Dog Years (39 page)

But the noise was tremendous. The dive bombers, the twelve knock-kneed howlers, would certanly have made our Harras bark himself hoarse; but our Harras was dead. Not of distemper; someone poisoned our shepherd with poisoned meat. My father wept manly tears and let his cigar dangle cold in his face. Forlorn he stood at his drawing table with inactive carpenter's pencil, and the German troops marching into town couldn't comfort him. Even the news on the radio that Dirschau, Konitz, and Tuchel -- all Koshnavia -- were in German hands, brought him no consolation, although his wife and the Pokriefkes, all born Koshnavians, trumpeted the news across the yard: "Now they've occupied Petzin, and they've taken Schlangenthin, and Lichtnau and Granau. Did you hear that, Friedrich, they marched into Osterwick a few hours ago."

True consolation came to the carpenter only on September 3, in the form of a motorcyclist in uniform. The courier's letter announced that the Führer and Chancellor was sojourning in the liberated city of Danzig and wished to make the acquaintance of deserving citizens, one of these being Friedrich Liebenau, whose shepherd dog Harras had sired the Führer's shepherd dog Prinz. The shepherd dog Prinz was also sojourning in the city. Master carpenter Liebenau was requested to be at the Zoppot casino at such and such a time and report to SS Sturmbannführer So-and-so, the duty adjutant. It would not be necessary to bring the dog Harras, but a member of the family, preferably a child, would be admitted. Required: identification papers. Attire: uniform or well-pressed street clothes.

My father selected his Sunday suit. I, the requisite member of the family, hadn't been wearing anything but my Hitler Cub uniform for the last three days anyway, because something was always going on. My mother brushed my hair until my scalp tingled. Not a button was missing from father or son. When we left the house, the entrance was cramped with neighbors. Only Tulla was absent: she was collecting shell fragments in Neufahrwasser. But outside, every window was occupied with curiosity and admiration. Across the street in the Aktienhaus, a window was open in the Brunies apartment: wispy Jenny was waving to me excitedly; but Dr. Brunies didn't show himself. I long missed his potato face: when we were seated in the open official car behind the uniformed driver, when Elsenstrasse ended, when we had Marienstrasse, Kleinhammerpark, and Kastanienweg behind us, when we were speeding first down Haupstrasse, then down Zoppoter Chaussee in the direction of Zoppot, I still missed the face with the thousand wrinkles.

Not counting the bus, this was my first real ride in an automobile. During the ride my father leaned over and shouted in my ear: "This is a big moment in your life. Open your eyes wide, take it all in, so you can tell about it later on."

I opened my eyes so wide that the wind made them water; and even now as, quite in keeping with my father's, not to mention Herr Brauxel's wishes, I relate what I took in through wide-open eyes and stored up in my memory, my eyes grow strained and moist: at the time I feared that I might look upon the Führer through eyes blinded by tears, and today I have to make an effort to prevent the tears from blurring anything which was then angular, uniformed, beflagged, sun lit, world-shatteringly important, sweat-drenched, and real.

The Zoppot casino and Grand Hotel made us very small as we climbed out of the official car. The casino gardens were cordoned off; they -- the population! -- were standing outside and were already hoarse. There were two sentries on the broad driveway leading to the entrance. The driver had to stop three times and wave a pass. I have forgotten to speak of the flags in the streets. Even in our neighborhood, on Elsenstrasse, there were swastika flags of varying lengths. Poor or thrifty people, who couldn't or wouldn't afford a proper flag, had stuck little paper pennants in their flowerpots. One flagpole was empty, cast doubt upon all the occupied flag poles, and belonged to Dr. Brunies. But in Zoppot, I believe, the whole population had put out flags; or at least so it seemed. From the round window in the gable of the Grand Hotel a flagpole grew at right angles to the fa
ç
ade. The swastika flag hung down over four stories, stopping above the main entrance. The flag looked very new and scarcely stirred, for that side of the hotel was sheltered from the wind. If I had had a monkey on my shoulder, the monkey could have climbed up the flag four stories high, until the flag had to give up.

In the lobby of the hotel, a giant in uniform under visor cap that was much too small and squashed down on one side, took us in charge. Across a carpet that made me weak in the knees he led us diagonally through the lobby. Bustle: figures came, went, relieved one another, announced one another, delivered, took reception: oodles of victories, numbers of prisoners with lots of zeroes. A stairway led down into the cellar. An iron door opened for us on the right: in the air-raid shelter of the Grand Hotel several deserving citizens were already waiting. We were searched for weapons. I was allowed, after a telephonic inquiry, to keep my Hitler Cub knife. My father had to deposit the pretty little penknife with which he cut off the tips of his cigars. All the deserving citizens, among them Herr Leeb of Ohra, to whom the meanwhile deceased Thekla of Schüddelkau had belonged -- Thekla and Harras parented Prinz -- well, then, my father, Herr Leeb, a few gentlemen with gold Party badges, four or five young whippersnappers in uniform but older than I, we all stood in silence, steeling ourselves. Several times the telephone rang. "Yes, sir. Yes, Sturmführer, I'll take care of it." Some ten minutes after my father had given up his pen knife, it was returned to him. With an "All listen please!" the giant and duty adjutant began his explanation: "The Führer cannot receive anyone at the moment. Great tasks, decisive tasks require his attention. At such a time we can only stand back in silence, for on every front weapons are speaking for us all, and that means you and you and you."

Immediately and with a conspicuously practiced hand, he began to distribute postcard-size photographs of the Führer. The Führer's personal signature made them valuable. We already had one such signed postcard; but the second post card, which we glassed and framed like the first, showed a more earnest Führer: he was wearing field gray and not any Upper Bavarian peasant jacket.

Half relieved, half disappointed, the deserving citizens were crowding through the door of the air-raid shelter, when my father addressed the duty adjutant. I admired his spunk; but he was known for that: in the Carpenters' Guild and in the Chamber of Commerce. He held out the ancient letter from the gauleiter's office, written in the days when Harras was still eager to mate, gave the adjutant a brief and factual account of the events leading up to and following the letter, reeled off Harras' pedigree -- Perkun, Senta, Pluto, Harras, Prinz. The adjutant showed interest. My father concluded: "Since the shepherd dog Prinz is now in Zoppot, I request permission to see him." Permission was granted; and Herr Leeb, who had been standing diffidently to one side, was also given permission. In the lobby the duty adjutant motioned to another colossus in uniform and gave him instructions. The second giant had the face of a mountain climber and said to us: "Follow me." We followed. We crossed a room in which twelve typewriters were rattling and even more telephones were being used. A corridor showed no sign of ending. Doors opened. People streaming in our direction. Folders under arms. We stepped aside. Herr Leeb greeted everyone. In a vestibule six oval-backed chairs stood around a heavy oak table. The carpenter's eyes appraised the furniture. Veneers and inlays. Three walls crowded with heavily framed assortments of fruit, hunt still lifes, peasant scenes -- and the fourth wall is glazed and sky-bright. We see the Grand Hotel winter garden: insane incredible forbidden dangerous plants: they must be fragrant, but we smell nothing through the glass.

And in the middle of the winter garden, drowsy perhaps from the emanations of the plants, sits a man in uniform, a little man compared to our giant. At his feet a full-grown shepherd is playing with a medium-sized flowerpot. The plant, something pale green and fibrous, is lying off to one side with its roots and compact soil. The shepherd rolls the flowerpot. We seem to hear the rolling. The giant beside us taps on the glass wall with his knuckles. Instantly the dog stands alert. The guard turns his head without moving his body, grins like an old friend, stands up, apparently meaning to come over to us, then sits down again. The outer glass front of the winter garden offers an expensive view: the terrace of the casino park, the big fountain -- turned off -- the pier, broad at the beginning, tapering down, fatter again at the end: many flags of the same kind, but no people except for the sentries. The Baltic can't make up its mind: now green, now gray, it tries in vain to glitter blue. But the dog is black. He stands on four legs, his head cocked. The spit and image of our Harras when he was young.

"Like our Harras," says my father.

I say: "The spittin' image of our Harras."

Herr Leeb remarks: "But he could have got his long croup from my Thekla."

My father and I: "Harras had that too: a long, gently sloping croup."

Herr Leeb admiringly: "How tight and dry the lips are -- like my Thekla."

Father and son: "Our Harras was tight too. And the toes. And the way he holds his ears. The spittin' image."

Herr Leeb sees only his Thekla: "I guess -- of course I can be mistaken -- that the Führer's dog's tail is the same length as Thekla's was."

I put in for my father: "And I'm willing to bet the Führer's dog measures sixty-four centimeters to the withers, exactly like our Harras."

My father knocks on the pane. The Führer's dog barks briefly; Harras would have given tongue in exactly the same way.

My father inquires through the pane: "Excuse me. Could you tell us how many centimeters Prinz measures to the withers?"

"Centimeters?"

"Yes, to the withers."

The man in the winter garden has no objection to telling us the Führer's dog's height to the withers: six times he shows ten fingers, once his right hand shows only four fingers. My father gives Herr Leeb a good-natured tap on the shoulder: "He's a male after all. They come four or five centimeters taller."

All three of us agree about the coat of the dog in the winter garden: short-haired, every hair straight, every hair smooth, harsh, and black.

My father and I: "Like our Harras."

Herr Leeb undaunted: "Like my Thekla."

Our giant in uniform says: "Come off it, don't make such a much. Shepherds all look pretty much the same. The Führer has a whole kennel full of them in the mountains. This trip he took this one. Sometimes he takes different ones, it all depends."

My father wants to give him a lecture about our Harras and his ancestry, but the giant motions him to desist and angles his watch arm.

The Führer's dog is playing with the empty flowerpot again as I, in leaving, venture to tap on the pane: he doesn't even raise his head. And the man in the winter garden prefers to look at the Baltic.

Our withdrawal over soft carpets, past fruit still lifes, peasant scenes, hunt still lifes: pointers licking at dead rabbits and wild boars, no shepherd dogs have been painted. My father caresses furniture. The room full of typewriters and telephones. A dense crowd in the lobby. My father takes me by the hand. Actually he ought to take Herr Leeb's hand too: he's always being jostled. Motorcyclists with dust-gray coats and helmets stagger in among the correct uniforms. Dispatch riders with victory dispatches in their bags. Has Modlin fallen yet? The dispatch riders hand in their bags and drop into wide armchairs. Officers give them a light and stop to chat. Our giant pushes us through the entrance under the four-story flag. I still have no monkey on my shoulder that wants to climb up. We are escorted through all the road blocks, then dismissed. The population behind the fence wants to know if we've seen the Führer. My father shakes his head: "No, folks, not the Führer, but we've seen his dog, and let me tell you, he's black, just like our Harras."

Dear Cousin Tulla,

no official car carried us back to Langfuhr. My father, Herr Leeb, and I took the suburban railway. We got out first. Herr Leeb stayed in the train and promised to come and see us. I felt humiliated at our having to pass through Elsenstrasse on foot. All the same it had been a wonderful day, and the essay I had, at Father's suggestion, to write the day after our visit to Zoppot and submit to Dr. Brunies, was entitled: "My most wonderful day."

While returning my essay with his corrections, Dr. Brunies looked down from his desk and said: "Very well observed, excellently, in fact. There are, indeed, a number of hunt still lifes, fruit still lifes, and hearty peasant scenes hanging in the Grand Hotel, mostly Dutch masters of the seventeenth century."

I was not allowed to read my essay aloud. Dr. Brunies dwelt at some length on the hunt still lifes and peasant scenes, spoke about genre painting and Adriaen Brouwer, his favorite painter. Then he came back to the Grand Hotel and casino -- "The Red Room is especially fine and festive. And in that Red Room Jenny is going to dance." He whispered mysteriously: "As soon as the momentarily reigning warrior caste leaves, as soon they have taken their clanking sabers and shouts of victory to other watering places, the director of the casino, in collaboration with the manager of the Stadt-theater, is going to stage an unpretentious but distinguished ballet program."

"Can we come and see it?" asked forty pupils.

"It's to be a charity benefit. The proceeds are going to the Winter Aid." Brunies shared our dismay that Jenny would be dancing for a restricted audience: "She is going to make two appearances. She is actually going to do the famous
Pas de Quatre;
in a simplified version for children, to be sure, but even so."