Group Portrait With Lady Read online

  HEINRICH BÖLL

  In 1972, Heinrich Böll became the first German to win the Nobel Prize for literature since Thomas Mann in 1929. Born in Cologne, in 1917, Böll was reared in a liberal Catholic, pacifist family. Drafted into the Wehrmacht, he served on the Russian and French fronts and was wounded four times before he found himself in an American prison camp. After the war he enrolled at the University of Cologne, but dropped out to write about his shattering experiences as a soldier. His first novel, The Train Was on Time, was published in 1949, and he went on to become one of the most prolific and important of post-war German writers. His best-known novels include Billiards at Half-Past Nine (1959), The Clown (1963), Group Portrait with Lady (1971), and The Safety Net (1979). In 1981 he published a memoir, What’s to Become of the Boy? or: Something to Do with Books. Böll served for several years as the president of International P.E.N. and was a leading defender of the intellectual freedom of writers throughout the world. He died in June 1985.

  The Essential

  HEINRICH BÖLL

  The Clown

  The Safety Net

  Billiards at Half-Past Nine

  The Train Was on Time

  Irish Journal

  Group Portrait with Lady

  What’s to Become of the Boy? Or: Something to Do with Books—A Memoir

  The Collected Stories of Heinrich Böll

  Group Portrait With Lady

  Originally published in German as Gruppenbild mit Dame by Heinrich Böll © 1971, 1986, 2005 by Verlag Kiepenheuer & Witsch GmbH & Co. KG, Cologne, Germany Translated by Leila Vennewitz. Afterword © William T. Vollmann, 2011

  Melville House Publishing

  145 Plymouth Street

  Brooklyn, NY 11201

  www.mhpbooks.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Böll, Heinrich, 1917-1985.

  [Gruppenbild mit Dame. English]

  Group portrait with lady / Heinrich Boll; translated from the German by Leila Vennewitz.

  p. cm.

  Previously published: New York : McGraw-Hill, 1973. With new afterword by William T. Vollmann.

  eISBN: 978-1-935554-96-7

  1. Germany–Social conditions–1933-1945–Fiction. 2. World War,

  1939-1945–Germany–Fiction. 3. Germany–Social conditions–20th century–Fiction. 4. Germany–Social life and customs–20th century–Fiction. I. Vennewitz, Leila. II. Title.

  PT2603.O394G713 2011

  833’.914–dc22

  2011000599

  v3.1

  Translator’s Acknowledgment

  William Vennewitz, my husband, has given me the utmost in patient and knowledgeable help in this translation, and I am deeply grateful to him.

  I wish also to express my gratitude to Professor Frank Jones, of the University of Washington, for his assistance with the quotations from Brecht and Hölderlin. Fragments from these poets appearing, among other quotations, on this page are his translations; those on this page have been translated jointly by Professor Jones and myself.

  Leila Vennewitz

  LIST OF CHARACTERS

  THE LADY

  Leni Pfeiffer, née Gruyten

  THE GROUP

  The Families

  GRUYTEN, Hubert, Leni’s father

  Helene, Leni’s mother

  Heinrich, Leni’s brother

  Lev, Leni’s son

  PFEIFFER, Wilhelm, Leni’s father-in-law

  Marianne, Leni’s mother-in-law

  Alois, Leni’s husband

  Heinrich, Leni’s brother-in-law

  Hetti, his wife

  Karl

  Wilhelm their sons

  Fernande, Alois’s aunt

  HOYSER, Otto (Hoyser, Sr., Hubert Gruyten’s head bookkeeper)

  Mrs. Hoyser, his wife

  Wilhelm, their son

  Lotte, Wilhelm’s wife

  Werner ] Lotte and Wilhelm’s sons

  Kurt

  SCHWEIGERT, Mrs., Helene Gruyten’s sister and Leni’s aunt

  Erhart, her son and Leni’s cousin and lover

  PELZER, Walter (“Sonny Boy”), Leni’s boss

  Eva, his wife

  Walter ] their children

  Eva

  Heinz ] “Sonny Boy’s” father and mother

  Adelheid

  The Nuns

  Sister Cecilia

  Sister Columbanus

  Sister Klementina (“K”)

  Prudentia

  Rahel (“Haruspica”)

  Sapientia

  The Jesuits

  “J.I” and “J.II”

  Leni’s Fellow Workers

  Grundtsch, head gardener

  Helga Heuter

  Liana Hölthohne

  Ilse Kremer

  Heribert Kremp (“Dirty Bertie”)

  The Schelf woman

  Marga Wanft

  Frieda Zeven

  Other Informants

  Margret Schlömer, Leni’s best friend

  Hans and Grete Helzen

  An (anonymous) exalted personage

  Mimi, his wife

  B.H.T., a book antiquarian

  Bogakov, a Soviet prisoner of war

  Marja van Doorn, the Gruytens’ housekeeper

  Alfred Scheukens, convent gardener

  Dr. Schirtenstein, music critic

  Dr. Scholsdorff ] experts in Slavonic studies

  Dr. Henges

  “Fritz,” news vendor

  Other Characters

  Boris Lvovich, Leni’s lover and father of Lev

  Mehmet Şahin, Leni’s lover

  Belenko, Kitkin, and Genrikhovich, Soviet prisoners of war

  Boldig and Kolb, camp guards

  —and—

  The Au.

  For Leni, Lev, and Boris

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Author

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Translator’s Acknowledgment

  List of Characters

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  1

  The female protagonist in the first section is a woman of forty-eight, German: she is five foot six inches tall, weighs 133 pounds (in indoor clothing), i.e., only twelve to fourteen ounces below standard weight; her eyes are iridescent dark blue and black, her slightly graying hair, very thick and blond, hangs loosely to her shoulders, sheathing her head like a helmet.

  The woman’s name is Leni Pfeiffer, née Gruyten; for twenty-three years (with interruptions, of course) she has been subjected to the processes of that strange phenomenon known as the labor process: five years as an unskilled employee in her father’s office, twenty-seven years as an unskilled worker in a nursery garden. As a result of having casually given away, during the inflation, a considerable fortune in real estate, a substantial apartment house in the new part of town that today would easily fetch four hundred thousand marks, she is now pretty much without resources, having, for no good reason and without being sufficiently sick or old, given up her job. Because she was at one time, in 1941, married for three days to a noncommissioned officer in the regular German Army, she draws a war-widow’s pension which has not yet been supplemented by a social security pension. It can fairly be said that at the present time Leni is finding things pretty tough—and not only financially—especially
now that her beloved son is in jail.

  If Leni were to cut her hair shorter, dye it a little grayer, she would look like a well-preserved woman of forty; the way she wears her hair now, the discrepancy between her youthful hair style and her no longer quite so youthful face is too great, and one would judge her to be in her late forties. That is her true age; yet she is forfeiting a chance which she should not pass up, she gives the (quite unwarranted) impression of a faded blond who leads or pursues a loose way of life. Leni is one of the very rare women of her age who could afford to wear a miniskirt: her legs and thighs show no sign of either veins or flabbiness. But Leni keeps to a skirt length that was fashionable around the year 1942, mainly because she still wears her old skirts, preferring jackets and blouses because, with her bosom, sweaters seem to her (with some justification) too ostentatious. As for her coats and shoes, she is still living off the high-quality and carefully preserved supplies that she had been able to acquire in her youth at a time when her parents had been temporarily well off. Sturdy tweeds, gray and pink, green and blue, black and white, sky-blue (solid color), and on the occasions when she considers a head covering appropriate she uses a head scarf; her shoes are of the kind that—provided one was sufficiently in funds—could be bought in the years 1935–39 as “made to last a lifetime.”

  Since Leni is now alone in the world without constant male protection or advice, she is the victim, as far as her hair style is concerned, of a permanent illusion; for this her mirror is to blame, an old mirror dating from 1894 which, to Leni’s misfortune, has survived two world wars. Leni never goes into a beauty parlor, never enters a well-mirrored supermarket, she does her shopping at a small general store that is about to succumb to the economic trend. She is therefore wholly dependent on this mirror, of which her grandmother Gerta Barkel, née Holm, used long ago to say that it was a dreadful flatterer; Leni uses the mirror a great deal. Leni’s hair style is one of the causes of Leni’s troubles, and Leni does not suspect the connection. What is being forcibly brought home to her is the steadily mounting disapproval of her environment, in the building and in the neighborhood. In recent months Leni has had many male visitors: agents from credit institutions, bearers—since she had not reacted to letters—of final, definitely final notices; bailiffs; attorneys’ messengers; and, ultimately, the bailiffs’ men to take away seizable goods. Since, moreover, Leni rents out three furnished rooms that periodically change tenants, it was only natural that more youthful males in search of rooms should also have come to see her. Some of these male visitors made advances—without success, needless to say; we all know that the makers of unsuccessful advances are the very ones to boast of their successes, so it is easy to guess how quickly Leni’s reputation was ruined.

  The Author is far from having insight into all aspects of Leni’s body-, soul-, and love-life, yet everything—everything—has been done to obtain the kind of information on Leni that is known to be factual (the informants will even be mentioned by name at the appropriate junctures), and the following report may be termed accurate with a probability bordering on certainty. Leni is taciturn and reticent—and since two character traits have now been named, let us add two more: Leni is not bitter, and she is without remorse, she does not even feel remorse at not having mourned the death of her first husband. Leni’s lack of remorse is so absolute that any degree of “more” or “less,” in terms of her capacity for remorse, would be beside the point; she probably does not even know the meaning of remorse; in this—as in other respects—her religious education must have failed or be deemed to have failed, probably to Leni’s advantage.

  What emerges unmistakably from the statements of the informants is that Leni no longer understands the world, in fact doubts whether she has ever understood it. She cannot understand the hostility of her environment, cannot understand why people are so angry at her and with her; she has done nothing wrong, not even to them. Lately, when obliged to leave her apartment to buy a few essential items, she has been openly laughed at, expressions such as “dirty bitch” or “worn-out mattress” being among the more harmless. Even insults rooted in events of thirty years back are to be heard again: “Communist whore,” “Russian sweetie.” Leni does not react to the abuse. To hear the word “slut” muttered as she passes is for her an everyday experience. She is considered insensitive, or even entirely devoid of feeling; neither is true for, according to the statements of reliable witnesses (witness: Marja van Doorn), she spends hours sitting in her apartment crying, her conjunctiva and her tear ducts in a state of considerable activity. Even the neighborhood children, with whom until now she has always been on friendly terms, are being set against her, and they call out after her using expressions that neither they nor Leni properly understand. And yet, to judge by copious and detailed evidence that exhausts even the ultimate, the very ultimate source on Leni, it is possible to establish here and now that up to this point in her life Leni has probably, with a probability bordering on certainty, had sexual intercourse a total of two dozen times: twice with the man to whom she was later married, Alois Pfeiffer (once before, once during, the marriage, which lasted a total of three days), and on the other occasions with a second man whom she would have married if circumstances had permitted it. Within a few minutes of Leni’s being allowed to enter directly into the action (this will not be for a while yet), she will for the first time have made what might be called a wrong move: she will have yielded to a Turkish worker who, on his knees and in a language unintelligible to her, is going to ask for her favors, and she will yield—this as advance information—because she cannot bear to see anyone kneel to her (the fact that she herself is incapable of kneeling is one of her known character traits). It should perhaps be added that both Leni’s parents are dead, that she has a few embarrassing relatives by marriage, others, less embarrassing, not by marriage, but blood relations, in the country, and a son of twenty-five who bears her maiden name and is at present in jail. One physical characteristic may be of significance, among other things, in assessing male advances. Leni has the well-nigh imperishable bosom of a woman who has been loved with tenderness and to whose bosom poems have been dedicated. What the people in Leni’s environment really want is for her to be either eliminated or removed; the cry is even heard as she passes: “Get lost!” or “Get out of here!,” and there is evidence that from time to time someone demands that she be gassed; this wish has been verified, although whether such a possibility exists is not known to the Au.; all he can add is that the wish is expressed with vehemence.

  A few additional details must be supplied concerning Leni’s daily habits. She enjoys eating, but in moderation; her main meal is breakfast, for which she positively must have two crisp fresh rolls, a fresh, soft-boiled egg, a little butter, one or two tablespoons of jam (more precisely: the plum purée known elsewhere as Powidl), strong coffee that she mixes with hot milk, very little sugar; midday dinner scarcely interests her: soup and a modest dessert are all she wants; then in the evening she has a cold meal, some bread, two or three slices, salad, sausage and cold meat when she can afford them. What Leni cares about most is the fresh rolls; rather than have them delivered she picks them out herself, not by fingering them, merely by inspecting their color; there is nothing—in the way of food, at least—that she hates as much as limp rolls. For the sake of the rolls and because breakfast is her daily feast, she ventures out in the morning among people, accepting insults, spiteful gossip, and abuse as part of the bargain.

  As regards smoking: Leni has been smoking since she was seventeen, normally eight cigarettes a day, never more, usually less; during the war she gave it up for a time in order to let someone she loved (not her husband!) have her cigarettes. Leni is one of those who enjoy a glass of wine now and again, never drink more than half a bottle, and allow themselves, depending on the weather, a schnapps or, depending on mood and financial situation, a sherry. Other information: Leni has had a driver’s license since 1939 (issued by special authority, details to fo
llow), but since 1943 she has had no car at her disposal. She loved driving, almost with a passion.

  Leni still lives in the house where she was born. By a series of unaccountable coincidences, her part of the city was spared the bombings, at least relatively spared; only thirty-five percent of it was destroyed: in other words, it was favored by Fortune. Not long ago something happened to Leni that has made her quite talkative, and she could hardly wait to tell it to her best friend, her chief confidante, who is also the Au.’s star witness: that morning, as she was crossing the street to pick up her rolls, her right foot recognized a slight unevenness in the pavement which it—the right foot—had last felt forty years before when Leni was playing hopscotch with some other girls; the spot in question is a tiny chip in a basalt paving stone which, at the time the street was laid out, around 1894, must have been knocked off by the paver. Leni’s foot instantly passed on the message to her brain-stem, the latter transmitted this impression to all her sensory organs and emotional centers and, since Leni is an enormously sensual person who immediately transforms everything—everything—into terms of eroticism, her delight, nostalgia, recollection, and state of total stimulation caused her to experience that process which in theological reference works—although with a somewhat different meaning—might be termed “absolute self-fulfillment”; which, when embarrassingly reduced, is termed, by clumsy erotologists and sexotheological dogmaticians, an “orgasm.”

  Before the impression arises that Leni has been deserted, we must list all those who are her friends, most of whom have stood by her through thin, two through thick and thin. Leni’s solitary existence is due solely to her taciturnity and reticence; one might even call her laconic; the fact is that it is very rare for her to “come out of her shell,” not even with her oldest friends Margret Schlömer, née Zeist, and Lotte Hoyser, née Berntgen, who stood by Leni when things were at their thickest. Margret is Leni’s age, a widow like Leni, although this term may be misleading. Margret has carried on a good deal with men, for reasons to be given later: never from expediency, although sometimes—when she was really down and out—for a fee; yet the best way to describe Margret would be to say that the only erotic relationship she ever had that was based on expediency was the one with her husband, whom she married when she was eighteen; it was then, too, that she made the only verifiable whorelike comment, when she said to Leni (it was in 1940): “I’ve hooked myself a rich guy who insists on going to the altar with me.”