Dog Years (77 page)

DISCUSSION LEADER:
Objection upheld. We amend our project as follows: The fixed point and the dog pedigree will be dynamically discussed in the light of our topic's antifascist past.

A BOY:
But only the final outcome of our discussion can show whether the Führerlegacy Prinz -- now Pluto -- is in reliable hands with the present dogadministrator.

DISCUSSION LEADER:
The member's motion is approved. An ticipating the probable existence of a second fixed point, the chair prefers for the present to invite questions without direct bearing on the fixed point or on the ownership status of the black shepherd.

(Walli S. notes: Fixed Point 2, colon.)

A GIRL:
Can the topic under discussion think of any important childhood experiences that left their mark on him?

MATERN:
Actual happenings? Or are you more interested in atmosphere?

A GIRL:
Every level of consciousness can provide us with discussion-promoting data.

MATERN
(with a sweeping gesture):
Here Nickelswalde -- over there Schiewenhorst.

Perkunos, Pikollos, Potrimpos!

Twelve headless nuns and twelve headless knights.

Gregor Materna and Simon Materna.

The giant Miligedo and the robber Bobrowski.

Kujave wheat and Urtoba wheat.

Mennonites and breaches in the dikes. . .

And the Vistula flows,

and the mill mills,

and the narrow-gauge railway runs,

and the butter melts,

and the milk thickens,

a little sugar on top,

and the spoon stands upright,

and the ferry comes,

and the sun gone,

and the sun back again,

and the sea sand goes,

and the sea licks sand. . .

Barefoot barefoot run the children,

and find blueberries,

and look for amber,

and step on thistles,

and dig up mice,

and climb barefoot into hollow willows. . .

But he who looks for amber,

who steps on the thistle,

jumps into the willow,

and digs up the mouse,

will find a dead dried maiden in the dike:

that's Duke Swantopolk's daughter,

who was always shoveling about for mice in the sand,

who bit with two incisor teeth,

and never wore shoes or stockings. . .

Barefoot barefoot run the children,

and the willows shake themselves,

and the Vistula flows for evermore,

and the sun now gone, now back again,

and the ferry comes or goes

or lies fast and groans

while the milk thickens till the spoon stands, and slowly runs the narrow-gauge railway ringing fast on the bend. And the mill creaks when the wind at a rate of twenty-five feet a second. And the miller hears what the mealworm says. And teeth grind when Walter Matern from left to right. Same with his grandmother: all around the garden she chases poor Lorchen. Black and big with young, Senta crashes through a trellis of broad beans. For terrible she approaches, raising an angular arm: and in the hand on the arm the wooden cooking spoon casts its shadow on curly-headed Lorchen and grows bigger and bigger, fatter and fatter, more and more. . . also Eddi Amsel. . .

A BOY:
Was this Eddi Amsel a friend of the topic under discussion?

MATERN:
The only one I ever had.

A BOY:
Did your friend die?

MATERN:
I can't imagine Eddi Amsel being dead.

A BOY:
Was the aforementioned Eddi Amsel an intimate friend?

MATERN:
We were blood brothers! With one and the same pocketknife we scored each other's left. . .

A BOY:
What became of the knife?

MATERN:
No idea.

A BOY:
The question is vital. We repeat: what happened to the pocketknife?

MATERN:
Actually I wanted to throw a
zellack
into the Vistula. In those parts we called stones
zellacken.

A BOY:
We are waiting for news of the pocketknife!

MATERN:
Well, stone or
zellack,
I looked for one in both pockets, but didn't find anything but the. . .

A BOY:
. . . pocketknife.

A BOY:
The knife had. . .

MATERN:
. . .three blades, a corkscrew, a saw, and a leather punch. . . Nevertheless, I threw it. . .

A BOY:
. . . the knife!

MATERN:
into the Vistula. What does a river like the Vistula carry away with it? Sunsets, friendships, pocket-knives! What rises to memory, floating on its stomach, with the help of the Vistula? Sunsets, friendships, pocketknives! Not all friendships last. Rivers that set out for hell empty into the Vistula. . .

DISCUSSION LEADER:
Therefore let us recapitulate: As children and with the help of a pocketknife, Walter Matern, the topic under discussion, and his friend Eddi Amsel swore blood brotherhood. Still a boy, Matern threw the same pocket-knife into the Vistula. Why the pocketknife? Because no stone was available. But in a more general sense, why?

MATERN:
Because the Vistula flowed straight ahead for evermore. Because the sunset behind the opposite dike, because after we had sworn blood brotherhood, my friend Eddi's blood flowed inside me, because -- because. . .

A BOY:
Was your friend a Negro, a Gypsy, or a Jew?

MATERN
(eagerly):
Only a half-Jew. His father was. His mother wasn't. He had reddish-blond hair from his mother and next to nothing from his father. A wonderful guy. You'd have liked him, boys. Always in a good humor, and what ideas he had! But he was kind of fat and I often had to protect him. All the same I loved him, admired him, even today I'd. . .

A BOY:
If, for instance, you were annoyed with your friend, which must have happened now and then, what bad names did you call him?

MATERN:
Well, at the worst, because he really was so monstrously fat, I'd call him a fat pig. Or to kid him, I'd call him fly shit, because he had millions of freckles all over. I'd also, but more as a joke and not when I was sore, call him milliner, because he was always building weird figures out of old rags, and the peasants used them for scarecrows and stood them up in their wheat.

A BOY:
Can't you think of any other bad names?

A BOY:
Something more specific.

MATERN:
That was all.

A BOY:
For instance, when you really wanted to wound him, to hurt his feelings?

MATERN:
I never had any such intentions

.

DISCUSSION LEADER:
We are obliged to point out that we are discussing not intentions, but actions. So out with that big bad last dramatic dynamic word?

CHORUS:
Let him cough up that little word,

or under pressure he'll be heard.

WALLI S.:
Perhaps I shall have to put on the knowledge glasses after all and peer into long past situations, in the course of which the topic under discussion, my uncle Walter, lost his temper.

MATERN
(shakes his head)
:
Then -- at times when I couldn't control myself, because he was starting up again, or because he wouldn't stop, or because Eddi -- I called him sheeny.

DISCUSSION LEADER:
The discussion will be suspended while the insulting word "sheeny" is being analyzed.
(Muttering among the members. Walli S. stands up.)
I request your attention for our assistant Walli S.

WALLI S.:
"Sheeny" is a contemptuous term, meaning Jew, dating roughly from the middle of the nineteenth century. It is thought to derive from the Yiddish word
shane,
meaning "fine," "lovely," "very good," which is often overheard in conversation among Jews, though what reason they had for regarding anything as fine, lovely, or very good has not been established. Cf. the popular jingle which developed early in the twentieth century. . .

CHORUS:
Jewish sheeny,

his legs are skinny,

Roman nose,

shits in his close.

A BOY:
But our topic's friend, whom he insulted by calling him a sheeny, was fat.

DISCUSSION LEADER:
As we have seen in previous discussions, insulting epithets are not always used with the strictest logic. The Americans, for instance, call all Germans "krauts," although not all Germans love sauerkraut or eat it regularly. Consequently, the term "sheeny" can also be applied to a Jew or -- as in the present case -- a half-Jew with a tendency to corpulence.

A BOY:
In any event we cannot fail to note our topic's penchant for anti-Semitic utterances.

MATERN:
As a man and as a pronounced philo-Semite, I protest. Yes, I lost my temper now and then and said things I shouldn't have said, but I always defended Eddi when other people called him a sheeny; when, for instance, you, Herr Liebenau, aided and abetted by your snotnose cousin, grossly insulted my friend in the yard of your father's carpenter shop -- for no reason at all, he was only sketching your watchdog Harras -- I came to my friend's defense and rebuffed your childish but slanderous remarks.

A BOY:
The topic under discussion apparently wishes to broaden the discussion by brining up episodes from the private life of our discussion leader.

A BOY:
He has called our discussion leader's cousin a snot-nose.

A BOY:
He has dragged in the carpenter shop where, as we know, our discussion leader enjoyed a carefree childhood amid lumber sheds and gluepots.

A BOY:
He has likewise mentioned the carpenter's watchdog Harras, who is identical with the black shepherd Harras, later poisoned by the topic under discussion.

DISCUSSION LEADER:
The chair can only interpret the unfair personal attacks to which it has just been subjected as a further indication of our topic's uncontrolled reactions. We therefore ask a counterquestion: Was there any connection between the already-noted legendary dog Perkun, the likewise noted bitch Senta, who belonged to the father of the topic under discussion, namely, miller Matern, and the black shepherd Harras, who belonged to the discussion leader's father, namely carpenter Liebenau -- was there, I ask, any connection between them apart from the fact that the miller's son Walter Matern on the one hand and on the other hand the carpenter's son Harry Liebenau and his cousin Tulla Pokriefke called the topic's friend a sheeny?

MATERN:
O ye dog years, biting each other's tails! In the beginning there was a Lithuanian she-wolf. She was crossed with a male shepherd. The outcome of this unnatural act was a male whose name does not figure in any pedieree. And he, the nameless one, begat Perkun. And Perkun begat Senta. . .

CHORUS:
And Senta whelped Harras. . .

MATERN:
And Harras sired Prinz, who is living on my charity today. O ye dog years hoarse from howling! What guarded a miller's mill, what watched over a carpenter shop, what in guise of favorite dog rubbed against the boots of your Reichsautobahn builder, attached itself to me, an antifascist. Have you fathomed the parable? Do your accounts of accursed dog years balance to the last decimal? Are you satisfied? Have you anything more to say? May Matern take his dog away and have a beer?

DISCUSSION LEADER:
Our public and dynamic discussion is hurrying to a close. But though we take justified pride in our partial findings, it is too soon to speak of full satisfaction. There are still a few threads left to tie. Let us recollect.
(He points to the blackboard.)
The topic under discussion has killed many animals. . .

A BOY:
He poisoned a dog!