The Collected Stories of Heinrich Böll Read online

  First of all, when I think of that day, I smell vanilla custard, a warm, sweet cloud creeping under my bedroom door and reminding me of my mother’s goodness: I had asked her to make some vanilla ice cream for my first day of vacation, and when I woke up I could smell it.

  It was half past ten. I lit a cigarette, pushed up my pillow, and considered how I would spend the afternoon. I decided to go swimming; after lunch I would take the streetcar to the beach, have a bit of a swim, read, smoke, and wait for one of the girls at the office, who had promised to come down to the beach after five.

  In the kitchen my mother was pounding meat, and when she stopped for a moment I could hear her humming a tune. It was a hymn. I felt very happy. The previous day I had passed my test, I had a good job in a textile factory, a job with opportunities for advancement—but now I was on vacation, two weeks’ vacation, and it was summertime. It was hot outside, but in those days I still loved hot weather: through the slits in the shutters I could see the heat haze, I could see the green of the trees in front of our house, I could hear the streetcar. And I was looking forward to breakfast. Then I heard my mother coming to listen at my door; she crossed the hall and stopped by my door; it was silent for a moment in our apartment, and I was just about to call “Mother” when the bell rang downstairs. My mother went to our front door, and I heard the funny high-pitched purring of the buzzer down below; it buzzed four, five, six times, while my mother was talking on the landing to Frau Kurz, who lived in the next apartment. Then I heard a man’s voice, and I knew at once it was the mailman, although I had only seen him a few times. The mailman came into our entrance hall, Mother said, “What?” and he said, “Here—sign here, please.” It was very quiet for a moment, the mailman said “Thanks,” my mother closed the door after him, and I heard her go back into the kitchen.

  Shortly after that I got up and went into the bathroom. I shaved, had a leisurely wash, and when I turned off the faucet I could hear my mother grinding the coffee. It was like Sunday, except that I had not been to church.

  Nobody will believe it, but my heart suddenly felt heavy. I don’t know why, but it was heavy. I could no longer hear the coffee mill. I dried myself off, put on my shirt and trousers, socks and shoes, combed my hair, and went into the living room. There were flowers on the table, pale pink carnations, it all looked fresh and neat, and on my plate lay a red pack of cigarettes.

  Then Mother came in from the kitchen carrying the coffeepot and I saw at once she had been crying. In one hand she was holding the coffeepot, in the other a little pile of mail, and her eyes were red. I went over to her, took the pot from her, kissed her cheek, and said, “Good morning.” She looked at me, said, “Good morning, did you sleep well?” and tried to smile, but did not succeed.

  We sat down, my mother poured the coffee, and I opened the red pack lying on my plate and lit a cigarette. I had suddenly lost my appetite. I stirred milk and sugar into my coffee, tried to look at Mother, but each time I quickly lowered my eyes. “Was there any mail?” I asked, a senseless question, since Mother’s small red hand was resting on the little pile on top of which lay the newspaper.

  “Yes,” she said, pushing the pile toward me. I opened the newspaper while my mother began to butter some bread for me. The front page bore the headline “Outrages Continue Against Germans in the Polish Corridor!” There had been headlines like that for weeks on the front pages of the papers. Reports of “rifle fire along the Polish border and refugees escaping from the sphere of Polish harassment and fleeing to the Reich.” I put the paper aside. Next I read the brochure of a wine merchant who used to supply us sometimes when Father was still alive. Various types of Riesling were being offered at exceptionally low prices. I put the brochure aside too.

  Meanwhile my mother had finished buttering the slice of bread for me. She put it on my plate, saying, “Please eat something!” She burst into violent sobs. I could not bring myself to look at her. I can’t look at anyone who is really suffering—but now for the first time I realized it must have something to do with the mail. It must be the mail. I stubbed out my cigarette, took a bite of the bread and butter, and picked up the next letter, and as I did so I saw there was a postcard lying underneath. But I had not noticed the registration sticker, that tiny scrap of paper I still possess and to which I owe a reputation for sentimentality. So I read the letter first. The letter was from Uncle Eddy. Uncle Eddy wrote that at last, after many years as an assistant instructor, he was now a full-fledged teacher, but it had meant being transferred to a little one-horse town; financially speaking, he was hardly any better off than before, since he was now being paid at the local scale. And his kids had had whooping cough, and the way things were going made him feel sick to his stomach, he didn’t have to tell us why. No, he didn’t, and it made us feel sick too. It made a lot of people feel sick.

  When I reached for the postcard, I saw it had gone. My mother had picked it up, she was holding it up and looking at it, and I kept my eyes on my half-eaten slice of bread, stirred my coffee, and waited.

  I shall never forget it. Only once had my mother ever cried so terribly, when my father died; and then I had not dared to look at her either. A nameless diffidence had prevented me from comforting her.

  I tried to bite into the bread, but my throat closed up, for I suddenly realized that what was upsetting Mother so much could only be something to do with me. Mother said something I didn’t catch and handed me the postcard, and it was then I saw the registration sticker: that red-bordered rectangle, divided by a red line into two other rectangles, of which the smaller one contained a big black R and the bigger one the word “DÜSSELDORF” and the number 634. Otherwise the postcard was quite normal. It was addressed to me and on the back were the words “Mr. Bruno Schneider: You are required to report to the Schlieffen Barracks in Adenbrück on August 5, 1939, for an eight-week period of military training.” “Bruno Schneider,” the date, and “Adenbrück” were typed, everything else was printed, and at the bottom was a vague scrawl and the printed word “Major.”

  Today I know that the scrawl was superfluous. A machine for printing majors’ signatures would do the job just as well. The only thing that mattered was the little sticker on the front for which my mother had had to sign a receipt.

  I put my hand on her arm and said, “Now, look, Mother, it’s only eight weeks.” And my mother said, “I know.”

  “Only eight weeks,” I said, and I knew I was lying, and my mother dried her tears, said, “Yes, of course”; we were both lying, without knowing why we were lying, but we were and we knew we were.

  I was just picking up my bread and butter again when it struck me that today was the fourth and that on the following day at ten o’clock I had to be over two hundred miles away to the east. I felt myself going pale, put down the bread and got up, ignoring my mother. I went to my room. I stood at my desk, opened the drawer, closed it again. I looked round, felt something had happened and didn’t know what. The room was no longer mine. That was all. Today I know, but that day I did meaningless things to reassure myself that the room still belonged to me. It was useless to rummage around in the box containing my letters, or to straighten my books. Before I knew what I was doing, I had begun to pack my briefcase: shirt, pants, towel, and socks, and I went into the bathroom to get my shaving things. My mother was still sitting at the breakfast table. She had stopped crying. My half-eaten slice of bread was still on my plate, there was still some coffee in my cup, and I said to my mother, “I’m going over to the Giesselbachs’ to phone about my train.”

  When I came back from the Giesselbachs’ it was just striking twelve noon. Our entrance hall smelled of roast pork and cauliflower, and my mother had begun to break up ice in a bag to put into our little ice-cream machine.

  My train was leaving at eight that evening, and I would be in Adenbrück next morning about six. It was only fifteen minutes’ walk to the station, but I left the house at three o’clock. I lied to my mother, who did not know how
long it took to get to Adenbrück.

  Those last three hours I spent in the house seem, on looking back, worse and longer than the whole time I spent away, and that was a long time. I don’t know what we did. We had no appetite for dinner. My mother soon took back the roast, the cauliflower, the potatoes, and the vanilla ice cream to the kitchen. Then we drank the breakfast coffee which had been kept warm under a yellow cozy, and I smoked cigarettes, and now and again we exchanged a few words. “Eight weeks,” I said, and my mother said, “Yes—yes, of course,” and she didn’t cry anymore. For three hours we lied to each other, till I couldn’t stand it any longer. My mother blessed me, kissed me on both cheeks, and as I closed the front door behind me, I knew she was crying.

  I walked to the station. The station was bustling with activity. It was vacation time: happy suntanned people were milling around. I had a beer in the waiting room, and about half past three decided to call up the girl from the office whom I had arranged to meet at the beach.

  While I was dialing the number, and the perforated nickel dial kept clicking back into place—five times—I almost regretted it, but I dialed the sixth figure, and when her voice asked, “Who is it?” I was silent for a moment, then said slowly, “Bruno” and “Can you come? I have to go off—I’ve been drafted.”

  “Right now?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  She thought it over for a moment, and through the phone I could hear the voices of the others, who were apparently collecting money to buy some ice cream.

  “All right,” she said, “I’ll come. Are you at the station?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  She arrived at the station very quickly, and to this day I don’t know, although she has been my wife now for ten years, to this day I don’t know whether I ought to regret that phone call. After all, she kept my job open for me with the firm, she revived my defunct ambition when I came home, and she is actually the one I have to thank for the fact that those opportunities for advancement have now become reality.

  But I didn’t stay as long as I could have with her either. We went to the movies, and in the cinema, which was empty, dark, and very hot, I kissed her, though I didn’t feel much like it.

  I kept on kissing her, and I went to the station at six o’clock, although I need not have gone till eight. On the platform I kissed her again and boarded the first eastbound train. Ever since then I have not been able to look at a beach without a pang: the sun, the water, the cheerfulness of the people seem all wrong, and I prefer to stroll alone through the town on a rainy day and go to a movie where I don’t have to kiss anybody. My opportunities for advancement with the firm are not yet exhausted. I might become a director, and I probably will, according to the law of paradoxical inertia. For people are convinced I am loyal to the firm and will do a great deal for it. But I am not loyal to it and I haven’t the slightest intention of doing anything for it …

  Lost in thought I have often contemplated that registration sticker, which gave such a sudden twist to my life. And when the tests are held in summer and our young employees come to me afterward with beaming faces to be congratulated, it is my job to make a little speech in which the words “opportunities for advancement” play a traditional role.

  UNEXPECTED GUESTS

  I have nothing against animals; on the contrary, I like them, and I enjoy caressing our dog’s coat in the evening while the cat sits on my lap. It gives me pleasure to watch the children feeding the tortoise in the corner of the living room. I have even grown fond of the baby hippopotamus we keep in our bathtub, and the rabbits running around loose in our apartment have long ceased to worry me. Besides, I am used to coming home in the evening and finding an unexpected visitor: a cheeping baby chick, or a stray dog my wife has taken in. For my wife is a good woman, she never turns anyone away from the door, neither man nor beast, and for many years now our children’s evening prayers have wound up with the words: O Lord, please send us beggars and animals.

  What is really worse is that my wife cannot say no to hawkers and peddlers, with the result that things accumulate in our home which I regard as superfluous—soap, razor blades, brushes, and darning wool—and lying around in drawers are documents which cause me some concern: an assortment of insurance policies and purchase agreements. My sons are insured for their education, my daughters for their trousseaux, but we cannot feed them with either darning wool or soap until they get married or graduate, and it is only in exceptional cases that razor blades are beneficial to the human system.

  It will be readily understood, therefore, that now and again I show signs of slight impatience, although generally speaking I am known to be a quiet man. I often catch myself looking enviously at the rabbits who have made themselves at home under the table, munching away peacefully at their carrots, and the stupid gaze of the hippopotamus, who is hastening the accumulation of silt in our bathtub, causes me at times to stick out my tongue at him. And the tortoise stoically eating its way through lettuce leaves has not the slightest notion of the anxieties that swell my breast: the longing for some fresh, fragrant coffee, for tobacco, bread, and eggs, and the comforting warmth engendered by a schnapps in the throats of careworn men. My sole comfort at such times is Billy, our dog, who, like me, is yawning with hunger. If, on top of all this, unexpected guests arrive—men unshaven like myself, or mothers with babies who get fed warm milk and moistened zwieback—I have to get a grip on myself if I am to keep my temper. But I do keep it, because by this time it is practically the only thing I have left.

  There are days when the mere sight of freshly boiled, snowy potatoes makes my mouth water; for—although I confess this reluctantly and with deep embarrassment—it is a long time since we have enjoyed “good home cooking.” Our only meals are improvised ones of which we partake from time to time, standing up, surrounded by animals and human guests.

  Fortunately it will be a while before my wife can buy useless articles again, for we have no more cash, my wages have been attached for an indefinite period, and I myself am reduced to spending the evenings going around the distant suburbs, in clothing that makes me unrecognizable, selling razor blades, soap, and buttons far below cost; for our situation has become grave. Nevertheless, we own several hundredweight of soap, thousands of razor blades, and buttons of every description, and toward midnight I stagger into the house and go through my pockets for money; my children, my animals, my wife stand around me with shining eyes, for I have usually bought some things on the way home: bread, apples, lard, coffee, and potatoes—the latter, by the way, in great demand among the children as well as the animals—and during the nocturnal hours we gather together for a cheerful meal. Contented animals, contented children are all about me, my wife smiles at me, and we leave the living-room door open so the hippopotamus will not feel left out, his joyful grunts resounding from the bathroom. At that point my wife usually confesses to me that she has an extra guest hidden in the storeroom, who is only brought out when my nerves have been fortified by food: shy, unshaven men, rubbing their hands, take their place at table, women squeeze in between our children on the bench, milk is warmed up for crying babies. In this way I also make the acquaintance of animals that are new to me: seagulls, foxes, and pigs, although once it was a small dromedary.

  “Isn’t it cute?” asked my wife, and I was obliged to say yes, it was, while I anxiously watched the tireless munching of this duffel-colored creature which looked at us out of slate-gray eyes. Fortunately the dromedary only stayed a week, and business was brisk: word had got round of the quality of my merchandise, my reduced prices, and now and again I was even able to sell shoelaces and brushes, articles otherwise not much in demand. As a result, we experienced a period of false prosperity, and my wife, completely blind to the economic facts, produced a remark that worried me, “Things are looking up!” But I saw our stocks of soap shrinking, the razor blades dwindling, and even the supply of brushes and darning wool was no longer substantial.

  Just about this t
ime, when I could have used some spiritual sustenance, our house was shaken one evening, while we were all sitting peacefully together, by a tremor resembling a fair-sized earthquake: the pictures rattled, the table rocked, and a ring of fried sausage rolled off my plate. I was about to jump up and see what the matter was when I noticed suppressed laughter on the faces of my children. “What’s going on here?” I shouted, and for the first time in all my checkered experience I was really beside myself.

  “Wilfred,” said my wife quietly, and put down her fork, “it’s only Wally.” She began to cry, and against her tears I have no defense, for she has borne me seven children.

  “Who is Wally?” I asked wearily, and at that moment the house was rocked by another tremor. “Wally,” said my youngest daughter, “is the elephant we’ve got in the basement.”

  I must admit I was at a loss, which is not really surprising. The largest animal we had housed so far had been the dromedary, and I considered an elephant too big for our apartment.

  My wife and children, not in the least at a loss, supplied the facts: the animal had been brought to us for safekeeping by a bankrupt circus owner. Sliding down the chute which we otherwise use for our coal, it had had no trouble entering the basement. “He rolled himself up into a ball,” said my oldest son, “really an intelligent animal.” I did not doubt it, accepted the fact of Wally’s presence, and was led down in triumph into the basement. The animal was not as large as all that; he waggled his ears and seemed quite at home with us, especially as he had a bale of hay at his disposal. “Isn’t he cute?” asked my wife, but I refused to agree. Cute did not seem to be the right word. Anyway, the family appeared disappointed at the limited extent of my enthusiasm, and my wife said, as we left the basement, “How cruel you are, do you want him to be put up for auction?”

  “What d’you mean, auction,” I said, “and why cruel? Besides, it’s against the law to conceal bankruptcy assets.”