The Collected Stories of Heinrich Boll (114 page)

“Give him a tip,” whispered Marie. She remained nervously by the chain separating the parking lot from the square in front of the opera house.

“My principles forbid me to give tips except where they form part of the wages. It’s an offense against human dignity.”

“Perhaps you’ve got a mistaken idea of human dignity: seven hundred years ago my ancestor, the first Schlimm, was given a whole barony as a tip.”

“And maybe that’s why you have so little sense of human dignity. Christ,” he said, lowering his voice, “what do you give in a case like this?”

“Twenty or thirty pfennigs, I should think, or about the same in cigarettes. Go on, please, you go first. Help your assistant. I’m so embarrassed.”

Müller hesitantly approached the attendant, holding out the stub as if it were a pass he didn’t quite trust, then, when the old man’s furious face was turned toward him, quickly drew the cigarette pack from his pocket, saying, “Sorry, I’m afraid we’re a bit late.” The old man took the whole pack, stuck it into his coat pocket, gestured in wordless contempt toward the bicycle, and walked past Marie in the direction of the streetcar stop.

“When you’re in love with lightweight men,” said Marie, “you have the advantage of being able to take them on the luggage carrier.” She rode in and out between waiting cars till they got to the front at
the red light. “Look out, Müller,” she said, “see you don’t scratch their paint with your feet, they’re very touchy about that, they worry about it more than if their wives get a scratch.” And when the driver of the car waiting beside her rolled down his window, she said in a loud voice, “If I were you, I would write a sociology of the various makes of cars. Driving is the training ground of one-upmanship—and the worst ones are the so-called gentlemen behind the wheel. Their false democratic courtesy is positively nauseating; it is hypocrisy par excellence, because it means they expect a medal for something that should be taken for granted.”

“Right,” said Müller, “and the worst thing about them is, they all think
they
look different from the others, while actually …”

The driver quickly wound up his window again.

“Yellow, Marie,” he said.

Marie pushed off, going straight across in front of the cars to the right-hand lane, while Müller conscientiously stuck out his right arm.

“I see I’ve found a good assistant,” he said, as they turned into a dark side street.

“Assistant,” said Marie, over her shoulder, “is a weak translation of
adjutorium
—which contains much more: counsel, and some pleasure too. Where does he live?”

“Mommsen Street,” said Müller, “Number 37.”

“That’s wonderful—he’s stuck with a street name that must annoy him every time he reads it, says it, writes it—and I hope he has to do each of those things three times a day. I’m sure he hates a classicist like Mommsen.”

“He hates him like poison.”

“Serves him right that he has to live on Mommsen Street. What’s the time?”

“Half past seven.”

“A quarter of an hour to go.”

She turned into a still darker side street leading to the park, and stopped; Müller jumped off and helped her to guide the bicycle through the barrier. They walked a few yards along the dark path, stopped beside a bush, and Marie threw her bicycle against a shrub; it sank halfway in, got caught on a twig. “Almost like home,” said Marie. “There’s nothing like shrubbery for bikes.”

Müller put his arms around her, kissed her neck, and Marie whispered, “Don’t you think I’m a bit too skinny for a woman?”

“Be quiet, assistant,” he said.

“You’re terribly scared,” she said. “I didn’t know one could actually feel a person’s heart beating—tell me, are you scared?”

“Of course I am,” he said. “It’s my first assault—and I find it quite incredible that we’re really standing here for the purpose of luring Schmeck into a trap, to beat him up. I just can’t believe it.”

“You see, you have faith in intellectual weapons, in progress and so on, and one has to pay for such mistakes; if there ever were such things as intellectual weapons, they’re no use nowadays.”

“Try to understand,” he whispered, “the mental process: here I am …”

“You poor fellows, you must be schizophrenics. I do wish I weren’t so thin. I read somewhere that thin women aren’t good for schizoids.”

“Your hair actually smells of that filthy plastic, and your hands are quite rough.”

“Yes,” she whispered. “You see, I’m one of those girls you come across in modern novels. Heading: ‘Baroness turns her back on her own class, decides she is really going to
live.’
What’s the time now?”

“Almost quarter to.”

“He’s bound to come soon. It’s so satisfactory to be going to trap him in his own vanity. You ought to have heard his voice when he was talking to that radio reporter, ‘Regularity, rhythm, that is my principle. A light meal—just a snack, actually, at seven-fifteen—and some strong tea; and at a quarter to eight my evening walk through the park.’ You’re sure you know what we’re going to do?”

“Yes,” said Müller. “As soon as he comes round the corner, you lay your bike down right across the path, and when I go ‘Psst,’ you run and lie down beside it. He’ll come running over to you.”

“And you come from behind, beat him up thoroughly, hard enough so he needs some time to come to, and we clear off …”

“That doesn’t sound quite fair.”

“ ‘Fair,’” she said, “that’s just one of those mental images.”

“And what if he calls for help? Or if he manages to get the upper hand? He weighs at least a hundred pounds more than I do! And, as I say, I don’t like the sound of ‘from behind.’”

“Of course, people like you always have your mental images. Fair election campaign, and so on—and obviously you always get defeated. Remember I’m coming to help you, that I’ll hit him good and hard too—and if we have to we’ll just abandon the bike.”

“As a corpus delicti? It must be the only bike in town whose appearance is unmistakable.”

“Your heart’s beating stronger and stronger, faster and faster—you really must be dreadfully scared.”

“Aren’t you?”

“Sure I am,” she said, “but I know we’re in the right, and that this is the only way of seeing some kind of justice done, considering the whole world’s on his side, including the Hottentots.”

“Christ,” whispered Müller, “there he is now.”

Marie jumped onto the path, snatched her bicycle from the bushes, laid it down in the middle of the damp path. Müller watched Schmeck walking along the lane, hatless, his coat open and flapping. “Damn,” he whispered to Marie, “we forgot the dog. Look at that creature, a German shepherd, almost as big as a calf.” Marie was standing beside him again, looking over his shoulder toward Schmeck. “Solveig, Solveig,” he called hoarsely, fending off the dog who was leaping joyously up at him; then he picked up a stone from the path and threw it toward the bushes, where it dropped scarcely ten yards from Müller.

“Damn,” said Marie, “it’s useless trying anything with that dog; he’s vicious, and trained to attack people—I can tell. We’ll get complexes because we didn’t do it after all, but it’s quite useless.” She walked over to the path, picked up her bicycle, nudged Müller, and said softly, “Well, come on, we have to leave, what’s the matter?”

“Nothing,” said Müller. He took Marie’s arm. “I had just forgotten how much I loathe him.”

Schmeck was standing under the streetlight stroking the dog, who had laid the stone at his feet; he looked up as the couple entered the circle of light, glanced once more at the dog, then suddenly up again, and walked toward Müller with outstretched hands. “Müller,” he said warmly, “my dear Müller, fancy meeting you here”—but Müller succeeded in looking at and yet through Schmeck. Mustn’t meet Schmeck’s eyes; if I meet them, he thought, I’m lost; I mustn’t behave as if he isn’t there—he is there, and I’ll extinguish him with my eyes—one step, two,
three—he felt Marie’s firm grasp on his arm, he was panting as if after some enormous exertion.

“Müller,” called Schmeck, “it
is
you—can’t you take a joke?”

The rest was easy: just keep walking, fast and yet not too fast … They heard Schmeck calling again, “Müller,” first loud, then softer, “Müller, Müller, Müller”—and at last they had turned the corner.

Marie’s deep sigh startled him; when he turned to her he saw she was crying. He took the bicycle from her, leaned it against a garden fence, wiped her tears away with his finger, put his free hand on her shoulder. “Marie,” he said softly, “what’s the matter?”

“You scare me,” she said, “that wasn’t an assault, that was murder. I’m scared he’s going to wander around for all eternity in this wretched little park whispering ‘Müller, Müller, Müller.’ It’s like a nightmare: Schmeck’s ghost with the dog, in the damp bushes, his beard growing, getting so long that it drags behind him like a frayed belt—and all the time he’s whispering ‘Müller, Müller, Müller.’ Oughtn’t I to see if he’s all right?”

“No,” said Müller, “no, don’t, just leave him alone, he’s perfectly all right. If you feel sorry for him, give him a mackintosh for his birthday. You can’t even begin to think what he’s done to me; he turned me into the miracle Son of the Working Class. I was his protégé, as they call it—and no doubt he expects the mackintoshes as a form of tribute—but I’m not going to pay him this tribute, not if I can help it. Tomorrow morning he’s going to say casually to Wegelot, his chief assistant, just as he’s leaving the room, ‘By the way, Müller’s gone over into the reactionary camp after all: he’s transferred to Livorno. He called me up yesterday saying he wanted to leave the seminar,’ and then he’ll close the door again, go over to Wegelot, and say, ‘Pity about Müller, very talented, but his draft thesis was simply terrible, quite hopeless. I suppose it’s difficult for these people who have to fight not only the world around them but their own milieu as well. Pity’—then he’ll bite his lip again and leave the room.”

“Are you quite sure that’s how it’s going to be?”

“Quite sure,” said Müller. “Come on, let’s go home. No tears for Schmeck, Marie.”

“The tears weren’t for Schmeck,” said Marie.

“For me, then?”

“Yes—you’re so terribly brave.”

“Now that really does sound like a modern novel. Are we going home?”

“Would you think it terrible if I said I would like one (in a word, one) hot meal?”

“All right,” Müller said, laughing. “Let’s ride to the nearest restaurant.”

“We’d better walk. There are a lot of policemen around at this hour—the park, not many lights, spring in the air—attempted rapes—and a summons would cost us as much as two bowls of soup.”

Müller wheeled the bicycle. They walked slowly along the lane beside the park; as they stepped out of the light from the next street-lamp they saw a policeman in deep shadow beyond the barrier, leaning against a tree.

“You see,” said Marie, loud enough for the policeman to hear, “we’ve already saved two marks for the summons, but as soon as we get out of sight you can hop up again.”

When they had turned the next corner, Marie got up on her bicycle, propping herself against the curb to let Müller get on. She pushed off quickly, leaned back, and called out: “What do you want to do now?”

“How do you mean?”

“I mean, what d’you want to do.”

“Now, or generally speaking?”

“Now
and
generally speaking.”

“Now I’m going to have something to eat with you, and generally speaking I’m going to see Livorno tomorrow, register for his course, ask for an interview, and offer a suggestion for a thesis.”

“On what?”

“ ‘Critical Appreciation of the Collected Works of Schmeck.’”

Marie rode up to the curb, stopped, turned round in the saddle. “On what?”

“I just told you: ‘Critical Appreciation of the Collected Works of Schmeck.’ I know them almost by heart—and hatred makes good ink.”

“Doesn’t love?”

“No,” said Müller, “love makes the worst ink in the world. Ride on, assistant.”

In a harbor on the west coast of Europe, a shabbily dressed man lies dozing in his fishing boat. A smartly dressed tourist is just putting a new roll of color film into his camera to photograph the idyllic picture: blue sky, green sea with peaceful, snowy whitecaps, black boat, red woolen fisherman’s cap. Click. Once more: click and, since all good things come in threes and it’s better to be safe than sorry, a third time: click. The snapping, almost hostile sound awakens the dozing fisherman, who sleepily sits up, sleepily gropes for his cigarettes, but before he has found what he is looking for the eager tourist is already holding a pack under his nose, not exactly sticking a cigarette between his lips but putting one into his hand, and a fourth click, that of the lighter, completes the overeager courtesy. As a result of that excess of nimble courtesy—scarcely measurable, never verifiable—a certain awkwardness has arisen that the tourist, who speaks the language of the country, tries to bridge by striking up a conversation.

“You’ll have a good catch today.”

The fisherman shakes his head.

“But I’ve been told the weather’s favorable!”

The fisherman nods.

“So you won’t be putting out?”

The fisherman shakes his head, the tourist grows more and more uncomfortable. It is clear that he has the welfare of the shabbily dressed man at heart and that disappointment over the lost opportunity is gnawing at him.

“Oh, I’m sorry—aren’t you feeling well?”

At last the fisherman switches from sign language to the spoken word. “I feel fine,” he says. “I’ve never felt better.” He stands up, stretches as if to demonstrate his athletic build. “I feel terrific.”

The tourist’s expression grows steadily more unhappy, and he can no longer suppress the question that threatens, so to speak, to burst his heart: “So why aren’t you putting out?”

The reply comes promptly and succinctly. “Because I was already out this morning.”

“Was it a good catch?”

“It was so good that I don’t need to go out again—I had four lobsters in my traps, and I caught almost two dozen mackerel …”