The Tin Drum (47 page)

The car pulled to a stop with these final words of the great somnambulist. At regular intervals, green and Prussian, the trees of Hindenburgallee. We climbed out, Bebra told the driver to wait; I didn't want to go to the Café Vierjahreszeiten, my somewhat confused brain needed fresh air. So we strolled through Steffenspark: Bebra on my right, Roswitha on my left. Bebra explained the nature and purpose of the Propaganda Corps. Roswitha related little anecdotes from the daily life of the corps. Bebra chatted about war artists, war correspondents, and his Theater at the Front. Roswitha referred in Mediterranean tones to distant cities I'd heard mentioned on the radio when special communiqués were issued. Bebra said Copenhagen. Roswitha sighed Palermo. Bebra sang Belgrade. Roswitha offered a tragedienne's lament: Athens. But both raved over and over about Paris, promised Paris would make
up for all the cities they'd just mentioned, and finally, in his professional capacity as director and captain of a Theater at the Front, Bebra made me what sounded like an official offer: "Join us, young man, drum, sing-shatter beer glasses and light bulbs! The German Army of Occupation in fair France, in a Paris eternally young, will thank you and hail you."

Purely for form's sake, Oskar asked for time to think it over. For a good half-hour, at some remove from Raguna, from my friend and master Bebra, I paced through the vernal green of the shrubbery, assumed a pensive and troubled air, rubbed my forehead, listened to the little birds in the forest, which I'd never done before, pretended I wanted some little robin or other to tell me what to do, and said, when a particularly loud and conspicuous chirp arose from the greenery, "Mother Nature in her wisdom and benevolence advises me to accept your offer, my dear master. You may regard me henceforth as a member of your Theater at the Front."

Then we went to the Vierjahreszeiten after all, drank an anemic Mocha, and discussed the details of my flight, which we referred to not as a flight but as a departure.

Outside the café we recapitulated all the details of the planned action. Then I took my leave of Raguna and Captain Bebra of the Propaganda Corps, who insisted on placing his official car at my disposal. While the two of them strolled up Hindenburgallee toward the city, the captain's driver, a somewhat older corporal, drove me back to Langfuhr and dropped me off at Max-Halbe-Platz, for I could hardly go all the way to Labesweg: the arrival of Oskar in an official Wehrmacht car would have excited too much inopportune attention.

I didn't have much time left. A farewell visit to Matzerath and Maria. I stood for a long time by the playpen of my son Kurt, even came up with a few fatherly thoughts as I recall, tried to pat the blond rascal, but little Kurt was having none of that, while Maria accepted my caresses, the first she'd received in years, with some surprise, and returned them graciously. I found it strangely hard to take leave of Matzerath. The man was standing in the kitchen, cooking kidneys in mustard sauce, entirely at one with his cooking spoon, even happy perhaps, so I didn't dare disturb him. It wasn't till he reached back blindly and groped for something on the kitchen table that Oskar anticipated him, picked up the little wooden board with chopped parsley, and handed it to him—and
to this day I assume he stood holding that little wooden board with parsley in surprise and bewilderment long after I'd left the kitchen, for Oskar had never before picked up, held out, or handed anything to Matzerath.

I ate supper at Mother Truczinski's, let her wash me, put me to bed, waited till she was under her featherbed and snoring with a soft whistle, then slipped on my slippers, grabbed my clothes, slipped through the room where the gray mouse was whistling, snoring, and growing older, struggled a while with the key in the hall but finally managed to coax the bolt from the lock, tumbled up the stairs to the drying attic with my bundle of clothes, still shoeless and in my little nightshirt, and found in my hiding place, behind piles of roofing tiles and bundled newspapers, stored there in defiance of air-defense regulations, stumbling over the air-defense sand pile and the air-defense bucket, I found the brand-new drum I'd stashed away unbeknownst to Maria, and found Oskar's reading material too: Rasputin and Goethe in one volume. Should I take my favorite authors along?

As Oskar slipped on his clothes and shoes, slung the drum around his neck, and stowed the drumsticks behind his suspenders, he was simultaneously negotiating with his gods Apollo and Dionysus. While the god of blind intoxication advised him to take no reading matter at all with him, or if he must, just a stack of Rasputin, the overly clever and far too sensible Apollo tried to talk me out of the trip to France altogether, then, once he saw that I was set on going, insisted there be no gap in my luggage; I would have to take along that polite yawn Goethe issued centuries ago, but out of spite, and because I knew that
Elective Affinities
could never solve all my sexual problems, I took Rasputin along too, and his world of naked women in black stockings. If Apollo strove for harmony and Dionysus for intoxication and chaos, Oskar was a diminutive demigod who harmonized chaos and intoxicated reason, with one advantage, in addition to his mortality, over all the gods recognized throughout the ages: Oskar could read what he pleased, whereas the gods censored themselves.

How accustomed one grows to a building and the kitchen smells of nineteen tenants. I took my leave at every step, every floor, every door with its nameplate: O Meyn the musician, declared unfit for service and sent home, who was playing his trumpet again, drinking Machandel
again and waiting for them to return again—and later they did come for him, but this time they made him leave his trumpet behind. O bulky Frau Kater, whose daughter Susi called herself a telegraph girl. O Axel Mischke, what have you traded your whip for? Herr and Frau Woiwuth, who were always eating rutabaga. Herr Heinert had a bad stomach, so he was at Schichau and not in the infantry. And next door Heinert's parents, who were still called Heimowski. O Mother Truczinski; softly slept the mouse behind the apartment door. My ear to the wood heard her whistle. Little Cheese, whose real name was Retzel, had made lieutenant, even though he'd been forced to wear long wool socks as a child. Schlager's son was dead, Eyke's son was dead, Kollin's son was dead. But the clockmaker Laubschad was still alive and brought dead clocks to life. And old man Heilandt was alive and still hammering crooked nails straight. And Frau Schwerwinski was sick, and Herr Schwerwinski was healthy, yet he died before she died. And across the way on the ground floor, who lived there? Alfred and Maria Matzerath lived there, and a little rascal almost two years old named Kurt. And who was leaving that large building, breathing heavily in the middle of the night? That was Oskar, little Kurt's father. What did he carry out to the darkened street? He carried his drum and the big book he was learning from. Why did he pause amid all the blacked-out buildings that believed in air defense before one blacked-out building that believed in air defense? Because the widow Greff lived there, who had not educated him but had taught him certain delicate skills. Why did he remove his cap before the black building? Because he was thinking of the greengrocer Greff, who had curly hair and an aquiline nose, who weighed and hanged himself both at the same time, who as a hanged man still had curly hair and an aquiline nose, but whose brown eyes, which normally lay pensive in their hollows, bulged forth overstrained. Why did Oskar put his sailor's cap with the flowing ribbon back on again and stride away capped? Because he had an appointment at the Langfuhr freight-train station. Did he arrive on time at the appointed spot? He did.

At the very last minute, that is, I reached the railway embankment near the Brunshüferweg underpass. Not that I'd stopped outside the office of Dr. Hollatz nearby. I took leave of Sister Inge in my thoughts, sent my greetings to the baker's flat on Kleinhammerweg, but did all that as
I walked past, and only the portal of the Church of the Sacred Heart made me call a halt that almost made me late. The door was locked. Nevertheless, I pictured all too vividly the naked, pink boy Jesus on the left thigh of the Virgin Mary. There she was again, my poor mama. She was kneeling in the confessional, pouring her grocery-wife sins into Father Wiehnke's ear, just as she used to pour sugar into blue pound and half-pound sacks. And Oskar was kneeling at the left side-altar, trying to teach the boy Jesus how to drum, but the rascal wouldn't drum, offered no miracle. Oskar had sworn back then and swore again outside the locked church door: I'll teach him to drum yet. Sooner or later.

Since I had a long trip ahead of me, I settled for later, turned my drummer boy's back on the church door, certain I wouldn't lose track of Jesus, scrambled up the railway embankment near the underpass, losing a little Goethe and Rasputin in the process but still managing to get the major portion of my educational assets to the top, stood on the tracks, stumbled a stone's throw farther on over ties and gravel, and almost knocked down Bebra, who was waiting in the dark.

"There's our virtuoso drummer!" cried the captain and musical clown. Then, urging mutual caution, we groped our way over tracks and crossings, lost our way among the shunted boxcars, and finally found the furlough train, in which a special compartment had been set aside for Bebra's troupe.

Oskar already had many a tram ride under his belt, and now he was going to ride on a train. When Bebra pushed me into the compartment, Raguna looked up from something she was sewing, smiled, and, smiling, kissed me on the cheek. Still smiling, but without taking her fingers from her sewing, she introduced me to the two remaining members of the troupe: the acrobats Felix and Kitty. Honey-blond, of a slightly gray complexion, Kitty was not without physical allure and was about the size of the Signora. A slight Saxon accent added to her charm. The acrobat Felix was without doubt the tallest of the group. He measured nearly four foot six. The poor man suffered from this very noticeable height. My own arrival at three foot one added fuel to his complex. The acrobat's profile also bore a certain resemblance to that of a thoroughbred racehorse, so Raguna had nicknamed him "Cavallo" or "Felix Cavallo." Like Captain Bebra, the acrobat wore a field-gray uniform, but with the insignia of a corporal. The women were also dressed in field
gray suits, tailored for travel and not particularly becoming. The sewing Raguna held in her hands proved to be field-gray cloth as well: it was to become my uniform, Felix and Bebra had purchased the outfit, and Roswitha and Kitty took turns sewing, cutting more and more cloth until the jacket, trousers, and field cap fit me. But there was no way they could have found shoes Oskar's size in any Wehrmacht clothing depot. I had to rest content with my civilian laced shoes, and do without army boots.

My papers were forged. The acrobat Felix proved particularly adept at this delicate work. As a matter of simple courtesy I could hardly protest when the great somnambulist passed me off as her brother—her older brother, mind you: Oskarnello Raguna, born on the twenty-first of October nineteen hundred twelve in Naples. I've gone by all sorts of names in my time. Oskarnello Raguna was one of them, and certainly not the least mellifluous.

And then it was all aboard, as they say, and we pulled out. We traveled by way of Stolp, Stettin, Berlin, Hanover, and Cologne to Metz. Of Berlin I saw next to nothing. We had a five-hour layover. Of course the air-raid sirens were wailing. We had to go down into the Thomaskeller. Soldiers on furlough were packed like sardines into the vaulted rooms. Greetings were shouted as an MP tried to squeeze us in. A few boys from the Eastern Front who knew Bebra and his troupe from earlier guest appearances clapped and whistled while Raguna threw them kisses. They wanted a show, and a stage of sorts was hastily set up at one end of the former beer hall. Bebra could hardly refuse, especially when an Air Force major asked him affably, and with exaggerated deference, if he couldn't oblige the men with a little something.

For the first time Oskar was to take the stage in an actual theatrical performance. Although I didn't go on entirely unprepared—Bebra had rehearsed my number with me several times on the train—I was still so struck by stage fright that Raguna took the occasion to soothe me by stroking my hands.

The boys were eager for action. Our theatrical gear had barely arrived when Felix and Kitty launched into their acrobatic routine. Both were made of rubber—they tied themselves in knots, kept twisting in, out, and around each other, adding and subtracting parts, exchanging arms and legs, and gave the gawking, thronging soldiers aching limbs
and sore muscles that would last for days. While Felix and Kitty were still knotting and unknotting, Bebra embarked on his musical clown number. On bottles that ranged from full to empty, he played all the most popular wartime hits, plunked out "Erika" and "Mamatchi Give Me a Pony," made "Stars of the Homeland" twinkle and resound from the necks of the bottles, and when that failed to set the house on fire, fell back on his old standby, sending an enraged "Jimmy the Tiger" prowling through the bottles. That appealed both to the soldiers on furlough and to Oskar's fastidious ear; and when, after a few foolish magic tricks that were surefire crowd pleasers, Bebra announced Roswitha Raguna, the great somnambulist, and Oskarnello Raguna, the glass-slaying drummer, the audience was thoroughly warmed up, and Roswitha and Oskar were assured of success. I opened our act with a gentle drumroll, led up to climaxes with rolling crescendos, and called for applause after each turn with a loud, artful ta-ta-boom. Raguna would invite a soldier or two, even an officer, to come up out of the audience, ask leathery old corporals or shy but brash cadets to sit down beside her, pick one or two, look into their hearts—yes, she could do that—then give the crowd facts from the pay book of each that always turned out to be right, along with a few intimate details from their private lives. She did all this with sensitivity and tact, was witty in her revelations, then, in what the audience assumed was a sort of parting gift, handed the exposed man a full bottle of beer, asked him to hold it above his head so that everyone could see it clearly, and gave me, Oskar, the sign: a drumroll crescendo, child's play for a voice made for larger tasks, and the beer bottle exploded, leaving behind the stunned, beer-splattered face of a corporal who thought he'd seen everything, or a milky-skinned cadet still wet behind the ears—and then came the applause, loud and long, mingled with the sounds of a major air raid on the capital.