The Collected Stories of Heinrich Boll (45 page)

He smiled as he passed the Hoppenraths’ garden: they still hadn’t sprayed their trees with that white stuff his father claimed was indispensable. He was always having rows with old Hoppenrath about it, but old Hoppenrath still hadn’t got that white stuff on his trees. It wasn’t far now to his parents’ house—on the left was the Heusers’ house, on the right the Hoppenraths’, and he had only to walk through this narrow lane, then to the left down the main road a bit. The Heusers had the white stuff on their trees. He smiled. He distinctly heard the shell being fired from the other side, and he threw himself to the ground—instantly—and tried to go on smiling, but he couldn’t help flinching when the shell landed in the Hoppenraths’ garden. It burst in a treetop, and a gentle dense rain of white blossoms fell onto the grass. The second shell seemed to land farther along, more toward the Bäumers’ house, almost directly opposite his father’s, the third and fourth landed at the same level but more to the left, they sounded as if they were of medium caliber. He got slowly to his feet as the fifth also fell over there—and then there was nothing more. He listened for a while, heard no more firing, and quickly walked on. Dogs were barking all over the village, and he could hear the chickens and ducks frantically flapping their wings in Heuser’s barn—from some barns came the muffled lowing of cows too, and he thought: Pointless, how pointless. But maybe they were firing at the American car, which he hadn’t heard driving back yet; no, as he turned the corner of the main road he saw the car had already left—the street was quite empty—and the muffled lowing of the cows and the barking of the dogs accompanied him for the few steps he still had to take.

The white flag hanging from his father’s house was the only one in the whole street, and he now saw that it was very large—it must be one of his mother’s huge tablecloths, the kind she took out of the closet on special occasions. He smiled again, but suddenly threw himself to
the ground and knew it was too late. Pointless, he thought, how utterly pointless. The sixth shell struck the gable of his parents’ house. Stones fell, plaster crumbled onto the street, and he heard his mother scream down in the basement. He crawled quickly toward the house, heard the seventh shell being fired, and screamed even before it landed, he screamed very loud, for several seconds, and suddenly he knew that dying was not that easy—he screamed at the top of his voice until the shell struck him, and he rolled in death onto the threshold of the house. The flagpole had snapped, and the white cloth fell over him.

I was leaning out of the window, my arms resting on the sill. I had rolled up my shirt sleeves and was looking beyond the main gate and guard-room across to the divisional headquarters telephone exchange, waiting for my friend Leo to give me the prearranged signal: come to the window, take off his cap, and put it on again. Whenever I got the chance I would lean out of the window, my arms on the sill; whenever I got the chance I would call a girl in Cologne and my mother—at army expense—and when Leo came to the window, took off his cap, and put it on again, I would run down to the barrack square and wait in the public callbox till the phone rang.

The other telephone operators sat there bareheaded, in their under-shirts, and when they leaned forward to plug in or unplug, or to push up a flap, their identity disks would dangle out of their undershirts and fall back again when they straightened up. Leo was the only one wearing a cap, just so he could take it off to give me the signal. He had a heavy, pink face, very fair hair, and came from Oldenburg. The first expression you noticed on his face was guilelessness; the second was incredible guilelessness, and no one paid enough attention to Leo to notice more than those two expressions; he looked as uninteresting as the boys whose faces appear on advertisements for cheese.

It was hot, afternoon; the alert that had been going on for days had become stale, transforming all time as it passed into stillborn Sunday hours. The barrack square lay there blind and empty, and I was glad I could at least keep my head out of the camaraderie of my roommates. Over there the operators were plugging and unplugging, pushing up flaps, wiping off sweat, and Leo was sitting there among them, his cap on his thick fair hair.

All of a sudden I noticed the rhythm of plugging and unplugging had altered; arm movements were no longer routine, mechanical, they became hesitant, and Leo threw his arms up over his head three times:
a signal we had not arranged but from which I could tell that something out of the ordinary had happened. Then I saw an operator take his steel helmet from the switchboard and put it on; he looked ridiculous, sitting there sweating in his undershirt, his identity disk dangling, his steel helmet on his head—but I couldn’t laugh at him; I realized that putting on a steel helmet meant something like “ready for action,” and I was scared.

The ones who had been dozing on their beds behind me in the room got up, lit cigarettes, and formed the two customary groups: three probationary teachers, who were still hoping to be discharged as being “essential to the nation’s educational system,” resumed their discussion of Ernst Jünger; the other two, an orderly and an office clerk, began discussing the female form; they didn’t tell dirty stories, they didn’t laugh, they discussed it just as two exceptionally boring geography teachers might have discussed the conceivably interesting topography of the Ruhr valley. Neither subject interested me. Psychologists, those interested in psychology, and those about to complete an adult education course in psychology may be interested to learn that my desire to call the girl in Cologne became more urgent than in previous weeks; I went to my locker, took out my cap, put it on, and leaned out of the window, my arms on the sill, wearing my cap: the signal for Leo that I had to speak to him at once. To show he understood, he waved to me, and I put on my tunic, went out of the room, down the stairs, and stood at the entrance to headquarters, waiting for Leo.

It was hotter than ever, quieter than ever, the barrack squares were even emptier, and nothing has ever approximated my idea of hell as closely as hot, silent, empty barrack squares. Leo came very quickly; he was also wearing his steel helmet now, and was displaying one of his other five expressions that I knew: dangerous for everything he didn’t like. This was the face he sat at the switchboard with when he was on evening or night duty, listened in on secret official calls, told me what they were about, suddenly jerked out plugs, cut off secret official calls so as to put through an urgent secret call to Cologne for me to talk to the
girl; then it would be my turn to work the switchboard, and Leo would first call his girl in Oldenburg, then his father; meanwhile Leo would cut thick slices from the ham his mother had sent him, cut these into cubes, and we would eat cubes of ham. When things were slack, Leo would teach me the art of recognizing the caller’s rank from the way the flaps fell; at first I thought it was enough to be able to tell the rank simply by the force with which the flap fell—corporal, sergeant, etc.—but Leo could tell exactly whether it was an officious corporal or a tired colonel demanding a line; from the way the flap fell, he could even distinguish between angry captains and annoyed lieutenants—nuances that are very hard to tell apart, and as the evening went on, his other expressions made their appearance: fixed hatred; primordial malice. With these faces he would suddenly become pedantic, articulate his “Are you still talking?,” his “Yessirs,” with great care, and with unnerving rapidity switch plugs so as to turn an official call about boots into one about boots and ammunition, and the other call about ammunition into one about ammunition and boots, or the private conversation of a sergeant major with his wife might be suddenly interrupted by a lieutenant’s voice saying, “I insist the man be punished, I absolutely insist.” With lightning speed Leo would then switch the plugs over so that the boot partners were talking about boots again and the others about ammunition, and the sergeant major’s wife could resume discussion of her stomach trouble with her husband. When the ham was all gone, Leo’s relief had arrived, and we were walking across the silent barrack square to our room, Leo’s face would wear its final expression: foolish, innocent in a way that had nothing to do with childlike innocence.

Any other time I would have laughed at Leo, standing there wearing his steel helmet, that symbol of inflated importance. He looked past me, across the first, the second barrack square, to the stables; his expressions alternated from three to five, from five to four, and with his final expression he said, “It’s war, war, war—they finally made it.” I said nothing, and he said, “I guess you want to talk to her?”

“Yes,” I said.

“I’ve already talked to mine,” he said. “She’s not pregnant. I don’t know whether to be glad or not. What d’you think?”

“You can be glad,” I said. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to have kids in wartime.”

“General mobilization,” he said, “state of alert, this place is soon going to be swarming—and it’ll be a long while before you and I can go off on our bikes again.” (When we were off duty we used to ride our bikes out into the country, onto the moors, the farmers’ wives used to fix us fried eggs and thick slices of bread and butter.) “The first joke of the war has already happened,” said Leo. “In view of my special skills and services in connection with the telephone system, I have been made a corporal. Now go over to the public callbox, and if it doesn’t ring in three minutes I’ll demote myself for incompetence.”

In the callbox I leaned against the Münster Area phone book, lit a cigarette, and looked out through a gap in the frosted glass across the barrack square; the only person I could see was a sergeant major’s wife, in Block 4, I think. She was watering her geraniums from a yellow jug; I waited, looked at my wristwatch: one minute, two, and I was startled when it actually rang, and even more startled when I immediately heard the voice of the girl in Cologne: “Maybach’s Furniture Company.” And I said, “Marie, it’s war, it’s war”—and she said, “No.” I said, “Yes, it is.” Then there was silence for half a minute, and she said, “Shall I come?,” and before I could say spontaneously, instinctively, “Yes, please do,” the voice of what was probably a fairly senior officer shouted, “We need ammunition, and we need it urgently.” The girl said, “Are you still there?” The officer yelled, “Goddamn it!” Meanwhile I had had time to wonder about what it was in the girl’s voice that had sounded unfamiliar, ominous almost: her voice had sounded like marriage, and I suddenly knew I didn’t feel like marrying her. I said, “We’re probably pulling out tonight.” The officer yelled, “Goddamn it, Goddamn it!” (evidently he couldn’t think of anything better to say), the girl said, “I could catch the four o’clock train and be there just before seven,” and I said, more quickly than was polite, “It’s too late, Marie, too late”—then all I heard was the officer, who seemed to be on the verge of apoplexy. He screamed, “Well, do we get the ammunition or don’t we?” And I said in a steely voice (I had learned that from Leo), “No, no, you don’t get any ammunition, even if it chokes you.” Then I hung up.

It was still daylight when we loaded boots from railway cars onto trucks, but by the time we were loading boots from trucks onto railway cars it was dark, and it was still dark when we loaded boots from railway cars onto trucks again; then it was daylight again, and we loaded bales of hay from trucks onto railway cars, and it was still daylight, and we were still loading bales of hay from trucks onto railway cars; but then it was dark again, and for exactly twice as long as we had loaded bales of hay from trucks onto railway cars, we loaded bales of hay from railway cars onto trucks. At one point a field kitchen arrived, in full combat rig. We were given large helpings of goulash and small helpings of potatoes, and we were given real coffee and cigarettes which we didn’t have to pay for; that must have been at night, for I remember hearing a voice say: Real coffee and cigarettes for free, the surest sign of war. I don’t remember the face belonging to this voice. It was daylight again when we marched back to barracks, and as we turned into the street leading past the barracks, we met the first battalion going off. It was headed by a marching band playing “Must I Then,” followed by the first company, then their armored vehicles, then the second, third, and finally the fourth with the heavy machine guns. On not one face, not one single face, did I see the least sign of enthusiasm. Of course, there were some people standing on the sidewalks, some girls too, but not once did I see anybody stick a bunch of flowers onto a soldier’s rifle; there was not even the merest trace of a sign of enthusiasm in the air.

Leo’s bed was untouched. I opened his locker (a degree of familiarity with Leo which the probationary teachers, shaking their heads, called “going too far”). Everything was in its place: the photo of the girl in Oldenburg, she was standing, leaning against her bicycle, in front of a birch tree; photos of Leo’s parents; their farmhouse. Next to the ham there was a message: “Transferred to area headquarters. In touch with you soon. Take all the ham, I’ve taken what I need. Leo.” I didn’t take any of the ham, and closed the locker; I was not hungry, and the rations for two days had been stacked up on the table: bread, cans of liver sausage, butter, cheese, jam, and cigarettes. One of the probationary teachers, the one I liked least, announced that he had been promoted to Pfc and appointed room senior for the period of Leo’s absence; he
began to distribute the rations. It took a very long time; the only thing I was interested in was the cigarettes, and these he left to the last because he was a nonsmoker. When I finally got the cigarettes, I tore open the pack, lay down on the bed in my clothes, and smoked; I watched the others eating. They spread liver sausage an inch thick on the bread and discussed the “excellent quality of the butter,” then they drew the blackout blinds and lay down on their beds. It was very hot, but I didn’t feel like undressing. The sun shone into the room through a few cracks, and in one of these strips of light sat the newly promoted Pfc sewing on his Pfc’s chevron. It isn’t so easy to sew on a Pfc’s chevron: it has to be placed at a certain prescribed distance from the seam of the sleeve; moreover, the two open sides of the chevron must be absolutely straight. The probationary teacher had to take off the chevron several times; he sat there for at least two hours, unpicking it, sewing it back on, and he did not appear to be running out of patience. Outside, the band came marching by every forty minutes, and I heard the “Must I Then” from Block 7, Block 2, from Block 9, then from over by the stables—it would come closer, get very loud, then softer again; it took almost exactly three “Must I Thens” for the Pfc to sew on his chevron, and it still wasn’t quite straight. By that time I had smoked the last of my cigarettes and fell asleep.