The Collected Stories of Heinrich Boll (2 page)

Needless to say, I began wondering about this woman and this house. All the other places we passed held little interest for me. Kahlenkatten—Bröderkotten—Suhlenheim—Gründerheim—there was nothing very interesting about these stations. My thoughts were always preoccupied with that house. Why does the woman wash and scrub three times a week? I wondered. The house didn’t look at all as if there were dirty people living in it, or as if a great many visitors came and went. In fact it looked almost inhospitable, although it was clean. It was a clean and yet unwelcoming house.

But when I caught the eleven o’clock train from Gründerheim for the return trip and saw the rear of the house shortly before noon, just beyond Kahlenkatten, the woman would then be washing the panes of the end window on the right. Oddly enough, on Mondays and Saturdays she would be washing the end window on the right, and on Wednesdays the middle window. Chamois in hand, she rubbed and
rubbed. Round her head she wore a scarf of a dull, reddish color. But on the way back I never saw the little girl, and now, approaching midday—it must have been a few minutes to twelve, for in those days the trains were nothing if not punctual—it was the front of the house that was silent and uncommunicative.

Although in telling my story I shall make every effort to describe only what I actually saw, presumably no one will object to the modest observation that, after three months, I permitted myself the mathematical combination that on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays the woman probably washed the other windows. This combination, modest though it was, gradually became an obsession. Sometimes, all the way from just before Kahlenkatten to Gründerheim, I would puzzle over which afternoons and mornings the other windows of the two floors were likely to get washed. In fact, I finally sat down with pencil and paper and devised a kind of cleaning timetable for myself. From what I had observed on the three mornings, I tried to figure out what was likely to get cleaned the other three afternoons and the remaining whole days. For I had the curiously fixed notion that the woman never did anything but wash and scrub. After all, I never saw her any other way, always bent double, so that I thought I could hear her labored breathing, at ten minutes past eight; and busily rubbing with the chamois, so that I thought I could see the tip of her tongue between her tightly drawn lips, shortly before twelve.

The story of this house preyed on my mind. I started daydreaming. This made me careless in my work. Yes, I became careless. I let my thoughts wander too often. One day I even forgot the “Pending Cases” folder. I drew down upon my head the wrath of the district manager of the Reich Gun Dog and Retriever Association. He sent for me; he was quivering with indignation. “Grabowski,” he said to me, “I hear you forgot the ‘Pending Cases.’ Orders are orders, Grabowski.” When I maintained a stubborn silence, the boss became more severe. “Messenger Grabowski, I’m warning you. The Reich Gun Dog and Retriever Association has no use for forgetful employees, you know. We can look elsewhere for qualified staff.” He looked at me menacingly, but then he suddenly became human. “Have you got something on your mind?” I admitted in a low voice, “Yes.” “What is it?” he asked kindly. I merely shook my head. “Can I help? Tell me what I can do.”

“Give me a day off, sir,” I asked diffidently, “that’s all I ask.” He nodded magnanimously. “Done! And don’t take what I said too seriously. Anybody can make one mistake; we’ve always been quite satisfied with you …”

My heart leaped with joy. This interview took place on a Wednesday. And the following day, Thursday, was to be my day off. I had it all figured out. I caught the eight o’clock train, trembling more with impatience than with fear as we crossed the bridge: there she was, washing the front steps. I caught the next train back from Kahlenkatten and passed her house just about nine: top floor, middle window, front. I rode back and forth four times that day and had the whole Thursday timetable complete: front steps, middle window top floor front, middle window top floor back, attic, front room top. As I passed the house for the last time at six o’clock, I saw a little man’s stooped figure digging humbly away in the garden. The child, holding the clean doll, was watching him like a jaileress. The woman was not in sight …

But all this happened ten years ago, before the war. A few days ago I crossed that bridge again by train. My God, how far away my thoughts had been when I got onto the train at Königstadt! I had forgotten the whole business. Our train was made up of boxcars, and as we approached the Rhine, a strange thing happened: one after another the boxcars ahead of us fell silent. It was quite extraordinary, as if the whole train of fifteen or twenty cars were a series of lights going out one after another. And we could hear a horrible, hollow rattle, a kind of windy rattle; and suddenly it sounded as if little hammers were being tapped against the floor of our boxcar, and we fell silent too, and there it was: nothing, nothing … nothing; left and right there was nothing, a ghastly void … in the distance the grassy banks of the Rhine … boats … water, but one didn’t dare look too far out: just looking made one giddy. Nothing, nothing whatever! I could tell from the white face of a silent farmer’s wife that she was praying; other people were lighting cigarettes with trembling hands; even the men playing cards in the corner had fallen silent …

Then we could hear the cars up front riding over solid ground again, and we all had the same thought: They’ve made it. If something happens to the train, maybe those people can jump out, but we were in the last car but one, and it was almost a foregone conclusion that we
would plunge into the river. The conviction was there in our eyes and in our pale faces. The temporary bridge was no wider than the tracks; in fact, the tracks themselves were the bridge, and the side of the boxcar hung out over the bridge into space, and the bridge rocked as if it were about to tip us off into space …

But then all of a sudden there was a firmer rattle; we could hear it coming closer, quite distinctly, and then under our car too it became somehow deeper, more substantial, this rattle, we breathed again and dared to look out: there were vegetable plots! Oh, may God bless vegetable plots! And suddenly I realized where we were, and my heart throbbed queerly the closer we came to Kahlenkatten. For me there was but one question: would that house still be standing? And then I saw it, first from a distance through the delicate sparse green of a few trees in the vegetable plots, the red façade of the house, still very clean, coming closer and closer. I was gripped by an indefinable emotion. Everything, the past of ten years ago and everything that had happened since then, raged within me in a frenzied, uncontrollable turmoil. And then the house came right up close, with giant strides, and then I saw her, the woman: she was washing the front steps. No, it wasn’t her—those legs were younger, a little heavier, but she had the same movements, those jerky, thrusting movements as she pushed the scrubbing cloth to and fro. My heart stood still, my heart marked time. Then the woman turned her face for just a moment, and instantly I recognized the little girl of ten years ago; that pinched, spidery, frowning face, and in the expression on her face something rather sour, something disagreeably sour like stale salad …

As my heart slowly started beating again, it struck me that today was in fact Thursday …

It was a funny thing: exactly five minutes before the raid started I had a feeling something was wrong … I looked warily round, then strolled along the Rhine toward the station, and it didn’t surprise me at all to see the jeeps come dashing up full of red-capped military police who proceeded to surround the block, cordon it off, and begin their search. It all happened incredibly fast. I stood just outside the cordon and calmly lit a cigarette. Everything was done so quietly. Quantities of cigarettes landed on the ground. Too bad, I thought … instinctively making a rough calculation as to the cash that must be lying around there. The truck rapidly filled up with the ones they had nabbed. Franz was among them … he gestured to me from a distance in a resigned kind of way, as much as to say: Just my luck. One of the policemen turned round to look at me, so I left. But slowly, very slowly. Hell, let them pick me up too, I couldn’t care less.

I was in no mood to go back to my room, so I continued my stroll toward the station. I flicked a pebble aside with my stick. The sun was warm, and a cool, soft breeze blew from the Rhine.

At the station buffet I gave Fritz, the waiter, the two hundred cigarettes and stuffed the money into my hip pocket. I had no more to sell now, just a packet for myself. In spite of the crowds jamming the place, I managed to find a seat and ordered a bowl of soup and some bread. Again I saw Fritz signaling me from across the room, but I didn’t feel like getting up, so he came hurrying across to me, with little Mausbach, the contact man, in tow. They both seemed pretty excited. “Man, are you ever a cool customer!” muttered Fritz, and, shaking his head, he went off, leaving the field to little Mausbach.

Mausbach was all out of breath. “For God’s sake, man,” he stammered, “beat it! They’ve searched your room and found the dope … Oh my God!” He was almost choking. I patted him reassuringly on the shoulder and gave him twenty marks. “That’s okay,” I said, and off he
trotted. But I suddenly had an idea and called him back. “Listen, Heini,” I said, “d’you suppose you could find a safe place for my books and overcoat? They’re in my room. I’ll come by again in a couple of weeks, okay? You can keep the rest of my things.” He nodded. I could trust him. I knew that.

Too bad, I thought again—eight thousand marks down the drain. Nowhere, nowhere could a fellow feel safe.

A few inquisitive glances came my way as I slowly sat down again and nonchalantly reached for my pocket. Then the buzzing of the crowds closed over me, and I knew that nowhere else could I have been as marvelously alone with my thoughts as here, surrounded by all these swarms of people milling around in the station buffet.

All at once I was aware that my gaze, as it more or less automatically circled the room without taking anything in, invariably halted at the same spot, as if attracted to it by some magnetic spell. Each time, as my gaze casually toured the room, there was that spot where my eye was caught for a second before sliding hastily over it. I awoke as if from a deep sleep and, now with seeing eyes, looked in that direction.

Two tables away from me sat a girl wearing a light-colored coat, a tan beret on her dark hair, reading a newspaper. I could see very little of her: her shoulders hunching slightly forward, a tiny portion of her nose, and her slender, motionless hands. And I could see her legs too, beautiful legs, slim and … yes, clean. I don’t know how long I stared at her; from time to time I caught sight of the narrow oval of her face as she turned a page. Suddenly she raised her head and for a moment looked me straight in the face with her large gray eyes, grave and detached, then resumed her reading.

That brief glance found its mark.

Patiently, yet conscious of my beating heart, I kept my eyes fixed on her until she finally finished the paper, leaned her arms on the table and, with a strangely despairing gesture, took a sip from her glass of beer.

Now I could see her whole face. A pale face, very pale, a small, fine-drawn mouth, and a straight, patrician nose … but her eyes, those huge, grave, gray eyes! Like a mourning veil her black hair hung down in dark waves to her shoulders.

I don’t know how long I stared at her, whether it was twenty minutes, an hour, or longer. Each time she ran her eyes over my face, her
glance became more uneasy, more brief, but her face showed none of the indignation girls usually show on such occasions. Uneasiness, yes … and fear.

God knows I didn’t want to make her uneasy or afraid, but I couldn’t take my eyes off her.

At last she got up abruptly, slung a worn haversack over her shoulder, and quickly left the buffet. I followed her. Without turning round she went up the steps toward the barrier. I kept her firmly, firmly within my line of vision as, with barely a pause, I hurriedly bought a platform ticket. She had a good head start on me, and I had to tuck my stick under my arm and try to run a little. I very nearly lost her in the dimly lit underpass leading up to the platform. I found her up at the top leaning against the remains of a bombed-out platform shelter. She was staring fixedly at the tracks. Not
once
did she turn round.

A chill wind from the Rhine was blowing right into the station. Evening came. A lot of people with packs and rucksacks, boxes and suitcases, stood about on the platform with harassed expressions. They turned their heads in dismay to where the wind was blowing from, and shivered. Ahead of them, dark blue and tranquil, yawned the great semicircle of the sky, punctured by the iron latticework of the station roof.

I limped slowly up and down, now and then glancing toward the girl to make sure she hadn’t disappeared. But she was still there, still leaning straight-legged against the ruined wall, her eyes fixed on the flat, black trough in which the shining rails were embedded.

At last the train backed slowly into the station. While I was looking toward the engine, the girl had jumped onto the moving train and disappeared into a compartment. I lost sight of her for several minutes among all the knots of people jostling their way into the compartments, but before long I glimpsed the tan beret in the last car. I got in and sat down right opposite her, so close that our knees were almost touching. When she looked at me, very gravely and quietly, her brows slightly puckered, the expression in her great gray eyes told me that she knew I had been following her the whole time. Again and again my eyes fastened helplessly on her face as the train sped into the oncoming evening. My lips refused to utter a word. The fields sank from view, and the villages gradually became shrouded in the night. I felt cold. Where was I going to sleep tonight, I thought … where would I ever be able
to breathe easily again? Ah, if I could only bury my face in that black hair. That was all I asked, I asked for nothing more … I lit a cigarette. She cast a fleeting but oddly alert glance at the package. I merely held it out to her, saying huskily, “Help yourself,” and felt as if my heart were going to jump out of my throat. She hesitated for a fraction of a second, and in spite of the darkness I saw her momentarily blush. Then she took one. She pulled deeply and hungrily on the cigarette as she smoked.