The Collected Stories of Heinrich Boll (80 page)

He swallowed some coffee, picked up the bread again, put it down again.

“Well,” he went on, “I was powerless, of course. At the hearing I was accused of being senselessly fanatical, quixotic. The divisional quartermaster emerged from the battle a rosy, innocent lamb. I was duly punished, transferred, and narrowly escaped demotion. But, damn it all, I can think of no more meaningful battle than against the administration, for the administration—
any
administration—is the administration of mindlessness, the administration of the administration. Oh, God! I’d like to take over the administration of life! I’d like to represent the rights of the living against those dead creatures, even if during my next attack I have to throw my insignia in the general’s face. I don’t want them!” he suddenly shouted, then, embarrassed, began stirring his coffee although it contained neither milk nor sugar. With a sigh he
raised his head. “Now it’s starting all over again,” he said. “You can help me. Do you want to?”

“Sir,” I said, blushing, “my conscience isn’t sufficiently clear for me to accuse others of filching.”

“No?” he merely asked.

I told him about my finaglings in Paris. He listened with lowered head; my confessions clearly embarrassed him.

“You see,” I added, after outlining the essentials, “wherever I can cheat the state, I have no scruples. The state has stolen six years of my youth, it has prevented me from learning a trade. I would call that ‘getting compensation.’”

“So,” he asked quietly, “you wouldn’t hesitate to sell a bicycle, for instance, and pocket the proceeds?”

“Absolutely not,” I admitted, “although …”

“Although?”

“Although several years of concentration camp seem an excessive price to pay for a bicycle.”

“So it’s only the punishment that deters you?”

“Yes.”

“That’s interesting,” he cried eagerly. “Most interesting! This is the first time I’ve heard that put in such classically cynical form. Nevertheless,” he went on with a smile, “if you thought there was the slightest chance of somebody being personally harmed, you wouldn’t take anything, would you?”

“No,” I said.

“We shall see,” he said. “I have to go on duty now.” It was eight o’clock. He ate his scrambled eggs and bread, swallowed a few more mouthfuls of coffee, and left.

Half a minute later I left the house, without having touched my breakfast.

At eight-fifteen I stopped outside the quiet tavern where, barely a week earlier, I had seen and spoken to the girl. It was so quiet all around that I had to stand still and listen. I think that for the first time in my life I could hear my heart beating—rapidly pounding away, that invisible hammer in my chest …

Very quietly I propped the bicycle against the wall and walked straight through the open gate into the yard, for after dismounting I had heard the gentle sounds of milking. I saw her at once, and she too, having heard my footsteps, had risen and turned around. There she stood: milk dripping from her fingers as they hung, curved inward, by her sides, her hair tied back smooth and tight, her red lips open in surprise, her grubby gray smock slipping off her left shoulder. She recognized me immediately and stood there motionless as I walked toward her.

Without a word I put my arms around her, and for half a second I felt her hair against my cheek and her warm breath on my neck, but when I turned her head toward me to kiss her I realized that her body was cold and stiff in my arms, and her face, which I could now see, registered such resistance and fear that I was shocked.

“Angel,” I whispered to her in German, mad with pain, “angel—I love you!”

Her lips grimaced.
“Laisse-moi,”
she implored,
“je ne t’aime pas.”

I released her instantly, but she did not step back: she just stood there, and I could see she was on the verge of tears. Tears over me. My face must have expressed intolerable pain.

She pitied me, and when I realized that, could see it in her face, I knew for the first time how much I loved her. Even her pity seemed like a gift.

“Angel,” I stammered again, “angel!”

I turned away, but she called me back with a strange, birdlike sound. She was smiling. “Wouldn’t you like something to drink?” she asked.

Without waiting for a reply she walked past me, wiped her hands on her smock and, with a gesture of extraordinary grace, pulled her smock up over her shoulder. Dazed, with drooping shoulders, I followed her into the house.

I looked at my watch: twenty past eight. Five minutes had passed, and the world had almost come to an end; a last, soft red glow hung over the horizon—for what lover will ever cease to hope?

She had uncorked a bottle and filled two glasses. “I’m thirsty,” she said in a low voice. “The air’s so sultry, although it’s early yet.”

I find it hard to describe her smile: it was affectionate and sad, leaving me no spark of hope, yet not coquettish. It was ineffably human—I know no other word. She raised her glass; I nodded and drank.

The wine was delicious, cool and dry, and her face showed that she found it refreshing.

“Yes,” I finally said with an effort, my muteness weighing on me like a heavy burden. “If I could just see you occasionally …”

We put down our glasses, and I followed her as she led the way outside. One more nod from her, and she was gone.

At eight-forty-five I was at battalion headquarters; the other dispatch bearers were already assembled. I sat on the steps outside, surrounded by that know-it-all chatter, and the time passed incredibly fast. Again and again I dug around into my memory, resurrecting the scene in the barn in order to find some tiny hope; but I found nothing, and yet …

We waited a long time. We smoked, walked up and down, sat down again, and I joined listlessly in the general scuttlebutt; it was almost eleven when we were summoned to the orderly room. We were each handed a dispatch box, flat, locked wooden boxes for each of which there was one key with the battalion and one with the company, thus ensuring that we couldn’t discover the contents of the dispatches. Nevertheless, it was obvious we were going to Russia. Normally that would have struck me as the ultimate horror; that day it left me cold. I felt numb. I saw the world and didn’t see it. I was aware that the weather had become even more sultry, that the sky was covered with heavy gray clouds. Somehow my will power had also ceased to function. Deep down in a layer of buried consciousness I knew that I must stop, dismount, rest, and try to come to my senses, but I believe I would have gone on riding my bike to the end of the world, on and on, obsessed by the stupefying mechanics of pedaling … on … on … I was dead.

A terrifying clap of thunder roused me. That same instant a warm, heavy rain started coming down in torrents. I looked about me and recognized my surroundings: there was the group of trees,
her
house, and no other shelter in sight. I raced toward the house, dismounted, left my bike lying on the ground, and, carrying the box, burst into the corridor.

I left the door open and stood there without making a sound.

Our bond with nature is closer than we realize. I don’t know how long I stood there; I was barely conscious. When I came to again, I realized I was crying.

The beauty of the torrential summer rain, the cosmic power invested in all flowing water, created in my being some sort of parallel; an element of release, of flow, touched me. I wept. The unspeakable, agonizing spasm was relaxed, and I was alive again.

With trembling nostrils I breathed in that marvelous, sweetly moist fragrance that rose like clouds from the meadows.

I wept …

Suddenly I heard the footsteps of two people approaching along the flagstone path that skirted the house. The rain had let up a bit. I winced, as if a long, fine needle had unerringly pierced the very core of my sensitivity: they were your brother’s footsteps. We know the people we live with better than we imagine: they were his footsteps. I stood stock still, leaning against the wall in the darkness of the corridor.

With the girl beside him, he entered my field of vision, and it was no surprise to me to see her with him. He was pushing his bicycle, half leaning on it, his face turned toward me; of the girl I could see only her back, her head, slightly bent, and a narrow segment of her soft cheek, and I knew that she was smiling. His face was pale and serious, and there was a kind of blissful pain in it, but the shattering thing was the naturalness with which those two seemed to belong together: uttering not a word, merely exchanging little smiles, that gentle pair simply belonged together.

I can’t say I felt jealous. I was breathing heavily, suffused with the pain of being totally excluded. They scarcely moved, they just looked at each other, and there I stood: transfixed to the damp wall of that dilapidated house, thinking that it might feel good to die.

Finally he bent down, kissed her, and said,
“Au revoir, Madeleine.”
He quickly turned away and, pushing his bicycle, walked toward the gate.

“Au revoir, au revoir!”
she called after him.

Then she took a few steps back, probably so as to gaze after him for as long as possible from the top step, and in doing so she bumped against the closed half of the door, turned slightly, saw me, and gave a little shriek …

Your brother had not yet reached the gate. He rushed back to the door; the girl was still looking at me in horror and disbelief. Now he was quite close, saw me, and instantly grasped the situation.

“Come along,” he said to me huskily. I followed him like a condemned man, the dispatch box under my arm, retrieved my bike outside the gate, mounted it, and rode off at his side.

We didn’t look back.

Neither of us ever saw her again.

We rode in silence to company headquarters, where we parted without a word. He went to his quarters; I had to deliver the dispatch box, then go to the kitchen to collect our midday meal, having, as always, handed in our mess kits in the morning.

I put my bike in the shed and stopped by the kitchen to receive our two portions of potatoes and stew; then I followed him to our quarters.

He stood up as soon as I entered. He had already brought out the plates from the kitchenette and placed them on the table, also the cutlery, but he tended to do that a bit awkwardly, so I put our two mess kits on the tray and calmly rearranged forks, knives, and plates, straightened the loaf of bread, and removed the wilted stalks from the flowers in the vase.

All this time he was pacing up and down with folded arms.

“We can eat now,” I said calmly, when everything was ready.

“All right,” he said, and at that moment we looked at each other again for the first time; reluctantly I had to smile. He shook his head, his expression registering bewilderment, then shrugged his shoulders; I was still waiting for him to sit down.

“We don’t want to pass over this in complete silence,” he said in a low voice, “but it’s up to you whether we discuss it or not.”

“No,” I said, my voice equally subdued, “I’d rather not discuss it.”

“Fair enough,” he said. We sat down, and I passed him the little ladle we used for serving ourselves from the mess kits. There was a knock at the door. Putting down his spoon, he called out, “Come in!” and the topkick entered. His normally placid face showed agitation.

By next morning we were on the train heading for Russia. The reports and orders I had picked up were already superseded, canceled by telephone instructions. The men to be transferred had to be selected and prepared for departure that same day and wait at the bases for their replacements, which were said to be on their way. The trucks bringing the replacements were then to take the transferred men to an assembly point near Abbeville, where a division had already arrived, been loaded onto the train, and left. But the train had been blown up, casualties had been heavy, and the division was a hundred and twenty men short of combat strength. Your brother and Schnecker were among the officers.

Whereas I had nothing to do but keep an eye on our two packs, your brother didn’t have a minute’s peace. At the last moment the transferees’ clothing and equipment had to be replenished, and men who had suddenly been taken violently ill had to be persuaded that they were in fact fit; men about to go on leave had where feasible to be replaced. Above all, the transferees had to be assembled as soon as possible in Pochelet so they could attend divine service.

The Catholic divisional priest arrived by car shortly before four and, in view of the general chaos, was accommodated in our quarters. I had to endure his company for half an hour, until the arrival of the first penitents, to whom I offered the use of my room while they waited. Meanwhile your brother told me to clear the living room for the celebration of Holy Mass and the administering of the Sacraments. So I found myself alone with the priest for a while. He had the smooth, rosy skin befitting a staff officer in France, and the mild and obliging manners of a wine salesman. When I threw out a few remarks about war, corruption, and officers in general, he gently rotated one hand in the other, felt constrained to remove his cigarette from his lips, and, with a bland expression, said, “Yes, there is much wickedness in the world.”

We were interrupted when the first penitent knocked at the door, saluted stiffly, and came in.

I couldn’t help muttering to myself, “
Ave, Caesar, morituri
 …”

The priest looked at me with a smile. He finally abandoned his cigarette and said, “Well, well, a Latin scholar!”

His gentle look was a signal for me to leave the room.

Out in the garden, all was quiet. Mild autumnal warmth was interspersed with cool air, the sky was blue, and the cottages of Pochelet
slept behind their high hedges and fences. Your brother had driven over to Larnton, to try to talk some sense into a young soldier apparently overcome by violent cramps.

Preparations were complete, all the other transferees were ready, and divine service was expected to begin punctually at five. The Protestant clergyman was due any minute.

I strolled slowly along behind the company buildings as far as the crossroads and for the first time entered the Pochelet tavern. It was a single-story, flat-roofed building, a typical outdoor summer restaurant, with its wooden walls and garden chairs. The big room was deserted; through the open door to the kitchen I could see the landlady and her husband at their evening meal. She was a pretty, blonde woman, with a barmaid’s cold beauty. Still chewing, she emerged from the kitchen, gave me a friendly smile, and handed me the bottle of white wine I had requested and for which I didn’t yet know how to pay.