The Tin Drum (29 page)

When Herbert was buried at Langfuhr Cemetery, I saw Crazy Leo again, whose acquaintance I'd made at Brentau Cemetery. To all of us—Mother Truczinski, Guste, Fritz, and Maria Truczinski, the stout Frau Kater, old Heilandt, who slaughtered Fritz's rabbits for Mother Truczinski on holidays, my presumptive father Matzerath, who, generous as he could be at times, was paying half the burial costs, and Jan Bronski, who scarcely knew Herbert and had only come to see Matzerath, and possibly me, on neutral burial ground—to all of us Crazy Leo, drooling and trembling, extended his white, mildewed glove, offering confused condolences in which joy and pain seemed indistinguishable.

As Crazy Leo's glove fluttered toward Meyn the musician, who had arrived half in civilian dress, half in SA uniform, there was a further sign of impending disaster.

Startled, the pale cloth of Leo's glove darted up and flew off across the tombs, pulling Leo with it. You could hear him screaming; but those weren't words of sympathy left hanging as scraps in the cemetery shrubbery.

No one moved away from Meyn the musician. Yet, recognized and singled out by Crazy Leo, he stood alone among the mourners, fiddling in embarrassment with his trumpet, which he'd brought along on purpose, and upon which he had just played too beautifully for words over Herbert's grave. Beautifully because Meyn had done something he hadn't done for a long time; moved by Herbert's death, who was about his own age, he had gone back to drinking Machandel, while that same death had silenced me and my drum.

Once upon a time there was a musician named Meyn, and he played the trumpet too beautifully for words. He lived on the fourth floor of our building, just under the roof, kept four cats, one of them named Bismarck, and drank from morning till night from a bottle of Machandel, until, toward the end of thirty-six or early in thirty-seven I believe, he joined the Mounted SA, and as a trumpeter in the band made far fewer mistakes, but no longer played too beautifully for words, because, having slipped on those leather-seated riding breeches, he gave up the Machandel bottle, and from then on his playing was merely loud and sober.

When the SA man Meyn lost his old friend Herbert Truczinski, who back in the twenties had been a fellow dues-paying member of a Communist youth group, and later joined the Red Falcons with him, when that friend was to be laid in the ground, Meyn reached for his trumpet and his Machandel bottle. For he wished to play too beautifully for words and not soberly, having kept his ear for music even while riding on a brown horse, and therefore took one last swig at the cemetery, then kept his civilian coat on over his uniform while he played his trumpet, though he'd planned to blow across the graveyard soil in brown, even if he couldn't wear his cap.

Once upon a time there was an SA man, who kept his coat on over his Mounted SA uniform while he played the trumpet with Machan
del brilliance and too beautifully for words at the grave of an old friend. When Crazy Leo, a type found at all graveyards, extended his sympathy to each of the mourners, each mourner heard him in turn. Only the SA man could not grasp his white glove, for Leo saw what he was and with a loud cry of fear withdrew both sympathy and glove. The SA man headed home with no sympathy and a cold trumpet, where, in his flat just under the roof of our building, he found his four cats.

Once upon a time there was an SA man named Meyn. As a relic of the days when he drank Machandel all day and played the trumpet too beautifully for words, Meyn still kept four cats in his flat, one of them named Bismarck. When SA Man Meyn returned one day from the funeral of his old friend Herbert Truczinski, sad and sober again because someone had withheld his sympathy, he found himself alone with his four cats in the flat. The cats rubbed against his riding boots and Meyn gave them a newspaper full of herring heads, which got them away from his boots. The flat smelled more strongly than usual that day of cats, all of them toms, one of them named Bismarck, who padded about black on white paws. But Meyn had no Machandel in his flat. So the smell of cats, or tomcats, grew stronger and stronger. He might have bought some in our store if his flat hadn't been on the fourth floor right under the roof. But he dreaded the stairs and he dreaded his neighbors, having sworn before them on numerous occasions that not another drop of Machandel would ever cross his musician's lips, that he was starting a new life of total sobriety, that from now on he would lead an orderly existence far removed from the drunken excesses of a wasted and unstable youth.

Once upon a time there was a man named Meyn. One day when he found himself alone in his flat under the roof with his four tomcats, one of them named Bismarck, the tomcat smell was particularly annoying, because something unpleasant had happened to him that morning, and because there was no Machandel in the flat. Since his displeasure and thirst increased and the tomcat smell intensified, Meyn, a musician by trade and a member of the Mounted SA band, reached for the poker beside the cold slow-combustion stove and flailed away at the tomcats till it was safe to assume that all four, including the tomcat named Bismarck, were dead and done for, even if the smell of tomcats in the flat had lost none of its intensity.

Once upon a time there was a clockmaker named Laubschad, and he lived on the first floor of our building in a two-room flat with windows overlooking the courtyard. Laubschad the clockmaker was unmarried, a member of the National Socialist Welfare Organization and the SPCA. Laubschad had a good heart and helped all tired humans, sick animals, and broken clocks back on their feet. As the clockmaker sat musing at the window one afternoon, thinking back on a neighbor's funeral he'd attended that morning, he saw Meyn the musician, who lived on the fourth floor of the same building, lowering a half-full potato sack that seemed to be wet on the bottom and dripping, into one of the two garbage cans. But since the garbage can was three-fourths full, the musician had a hard time getting the lid back on.

Once upon a time there were four tomcats, one of them named Bismarck. These tomcats belonged to a musician named Meyn. Since the tomcats hadn't been fixed they had a strong and pungent smell, and one day, when for personal reasons he found the smell particularly annoying, the musician slew the four cats with a poker, put the cadavers in a potato sack, carried the sack down the four flights of stairs, and quickly deposited the bundle in a courtyard garbage can by the carpet rack, because the sack was leaky and already dripping by the time he reached the second floor. But since the can was fairly full, the musician had to compress the garbage along with the sack in order to put on the lid. No sooner had he exited onto the street from the building—for he had no desire to go back to a catless flat that still smelled of cats—than the compressed garbage began to expand, lifting the sack and with it the lid.

Once upon a time there was a musician who slew his four cats, stuffed them in a garbage can, left the building, and went to visit friends.

Once upon a time there was a clockmaker who sat lost in thought at his window and observed how Meyn the musician stuffed a half-full sack in the garbage can, then left the courtyard, and how, a few moments after Meyn's departure, the lid of the garbage can began to rise and kept on rising.

Once upon a time there were four cats who, because they smelled more strongly than usual on a particular day, were killed, stuffed in a sack, and buried in a garbage can. But the cats, one of them named Bismarck, weren't dead yet, being tough, like most cats. They shifted about in the sack, set the garbage-can lid in motion, and confronted
Laubschad the clockmaker, who still sat pensively at his window, with a question: Guess what's in the sack that Meyn the musician stuffed in the garbage can?

Once upon a time there was a clockmaker who couldn't look on quietly while something was stirring in the garbage can. So he left his flat on the first floor of the building, went into the courtyard, removed the lid from the garbage can, opened the sack, and took the four battered but still living cats to his flat to care for them. But they died the following night under the clockmaker's hands, which left him no recourse but to lodge a complaint with the SPCA, of which he was a member, and inform local Party headquarters of a case of cruelty to animals which might damage the Party's reputation.

Once upon a time there was an SA man who killed four cats, was betrayed by them, since they weren't quite dead, and was informed against by a clockmaker. This resulted in judicial proceedings, and the SA man had to pay a fine. The case was discussed in the SA as well, and the SA man was expelled from the SA for dishonorable conduct. Even the conspicuous bravery he demonstrated during the night of the ninth to the tenth of November thirty-eight, which later came to be known as Kristallnacht, when he joined others in torching the Langfuhr Synagogue on Michaelisweg, and his active participation the following morning in emptying several shops that had been carefully marked in advance, all his zeal could not prevent his expulsion from the Mounted SA. He was reduced in rank for inhuman cruelty to animals and struck from the membership list. A year passed before he gained admittance to the Home Guard, which was later incorporated into the Waffen-SS.

Once upon a time there was a grocer who closed his shop one November day because something was going on in the city, took his son Oskar by the hand and traveled with the Number Five tram to Langgasser Gate, because the synagogue there was on fire, as were those in Zoppot and Langfuhr. The synagogue was burned almost to the ground, and the firemen were making sure the fire didn't spread to the surrounding buildings. Outside the ruins, civilians and men in uniforms were piling up books, sacral objects, and strange pieces of cloth. The mound was set ablaze, and the grocer took the opportunity to warm his hands and his passions at the public fire. His son Oskar, however, seeing his father so involved and inflamed, slipped away unnoticed and hurried off toward
the Arsenal Arcade, because he was worried about his drums of white and red lacquered tin.

Once upon a time there was a toy merchant named Sigismund Markus, and he sold, among other things, white and red lacquered tin drums. Oskar, mentioned above, was the major customer for these tin drums, for he was a drummer by trade, and could neither live without a drum nor wished to. He hurried away from the burning synagogue to the Arsenal Arcade, for there dwelt the keeper of his drums; but he found him in a state that made it impossible for him ever to sell tin drums again in this world.

The same ordnance specialists I, Oskar, thought I'd run away from had visited Markus before I got there, had dipped a brush in paint and written the words Jewish Swine across his shop window in Sütterlin script, then, perhaps displeased with their own handwriting, had kicked in the window with the heels of their boots, so that the slur they had cast on Markus could now only be guessed at. Disdaining the door, they had made their way into the shop through the window and were now playing in their own deliberate way with the toys.

I found them at play, as I too stepped into the shop through the window. A few had pulled down their trousers, had deposited brown sausages, in which half-digested peas could still be discerned, on sailing ships, fiddling monkeys, and my drums. They all looked like Meyn the musician, were wearing Meyn's SA uniform, but Meyn wasn't there, just as those who were there weren't somewhere else. One of them had drawn his dagger. He was slicing dolls open and seemed disappointed each time nothing but sawdust flowed forth from plump bodies and limbs.

I was worried about my drums. They didn't like my drums. My own drum couldn't stand up to their rage, had to keep quiet and bend at the knee. But Markus had escaped their rage. When they wished to speak with him in his office, they didn't bother to knock at the door but broke it down instead, although it wasn't locked.

Behind his desk sat the toy merchant. He was wearing sleeve protectors as usual over his dark gray everyday jacket. Dandruff on his shoulders revealed a scalp problem. A man with Punch and Judy dolls on his fingers poked him woodenly with Punch's grandmother, but Markus was no longer in, could no longer be harmed. Before him on the desk
top stood a water glass that thirst must have urged him to empty at the very moment the splintering cry of a window in his shop turned his throat dry.

Once upon a time there was a tin-drummer named Oskar. When they took away his toy merchant and destroyed the merchant's shop, he sensed that bad times were ahead for midget tin-drummers like him. So as he left the shop he pulled one undamaged drum and two slightly damaged ones from the debris, and left the Arsenal Arcade for the Kohlenmarkt with the drums round his neck to look for his father, who might be looking for him. It was a late November morning. Outside the Stadt-Theater, near the tram stop, stood pious women and shivering, ugly girls handing out religious tracts, collecting money in tin cans, and displaying between two poles a banner with an inscription from First Corinthians, chapter thirteen. "Faith—Hope—Love"—Oskar read those three little words and played with them like a juggler with bottles: faith healer, hope chest, lovebird, Old Faithful, Hope Diamond, Lovers' Leap, with love as always, hope to see you again, faithfully yours. An entire gullible nation believed faithfully in Santa Claus. But Santa Claus was really the Gasman. In faith I believe it smelled of walnuts and almonds. But it smelled of gas. Soon it will be what's called first Advent. And the first and second through fourth Advent will be turned on like a gas cock, so that it smells believably of walnuts and almonds, so that all those nutcrackers can take comfort in belief:

He's coming! He's coming! And who came? The Christ Child, the Savior? Or was it the heavenly Gasman with the gas meter under his arm, ticking away? And he said: I am the Savior of this world, without me you can't cook. And he was open to reason, he offered special rates, turned on the freshly polished gas cocks and let the Holy Spirit pour forth, so that the dove could be cooked. And gave out walnuts and almonds in the shell, which were promptly cracked, and they too poured forth Spirit and gas, so that the gullible were easily gulled, saw all the gasmen in the increasingly thick and bluish air outside the department stores as Santa Clauses and Christ Children in all sizes and prices. And so they believed in the only true and saving Gas Company, which symbolized fate with its rising and falling gas meters, and staged an Advent season at standard prices, one many in fact believed would bring them the Christmas they expected, but only those for whom the store of wal
nuts and almonds was insufficient survived the holidays—though all had believed there was plenty for everyone.