The Collected Stories of Heinrich Boll (7 page)

“Milk,” I whispered …

The soldier felt he was getting drunk at last. At the same moment it crossed his mind again, very clearly, that he hadn’t a single pfennig in his pocket to pay the bill. His thoughts were as crystal-clear as his perception, he saw everything with the utmost clarity: the fat, shortsighted woman sitting in the shadows behind the bar, intent on her crocheting as she chatted quietly to a man with an unmistakably Magyar mustache—a true operetta face, straight from the
puszta
, while the woman looked stolid and rather German, somewhat too respectable and sedate for the soldier’s image of a Hungarian woman. The language they were chatting in was as unintelligible as it was throaty, as passionate as it was strange and beautiful. The room was filled with a dense green twilight from the many close-planted chestnut trees along the avenue leading to the station: a wonderful dense twilight that reminded him of absinthe and made the room exquisitely intimate and cozy. The man with the fabulous mustache, half perched on a chair, looked relaxed and comfortable as he sprawled across the counter.

The soldier observed all this in great detail, at the same time aware that he would not have been able to walk to the counter without falling down. It’ll have to settle a bit, he thought, then with a loud laugh shouted “Hey there!,” raised his glass toward the woman, and said in German,
“Bitte schön!”
The woman slowly got up from her chair, put aside her crochet work equally slowly, and, carrying the carafe, came over to him with a smile, while the Hungarian also turned round and eyed the medals on the soldier’s chest. The woman waddling toward him was as broad as she was tall, her face was kind, and she looked as if she had heart trouble; clumsy pince-nez, attached to a worn black string, balanced on her nose. Her feet seemed to hurt too; while she filled his glass she took the weight off one foot and leaned with one hand on the table. She said something in her dark-toned Hungarian that was doubtless the equivalent of
“Prost”
or “Your very good health,” or perhaps
even of some affectionate, motherly remark such as old women commonly bestow on soldiers.

The soldier lit a cigarette and drank deeply from his glass. Gradually the room began to revolve before his eyes; the fat proprietress hung somewhere at an angle in the air, the rusty old counter now stood on end, and the Hungarian, who was drinking sparingly, was cavorting about somewhere up near the ceiling like an acrobatic monkey. The next instant everything tilted the other way, the soldier gave a loud laugh, shouted
“Prost!”
, took another drink, then another, and lit a fresh cigarette.

The door opened and in came another Hungarian, fat and short, with a roguish onion face and a few dark hairs on his upper lip. He let out a gusty sigh, tossed his cap onto a table, and hoisted himself onto a chair by the counter. The woman poured him some beer …

The gentle chatter of the three at the counter was wonderful, like a quiet humming at the edge of another world. The soldier took another gulp of wine, put down his empty glass, and everything resumed its proper place.

The soldier felt almost happy as he raised his glass again, repeating with a laugh,
“Bitte schön!”

The woman refilled his glass.

I’ve had almost ten glasses of wine, the soldier thought. I’ll stop now, I’m so gloriously drunk that I feel almost happy. The green twilight thickened, the farther corners of the bar were already filled with impenetrable deep-blue shadows. What a crime, thought the soldier, that there are no lovers here. It would be a perfect spot for lovers, in this wonderful green-and-blue twilight. What a crime, he thought, as he pictured all those lovers somewhere out there in the world who had to sit around or chase around in the bright light, while here in the bar there was a place where they could talk, drink wine, and kiss …

Christ, thought the soldier, there ought to be music here now, and all these wonderful dark-green and dark-blue corners ought to be full of lovers—and I would sing a song. You bet I’d sing a song. I feel very happy, and I would sing those lovers a song, then I’d really quit thinking about the war; now I’m always thinking a little bit about this damn war. Then I’d quit thinking about it altogether.

He looked closely at his watch: seven-thirty. He still had twenty minutes. He drank long and deep of the dry, cool wine, and it was
almost as if someone had given him stronger spectacles: now everything looked closer and clearer and very solid, and he felt himself becoming gloriously, beautifully, almost totally drunk. Now he saw that the two men at the counter were poor, either laborers or shepherds, in threadbare trousers, and that their faces were tired and terribly submissive in spite of the dashing mustache and the wily onion look …

Christ, thought the soldier, how horrible it was back there when I had to leave, so cold, and everything bright and full of snow, and we still had a few minutes left and nowhere was there a corner, a wonderful, dark, human corner where we could have kissed and embraced. Everything had been bright and cold …

“Bitte schön!”
he shouted to the woman; then, as she approached, he looked at his watch: he still had ten minutes. When the woman started to fill his half-empty glass, he held his hand over it, shook his head with a smile, and rubbed thumb and forefinger together. “Pay,” he said, “how many pengös?”

He very slowly took off his jacket, slipped off the handsome gray turtleneck sweater, and laid it beside him on the table in front of the watch. The men at the counter had stopped talking and were looking at him, the woman also seemed startled. Very carefully she wrote a “14” on the tabletop. The soldier placed his hand on her fat, warm forearm, held up the sweater with the other, and asked with a laugh, “How much?” Rubbing thumb and forefinger together again, he added, “Pengös.”

The woman looked at him and shook her head, but he went on shrugging his shoulders and indicating that he had no money until she hesitantly picked up the sweater, turned it over, and carefully examined it, even sniffed it. She wrinkled her nose a little, then smiled and with a pencil quickly wrote a “30” next to the “14.” The soldier let go of her warm arm, nodded, raised his glass, and took another drink.

As the woman went back to the counter and eagerly began talking to the men in her throaty voice, the soldier simply opened his mouth and sang. He sang “When the Drum Roll Sounds for Me,” and suddenly realized he was singing well—singing well for the first time in his life; at the same time he realized he was drunker again, that everything was gently swaying. He took another look at his watch and saw he had three minutes in which to sing and be happy, and he started another
song, “Innsbruck, I Must Leave You.” Then with a smile he took the money the woman had placed in front of him and put it in his pocket …

It was quite silent now in the bar. The two men with the threadbare trousers and the tired faces had turned toward him, and the woman had stopped on her way back to the counter and was listening quietly and solemnly, like a child.

The soldier finished his wine, lit another cigarette, and knew he would walk unsteadily. But before he left he put some money on the counter and, with a
“Bitte schön,”
pointed to the two men. All three stared after him as he at last opened the door and went out into the avenue of chestnut trees leading to the station, the avenue that was full of exquisite dark-green, dark-blue shadows where a fellow could have put his arms around his girl and kissed her good-bye …

Whenever you turned up at her place around ten or eleven in the morning, she looked a real fat slattern. Her round massive shoulders bulged beneath the shapeless flowered smock, battered curlers were stuck in her lifeless hair like lead sinkers caught in muddy weeds; her face was bloated, and breadcrumbs still clung to the neckline of her smock. She made no attempt to conceal her unlovely morning appearance, for she was at home to only a few select customers—usually only me—whom she knew to be concerned less with her feminine charms than with her excellent drinks. And her drinks were excellent at that, and high-priced too; in those days she still had a very fine cognac. Besides, she gave credit. In the evening she was a real charmer: well-corseted, her shoulders and breasts high and firm, some sexy stuff sprayed on her hair and her eyes made up, scarcely a man could resist her, and perhaps I was one of the few she was willing to receive in the mornings just because she knew I was always able to withstand her charms in the evenings.

In the morning, around ten or eleven, she was a mess. Her disposition was bad then too, she was given to moralizing and to delivering herself of sententious utterances. When I knocked or rang (she preferred me to knock, “It sounds so intimate,” she used to say), I would hear her shuffling footsteps, the curtain behind the frosted-glass door would be pushed aside, and I could see her shadow. She would peer through the pattern of flowers on the glass pane, muttering: “Oh, it’s you,” and push back the bolt.

She was truly a repulsive sight, but it was the only decent tavern in the place, with its thirty-seven grimy houses and two run-down châteaux, and her drinks were first-rate; besides, she gave credit, and in addition to all this she was really very pleasant to talk to. And so the leaden morning hours would pass in no time. As a rule I stayed only until we could hear the distant voices of the company singing on its way back from drill, and it always gave you a funny feeling to hear the same
old song, coming closer and closer, in the same old sluggish silence of that godforsaken hole.

“There it comes again,” was her invariable comment, “that crappy war.”

And together we would watch the company, the first lieutenant, the sergeants, the corporals, the privates, all marching past the frosted-glass windowpane looking tired and dispirited; we would stand watching the company through the pattern of flowers. Between the roses and tulips were whole strips of clear glass, and you could see the lot of them, row after row, face after face, all sullen and hungry and apathetic.…

She knew nearly every one of them personally, in fact she knew them all. Even the teetotalers and the woman-haters, for it was the only decent tavern in the place, and even the most rabid ascetic sometimes has an urge to follow up a bowl of hot bad soup with a glass of lemonade, or in the evening possibly even a glass of wine, when he finds himself trapped in a godforsaken hole consisting of thirty-seven grimy houses and two rundown châteaux, a godforsaken hole that seems about to sink into the mud and to disintegrate in sloth and boredom.…

But our company wasn’t the only one she knew; she knew all the first companies of all the battalions of the regiment, for, according to some intricately devised plan, after a certain length of time every first company of every battalion was sent back to this dreary place for a six-week period of “rest and recuperation.”

During our second period of rest and recuperation, which we spent in drill and boredom, she was starting to deteriorate. She was losing her self-respect. She usually slept now till eleven, served beer and lemonade at noon in her dressing gown, closed up the place again in the afternoon, because, with the company out drilling, the village was as empty as a drained cesspool—and didn’t open up again till around seven in the evening, after dozing away the afternoon. She had also stopped bothering about her income. She would lend money to anyone, have a drink with anyone, let her massive body be persuaded to dance, bawling out the songs and finally, with the approaching sound of taps, giving way to paroxysms of sobbing.

On our second arrival in the village I immediately reported sick. I had chosen a disease that made it imperative for the medic to allow me to go to Amiens or Paris to consult a specialist. I was in a pretty good
mood as I knocked on her door around ten-thirty. There was not a sound in the village, the empty streets were deep in mud. Then came the familiar shuffling of her slippers, the rustle of the curtain, and Renée’s muttered exclamation: “Oh, it’s you.” A smile flitted across her face. “Oh, it’s you!” she repeated as the door opened, “You fellows back again?”

“That’s right,” I said, throwing my cap onto a chair and following her. “Bring me the best in the house, will you?”

“The best in the house?” she asked, looking somewhat at a loss.

She wiped her fingers on her smock. “I’m sorry, I’ve been peeling potatoes.” She held out her hand; it was still small and firm, a pretty hand. I sat down on a bar stool after bolting the door from the inside.

She was standing rather undecidedly behind the bar.

“The best in the house?” she asked, at a loss.

“Yes,” I said, “and make it snappy.”

“Hm,” she muttered, “but it’s a scandalous price.”

“Who cares, I’ve got money.”

“All right,” she said, wiping her hands again. The tip of her tongue appeared between her bloodless lips, a token of her painful dilemma.

“D’you mind if I bring my potatoes in here to peel?”

“Of course not,” I replied. “Get a move on, and have a drink with me.”

When she had vanished beyond that narrow, scratched brown door to the kitchen, I looked round the room. Nothing had changed since last year. Over the bar hung the photograph of her alleged husband, a handsome marine with a black mustache, a color photo showing the fellow framed in a lifebelt bearing the word
“Patrie.”
The fellow had cold eyes, a brutal chin, and a distinctly patriotic mouth. I didn’t care for him. On either side hung a few pictures of flowers and lovers exchanging saccharine kisses. It was all exactly the same as a year ago. Possibly the furniture was a bit shabbier, but could it have got any shabbier? The bar stool I was perched on had one leg glued—I clearly recalled its being broken during a fight between Friedrich and Hans, a fight about an ugly girl called Lisette and this leg still showed the depressing trickle of glue, like a runny nose, that someone had forgotten to rub off with sandpaper.

“Cherry brandy,” said Renée, a bottle in one hand and an enamel basin full of potatoes and peelings pinned to her side with her right arm.