The Tin Drum (19 page)

I did not always manage, as I did in the mannequin case described above, to employ the art of seduction with such clear success. One of my ambitions was to transform a pair of lovers into a pair of thieves. Either both were unwilling, or he grabbed and she pulled his hand back; or she was bold enough, and he fell to his knees and begged till she complied and henceforth despised him. And once I seduced what seemed to be a very young pair of lovers in the falling snow outside a perfume shop. He was playing the hero and stole a bottle of cologne. She wailed and claimed she was giving up perfume. He wanted her fragrant, however, and had his way as far as the next streetlamp. But there, demonstratively
and blatantly, as if the young thing wanted to annoy me, she kissed him, standing on tiptoe, till he retraced his steps and returned the cologne to the shop window.

I had similar experiences on occasion with elderly gentlemen, from whom I expected more than their brisk pace through the winter night promised. They stood before a cigar-shop display with rapt attention, their thoughts in Havana, in Brazil, or on the Bissago Islands, but when my voice produced its custom-made incision and the disk fell at last onto a box of Black Wisdom, a pocketknife snapped closed in these gentlemen. They turned around, rowed their way across the street with their canes, and hurried past me and my doorway without spotting me, while their disturbed old faces, which looked as if the devil had given them a good shaking, brought a smile to Oskar's lips—a smile that bore a trace of concern, for the gentlemen, mostly cigar smokers advanced in years, had broken out in a cold sweat, and thus ran the risk, particularly with a change in the weather, of catching cold.

Insurance companies had to pay substantial claims that winter to many of the shops in our suburb, most of which were insured against theft. Though I never allowed things to progress to the point of grand larceny, and intentionally kept the excised panes of glass small enough that only one or two items could be removed from a display at a time, the number of what were termed burglaries still increased so greatly that the criminal-investigation units never had a quiet moment, yet were still criticized by the press for doing a poor job. From November of thirty-six till March of thirty-seven, when Colonel Koc formed a National Front government in Warsaw, a total of sixty-four attempted and twenty-eight successful burglaries of the same type were reported. Of course the police were able to recover part of the loot from elderly women, counter jockeys, maids, and retired schoolteachers, none of whom were truly enthusiastic thieves, or else the amateur window-weasel would decide, after losing a night's sleep over the object of his desire, to go to the police the next day and say, "Oh, I'm so sorry. It'll never happen again. A hole just appeared in the window, and when I'd nearly recovered from the shock and the broken window was three streets behind me, I found an expensive pair of men's leather gloves, probably cost a fortune, illegally lodged in the left pocket of my overcoat."

Since the police don't believe in miracles, everyone they caught, and all those who turned themselves in, served from four weeks to two months in jail.

I myself was put under house arrest from time to time, for of course Mama suspected, though she did not admit it to herself, or—wisely enough—to the police, that my glass-shattering voice was involved in this crime spree.

Matzerath, playing the law-abiding citizen, conducted an interrogation at which I offered no statement of any kind, but hid instead with ever increasing skill behind my drum and the permanently stunted stature of a three-year-old. At the end of such interrogations Mama would always cry, "It's all that midget's fault, kissing Oskar on the head and all. I knew right away it meant something, Oskar never used to be that way."

I admit Herr Bebra exerted a gentle but persistent influence on me. Even the house arrests couldn't keep me from escaping for an hour or so, with a little luck and of course without leave, to sing one of those notorious round holes in the window of a haberdashery shop and turn the promising young man enjoying the display into the proud owner of a genuine burgundy silk tie.

If you were to ask, was it Evil that bid Oskar to increase the already strong temptation of a brightly polished shop window by adding a hand-sized opening, I would have to reply, it was. It was Evil by the very fact that I stood in dark doorways. For as we all know, a doorway is Evil's favorite spot. On the other hand, without wishing to downplay the evil nature of the temptations I offered, I feel compelled, now that I have lost all opportunity or inclination for such acts, to say to myself and my keeper Bruno: Oskar, not only did you fulfill the small and medium-sized dreams of those who strolled silently through wintry nights in love with some special object, you helped them, as they stood before those shop windows, to know themselves. Many a respectable, elegant lady, many an upstanding uncle, many an elderly spinster still youthful and vigorous in her religious beliefs, would never have recognized the thief that dwells within had your voice not led them to steal, nor would they have undergone such a change as citizens, who till then had regarded every maladroit petty pickpocket as a dangerous scoundrel deserving eternal damnation.

After I'd lain in wait for him evenings on end, watching as three times he refused to steal before finally reaching out to become a thief the police never found, Dr. Erwin Scholtis, district attorney and a dreaded prosecutor for the Higher Regional Court, is said to have become a mild, indulgent jurist whose sentences were almost humane, and all because he sacrificed to me, the little demigod of thieves, and stole a genuine badger-hair shaving brush.

In January of thirty-seven I stood shivering for some time across the way from a jewelry shop, which, despite its quiet location on a suburban avenue bordered at regular intervals by maples, was well-known by name and reputation. The shop window with its watches and jewels attracted all sorts of game that I would have snared without a second thought as they faced displays of silk stockings, velour hats, or bottles of liqueur.

That's what jewelry does to you: you become selective, take your time, adapt yourself to the endless chain of necklaces, measure time not in minutes but in a string of pearl years, proceed on the assumption that pearls outlast the neck, that the wrist, not the wristband, will wither, that rings will be found in tombs where fingers have long since failed them; in short, I would find one window shopper too pretentious, another too small-minded, to care to bedeck them with jewels.

The shop window of Bansemer Jewelers was not overcrowded. A few choice watches, Swiss-quality articles, an assortment of wedding rings on pale blue velvet, and in the center of a display of perhaps six, or better seven, of the choicest items: a triply coiled snake, fashioned in varicolored gold, its finely chased head adorned and enriched with a topaz, two diamonds, and two sapphire eyes. As a rule I don't like black velvet, but it was a perfect setting for the Bansemer Jewelers' snake, as was the gray velvet that spread a tingling calm beneath the enchantingly simple articles of silverwork with their harmonious forms. A ring set with a stone so lovely you could see it would wear out the hands of equally lovely women, becoming lovelier and lovelier, till it achieved that degree of immortality reserved, it seems, for jewelry alone. There were chain-necklaces not to be donned with impunity, chains that would wear out the wearer, and finally, on a pale yellow velvet cushion in the simplified form of the base of a neck, a collier necklace of infinite delicacy. Finely articulated, a playful border, a mesh repeatedly pieced. What spider had
secreted that golden web into which six small rubies and one large stone had wandered? And where was she sitting, that spider, and waiting for what? Surely not for more rubies, but for someone whose gaze would be riveted by the rubies that glowed in the web like sculpted blood—in other words: to whom, for my own purposes or those of that gold-spinning spider, should I give this necklace?

On the eighteenth of January, nineteen thirty-seven, on crunchy, hard-trodden snow, in a night that smelled of more snow to come, smelled of all the snow a person who wished to leave it all up to the snow could possibly want, I saw Jan Bronski cross higher up the street on the right from where I was posted, pass the jewelry store without glancing up, then hesitate, or better yet pull up, as if in response to a challenge; he turned, or was turned—and there Jan stood, before the shop window, among the hushed maples laden in white.

The stylish, always slightly plaintive Jan Bronski, submissive at work, ambitious in love, imprudent and obsessed by beauty in equal measure, who lived from the flesh of my mama, who, as I still believe and doubt to this day, begot me in Matzerath's name, stood in his elegant winter coat, worthy of a Warsaw tailor, and became a statue of himself, or so it seemed to me, so petrified, so symbolically did he stand before the windowpane, his gaze, like that of Parsifal standing in the snow staring at the blood in the snow, fastened upon the rubies of the golden necklace.

I could have called him back, drummed him back. I had my drum with me, after all. I could feel it under my coat. All I had to do was loosen one button and it would have swung out into the frosty night on its own. One hand in my pocket would handle the sticks. Hubertus the huntsman didn't shoot that special stag he had within range. Saul became Paul. Attila turned round when Pope Leo raised his finger with the ring. But I fired my shot, was neither changed nor turned back, stayed Oskar the huntsman intent on the goal, loosed no button, no drum to the frost, crossed no cudgels on a wintry-white drum, nor turned that January night into one for drummers, but screamed instead in silence, screamed as a star might scream, or a fish deep down, screamed at the very texture of frost, so new snow could fall at last, then screamed into glass, into glass that was thick, into glass that was dear, into glass that was cheap, into glass that was clear, into glass that divided, into glass between worlds, into virginal, mystical shop-window glass that stood
between Jan and that necklace of rubies, screamed a hole I knew was the size of Jan's glove, dropped the glass like a trapdoor, like the portals of heaven and the gates of hell: and Jan didn't flinch, let his fine leather hand emerge from his pocket and enter heaven; then the glove left hell behind, stole a necklace from heaven or hell whose rubies looked good on all angels flying or fallen—and he let that handful of rubies and gold slide back in his pocket, and still he stood by the gaping window, in spite of the danger, though no rubies bled now to force his gaze or that of Parsifal in one unchanging direction.

Oh, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit! Something had better move the Holy Spirit, or it will be the end of Jan the Father. Oskar, the Son, quickly unbuttoned his coat, yanked out his drumsticks, and cried on his drum, Father, Father! till Jan turned round, slowly, much too slowly, crossed the street, and found me, Oskar, in the doorway.

How good that at the very moment Jan looked at me, his face still expressionless but soon to thaw, it started to snow. He held out a hand, but not the glove that had touched the rubies, to me, and led me, silent but not dejected, home, where Mama was worrying about me, and Matzerath, with his usual feigned severity but no serious intent, was threatening to call the police. Jan offered no explanation, didn't stay long or join the game of skat Matzerath invited him to while placing beer on the table. As he was leaving he patted Oskar, who didn't know whether he was asking for his silence or his friendship.

Soon thereafter Jan Bronski gave my mama the necklace. Surely aware of its origin, she only wore it a few hours at a time when Matzerath was away, either just for herself or for Jan Bronski, and possibly for me.

Shortly after the war I traded it on the black market in Düsseldorf for twelve cartons of Lucky Strikes and a leather briefcase.

Today, in the bed of my mental institution, I often miss the power I had back then to penetrate the wintry night, thaw frost flowers, lay open shop windows, and guide the hand of thieves.

How I would like, for example, to deglaze the glazed peephole in the upper third of my door so Bruno, my keeper, could observe me more directly.

How my voice's impotence pained me the year before I was sent to the institution. If, on some street at night, I released a scream longing for success and yet achieved none, I, who abhor all violence, was quite capable of picking up a stone from some wretched suburban lane in Düsseldorf and taking aim at a kitchen window. I would have been so glad to put on a show, especially for Vittlar, the window dresser. If after midnight, his upper body screened by a curtain, I recognized his green and red wool socks in the window of some men's store on Königsallee or at a perfume shop near the old Concert Hall, I would gladly have sung-shattered glass for him, since he is in fact my disciple, or might be, for I still don't know if I should call him Judas or John.

Vittlar is of noble birth, and his given name is Gottfried. After my futile and embarrassing attempt at song had failed, I drummed lightly on the undamaged shop window to get the window dresser's attention, and when he came out onto the street for a quarter of an hour to chat with me, making light of his own decorative abilities, I simply called him Gottfried, because my voice had not produced the miracle that would have entitled me to call him John or Judas.

The song at the jewelry shop that transformed Jan Bronski into a thief and my mama into the owner of a ruby necklace put a temporary
end to singing at shop windows with desirable displays. Mama turned pious. What made her pious? Her affair with Jan Bronski, the stolen necklace, the sweet strain of an adulterous woman's life, produced both piety and a lust for sacraments. The routine of sin establishes itself so easily: on Thursdays they met in the city, left little Oskar with Markus, engaged in a strenuous and generally satisfactory workout on Tischlergasse, refreshed themselves afterward in the Café Weitzke with Mocha and pastries, she picked up the boy at the Jew's place, accepted a few of his compliments along with a package of sewing silk he practically gave her for free, caught the Number Five streetcar, enjoyed the ride past Oliva Gate along Hindenburgallee, smiling, her thoughts far away, scarcely noticed the Maiwiese by the Sporthalle where Matzerath spent his Sunday mornings, tolerated the curve around the Sporthalle—how ugly that box could be when one had just experienced something beautiful—a further curve to the left and there behind the dust-covered trees was the Conradinum with its red-capped schoolboys—how nice little Oskar would have looked in a red cap like that with its golden
C;
twelve and a half he would be, sitting in the third form, ready for Latin, behaving like a true little Conradinian: hardworking, slightly cheeky, and arrogant.