The Collected Stories of Heinrich Boll (90 page)

The conductress came towards me with her pouch, wanting money. That’s right, I thought, the Romanians are our allies, we’re supposed to pay. I shrugged and laughed. But she was quite serious. “Nix,” she said firmly. Turning my wound towards her I said: “Kaputt, see?” but that didn’t move her. She shrugged her shoulders and rubbed thumb
and forefinger. “Nix,” she repeated. Digging into my haversack I found some writing paper, a few crushed cigarettes that I intended to smoke in my pipe, the socks, and a pair of nail scissors. I showed her the nail scissors. The driver raced along at breakneck speed. Some other people had got on. The conductress attended to them, then came back. I showed her the scissors. “How many
lei
?” I asked. She wrinkled her nose. She was quite pretty, and I could see that the scissors appealed to her. She snipped her nails with them, smiled at me, and indicated “twenty” with her fingers. I nodded. I was so happy, for they couldn’t touch me, maybe I was a hero, I’d been wounded right at the front, ten metres away from the Russians. The conductress gave me a ten
-lei
bill and the ticket for five lei. That was all. But I didn’t mind. I was happy, they couldn’t touch me.

I turned to look out at my surroundings. We passed a café, and I remembered I hadn’t had anything to drink for two days and had a raging thirst. The tram stopped at a big square where there was a cinema for the military and some cafés and department stores. It was a busy scene, with soldiers milling round, and whores, and peddlers with their barrows. The whores were fantastically beautiful, with almond eyes and scarlet mouths, but they looked pretty pricey to me.

I got off and went into a café; no one paid any attention to me, no one saw the wound in my back, a superb wound, all bloody, with shreds of cloth and needing at least four months to heal. There was just one soldier in the café, sitting at the back, a corporal, and I could tell at once that he was drunk. To the left sat a man with black hair, coal black, and a fat, pale face, eating a pickled cucumber and smoking a black cigar. To the right sat a woman who smiled at me. She was smoking a cigarette, puffing fiendish smoke rings.

“Lover boy!” she called out, but I didn’t like the looks of her, and I was sure she would be very pricey. The corporal at the back called out: “Hey, there!” I walked towards him. His eyes were dim and unfocused. His chest was covered with medals, and he had a large carafe of wine in front of him.

“Help yourself!” he said. My God, how glorious it was to drink! I drank straight from the carafe. My God, how wonderful it was to drink! I could physically feel how parched I was, and it was a cool wine, on the dry side.

“Help yourself!” said the corporal, but the carafe was empty. “Hey, pal!” he called out, and a greasy-looking fellow immediately came from behind a curtain, snatched up the carafe, and carried it off. The black-haired man was now sitting with the woman, who was as blonde as he was dark. He let her take a bite of his pickle and a puff of his cigar; then they both laughed, and the black-haired man called out towards the curtain something that sounded like Latin, a slushy kind of Latin.

The greasy youth arrived with the carafe, a bigger one than the last, and he also brought along another glass.

“Help yourself!” said the corporal.

He poured, and we drank. I drank, I drank, it was glorious, it was wonderful.

“Have a smoke,” said the corporal, but I hauled out my general’s packet and slapped it onto the table. The blonde woman was laughing with the black-haired man; now they were drinking wine. Wine on top of pickles, I thought, that’s asking for trouble, but they seemed to be enjoying it as they blew their fiendish smoke rings in the air.

“Drink away,” said the corporal. “I have to go back to the front tonight, for the fifth time, goddammit!”

“Take the tram,” I said, “I’ve just come from there, for the third time.”

“Where’ve you come from?”

“From the front.”

“Did you skedaddle?”

“No, I was wounded.”

“Oh, come on!”

I showed him my back.

“Goddammit,” he exclaimed, “aren’t you the lucky one! That’s fantastic. Sell it to me!”

“Sell what?”

“That thing there, that red mess on your back—sell it to me!”

He slapped a whole pile of bills on the table, picked up the carafe, and lifted it to his mouth. Then I drank, then he, then I …

“Hey, pal!” he called.

The greasy youth reappeared and brought another carafe, and we drank.

“Sell it to me, you coward,” shouted the corporal. “I’ll give you a thousand
lei
, two thousand, three thousand, you can buy yourself the best-looking whores, and tobacco, and wine, and you …”

“But you can buy wounds right here, they made me an offer at the station.”

The corporal suddenly turned sober and grabbed my arm.

“Where?” he asked hoarsely.

“At the station,” I said, “they made me an offer right there.”

“Hey, pal!” shouted the corporal. “How much?” He slapped some money on the table, grabbed my arm, and said: “Wait here.”

He put on his cap, tightened his belt and left.

The greasy youth brought another carafe. “It’s paid for,” he said with a grin. And I drank. The blonde woman was sitting on the black-haired man’s knee, shrieking away. She had a cigar in her mouth and a cold pork chop in her hand. The black-haired man was already quite drunk. I drank and smoked. It was glorious, I was drunk, wonderfully drunk, and I’d been wounded, and they couldn’t touch me, maybe I was a hero. Wounded for the third time. The wine was glorious, glorious …

“Hey, pal!” I called out. The greasy youth came and stood grinning in front of me. I pulled the socks out of my haversack and held them out: “How much wine?” He shrugged and wrinkled his nose, then took the socks and held them up to his face. “Not new,” he said, sniffing with his long nose.

“How much?” I asked.

“Give you wine, two like that.” He pointed at the carafe.

“Bring it,” I said, “bring it here, the wine.”

He brought it. Both carafes at once. I drank, I drank, it was glorious, it was wonderful, I was completely drunk, but as sober as only a happy man can be. It was indescribable how cool and dry the wine was, and I paid for it with two pairs of socks. The woman ate a second pork chop as she smoked a cigarette. She was a thin little creature and shrieked like crazy as she sat on the black-haired man’s knee. I saw everything clear as clear, drunk though I was. I could see she wasn’t wearing either a slip or underpants, and the black-haired man kept pinching her behind; that made her shriek, she shrieked because of that too. Then the black-haired man started yelling his head off, lifted the woman high in the air, and carried her out through the door.

At that moment the corporal walked in again.

“Help yourself!” I called out to him.

“Hey, pal!” shouted the corporal, whereupon the greasy youth appeared at once.

“Wine!” shouted the corporal. “A whole barrel of wine!” and I knew that it had worked. He picked up my second carafe, drank it down at one go, and smashed it against the wall.

“Those fellows,” said the corporal, “do a great job. Pistol with silencer. You stand round a corner and stick out your paw, and plop—take a look.”

He pulled up his sleeve. They had put a nice clean hole through his forearm, bandaged it, and even supplied him with a casualty certificate.

The greasy youth brought a large carafe. The corporal was beside himself, shouting and drinking, shouting and drinking. And said: “My name’s Hubert.”

And I drank; it was wonderful.

Then we went off to the first-aid station. Hubert knew all the ropes. As we arrived, a few freight cars were just being loaded with minor casualties. There were two doctors, and in front of each stood a long queue of walking wounded. Since we were drunk, we wanted to come last. We joined the second queue because that doctor looked kinder than the other one. A corporal stood beside him calling out “Next!” Some cases took a long time, and those who had been treated walked through a long corridor leading to a courtyard.

We sat down on a bench, since we were drunk and rather unsteady on our legs. Next to me sat a man who’d had a bullet through the palm of his hand, clear through it, and he was bleeding like a pig onto the bench. He was quite grey in the face.

The doctors were working with the door open, cigarettes between their lips, and sometimes they would take a pull from a bottle. They were slaving away like crazy, and the one I was queuing up for had a nice face, an intelligent face, and I noticed he had skilful, quiet hands. A vehicle arrived with some serious casualties, and we had to wait. The corporal shut the door, and we could hear screams, and there was an even stronger smell of blood and ether. The man with the injured hand had fallen asleep and had stopped bleeding. The blood from his hand had gone all over me, and when I took my paybook out of my left
pocket I found it soaked in blood; the first few pages were no longer legible. I was drunk, I didn’t care, and they couldn’t, they couldn’t touch me, they couldn’t get at me, I’d been wounded, I’d been wounded right at the front, and maybe I was even a hero.

So now I was the unknown soldier.

I said aloud to myself, “I am the unknown soldier,” but the others, sitting on the ground or on the bench, called out “Shut up!” I shut up and looked out onto the street. Hubert had fallen asleep, with his arm stuck out stiffly; it looked very impressive, like a genuine battle injury. They had done a good job; I must be sure and ask him how much it cost. And if the war wasn’t over in four months, I’d get them to shoot me through the arm, too, then I’d get the gold badge, then I’d be a proper official hero, and they wouldn’t be able to touch me at all. But now he was asleep, they still hadn’t finished with the six stretcher cases, and all we could hear was their screaming. I wasn’t all that drunk any more. Someone in the queue suddenly asked quietly: “Got a smoke, anyone?” I recognized the man with the leg who had supported himself on his rifle. But he didn’t recognize me. He still had his rifle, and his face was the face of a real hero. He was proud. I gave him a few of the general’s cigarettes. Hubert was sound asleep and snoring; now his face was quite happy. Then the door opened, and the corporal called out again, “Next!”

After that everything went very fast, and no more vehicles arrived. I was still drunk after all, but I felt fine, with no pain to speak of.

“Hey, next, it’s your turn!” the corporal shouted.

I stepped into a classroom where the benches had been piled up and Marshal Antonescu looked down from the wall, together with Crown Prince Michael. There was a disgusting smell of blood and ether. I took off my tunic and shirt, unaided; I was still drunk. “Hurry up!” said the corporal. Crown Prince Michael had a really stupid Hohenzollern face, and he was boss over the black-haired people and the whores and the greasy youths, the onions and the pickles and the wine. But Romania was a real mess, and he’d never bring it off, nor would Antonescu.

At that moment I became perfectly sober, for the doctor was snipping away in my back. I could feel nothing as he had given me a local anaesthetic, but it is a very queer sensation when they snip away in you like that. I could see it all quite clearly: in front of me was a big
glass-doored cupboard and behind me a glass instrument-case. And I could see my smooth back and the big hole in it, and the doctor snipping the edges nice and smooth and picking something out of the hole. I felt like a frozen carcass being divided up between two butchers. His snipping was quick and deft; then he dabbed something onto the wound, and I saw that the hole had become much bigger. Go on, make it a little bigger, I thought, then it’ll take six months. Maybe the doctor was thinking the same thing. Once again he started snipping and probing. Then came more dabbing, and the corporal, who had been holding me as a matter of routine, went to the door and called out, “Next!”

“Hand grenade, was it, my boy?” the doctor asked as he placed a large wad of cotton wool on the hole in my back.

“I think so,” I replied.

“Quite a nice long piece, want to keep it?” He held out a crumpled, bloodied strip of metal.

“No, thanks,” I said. He tossed it in the garbage can, and I could see a leg lying there, a real, perfectly good, splendid leg. I was cold sober.

“I’m sure there’s a bit of wood in there still, and some shreds of cloth, they’ll all have to come out with the pus—just make certain nothing stays behind.” He laughed. The corporal bandaged me up, winding all kinds of stuff round me, and now dammit I really did feel like a hero, goddammit, wounded by a hand grenade, right at the front.

The doctor looked at Hubert’s clean hole, then at the corporal, and his expression became serious. “Made to order, my friend, just made to order.”

I felt hot all over, but Hubert remained cool.

“A really magnificent home-leave shot, that’s the fifth today,” said the corporal.

“Magnificent,” said the doctor, but he didn’t touch it, merely glanced at the corporal, and the corporal, who was still bandaging me, went across to have a good look at it; then he too looked at Hubert. “Magnificent,” he said.

The doctor, sitting with his legs crossed, was smoking a cigarette. He didn’t touch the wound. Hubert was quite calm but no longer drunk.

“What’s going on?” he asked in surprise. “May I go now—out that way? Be seeing you, Hans,” he said to me. He actually started to leave.

“Hold it,” said the doctor. “What d’you think you’re doing! Baumüller?” He turned towards the corporal who had bandaged me. I was all through now and put on my belt with the haversack.

“It stinks,” said the corporal. “Made to order.”

“Coming, Hubert?” I asked.

“You two know each other?” asked the doctor.

“My section leader,” I said calmly, “he was lying right beside me …”

“I see,” said the doctor; the corporal who had bandaged me also said, “I see,” and they believed me because I had such a splendid hole in my back, a hero’s hole. We left.

Hubert pressed my hand.

Standing outside on the railway tracks were three freight cars. In another car men were singing, and there was that authentic smell of railway, of coal and dry wood, as in all railway stations in the world. There was a smell of war. And it was too bad that we were no longer even slightly drunk. Hubert jumped into a car and helped me up, for I was a bit stiff what with all that bandaging; besides, I now had a huge hole in my back. From his left and right pockets he pulled out a bottle, thrust one at me, and shouted triumphantly: “There—drink, drink!” and we drank … and it was wonderful, they couldn’t touch us, we were wounded, properly wounded, maybe we were heroes, and the corporal would get the gold badge, and then they wouldn’t be able to touch him at all.