The Tin Drum (83 page)

The accused, however—I think it's safe to say—did not miss the dog.

When the dog Lux returned from the ripe rye, he was carrying something in his mouth. Not that I could tell what the dog held in his mouth. A stick, I thought, or a stone, or, less likely, a tin can or even a tin spoon. Only when the accused removed the corpus delicti from the dog's muzzle did I clearly recognize it for what it was. Yet, speaking conservatively, I would say that from the moment the dog first rubbed his muzzle, still holding the object, on what I believe was the left trouser leg of the accused, to that point in time, which I regret to say can no longer be precisely determined, at which the accused reached in and took possession of what he found there, several minutes passed.

No matter how hard the dog tried to get his temporary master's attention, the accused kept on drumming in that monotonously impressive yet inscrutably childlike fashion. Only when the dog resorted to rudeness, thrusting its damp muzzle between the legs of the accused, did he lower his willow sticks and kick the dog with, as I distinctly re
call, his right foot. The dog made a half circle, returned a second time, trembling like a dog, and presented its full muzzle.

Without rising, seated that is, the accused—this time with his left hand—reached between the dog's teeth. Relieved of his find, the dog Lux backed away several meters. The accused remained seated, however, held the object in his hand, closed his hand, opened it again, closed it again, and when he opened his hand once more something glinted. When the accused had grown accustomed to the sight of the object, he held it up with his thumb and forefinger at approximately eye level.

Only then did I identify the object as a finger, extended the concept because of the glint, called it a ring finger, and without realizing it, had given a name to one of the most interesting trials of the postwar era: I, Gottfried von Vittlar, came to be known as the star witness in the Ring Finger Trial.

Since the accused remained calm, I too remained calm. In fact his composure communicated itself to me. And when the accused carefully wrapped the finger and ring in the handkerchief that had previously blossomed gallantly from his breast pocket, I felt a stirring of sympathy for the man on the cable drum: a neat and tidy gentleman, I thought, there's someone you ought to know.

So I called out to him as he started to leave with his rented dog in the direction of Gerresheim. He reacted with annoyance at first, seemed almost arrogant. I still can't understand why the accused saw me as the symbol of a snake, simply because I was lying in an apple tree. He was suspicious of my mother's cooking apples too, and said they must certainly be of the Paradise variety.

Now it may be true that the Evil One makes a habit of bedding down in the forks of trees. But in my case it was simply boredom, a state I attain with practiced ease, that moved me to seek a spot in the apple tree several times a week. Yet boredom may well be the very essence of Evil. And what had driven the accused beyond Düsseldorfs city walls? Loneliness, as he later confessed to me. And is not loneliness boredom's given name? I put these thoughts forward to explain the accused, not to incriminate him. After all, what made me take a liking to him, address him, and make friends with him was precisely his particular style of Evil, his drumming, which resolved Evil into its rhythmic components. Even this testimony before the bar of the High Court, which
names me as a witness and him as the accused, is a game we invented, just one more small way of diverting and nourishing our boredom and loneliness.

In response to my request, the accused, after some hesitation, slipped the ring off the ring finger—it came off easily—and onto the little finger of my left hand. It fit well and pleased me. Of course I had descended from my customary fork before trying the ring on. We stood on either side of the fence, introduced ourselves, chatted, touching on various political topics, till we felt comfortable, and then he gave me the ring. He kept the finger, holding it carefully. We agreed that it was a woman's finger. While I wore the ring and let the light play on it, the accused began tapping out a lively little dance rhythm on the fence with his free left hand. The fence in front of my mother's garden is so naturally unstable that it responded in its wooden way to the drumming of the accused by rattling and vibrating. I don't know how long we stood like that, conversing with our eyes. We were engaged in this most innocent of games when an airplane's engines sounded at midrange above us. It was probably coming in for a landing at Lohausen. Though we were both curious to know if the incoming plane would land with two engines or four, we kept our eyes on each other and didn't look up at the plane; later on, when we had occasion to play the game now and again, we named it Crazy Leo's Asceticism, since the accused claims that he had a friend by that name some years ago with whom he played this little game, mostly in cemeteries.

When the plane had found its landing field—whether on two or four engines I really can't say—I gave back the ring. The accused placed it on the ring finger, used his handkerchief as packing material again, and asked me to come with him.

This was on the seventh of July, nineteen fifty-one. At the tram terminal in Gerresheim we took a taxi instead of a tram. The accused demonstrated his generosity toward me on many subsequent occasions as well. We drove into the city, asked the taxi to wait outside the dog-rental agency near St. Roch's Church while we turned in the dog Lux, reentered the taxi, which took us straight across the city, through Bilk and Oberbilk, to Wersten Cemetery, where Herr Matzerath had a fare of more than twelve marks to pay; only then did we visit the gravestone shop of the stonecutter Korneff.

The place was filthy and I was glad when the stonecutter had completed my friend's commission, which took about an hour. While my friend described the various tools and types of stone to me in loving detail, Herr Korneff, who said not a word about the finger, made a plaster cast of the finger, without its ring. I watched him work with only half an eye, but saw the finger had to be prepared; it was smeared with grease, sewing thread was run around it, then plaster was poured on and the mold split in two with the string before the plaster hardened. I'm a window dresser by trade, so making a plaster cast is nothing new to me, but the moment the stonecutter picked up the finger I felt it took on an unaesthetic quality, which it did not shed until the cast was made and the accused retrieved the finger, wiped the grease off and tucked it away in his handkerchief. My friend paid the stonecutter. At first he didn't want to take anything, since he considered Herr Matzerath a colleague. He also said Herr Oskar had popped his boils for him a while back and hadn't asked anything for that. When the plaster had hardened, the stonecutter opened the mold, placed the cast next to the original, promised to make more castings from the mold in the next few days, and accompanied us through his display of gravestones out onto Bittweg.

A second taxi ride brought us to the central train station. There the accused treated me to a lavish dinner at a fine restaurant. From his familiar tone with the waiters I gathered Herr Matzerath must be a regular guest there. We ate breast of ox with fresh horseradish, then Rhine salmon, followed by cheese, and finished with a small bottle of champagne. When the conversation drifted back to the finger and I advised the accused to regard it as lost property and turn it in, since he now had a plaster cast of it, the accused stated firmly and decisively that he considered himself its rightful owner, since he'd been promised just such a finger on the occasion of his birth, though in coded form, using the word drumstick; he also mentioned the finger-length scars on his friend Herbert Truczinski's back which had prophesied the ring finger; and then there was that empty shell at Saspe Cemetery, it too had the size and significance of a future ring finger.

Though I smiled at first at my newfound friend's reasoning, I have to admit that any open-minded person would easily grasp the sequence: drumstick, scar, shell, ring finger.

A third taxi took me home after dinner. We agreed to meet again,
and when, three days later, I kept my appointment with the accused, he had a surprise in store for me.

First he showed me his flat, or rather his rooms, for Herr Matzerath lives as a lodger. He seems to have rented a shabby former bathroom to begin with, but later, when his percussive artistry brought him prestige and prosperity, he also paid rent on a windowless room he called Sister Dorothea's chamber, and did not balk at paying for a third room as well, which had been occupied by a certain Herr Münzer, a musician and colleague of the accused, laying out a huge sum, for Herr Zeidler, the landlord of the flat, had raised the rents shamelessly, knowing how prosperous Herr Matzerath had become.

It was in Sister Dorothea's so-called chamber that the accused had prepared his surprise. On the marble top of a mirrored washstand stood a jar the size my mother Alice von Vittlar uses for canning the applesauce she makes from our cooking apples. But this jar contained a ring finger floating in alcohol. The accused proudly showed me several thick medical books that had guided him in preserving the finger. I leafed quickly through the books, barely glancing at the illustrations, but admitted that the accused had done an excellent job of preserving the ring finger's appearance, and that the jar with its contents looked quite pretty and decorative in front of the mirror, which, as a professional window dresser, I was in a position to confirm.

When the accused saw I had accustomed myself to the sight of the jar, he confessed that he occasionally prayed to the jar. Curious, I inquired somewhat boldly if he could give me a sample of his prayers. He requested a favor in return, gave me pencil and paper, and asked me to write down his prayer and pose questions about the finger, which he would answer to the best of his ability as he prayed.

I herewith offer in testimony the words of the accused, my questions, his answers—the Adoration of a canning jar: I adore. Which I? Oskar or I? I piously, Oskar distractedly. Devotion, perpetual, without fearing repetition. I discerning, lacking all memory. Oskar discerning, filled with memories. I cold, hot, warm. Guilty if questioned. Innocent if not. Guilty because, came to grief because, guilty in spite of, absolved myself from, shifted all onto, fought my way through it, kept myself free of it, laughed over at in, cried about for without, blasphemed in speaking, blasphemed in silence, don't speak, don't stay silent, adore. I adore. What?
Jar. What jar? That jar. What does the jar hold? The jar holds the finger. What finger? Ring finger. Whose finger? Blond. What blond? Medium height. Medium height five foot four? Medium height five foot five. Distinguishing features? A mole. Mole where? Inner upper arm. Left right? Right. Ring finger where? Left. Engaged? Yes, but not married. Religion? Protestant. Virgin? Virgin. Born when? Don't know. When? Near Hanover. When? In December. Sagittarius or Capricorn? Sagittarius. Character? Timid. Good-natured? Hardworking, talkative. Sensible? Thrifty, levelheaded but cheerful. Shy? Likes sweets, sincere and bigoted. Pale, dreams of travel, irregular periods, lazy, likes to suffer and talk about it, lacks imagination, passive, takes things as they come, a good listener, nods in agreement, folds her arms, lowers eyelids when speaking, opens eyes wide when addressed, light gray with brown near the pupil, ring was a gift from her boss, a man who was married, refused it at first and then took it, shocking event, fibrous, Satan, lots of white, took trip, moved out, came back, couldn't stop, jealous for no reason, illness but not mine, death but not mine, yes, no, don't want to, picking cornflowers, came later, no, took her there first, can't go on ... Amen? Amen.

I, Gottfried von Vittlar, append this copy of the prayer to my testimony before the Court only because, as confused as it may appear when read, the details regarding the owner of the ring finger coincide in large part with the official description of the murdered woman, the hospital nurse Sister Dorothea Köngetter. I am not trying to cast doubt on the accused's statement that he neither murdered the nurse nor saw her face to face.

The devotion with which my friend knelt before the canning jar, which he had placed on a chair, and plied his tin drum, which he held clamped between his knees, still strikes me today as a noteworthy fact that speaks well for him.

I had numerous opportunities over the following year or so to watch the accused pray and drum, for he hired me as a traveling companion at a generous salary and took me along on his tours, which he had interrupted for a considerable period but resumed shortly after finding the ring finger. We traveled all over West Germany, received offers from the East Zone as well, and even from abroad. But Herr Matzerath wanted to remain within the borders of the Federal Republic, wishing to avoid, as he put it, getting caught up in the usual concert-tour racket. He never
drummed or prayed to the jar before a performance. But after an appearance and a leisurely meal we would repair to our hotel room: he drummed and prayed, I asked questions and wrote, and afterward we compared the prayer with those of previous days and weeks. Of course there are longer and shorter prayers. At times the words clash violently, then the next day they flow, almost tranquil and expansive. Nevertheless all the prayers I've gathered here and submit herewith to the High Court tell us nothing more than the first transcript I appended to my statement.

During this year of travel, between one tour and the next, I met in passing several friends and relatives of Herr Matzerath. He introduced me to his stepmother, Frau Maria Matzerath, whom the accused adores, though with a certain restraint. The half brother of the accused, Kurt Matzerath, also greeted me that day, a well-behaved eleven-year-old schoolboy. Frau Maria Matzerath's sister, Frau Auguste Köster, made an equally positive impression on me. As the accused confessed to me, relationships with his family had been more than a little strained during the early postwar period. It was only when Herr Matzerath set up a large delicatessen for his stepmother, one that even carried tropical fruit, and helped out financially whenever the store ran into difficulties, that a friendly relationship developed between stepmother and stepson.