The Collected Stories of Heinrich Böll Read online

  Feinhals wondered if he had ever been so happy in his life. He felt almost no pain; his left arm, lying beside him like a tight bundle, stiff and bloody, damp and unfamiliar, felt faintly uncomfortable, that was all. Everything else was all right; he could raise each leg separately, wriggle his feet in his boots, lift his head, and he could smoke as he lay there, facing him was the sun as it hung a hand’s breadth above the gray cloud of dust in the east. All noise was somehow remote and subdued, his head felt as if wrapped in a layer of cotton, and it occurred to him that he had had nothing to eat for almost twenty-four hours except an acid, synthetic lemon drop, and nothing to drink except a little water, rusty and tepid and tasting of sand.

  When he felt himself being lifted up and carried away, he closed his eyes again, but he could see it all, it was so familiar, it had all happened to him somewhere else: they carried him past the exhaust fumes of a throbbing vehicle into the hot, gasoline-reeking interior, the stretcher scraped against the metal rails, and then the engine started up and the noise outside retreated farther and farther, almost imperceptibly, just as the evening before it had come imperceptibly closer. A few isolated shells burst in the suburbs, regularly, quietly, and just as he felt himself dropping off to sleep he thought: How nice, it was all over so quickly this time, so quickly … All it had meant was a little thirst, sore feet, and a little fear.

  When the ambulance stopped with a jerk, he awoke from his half-sleep. Doors were flung open, once again the stretchers scraped against the metal rails, and he was carried into a cool white corridor where it was very quiet. The stretchers stood in rows like lounge chairs on a narrow deck, and next to him he saw a head of thick black hair, lying quietly, and on the stretcher beyond that a bald head, moving restlessly from side to side, and up at the end, on the first stretcher, a white head, heavily bandaged, completely covered, ugly and much too narrow, and from this bundle of gauze came a voice, piercing, shrill, clear, harsh as it rose to the ceiling, helpless yet insolent, the voice of the colonel, and the voice cried, “Champagne!”

  “Piss,” said the bald head calmly, “drink your own piss.” Someone behind laughed, quietly and cautiously.

  “Champagne,” cried the voice in fury, “chilled champagne!”

  “Shut up,” said the bald head calmly, “why don’t you shut up?”

  “Champagne,” whimpered the voice, “I want some champagne”; and the white head sank back, it was lying flat now, and from between thick layers of gauze rose a thin pointed nose, and the voice became even shriller and shouted: “A girl—get me a girl …”

  “Do it to yourself,” retorted the bald head.

  At last the white head was carried through a door, and there was silence.

  In the silence they could hear only the isolated shells bursting in distant parts of the city, muffled far-off explosions thrumming softly away at the edge of the war. And when the white head of the colonel, now lying silently on one side, was carried out and the bald head was carried in, the sound of a car could be heard approaching outside: the muted sound of a whining engine came closer, quickly and almost threateningly, and now it was so close it seemed about to ram the cool white building. Then suddenly silence fell, outside a voice shouted something, and when they turned their heads, startled out of their peaceful, dozing weariness, they saw the general walking slowly past the stretchers and wordlessly placing packs of cigarettes on the men’s laps. The silence became more and more oppressive the nearer the little man’s footsteps approached from behind, and at last Feinhals saw the general’s face quite close: yellow, large and sad, with snow-white eyebrows, dark traces of dust around the thin mouth, and written in this face was the message that this battle, too, had been lost.

  II

  He heard a voice saying “Bressen—Bressen, look at me,” and he knew this was the voice of Kleewitz, the divisional medical officer, who must have been sent here to find out when he would be going back. But he wouldn’t be going back, he never wanted to be reminded again of that regiment—and he didn’t look at Kleewitz. He looked fixedly at the picture hanging way over to the right, almost in the dark corner: a flock of sheep, painted gray and green, and in the middle of them a shepherd in a blue cloak playing a flute.

  He thought about things no one else on earth would have dreamed of, things he liked thinking about, repulsive though they were. He wasn’t sure whether he heard Kleewitz’s voice; he did hear it, of course, but he didn’t want to admit it, and he looked at the shepherd playing his flute instead of turning his head and saying, “Kleewitz, how nice of you to come.”

  Next he heard the shuffle of papers, and he assumed they were studying his medical history. He looked at the back of the shepherd’s neck and recalled how for a time he had been a nodder at a hotel, in a very high-class restaurant. At noon, when the local businessmen came for lunch, he would walk through the restaurant, very erect, and bow, and it was funny how quickly and accurately he had grasped the required nuances: whether he gave a short bow or a deep one, whether he merely nodded and, if so, how he nodded, and sometimes he would just move his head very briefly, more of an opening and closing of his eyes really, that gave the impression he was moving his head. He found status differences so easy to recognize—like army ranks, that hierarchy of braided and flat, starred and unstarred, shoulder loops, all the way down to the great mass of people with their more or less undecorated shoulders.

  In this restaurant the scale of bowing was relatively simple: it was all a matter of bankroll, of the size of the bill. He wasn’t even especially obliging, he almost never smiled, and his face—despite his efforts to look as impassive as possible—his face never lost that expression of severity and vigilance. A feeling crept over everyone he looked at, not so much of being honored as of being guilty; all felt themselves observed, inspected, and he soon discovered that there were certain people who became confused, so confused that they unthinkingly applied their knives to their potatoes the moment his glance rested on them and who nervously fingered their wallets as soon as he had passed. The only thing that surprised him was that they kept coming back, even this kind. Back they came and submitted to being nodded at, to that uncomfortable scrutiny that goes with a high-class restaurant. His thin, aristocratic face and a knack of wearing clothes well brought him in quite a decent income; besides, he ate there for nothing. But while he tried to assume a certain air of haughtiness, he was in fact often quite nervous. There were days when he could feel the sweat gathering and breaking out all over his body so that he could hardly breathe. And the owner was a coarse fellow, good-natured, vain about his success but awkward in manner; late at night, when the place was gradually emptying and he could think about going home, the owner would sometimes dig his stubby fingers into the cigar box and, despite his protests, stuff three or four cigars into the top pocket of Bressen’s jacket. “Go on,” the owner would mumble with his diffident smile, “take them—they’re good cigars.” And he would take them. He smoked them in the evening with Velten, with whom he shared a small furnished apartment, and Velten never failed to be surprised at the quality of the cigars. “Bressen,” Velten would say, “I must say, Bressen, you smoke an excellent weed.” He would make no comment and no pretense at refusing when Velten brought home an especially good bottle. Velten traveled for a wine merchant, and when business was good he would take home a bottle of champagne.

  “Champagne,” he said out loud to himself, “chilled champagne.”

  “That’s all he ever says,” said the ward medical officer standing beside him.

  “Are you referring to the colonel?” asked Kleewitz coldly.

  “That’s right, Colonel Bressen. The only thing the colonel ever says: Champagne—chilled champagne. And sometimes he talks about women—girls.”

  He had loathed having to take his meals at the restaurant. In a grubby back room off a worn tablecloth, served by the ungracious cook who paid absolutely no attention to his fondness for desserts—and in his nose, throat, and mouth that
sickening stale reek of cooking, greasy and disgusting—and that constant coming and going of the owner, the way he would plump himself down beside him for a few seconds, cigar in mouth, pour himself a schnapps, and sit there silently knocking back the stuff.

  Later on he had given lessons in social etiquette. The town he lived in was very suitable for this kind of instruction, containing as it did a great many rich people who didn’t even know that fish was eaten differently from meat, who had literally eaten with their fingers all their lives, and who now had cars, villas, and women—people who could no longer bear to be the kind of people they really were. He taught them how to perform adequately on the slippery ice of social obligations; he went to their homes, discussed menus, taught them how to handle servants, and stayed for dinner—he had to teach them every gesture, watch them like a hawk, correct them, and he tried to show them how to open a bottle of champagne without assistance.

  “Champagne,” he said out loud to himself, “chilled champagne.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” cried Kleewitz, “Bressen, look at me!” But he had no intention of looking at Kleewitz; he never wanted to be reminded of it again, the regiment that had disintegrated in his hands like dry tinder; Horse Droppings, Sharpshooter, Sugarloaf—under the command of his staff known as Hunting Lodge—all finished! And shortly after that he heard Kleewitz leave.

  He was glad to be able to detach his gaze at last from the flock of sheep and the stupid shepherd; it was hanging a bit too far over to the right and he was getting a crick in his neck. The second picture hung almost directly opposite him, and he was compelled to look at it, although that one didn’t appeal to him either: it showed Crown Prince Michael talking to a Rumanian peasant, flanked by Marshal Antonescu and the queen. The stance of the Rumanian peasant was alarming. He was standing with his feet too close and too firmly together, and he seemed about to tip forward and throw the gift in his hands at the young king’s feet. Bressen couldn’t quite make out what the gift was—salt or bread or a hunk of goat cheese—but the young king was smiling at the peasant. Bressen had long ceased to see these things; he was thankful to have found a spot to stare at without worrying about getting a crick in his neck.

  What had amazed him so during those etiquette lessons—what he hadn’t known and had long tried to ignore—was that such things could actually be learned, this little performance: how to handle a knife and fork correctly. It often shocked him to see these fellows and their womenfolk treating him after three months with formal courtesy, as if he were a competent instructor of limited scope, and smile as they handed him a check. There were some, of course, who never made it—their fingers were too clumsy, they were incapable of cutting the rind off a piece of cheese without picking up the whole slice, or of holding a wineglass properly by the stem—and then there was a third category who never learned but who couldn’t have cared less—as well as those he never met but heard about, who considered it a waste of time to consult him.

  His sole consolation during this period was the opportunity for an occasional affair with their wives—there was no risk attached to these little adventures, which didn’t disappoint him although they seemed to put the women off him. He had many affairs during this time—with all kinds of women—but not a single one had ever come to him or gone out with him a second time, although he usually ordered champagne.

  “Champagne,” he said out loud to himself, “chilled champagne.”

  He said it when he was alone too—it felt better that way—and for a moment he thought about the war, this war, just for an instant, until he heard two more people entering the room. He went on staring at that indefinable hunk that the Rumanian peasant was holding out to young King Michael—and for a moment he caught a glimpse, between himself and the picture, of the pink hand of the senior medical officer as the latter leaned over and took the chart down from its hook.

  “Champagne,” said Bressen in a loud voice, “champagne and a girl.”

  “Colonel Bressen,” said the senior medical officer, urgently but softly. “Colonel Bressen!” There was a brief silence, and the senior medical officer said to the person beside him, “Mark his tag HOME HOSPITALIZATION, and transfer him to Vienna—needless to say the division will be very sorry to have to get along without Colonel Bressen, but …”

  “Right, sir,” said the ward medical officer. Bressen heard nothing more, although they must be standing beside him because he had not heard the door. Then came the rustling of those damned papers again, they must be rereading his medical history. Not a word was said.

  Later on certain people had recalled that there were things he really could teach and which there was some point in teaching: the new army regulations, already familiar to him because he received the new issues regularly. He was put in charge of training the Stahlhelm and Youth Groups in his area, and he clearly remembered this honor having coincided with that period in his life when he had discovered an inordinate craving for sweet things and a decline in his interest in affairs with women. His notion of keeping a horse had proved a good one, although it meant scrimping a bit, for now on maneuver days he could ride out onto the heath early in the morning, hold discussions with subordinates, go through the drill plan—and best of all he could get to know the men in a way that was hardly possible while they were on duty: veterans and strangely clear-headed yet naïve young men who now and again had gone so far as to risk openly contradicting him. What saddened him was a certain amount of official secrecy that prevented him from riding back to town at the head of the troops—but while on duty it was almost like the old days: he was thoroughly familiar with combat duty at battalion level, and he had no cause to find fault with the new regulations, which had made good use of wartime experience without aiming at anything in the way of an actual revolution in methods. The things he had always encouraged and considered of prime importance were: route marches, standing at attention, about-turns executed with maximum precision—and those were red-letter days when he felt sufficiently strong and confident to risk something that even in peacetime and with well-disciplined troops had been risky: battalion maneuvers.

  But the secrecy was soon dropped, before long there were daily maneuvers, and it didn’t feel very different when one day he was made a real major again, in command of a real battalion.

  For a moment he was not sure whether he was actually turning or whether this turning was already one of those things beyond the edge of his consciousness, but turning he was, and he was aware that he was turning, and it was depressing to find that so far nothing had occurred beyond the edge of his consciousness: he was being turned. They had lifted him up and swung him carefully out of his bed onto a stretcher. At first his head fell back, for a moment he was staring at the ceiling, but then a pillow was pushed under his head and his gaze fell precisely on the third picture hanging in his room. This was a picture he had never seen, it hung near the door, and at first he was glad to be able to look at it, since otherwise he would have had to look straight at the two doctors, between whom the picture was now hanging. The senior medical officer seemed to have left the room. The ward medical officer was talking to another, younger medical officer he had never seen before; he saw the short, plump ward MO read some passages from his medical history to his colleague in a low voice and explain something to him. Bressen couldn’t understand what they were saying, not because he couldn’t hear—it bothered him very much that so far he had not been able to close his ears—no, it was just that they were too far away and whispering. From the corridor he could hear everything: people calling out, cries of the wounded, and the throbbing hum of motors outside. He saw the back of the stretcher bearer standing in front of him, and now the one standing behind him said, “Let’s go.”

  “The bags,” said the front stretcher bearer. “Major,” he called across to the ward MO, “someone’ll have to carry out those bags.”

  “Get hold of a few fellows.”

  The two stretcher bearers went out into the corridor.r />
  Without moving his head, Bressen carefully studied the third picture between the two doctors’ heads: this picture was incredible, he couldn’t understand how it had ever got here. He didn’t know whether they were in a school or a convent, but as for there being Catholics in Rumania, he had never heard of such a thing. In Germany there were some, he had heard about those—but in Rumania! And now here was a picture of the Virgin Mary. It annoyed him to be forced to look at this picture, but he had no option, he was forced to stare at her, that woman in the sky-blue cloak whose face he found disconcertingly grave; she stood poised on a globe, looking up to Heaven, which consisted of snow-white clouds, and around her hands was twisted a string of brown wooden beads. He gently shook his head and thought: What a repulsive picture, and suddenly he noticed the two doctors watching him. They looked at him, then at the picture, followed his gaze, and slowly returned to him. It wasn’t easy to stare between those two heads—those four eyes that were looking into his—at the picture which he found so repulsive. He couldn’t think of anything to take his mind off it; he tried to let his thoughts slip back to those years which a moment ago had been so easy to recall, years when he felt that the things which had once been his world were slowly becoming a world again: the association with staff officers, barracks gossip, adjutants, orderlies. He found himself unable to think about them. He was hemmed in by those eight inches left free by the two heads, and in those eight inches hung the picture—but it was a relief to see this space become larger because now they were approaching him, separating, and standing one on either side of him.