe a reputation for sentimentality. So I read the letter first. The letter was from Uncle Eddy. Uncle Eddy wrote that at last, after many years as an assistant instructor, he was now a full-fledged teacher, but it had meant being transferred to a little one-horse town; financially speaking, he was hardly any better off than before, since he was now being paid at the local scale. And his kids had had whooping cough, and the way things were going made him feel sick to his stomach, he didn’t have to tell us why. No, he didn’t, and it made us feel sick too. It made a lot of people feel sick.

When I reached for the postcard, I saw it had gone. My mother had picked it up, she was holding it up and looking at it, and I kept my eyes on my half-eaten slice of bread, stirred my coffee, and waited.

I shall never forget it. Only once had my mother ever cried so terribly, when my father died; and then I had not dared to look at her either. A nameless diffidence had prevented me from comforting her.

I tried to bite into the bread, but my throat closed up, for I suddenly realized that what was upsetting Mother so much could only be something to do with me. Mother said something I didn’t catch and handed me the postcard, and it was then I saw the registration sticker: that red-bordered rectangle, divided by a red line into two other rectangles, of which the smaller one contained a big black R and the bigger one the word “D
ÜSSELDORF
” and the number 634. Otherwise the postcard was quite normal. It was addressed to me and on the back were the words “Mr. Bruno Schneider: You are required to report to the Schlieffen Barracks in Adenbrück on August 5, 1939, for an eight-week period of military training.” “Bruno Schneider,” the date, and “Adenbrück” were typed, everything else was printed, and at the bottom was a vague scrawl and the printed word “Major.”

Today I know that the scrawl was superfluous. A machine for printing majors’ signatures would do the job just as well. The only thing that mattered was the little sticker on the front for which my mother had had to sign a receipt.

I put my hand on her arm and said, “Now, look, Mother, it’s only eight weeks.” And my mother said, “I know.”

“Only eight weeks,” I said, and I knew I was lying, and my mother dried her tears, said, “Yes, of course”; we were both lying, without knowing why we were lying, but we were and we knew we were.

I was just picking up my bread and butter again when it struck me that today was the fourth and that on the following day at ten o’clock I had to be over two hundred miles away to the east. I felt myself going pale, put down the bread and got up, ignoring my mother. I went to my room. I stood at my desk, opened the drawer, closed it again. I looked round, felt something had happened and didn’t know what. The room was no longer mine. That was all. Today I know, but that day I did meaningless things to reassure myself that the room still belonged to me. It was useless to rummage around in the box containing my letters, or to straighten my books. Before I knew what I was doing, I had begun to pack my briefcase: shirt, pants, towel, and socks, and I went into the bathroom to get my shaving things. My mother was still sitting at the breakfast table. She had stopped crying. My half-eaten slice of bread was still on my plate, there was still some coffee in my cup, and I said to my mother, “I’m going over to the Giesselbachs’ to phone about my train.”

When I came back from the Giesselbachs’ it was just striking twelve noon. Our entrance hall smelled of roast pork and cauliflower, and my mother had begun to break up ice in a bag to put into our little ice-cream machine.

My train was leaving at eight that evening, and I would be in Adenbrück next morning about six. It was only fifteen minutes’ walk to the station, but I left the house at three o’clock. I lied to my mother, who did not know how long it took to get to Adenbrück.

Those last three hours I spent in the house seem, on looking back, worse and longer than the whole time I spent away, and that was a long time. I don’t know what we did. We had no appetite for dinner. My mother soon took back the roast, the cauliflower, the potatoes, and the vanilla ice cream to the kitchen. Then we drank the breakfast coffee which had been kept warm under a yellow cozy, and I smoked cigarettes, and now and again we exchanged a few words. “Eight weeks,” I said, and my mother said, “Yes—yes, of course,” and she didn’t cry anymore. For three hours we lied to each other, till I couldn’t stand it any longer. My mother blessed me, kissed me on both cheeks, and as I closed the front door behind me, I knew she was crying.

I walked to the station. The station was bustling with activity. It was vacation time: happy suntanned people were milling around. I had a beer in the waiting room, and about half past three decided to call up the girl from the office whom I had arranged to meet at the beach.