Dog Years (31 page)

Tulla and I saw

Eddi Amsel in uniform collecting money for the Winter Aid in the Langfuhr market. He jiggled his can, distributed his little jokes among the populace, and took in more coins than the genuine Party comrades; and we thought: if Matern should turn up now and see this, well. . .

Tulla and I

surprised Eddi Amsel and the grocer's son in a snow squall on Frobelwiese. We were huddled under a trailer that was wintering on the Frobelwiese. Amsel and the gnome were silhouetted like shadows against the snow flurries. No shadows could have been more different than those shadows. The gnome shadow held out his shadow drum into the snowfall. The Amsel shadow bent down. Both shadows held their ears to the drum as though listening to the sound of December snow on white-lacquered tin. Because we had never seen anything so silent, we too kept still, with frost-red ears: but all we could hear was the snow, we couldn't hear the tin.

Tulla and I

kept an eye peeled for Eddi Amsel when between Christmas and New Year's Day our families went for a walk in Oliva Forest; but he was somewhere else and not in Freudental. There we drank coffee with milk and ate potato pancakes under deer antlers. There wasn't much doing in the outdoor zoo, because in cold weather the monkeys were kept warm in the basement of the forestry house. We shouldn't have taken Harras with us. But my father, the master carpenter, said: "The dog needs a run."

Freudental was a popular place for excursions. We took the Number 2 streetcar to Friedensschluss and then walked through the woods, between trees with red markings, until the valley opened and the forestry house and the outdoor zoo lay before us. As a carpenter, my father was unable to look at any good-sized tree, whether beech or pine, without estimating its utility in cubic feet. This put my mother, who looked upon nature and hence trees more as the adornment of the world, into a bad humor, which was dispelled only by the potato pancakes and coffee. Herr Kamin, the concessionaire of the forestry house and inn, took a seat between August Pokriefke and my mother. Whenever guests appeared, he told the story of how the zoo had come into being. And so Tulla and I heard for the tenth time how a Heir Pikuritz from Zoppot had donated the male bison. The zoo hadn't started with the bison, though, but with a pair of red deer, given by the director of the railroad car factory. Next came the wild boar and the fallow deer. Somebody contributed a monkey, somebody else two monkeys. Nikolai, head of the forestry commission, had provided the foxes and the beavers. A Canadian consul had furnished the raccoons. And the wolves? Who gave the wolves? Wolves that later broke out of the enclosure, tore a berry-picking child to pieces, and, once shot, had their picture in the papers? Who gave the wolves?

Before Herr Kamin can tell us that the Breslau zoo had donated the two wolves, we are outside with Harras. Past Jack, the bison bull. Around the frozen pond. Chestnuts and acorns for wild boar. Brief barking at the foxes. The wolves' den barred. Harras turned to stone. The wolves restless behind iron bars. Pace longer than Harras'. But the chest not so well developed, the stop not so clearly marked, eyes set at a slant, smaller, more protected. Head more thickset, trunk barrel-shaped, height to the withers: less than Harras, coat stiff, light gray with black clouds, on yellow undercoat. A hoarse whining Harras. The wolves pace restlessly. One day the guardian will forget to close. . . Snow falls in plaques from firs. For the time it takes to glance, the wolves stop still behind bars: six eyes, quivering flews. Three noses curl. Breath steams from fangs. Gray wolves -- black shepherd. Black as a result of consistent breeding. Oversaturation of the pigment cells, from Perkun by way of Senta and Pluto to Harras of Queen Louise's mill, gives our dog his stiff, unclouded, unbrindled, unmarked black. My father whistles and August Pokriefke claps his hands. Tulla's family and my parents standing outside the forestry house in winter coats. Restless wolves stay behind. But for us and Harras the Sunday walk isn't over yet. In every mouth an aftertaste of potato pancakes.

My father led us all to Oliva. There we took the streetcar to Glettkau. The Baltic was frozen as far as the misty horizon. Sheathed in ice, the Glettkau pier glistened strangely. Consequently my father had to take his camera out of its leather case and we had to group ourselves around Harras against the fantastic sugar candy. It took my father a long while to get focused. Six times we were told to hold still, which Harras did with ease -- he was used to having his picture taken from the days when the press photographers had courted him. Of the six pictures my father took, four turned out to be overexposed: the ice shed extra light.

From Glettkau we walked across the crunching sea to Brösen. Black dots as far as the ice-bound steamers in the roadstead. A good many people had had the same idea. No need for the gulls to go hungry. Two days later four school boys on their way to Hela across the ice got lost in the fog and, despite a search with private planes, were never seen again.

Shortly before the Brösen pier, which was also wildly ice-covered -- we were meaning to turn off toward the fishing village and the streetcar stop, because the Pokriefkes, especially Tulla, had a horror of the Brösen pier, where years before the little deaf-mute Konrad -- after my father with flat wood working hand had indicated the new line of march, at approximately four in the afternoon, shortly before New Year's, 1937, on December 28, 1936, Harras, whom my father had been holding on the leash because there were so many other dogs about, broke loose, leash and all, took ten long flat leaps over the ice, disappeared in the screaming crowd and, by the time we caught up to him, had merged with a fluttering overcoat to form a black snow-spewing bundle.

Without a word from Tulla, Felsner-Imbs, the pianist and piano teacher, who with Dr. Brunies and ten-year-old Jenny had come out for a Sunday excursion like ourselves, was attacked a third time by our Harras. This time the damage was not confined to a swallowtail coat or umbrella that had to be replaced. My father had every reason to call the unfortunate episode an expensive joke. Felsner's right thigh had been badly mangled. He had to spend three weeks in Deaconesses' Hospital, over and above which he demanded exemplary damages.

Tulla,

it's snowing. Then and now it snowed and is snowing. Snow drifted, is drifting. Fell, is falling. Came down, is coming down. Swirled, is swirling. Flakes floated, are floating. Powdered, is powdering. Tons of snow on Jäschkental Forest, on the Grunewald; on Hindenburgallee, on Clay-Allee; on Langfuhr Market and on Berka Market in Smaragdendorf; on the Baltic and on the lakes of the Havel; on Oliva, on Spandau; on Danzig-Schidlitz, on Berlin-Lichterfelde; on Emmaus and Moabit; Neufahrwasser and Prenzlauer Berg; on Saspe and Brösen, on Babelsberg and Steinstücken; on the brick wall around the Westerplatte and the rapidly built wall between the two Berlins, snow is falling and lies on the ground, snow was falling and lay on the ground.

For Tulla and me,

who were waiting for snow with sleds, snow fell for two days and remained on the ground. Occasionally the snowfall was slanting, resolute, hard-working, then for a time the flakes were large and aimless -- in this light, toothpaste-white with jagged edges; against the light, gray to black: a damp sticky snow, on top of which more resolute slanting snow came powdering down from the east. Through the night the moderate cold remained gray and spongy, so that in the morning all the fences were freshly laden and overloaded branches snapped. Countless janitors, columns of unemployed, the Emergency Technical Aid, and every available municipal vehicle were needed before streets, car tracks, and sidewalks were again discernible. Mountain chains of snow, crusty and lumpy, lined both sides of Elsenstrasse, concealing Harras completely and my father up to his chest. Tulla's woolen cap was two fingers' breadths of blue when there was a slight dip in the ridge. Sand, ashes, and red rock salt were strewn. With long poles men pushed the snow off the fruit trees in the Reichskolonie kitchen gardens and behind Abbot's Mill. And as they shoveled, strewed, and relieved branches, new snow kept falling. Children were amazed. Old people thought back: When had so much snow fallen? Janitors grumbled and said to one another: Who's going to pay for all this? There won't be any sand, ashes, rock salt left. And if it doesn't stop snowing. And if the snow thaws -- and thaw it will as sure as we're janitors -- it'll all flow into the cellars and the children will get the flu, and so will the grownups, like in '17.

When it's snowing, you can look out of the window and try to count. That's what your cousin Harry is doing, though he's not really supposed to be counting, he's supposed to be writing you letters. When the snow is coming down in big flakes, you can run out in the snow and hold up your open mouth. I'd love to, but I can't, because Brauxel says I've got to write you. If you're a black shepherd, you can run out of your white-capped kennel and bite into the snow. If your name is Eddi Amsel and you've built scarecrows from childhood up, you can build birdhouses for the birds at times when the snow falls breathlessly, and perform acts of mercy with bird food. While white snow is falling on a brown SA cap, you can grind your teeth. If your name is Tulla and you're very light, you can run through and over the snow and leave no trace. As long as vacation lasts and the sky keeps coming down, you can sit in a warm study and sort out your mica gneiss, your double spar, your mica granite and mica slate, and at the same time be a schoolteacher and suck candy. If you're paid for working in a carpentry shop, you can try to earn extra money on days when suddenly a pile of snow is falling, by making snow pushers out of the wood in the carpentry shop. If you have to make water, you can piss into the snow, engrave your name with a yellowish steaming stroke; but it has to be a short name: I wrote Harry in the snow in this manner; whereupon Tulla grew jealous and destroyed my signature with her shoes. If you have long eye lashes, you can catch the falling snow with long eyelashes; but they don't have to be long, thick eyelashes will do; Jenny had that kind in her doll face; when she stood still and gaped in amazement, she was soon looking out sea-blue from under white, snow-covered roofs. If you stand motionless in the falling snow, you can close your eyes and hear the snow fall; I often did so and heard plenty. You can see the likeness of a shroud in the snow; but you don't have to. If you're a roly-poly foundling who's been given a sled for Christmas, you may want to go coasting; but nobody wants to take the foundling along. You can cry in the middle of the snowfall and nobody notices, except for Tulla with her big nostrils who notices everything and says to Jenny: "Do you want to go coasting with us?"

We all went coasting and took Jenny along, because the snow was lying there for all children. The snow had blanketed memories from the days when the rain was pelting down and Jenny lay in the gutter: several times over. Jenny's joy at Tulla's offer was almost frightening. Her phiz was radiant, while Tulla's face revealed nothing. Perhaps Tulla had made the offer only because Jenny's sled was new and modern. The Pokriefkes' intricate iron frame was gone with Tulla's brothers; and Tulla didn't like to sit on my sled, because I always had to hold on to her and that impaired my coasting technique. Our Harras wasn't allowed to come along, because the dog behaved like a lunatic in the snow; and yet he was no longer young: a ten-year-old dog corresponds to a man of seventy.

We pulled our empty sleds through Langfuhr as far as the Johanneswiese. Only Tulla let herself be pulled, sometimes by me, sometimes by Jenny. Jenny liked to pull Tulla and often offered to pull. But Tulla let herself be pulled only when she felt like it and not when somebody offered. We coasted on Zinglers Höhe, on Albrechtshohe, or on the big sled run on the Johannesburg, which was maintained by the city. The sled run was regarded as dangerous and I, a rather scary child, preferred to coast on the gently sloping Johanneswiese, at the foot of the sled run. Often when the city slopes were too crowded, we went coasting in the part of the forest that began to the right of Jäschkentaler Weg and merged with Oliva Forest behind Hochstriess. The hill we coasted on was called the Erbsberg. From its top a sled run led directly to Eddi Amsel's garden on Steffensweg. We lay on our bellies on our sleds, peering through snow-bearing hazelnut bushes and through gorse that gave off a sharp smell even in winter.

Amsel often worked in the open. He was wearing a traffic-light-red sweater. Knitted tights, also red, disappeared into rubber boots. A white muffler, crossed over the chest of his sweater, was held together in back by a conspicuously large safety pin. Red again and for the third time, a fuzzy cap with a white pompon stretched over his head: we felt like laughing, but we couldn't, because the snow would have fallen off the hazelnut bushes. He was pottering with five figures that looked like the orphans from the Almshouse and Orphanage. Sometimes as we lurked behind snow-covered gorse and black gorse pods, a few orphans with a lady supervisor came into Amsel's garden. In blue-gray smocks under blue-gray caps, with mouse-gray earmuffs and black woolen mufflers, they posed parentless and shivering until Amsel dismissed them with little bags of candy.

Tulla and I knew

that Amsel was filling an order at the time. The stage manager of the Stadttheater, to whom Walter Matern had introduced his friend, had examined a portfolio full of sketches and designs submitted by Eddi Amsel, stage and costume designer. Amsel's stage sets and figurines had appealed to the stage manager, who had commissioned him to design the scenery and costumes for a patriotic play. Since during the last act -- the scene was laid in the days of Napoleon: the city was being besieged by Prussians and Russians -- orphans had to run back and forth between the advance lines and sing before the duke of Württemberg, Amsel conceived the Amselian idea of putting not real orphans but mechanical orphans on the stage, because, so he maintained, nothing tugs at the heartstrings so much as a quavering mechanical toy; think of the touching music boxes of bygone times. And so Amsel invited the Almshouse children to his garden and dispensed charitable gifts in exchange. He had them pose and sing chorales. "Lord on high, we praise Thee!" sang the Protestant orphans. We, behind the bushes, suppressed our laughter and were all of us glad to have father and mother. When Eddi Amsel was working in his studio, we couldn't make out what he was working on: the windows behind the terrace with the busily visited birdhouses reflected nothing but Jäschkental Forest. The other children thought he must be pottering with the same kind of thing as outside, comical orphans or cotton and toilet paper brides; only Tulla and I knew he was making SA men who could march and salute, because they had a mechanism in their tummies. Sometimes we thought we could hear the mechanism. We felt our own bellies, looking for the mechanism inside us: Tulla had one.