Dog Years (87 page)

And yet, eloquently as Director Brauxel lauds the harmony prevailing between birds and scarecrows, the words "cruelty to animals" keep falling from the lips of Matern, the stranger below. When he is now doomed to hear that Brauxel & Co., in line with its rationalization program, has begun to let sparrows, rock pigeons, and blackbirds nest, brood, and hatch in the mine, when it dawns on him that whole generations of birds have never seen the light of day and look upon rock salt ceilings as the sky, he speaks of the infernal torments of infernal birds, though all three stalls sound as merry as the merry month of May: the song of the finches and larks, the cooing of pigeons, the music of the daws, unorganized sparrow hubbub, in short, the sound effects of a sap-fomenting day in May fill the three stalls; and only very seldom, when the ventilation of the twenty-eight-hundred-foot level weakens, are employees of Brauxel & Co. obliged to gather up feathered folk, whose
joie de vivre
has been impaired by the atmospheric conditions.

The stranger affects indignation. He speaks of a "hellish outrage." If the foreman hadn't promised him that in the twenty-ninth stall he would witness the end of all scarecrow training, the graduation exercises, the great scarecrow mass meeting, he would run blindly for the fill level, there -- if he ever made it -- to scream for light and air, the light of day and the month of May.

But under the circumstances he consents to watch the shindig from the sidelines. In this scarecrow show the graduates of all the preceding stalls are represented. Halleluia scarecrows and close-combat scarecrows, and whatever scarecrow society has to offer: many-headed scarecrow families, the scarecrow cock at the head. Unleashed, inhibited, narcissistic scarecrow sex fiends. In degraded glad rags they have come to the scarecrow get-together, the scarecrow ball: the stockingcap scarecrow and the standardized secondary scarecrows, elite angelic scarecrows and the scarecrows of his tory: Burgundian nose and Hapsburg lip, Stuart collar and Suvorov boot, Spanish black and Prussian blue; in among them the touts of the free-market economy; internal refugees, almost indiscernible, because they have crawled back into their own wombs; who is speaking resolute language over there? Who is keeping up scarecrow morale and fostering scarecrow development? It's the universally popular opportunists, who wear red under brown and will slip into ecclesiastical black any minute. And with this gathering of the people -- for a republic is here represented by its average citizens -- mingle the atomic and stage-struck particularities. A colorful gathering: scarecrow-colored. Beloved scarecrow German makes friends. Scarecrow music appeases hate, rage, and roving revenge, the cardinal emotions bred in stalls, which oil every scarecrow's mechanism and, serving as monitors, brandish the scarecrow whip: "God help you if. God help you if you!"

But the graduates are well mannered, though at all times ready for mischief. Pickaback scarecrows tease singing Salvation Army scarecrows. The scarecrow vulture can't stop thieving. The historical group, "Wallenstein's Death," has been joined by hospital-pale nurses. Who would have expected the pre-Socratic stockingcap scarecrow to be conversing with the stale theory of social stratification? Flirtations are in the making. Laughter, acquired in the seventh stall and unjustly called "infernal laughter," mingles with the weeping of the eighth stall and the teeth-grinding of the ninth; for where has there ever been a party at which jokes were not laughed at, the loss of a pocketbook wept over, and a sharp but soon settled quarrel ironed out amid a grinding of teeth?

But as now, accompanied by the mine director with dog and the stranger following the foreman, the graduates are led from the graduation celebrations into the nearby thirtieth stall, silence prevails for a moment.

A sense of shame commands Matera to avert his face, for the assembled guild of scarecrows, guided as he knows by remote control, "soulless automats," as he puts it, take the oath to the firm of Brauxel & Co. And the scarecrows have the audacity to babble: "So help me God." What begins with the customary "I solemnly swear. . ." ends, after scarecrows have taken the oath never to deny their origin, namely the pit below, never irresponsibly to desert the field assigned them, always to carry out their primary mission of firmly but fairly discouraging birds, ends with Him, whose eye also watches the pit below: "So help me God."

It remains to be mentioned only that in the thirty-first stall individual scarecrows and scarecrow collections are packed and bedded in crates for export; that in the thirty-second stall cases are labeled, bills of lading made out, and trucks dispatched.

"This," said Wernicke, the foreman, "brings us to the end of our long production process. We hope you have been able to form a rough idea. Certain features, such as all the laboratories situated on the surface, the automation, and our electrical workshops, are not included in the tour of inspection. Similarly our glassworks may be visited only by special permission. Perhaps you would like to ask Herr Brauxel."

But Walter Matern, the stranger below, has had enough. He craves to return to the light faster than the trolley can reach the shaft. Matern is supersaturated.

For that reason he has no heart to protest when Brauxel, the director, takes Pluto, the black shepherd, by the collar and chains him in the place where the tour of inspection began, where the view of the mine ends, where, as Brauxel has ordered, the mine-joyous inscription
"Glück auf"
has its place, but where, as Matern suggests, what ought to be written is: "Abandon hope all ye who enter here!"

Already the cage is opening for the ascent when the stranger drags up final words: "See here, that's my dog."

Whereupon Brauxel utters words of conclusion: "What object worthy of his guardianship has the bright surface of the earth to offer a dog such as this? This is his place. Here where the mining shaft says amen and the ventilators breathe forth spring air from above. He shall be guardian here, yet he will not bear the name of Cerberus. Orcus is up above."

O ascent two together -- they have left the foreman below.

O ye fifty feet gained in every second.

O well-known feeling that every elevator imparts.

The roar in which they are silent stuffs cotton in every ear. And everyone smells the burnt smell. And every prayer beseeches the cable to remain united, in order that light, day light, once again the sun-embroidered May. . .

But when they set foot on the platform of the shaft collar, it is raining outside and dusk is creeping over the land from the Harz Mountains.

And this man and that man -- who now will call them Brauxel and Matern? -- I and he, we stride with doused lamps to the changehouse, where the changehouse attendant takes our hard hats and carbide lamps. I and he are led to cabins where Matern's and Brauxel's clothes are in keeping. He and I strip off our mine outfits. For me and him bathtubs have been filled. I hear Eddi splashing next door. Now I too step into my bath. The water soaks me clean. Eddi whistles some thing indeterminate. I try to whistle something similar. But it's difficult. We're both naked. Each of us bathes by himself.

NOTES

13
Adalbert,
Bishop of Prague, 955-997, known as apostle of the Prussians, came down the Vistula, according to legend, and baptized more than a thousand pagans. He was killed by a pagan priest. --
Dukes Swantopolk
and
Mestwin II,
Dukes of Pomerelia, around whose castle Danzig was built. Mestwin II died in 1294 without a male heir. --
Duke Kynstute
(r. 1345-77) ruled Western Lithuania at a time when it was constantly raided by the Teutonic Knights (see below).

55
Uniformed scarecrows:
the references are to the wars of Frederick the Great of Prussia. In the battle of Leuthen, 1747, the Prussians defeated the armies of the Austrian Empire. --
The Poor Man of Toggenburg
is the sobriquet of a Swiss mercenary who participated in the Seven Years' War, and later published his autobiography under this title. --
General Seydlitz,
one of Frederick's generals, pursued and defeated the head of the Austrian army,
Hildburghausen.

66
The Teutonic Knights,
a military and religious Order dedicated to the extension of the borders of Christendom. In 1208, Duke Conrad of Masovia invited the Order to settle along the Vistula in order to help protect his territories against the savage Prussians. In 1308, in alliance with the Poles, the Knights ousted the Prussians from Danzig, but forced their Polish allies out also. The Order established a Germanic military outpost on the Baltic which thrived at the expense of the Slavs. Eventually, the Order degenerated and its power waned. In 1410, the Knights were defeated by the combined Lithuanian and Polish forces in the battle of Tannenberg. -- Hitler and his SS revived the mystique of the Order's mission as instrument of Germanic expansion in the East and the enslavement of the Slavs, and used the fortress castles of the Order as schools for the Nazi elite. --
Jagello,
Grand Duke of Lithuania, a pagan chieftain who brought about the union of Poland and Lithuania in 1386 and became Wladislaus II, Catholic King of Poland, founder of a dynasty which ruled Poland for two centuries, and devoted itself to keeping the Teutonic Order, the old enemy of their race, in check. --
Kasimir III, the Great,
1333-70, King of Poland. --
Stanislaus Lesczynski,
King of Poland 1704-09 and again 1733-34, besieged by the Russians in Danzig, his last refuge; vanquished and exiled. --
Kniprode, Letzkau, and von Plauen,
Grand Masters of the Teutonic Knights. --
Albrecht Achilles,
1414-86, Elector of Brandenburg, established his house as regnant over Pomerania. --
Zieten, Hans Joachim von,
1699-1786, Prussian cavalry general under Frederick the Great.

72ff The Teutonic Order was joined by the flower of European chivalry in its crusade against the heathen.
Henry Derby,
Duke of Lancaster, later King Henry IV of England, made two journeys to Prussia, 1390-91 and 1392. Other foreign knights participating in raids against Lithuania were
Jacob Doutremer, Pege Peegott, Thomas Percy, Fitzwater.
At the time of Henry Derby's visits,
Konrad Wallenrod
was Grand Master of the Order (1391-93).
Engelhard Rabe,
Marshal of the Order (1387-92), led the Order's army into the trackless woods of Lithuania, starting his raids from one of the frontier castles,
Ragnit.
Traditionally, the
St. George's banner,
insignia of all Christian knights, was carried by a German knight, but Thomas Percy insisted on his own smaller banner. This led to bloody quarrels among German and English knights. Henry Derby also brought his own St. George's banner but was frustrated by Wallenrod, who conferred the privilege of carrying the banner on the German knight
Hattenstein. Simon Bache, Erik Cruse, Claus Schone, Richard Westrall, Spannerle, Tylman,
and
Robert Wendell
were artisans who supplied the Duke of Lancaster with various necessities on his Prussian campaigns.

111
Sleeping lights:
candles made from the fat of stillborn children. Before breaking into a house, as many sleeping lights are lighted as there are sleepers in the house. If a light extinguishes, it is a sign that someone inside the house has woken up.

161
Angela Raubal,
Hitler's widowed half-sister and housekeeper. --
Rudolf Hess,
Hitler's aide who helped him write
Mein Kampf,
and during the war undertook a sensational flight to Scotland. --
Ernst (Putzi) Hanfstaengl,
Harvard graduate, son of an American mother, befriended Hitler during his early Munich days and was later made chief of the Foreign Press Department of the Party. --
Hermann Rauschning,
President of the Danzig Senate 1933-35, helped National Socialism to victory in Danzig but was soon disillusioned. He went into exile and wrote
Conversations with Hitler
and
The Revolution of Nihilism.
--
Albert Forster,
National Socialist Gauleiter of Danzig. Proclaimed the annexation of Danzig to the German Reich on September 1, 1939, and appointed himself administrator of Danzig City and District. --
Wilhelm Bruckner,
SA Commander and Hitler's personal adjutant. --
Gregor Strasser,
one of the earliest adherents of National Socialism and chief organizer of the nascent Party. He quarreled with Hitler and was liquidated in 1934. --
General Kurt von Schleicher,
last Chancellor of the Weimar Republic, who played a devious role in Hitler's rise to power. He was liquidated during the purge of June 30, 1934. --
Ernst Röhm,
one of Hitler's earnest supporters, who helped create and organize the SA, whose commander he was until bis assassination at Hitler's orders on June 30, 1934. --
Count Joseph Arthur Gobineau,
French man of letters, whose
Essay on the Inequality of Races
profoundly influenced Nazi racial theories.