To me that kiss on the forehead was to mean a good deal. The political events of the ensuing years bore him out: the era of torchlight processions and parades past rostrums and reviewing stands had begun.

I took Mr. Bebra's advice, and Mama, for her part, followed a part of the advice Sigismund Markus had given her in a.r.s.enal Pa.s.sage and continued to repeat every Thursday. Though she did not go to London with Markus -- I should not have had much objection to the move -- she stayed with Matzerath and saw Bronski only in moderation, that is, in Tischlerga.s.se at Jan's expense and over the family skat games, which became more and more costly for Jan, because he always lost. Matzerath, however, on whom Mama had bet, on whom, following Markus' advice, she let her stakes lie though she did not double them, joined the Party in '34. But though he espoused the forces of order at a relatively early date, he never attained any higher position than unit leader. Like all unusual happenings, his promotion was the occasion for a family skat game. It was then that Matzerath introduced a new note of severity mingled with alarm into the warnings he had long been meting out to Jan Bronski on the subject of his activity in the Polish Post Office.

Otherwise there was no great change. The picture of the gloomy Beethoven, a present from Greff, was removed from its nail over the piano, and Hitler's equally gloomy countenance was hung up on the same nail. Matzerath, who didn't care for serious music, wanted to banish the nearly deaf musician entirely. But Mama, who loved Beethoven's slow movements, who had learned to play two or three of them even more slowly than indicated and decanted them from time to time, insisted that if Beethoven were not over the sofa, he would have to be over the sideboard. So began the most sinister of all confrontations: Hitler and the genius, face to face and eye to eye. Neither of them was very happy about it.

Little by little Matzerath pieced together the uniform. If I remember right, he began with the cap, which he liked to wear even in fine weather with the "storm strap" in place, sc.r.a.ping his chin. For a time he wore a white shirt and black tie with the cap, or else a leather jacket with black armband. Then he bought his first brown shirt and only a week later he wanted the s.h.i.t-brown riding breeches and high boots. Mama was opposed to these acquisitions and several weeks pa.s.sed before the uniform was complete.

Each week there were several occasions to wear the uniform but Matzerath contented himself with the Sunday demonstrations on the Maiwiese near the Sports Palace. But about these he was uncompromising even in the worst weather and refused to carry an umbrella when in uniform. "Duty is duty and schnaps is schnaps," he said. That became a stock phrase with him and we were to hear it very often. He went out every Sunday morning after preparing the roast for dinner. This put me in an embarra.s.sing situation, for Jan Bronski quickly grasped the new Sunday political situation and, incorrigible civilian that he was, took to calling on my poor forsaken mama while Matzerath was drilling and parading.

What could I do but make myself scarce? I had no desire to disturb the two of them on the sofa, or to spy on them. As soon as my uniformed father was out of sight and before the civilian, whom I already looked upon as my presumptive father, should arrive, I consequently slipped out of the house and drummed my way toward the Maiwiese.

Did it have to be the Maiwiese? you may ask. Take my word for it that nothing was doing on the waterfront on Sundays, that I had no inclination to go walking in the woods, and that in those days the interior of the Church of the Sacred Heart still had no appeal for me. There were still Mr. Greff's scouts, to be sure, but even at the risk of being thought a fellow traveler I must admit that I preferred the doings on the Maiwiese to the repressed eroticism of the scout meetings.

There was always a speech either by Greiser or by Lobsack, the district chief of training. Greiser never made much of an impression on me. He was too moderate and was later replaced as Gauleiter by a Bavarian named Forster, who was more forceful. But for Lobsack's humpback, it would have been hard for the Bavarian to get ahead in our northern seaport. Recognizing Lobsack's worth, regarding his hump as a sign of keen intelligence, the Party made him district chief of training. He knew his business. All Forster knew how to do was to shout "Home to the Reich" in his foul Bavarian accent, but Lobsack had a head for particulars. He spoke every variety of Danzig Plattdeutsch, told jokes about Bollermann and Wullsutzki, and knew how to talk to the longsh.o.r.emen in Schichau, the proletariat in Ohra, the middle cla.s.s of Emmaus, Schidlitz, Burgerwiesen, and Praust. It was a pleasure to hear the little man, whose brown uniform lent a special prominence to his hump, stand up to the feeble heckling of the Socialists and the sullen beer-drinker's aggressiveness of the Communists.

Lobsack had wit. He derived all his wit from his hump, which he called by its name; the crowd always likes that. Before the Communists would be allowed to take over he would lose his hump. It was easy to see that he was not going to lose his hump, that his hump was there to stay. It followed that the hump was right and with it the Party -- whence it can be inferred that a hump is an ideal basis for an idea.

When Greiser, Lobsack, or later Forster spoke, they spoke from the rostrum. This was one of the rostrums that little Mr. Bebra had commended. Consequently I long regarded Lobsack, who was humpbacked and gifted and spoke from a rostrum, as an emissary from Bebra, one who stood brown-clad on the rostrum fighting for Bebra's cause and mine.

What is a rostrum? Regardless of whom it is built for, a rostrum must be symmetrical. And that rostrum on our Maiwiese was indeed striking in its symmetry. From back to front: six swastika banners side by side; then a row of flags, pennants, standards; then a row of black-uniformed SS men who clutched their belt buckles during the singing and the speeches; then, seated, several rows of uniformed Party comrades; behind the speaker's stand more Party comrades, leaders of women's a.s.sociations with motherly looks on their faces, representatives of the Senate in civilian garb, guests from the Reich, and the police chief or his representative.

The front of the rostrum was rejuvenated by the Hitler Youth or, more preicsely, by the Regional Bands of the Hitler Young Folk and the Hitler Youth. At some of the demonstrations a mixed chorus, also symmetrically arranged, would recite slogans or sing the praises of the east wind, which, according to the text, was better than any other wind at unfurling banners.

Bebra, who kissed me on the forehead, had also said: "Oskar, never be a member of the audience. Never be standing out in front. The place for our kind is on the rostrum."

Usually I was able to find a place among the leaders of the women's a.s.sociations. Unfortunately the ladies never failed to caress me for propaganda purposes during the rally. I couldn't slip in between the drums and trumpets at the foot of the platform because of my own drum, which the trooper musicians rejected. An attempt to enter into relations with Lobsack, the district chief of training, ended in failure. I had been sorrily mistaken in the man. Neither was he, as I had hoped, an emissary from Bebra, nor, despite his promising hump, had he the slightest understanding of my true stature.

On one of those rostrum Sundays I went up to him as he stood near the pulpit, gave him the party salute, looked brightly up at him for a moment, and then whispered with a wink: "Bebra is our leader!" But no light dawned. No, he patted me just like the ladies of the National Socialist women's a.s.sociations and finally had Oskar removed from the platform -- after all he had a speech to make. I was taken in hand by two representatives of the League of German Girls, who questioned me about my papa and mama all through the speech.

Thus it will come as no surprise when I tell you that by the summer of '34 I began to be disillusioned with the Party -- the Roehm putsch had nothing to do with it. The longer I contemplated the rostrum from out in front, the more suspicious I became of its symmetry, which was not sufficiently relieved by Lobsack's hump. Of course Oskar's criticism was leveled first of all at the drummers and horn-blowers; and one sultry demonstration Sunday in '35, I tangled with the young drummers and trumpet-players at the foot of the reviewing stand.

Matzerath left home at nine o'clock. To get him out of the house on time, I had helped him shine his brown leather puttees. Even at that early hour it was intolerably hot, and even before he went out in the sun, there were dark and spreading spots of sweat under the arms of his Party shirt. At half past nine on the dot Jan Bronski arrived in an airy, light-colored summer suit, tender-grey, pierced oxfords, and a straw hat. Jan played with me for a while, but even as he played, he could not take his eyes off Mama, who had washed her hair the night before. I soon realized that my presence inhibited their conversation; there was a stiffness in her bearing and an air of embarra.s.sment in Jan's movements. It was plain that he felt cramped in those summer trousers of his. And so I made off, following in the footsteps of Matzerath, though I did not take him as my model. Carefully I avoided streets that were full of uniformed folk on their way to the Maiwiese and for the first time approached the drill ground from the direction of the tennis courts which were beside the Sports Palace. Thanks to this indirect route, I obtained a rear view, of the rostrum.

Have you ever seen a rostrum from behind? All men and women -- if I may make a suggestion -- should be familiarized with the rear view of a rostrum before being called upon to gather in front of one. Everyone who has ever taken a good look at a rostrum from behind will be immunized ipso facto against any magic practiced in any form whatsoever on rostrums. Pretty much the same applies to rear views of church altars; but that is another subject.

Oskar was already inclined to thoroughness; he did not content himself with viewing the naked ugliness of the scaffolding. Remembering the words of Bebra his mentor, he made his way to the rostrum. This rostrum was meant to be viewed only from the front, but he approached its uncouth rear. Clutching his drum, without which he never went out, he squeezed between uprights, b.u.mped his head on a projecting beam, and gashed his knee on a protruding nail. He heard the boots of the party comrades overhead, and a moment later the little shoes of the women's a.s.sociations. Finally he reached the place where the August heat was most stifling. At the foot of the stand he found a nook where, hidden behind a slat of plywood, he was able to enjoy the accoustical delights of the political rally at his ease, free from the optical irritation of banners and uniforms.

And so I huddled under the speaker's stand. To the left and right of me and above me stood the younger drummers of the Young Folk and the older drummers of the Hitler Youth, squinting, as I knew, beneath the blinding sunlight. And then the crowd. I smelled them through the cracks in the planking. They stood there rubbing elbows and Sunday clothes. They had come on foot or by streetcar; some had brought their fiancees, to give them a treat; all these people wanted to be present while history was being made, even if it took up the whole morning.

No, said Oskar to himself. It wouldn't be right if they had come for nothing. He set an eye to a knothole in the planking and watched the hubbub approaching from the Hindenburg-Allee. They were coming! Commands rang out over his head, the band leader fiddled with his baton, the musicians set their polished and gleaming trumpets to their lips and adjusted their mouthpieces. And then the grim trumpeting of the young troopers began. "Poor SA Man Brand," said Oskar to himself in bitter pain, "and poor Hitler Youth Quex, you have died in vain."

As though to confirm Oskar's sorrowful obituary for the martyrs of the movement, a ma.s.sive pounding on taut calfskin mingled with the trumpets. Down the lane leading through the crowd to the rostrum, I dimly saw uniforms approaching in the distance. "Now, my people," Oskar cried out. "Now, my people. Hearken unto me!"

The drum was already in place. Supplely and tenderly I manipulated the sticks, imprinting an artful and joyous waltz rhythm upon it. Conjuring up Vienna and the Danube, I beat more and more loudly until the first and second ba.s.s drums of the troopers were drawn to my waltz and the kettledrums of the older boys took up my prelude with varying skill. Here and there, of course, there was a diehard, hard also of hearing no doubt, who went on playing boom-boom, whereas what I had in mind was the three-four time so beloved of the simple folk. Oskar was on the point of giving up when the trumpets saw the light and the fifes, oh, Danube, oh, how blue they blew! Only the leaders of the trumpeters' and the drummers' corps refused to bow to the waltz king and kept shouting their exasperating commands. But I had deposed them, the music was mine. The simple folk were full of grat.i.tude. Laughter rang out close to the rostrum, here and there I heard singing, oh, Danube, and across the whole field so blue, as far as the Hindenburg-Allee so blue and the Steffens-Park so blue, my rhythm went hopping, amplified by the wide-open microphone above me. And when, still energetically drumming, I looked out into the open through my knothole, I saw that the people were enjoying my waltz, they were hopping about merrily, they had it in their legs: already nine couples and yet another couple were dancing, brought together by the waltz king. Only Lobsack, who appeared on the meadow followed by a long brown train of party dignitaries, Forster, Greiser, Rauschning, and others, whose pa.s.sage to the rostrum was blocked by the crowd, stood there fuming and surprisingly disgruntled by my three-quarter time. He was used to being escorted to the rostrum by rectilinear march music. These frivolous sounds shook his faith in the people. Through the knothole I observed his sufferings. A draft was blowing through the hole. Though threatened with an inflammation of the eye, I felt sorry for him and changed over to a Charleston: " Jimmy the Tiger." I took up the rhythm that Bebra the clown had drummed in the circus on empty seltzer siphons; but the young troopers out in front didn't dig the Charleston. They belonged to a different generation. What could they know of the Charleston and "Jimmy the Tiger"? What those drums were pounding -- oh, Bebra, my dear friend -- wasn't Jimmy the Tiger, it was pure chaos, and the trumpets blew Sodom and Gomorrah. It's all one to us, thought the fifes. The trumpet leader cursed in all directions. And nevertheless the troopers drummed, piped, and trumpeted for all they were worth, bringing joy to Jimmy's heart in the sweltering tigery August heat, and at last the national comrades who were crowding round the stand by the thousands caught on: it's Jimmy the Tiger, summoning the people to the Charleston.

All those who were not yet dancing hastened to s.n.a.t.c.h up the last available partners. But Lobsack had to dance with his hump, for near him there was not a single member of the fair s.e.x to be had, and the NS ladies who might have come to his help were far away, fidgeting on the hard wooden benches of the rostrum. Nevertheless -- as his hump advised him -- he danced, trying to put a good face on the horrible Jimmy music and to save what could still be saved.

But the situation was beyond saving. The national comrades danced away from the Maiwiese and soon the gra.s.sy field, though badly trampled, was quite deserted. The national comrades had vanished with Jimmy the Tiger in the s.p.a.cious grounds of the nearby Steffens-Park. There they found the jungle that Jimmy promised; there tigers moved on velvet paws, an ersatz jungle for the sons and daughters of the German nation, who only a short while before had been crowding round the rostrum. Gone were law and order. The more culture-minded element repaired to the Hindenburg-Allee, where trees had first been planted in the eighteenth century, where these same trees had been cut down in 1807 when the city was being besieged by Napoleon's troops, and a fresh set had been planted in 1810 in honor of Napoleon. On this historic ground, the dancers were still able to benefit by my music, because no one turned off the microphone above me. I could be heard as far as Oliva Gate. In the end the excellent lads at the foot of the rostrum succeeded, with the help of Jimmy's unleashed tiger, in clearing the Maiwiese of everything but daisies.

Even when I gave my instrument a well-deserved rest, the drummer boys kept right on. It was quite some time before my musical influence wore off.

Oskar was not able to leave his hiding place at once, SA men and SS men spent more than an hour kicking at the planks, poking into crannies, tearing holes in their brown and black uniforms. They seemed to be looking for something under the rostrum, perhaps a Socialist or a team of Communist saboteurs. I shall not describe my dodges and maneuvers. Suffice it to say that they did not find Oskar, because they were no match for him.

At least it was quiet in my wooden labyrinth, which was about the size of the whale's belly where Jonah sat staining his prophet's robes with blubber. But Oskar was no prophet, he was beginning to feel hungry. There was no Lord to say: "Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it." For me the Lord saw no need to make a gourd grow and send a worm to destroy it. I lamented neither for a biblical gourd nor for Nineveh, even if its name was Danzig. I tucked my very unbiblical drum under my sweater and concentrated on my own troubles. Carefully avoiding overhanging beams and protruding nails, I emerged by my own resources from the bowels of a rostrum intended for meetings and rallies of all sorts and which happened only by the merest accident to have the proportions of a prophet-swallowing whale.

Who would have noticed a wee mite of a three-year-old, whistling as he skirted the Maiwiese in the direction of the Sports Palace. Behind the tennis courts my boys from the rostrum were hopping about with their ba.s.s drums and kettledrums, their fifes and trumpets. Punitive drill, I observed, as they hopped about in response to their leader's whistle. I felt only moderately sorry for them. Aloof from his a.s.sembled staff, Lobsack was walking up and down, alone with his hump. About-facing on the heels of his boots, he had managed to eradicate all the gra.s.s and daisies at the extremities of his course.

Dinner was on the table when Oskar reached home. There was meat loaf with boiled potatoes, red cabbage, and for dessert chocolate pudding with vanilla sauce. Matzerath didn't say a word. Mama's thoughts were somewhere else. But that afternoon there was a family quarrel hinging on jealousy and the Polish Post Office. Toward evening came a refreshing storm, a cloudburst accompanied by a fine drum solo of hail. Oskar's weary instrument was able to rest and listen.

Shopwindows

For several years, until November, '38, to be exact, my drum and I spent a good bit of our time huddling under rostrums, observing successful or not so successful demonstrations, breaking up rallies, driving orators to distraction, transforming marches and hymns into waltzes and fox trots.

Today I am a private patient in a mental hospital, and all that has become historical, old stuff, dead as a doornail, though still much debated and discussed. It has become possible for me to see my drumming under rostrums in proper perspective, and it would never occur to me to set myself up as a resistance fighter because I disrupted six or seven rallies and threw three or four parades out of step with my drumming. That word "resistance" has become very fashionable. We hear of the "spirit of resistance," of "resistance circles." There is even talk of an "inward resistance," a "psychic emigration." Not to mention those courageous and uncompromising souls who call themselves Resistance Fighters, men of the Resistance, because they were fined during the war for not blacking out their bedroom windows properly.

Let us cast one more glance beneath Oskar's rostrums. Did Oskar drum for the people? Did he, following the advice of Bebra his mentor, take the action in hand and provoke the people out in front of the rostrum to dance? Did he confound and perplex Lobsack, the shrewd and able chief of training? Did he, on a one-dish Sunday in August, 1935 and on several occasions thereafter, break up brown rallies on a drum which though red and white was not Polish?

Yes, I did all that. But does that make me, as I lie in this mental hospital, a Resistance Fighter? I must answer in the negative, and I hope that you too, you who are not inmates of mental hospitals, will regard me as nothing more than an eccentric who, for private and what is more esthetic reasons, though to be sure the advice of Bebra my mentor had something to do with it, rejected the cut and color of the uniforms, the rhythm and tone of the music normally played on rostrums, and therefore drummed up a bit of protest on an instrument that was a mere toy.

In those days it was possible to reach the people on and in front of a rostrum with a wretched toy drum, and I must admit that I perfected this little trick, as I had my long-distance, gla.s.s-shattering song, for its own sake. For it was not only demonstrations of a brown hue that I attacked with my drumming. Oskar huddled under the rostrum for Reds and Blacks, for Boy Scouts and Spinach Shirts, for Jehovah's Witnesses, the Kyffhauser Bund, the Vegetarians, and the Young Polish Fresh Air Movement. Whatever they might have to sing, trumpet, or proclaim, my drum knew better.

Yes, my work was destructive. And what I did not defeat with my drum, I killed with my voice. In the daytime I a.s.saulted the symmetry of rostrums; at night -- this was in the winter of '36 to '37 -- I played the tempter. My earliest instruction in the tempting of my fellow men was provided by my grandmother Koljaiczek, who in that hard winter opened a stand at the weekly market in Langfuhr: there she sat in her four skirts, crying plaintively: "Fresh eggs, golden creamy b.u.t.ter, geese not too fat, not too thin." Every Tuesday was market day. She took the narrow-gauge railway from Viereck; shortly before Langfuhr she removed the felt slippers she wore in the train, donned a pair of shapeless galoshes, took up her two baskets, and made her way to the stall in Bahnhofstra.s.se. Over it hung a sign: Anna Koljaiczek, Bissau. How cheap eggs were in those days! You could get two and a half dozen of them for one gulden, and Kashubian b.u.t.ter cost less than margarine. My grandmother's place was between two fish vendors who called: "Fresh flounder and cod! " The cold made the b.u.t.ter hard as stone, kept the eggs fresh, turned fish scales into extra-thin razor blades, and provided work for a one-eyed man named Schwerdtfeger who heated bricks over a charcoal fire, wrapped them in newspaper, and rented them out to the market women.

Every hour on the dot Schwerdtfeger pushed a hot brick under my grandmother's four skirts with an iron rake. He pushed the steaming package under the scarcely lifted hems, discharged it, caught hold of the brick of the preceding hour, which was almost cold by now, and pulled it out.

How I envied those bricks wrapped in newspaper, those storehouses and bestowers of warmth! To this day I wish I could be a toasty warm brick, constantly exchanged for myself, lying beneath my grandmother's skirts. What, you will ask, can Oskar be after beneath his grandmother's skirts? Does he wish to imitate his grandfather Koljaiczek and take liberties with an old woman? Is he searching for oblivion, a home, the ultimate Nirvana?

Oskar replies: I was looking for Africa under the skirts, or perhaps Naples, which, as we all know, one must have seen before dying. This was the watershed, the union of all streams; here special winds blew, or else there was no wind at all; dry and warm, you could listen to the whishing of the rain; here ships made fast or weighed anchors; here our Heavenly Father, who has always been a lover of warmth, sat beside Oskar; the Devil cleaned his spygla.s.s, and the angels played blindman's buff; beneath my grandmother's skirts it was always summer, even when it was time to light the candles on the Chrismas tree or to hunt for Easter eggs; even on All Saints' Day. Nowhere could I have been more at peace with the calendar than beneath my grandmother's skirts.

But she seldom let me take shelter under her tent, and never at market. I sat beside her on a crate, receiving a kind of warmth from her arm, and looked on as the bricks came and went. Here it was that I learned my grandmother's trick of tempting people. Her equipment consisted of Vincent Bronski's old pocketbook with a string tied to it. She would toss the pocketbook out on the hard-packed snow of the sidewalk. Against the grey sand strewn over the slipperiness no one but my grandmother and I could see the string.

Housewives came and went. Cheap as her wares were, they were not in the mood to buy; they wanted the merchandise for nothing, if possible with a little premium thrown in. In this state of mind, a lady would bend down to pick up Vincent's pocketbook, her fingers were already touching it. And then my grandmother would pull in the hook, drawing a well-dressed, slightly embarra.s.sed fish over to her stall: "Well, my dear lady, would you like a little b.u.t.ter, golden creamy, or a few eggs, two and a half dozen for a gulden?"

This was how Anna Koljaiczek sold her produce. I for my part learned the magic of temptation, not the kind of temptation that lured the fourteen-year-olds on our block down to the cellar with Susi Kater to play doctor and patient. That tempted me not at all, I avoided it like the plague after the little monsters, Axel Mischke and Nuchi Eyke, in the role of serum donors, and Susi Kater playing the doctor, had used me as a patient, making me swallow medicines that were not so sandy as the brick soup but had an aftertaste of putrid fish. My temptation was almost disembodied and kept its distance from its victims.

Long after nightfall, an hour or two after the shops closed, I slipped away from Mama and Matzerath and went out into the winter night. Standing in a doorway sheltered from the wind, I would peer across the silent, almost deserted streets at the nearby shopwindows, displays of delicatessen, haberdashery, shoes, watches, jewelry, all articles both desirable and easy to carry. All the windows were not illuminated. Indeed, I preferred those that were half in darkness, beyond the beam of the street lamps, because light attracts everyone, even the most commonplace people, while only the elect choose to linger in the penumbra.

I was not interested in the kind of people who in strolling by cast a glance into brightly lit shopwindows, more concerned with the price tags than the merchandise; nor did I concern myself with those who looked at themselves in the plate-gla.s.s panes to see if their hats were on right. The kind for whom I lurked in wait on crisp dry nights, on nights when the air was full of great silent snowfiakes, or beneath the waxing wintry moon, were the kind who stopped to look in a shopwindow as though in answer to a call; their eyes did not wander about aimlessly, but quickly came to rest on a single object.

I was the hunter, they were my game. My work required patience, coolness, and a sure eye. It was my voice which felled the victim, painlessly and without bloodshed. By temptation. What sort of temptation?

The temptation to steal. With my most inaudible cry I made a circular incision in the shopwindow on a level with the bottommost displays, close to the coveted article. And then, with a last vocal effort, I toppled the cut-out disk into the interior of the showcase. It fell with a quickly m.u.f.fled tinkle, which however was not the tinkle of breaking gla.s.s. I did not hear it, Oskar was too far away; but the young woman in the threadbare brown coat with the rabbit collar heard the sound and saw the circular aperture, gave a start that sent a quiver through her rabbit fur, and prepared to set off through the snow, but stood still, perhaps because it was snowing and everything is permitted when it is snowing, provided it is snowing hard enough. Yet she looked round, suspicious of the snowflakes, looked round as though behind the snowflakes there were something else beside more snowflakes, and she was still looking round when her right hand slipped out of her m.u.f.f, which was also made of bunny fur. Then she stopped looking round and reached through the circular hole, pushed aside the gla.s.s disk which had fallen on top of the desired object, and pulled out first one then the other black suede pump through the hole without scratching the heels, without cutting her hand on the sharp edge of the aperture. One to the left, one to the right, the shoes vanished into her coat pockets. For a moment, for the time it takes five snowflakes to fall, Oskar saw a pretty but insignificant profile; perhaps, the thought flashed through his mind, she was a model at Sternfeld's; and then she had vanished into the falling snow. She was once more briefly visible in the yellow glow of the next street lamp and then, emanc.i.p.ated model or newly wedded wife, she was gone for good.

My work done -- and believe me it was hard work to lurk undrummingly in wait and to sing so neat a hole into the icy gla.s.s -- I too made my way home, without spoils but with a hot flame and a cold chill in my heart.

My arts of seduction were not always crowned with such unequivocal success. One of my ambitions was to turn a couple into a couple of thieves. Either both were unwilling, or even as he stretched out his hand, she pulled it back; or it was she who had the courage while he went down on his knees and pleaded, with the result that she obeyed and despised him forever after. Once I seduced a young couple who in the falling snow seemed particularly young. This time it was a perfumer's shop. He played the hero and seized a bottle of cologne. She whimpered and said she didn't want it. However, he wanted her to be fragrant and had his way up to the first street lamp. But there in the lamplight the young thing stood up on tiptoe and kissed him -- her gestures were as blatantly demonstrative as if her purpose had been to annoy me -- until he retraced his steps and put the bottle back in the window.

I had several similar experiences with elderly gentlemen, of whom I expected more than their brisk step in the wintry night promised. An old fellow would stand gazing devoutly into the window of a cigar store; his thoughts were in Havana, Brazil, or the Brissago Islands, and when my voice produced its custom-made incision and an aperture appeared directly opposite a box of "Black Wisdom," a jackknife folded up in his heart. He turned about, crossed the street waving his cane, and hurried past me and my doorway without noticing me, giving Oskar an opportunity to smile at his stricken countenance, yes, he looked as if the Devil had been giving him a good shaking. But there was a tinge of anxiety in my smile, for the poor old gentleman -- and most of these veteran cigar-smokers were very very old -- was visibly in a cold sweat and especially in changing weather I was afraid he might catch his death of cold.

Most of the stores in our suburb were insured against theft, and that winter the insurance companies had to pay out considerable indemnities. Though I never engineered any depredations on a large scale and purposely made my apertures so small that only one or two objects could be removed from the displays at a time, so many burglaries were reported that the police scarcely had a moment's rest and were nevertheless treated very harshly by the press. From November, '36 to March, '37, when Colonel Koc formed a National Front government in Warsaw, sixty-four attempted and twenty-eight successful burglaries of the same type were listed. Of course the majority of those salesmen, housemaids, old ladies, and pensioned high school princ.i.p.als had no vocation for theft and the police were usually able to recover the stolen articles next day; or else the amateur shoplifter, after the object of his desires had given him a sleepless night, could think of nothing better than to go to the police and say: " Mm, I beg your pardon. It will never happen again. Suddenly there was a hole in the gla.s.s and by the time I had halfway recovered from my fright and was three blocks away, I discovered to my consternation that I was illegally harboring a pair of wonderful calfskin gloves, very expensive I'm sure, in my coat pocket."

Since the police did not believe in miracles, all who were caught and all who went to the police of their own free will were given jail sentences ranging from four to eight weeks.

I myself was punished occasionally with house arrest, for of course Mama suspected, although she did not admit it to herself and -- very wisely -- refrained from communicating with the police, that my gla.s.s-cutting voice had something to do with the crime wave.

Now and then Matzerath would put on his stern, law-abiding face and try to question me. I refused to reply, taking refuge more and more astutely behind my drum and the undersized backwardness of the eternal three-year-old. After these hearings Mama would always cry out: "It's the fault of that midget that kissed him on the forehead. Oskar never used to be that way. The moment I saw it I knew something would go wrong."

I own that Mr. Bebra exerted a lasting influence on me. Even those terms of house arrest could not deter me from going AWOL for an hour or so whenever possible, time enough to sing the notorious circular aperture in a shopwindow and turn a hopeful young man, who happened to be drawn to a certain window display, into the possessor of a pure silk, burgundy necktie.

If you ask me: Was it evil that commanded Oskar to enhance the already considerable temptation offered by a well-polished plate-gla.s.s window by opening a pa.s.sage through it? -- I must reply: Yes, it was evil. If only because I stood in dark doorways. For as everyone should know, a doorway is the favorite dwelling place of evil. On the other hand, without wishing to minimize the wickedness of my acts, I am compelled, now that I have lost all opportunity or inclination to tempt anyone, to say to myself and to Bruno my keeper: Oskar, you not only contented the small and medium-sized desires of all those silent walkers in the snow, those men and women in love with some object of their dreams; no, you helped them to know themselves. Many a respectably well-dressed lady, many a fine old gentleman, many an elderly spinster whose religion had kept her young would never have come to know the thief in their hearts if your voice had not tempted them to steal, not to mention the changes it wrought in self-righteous citizens who until that hour had looked upon the pettiest and most incompetent of pickpockets as a dangerous criminal.

After I had lurked in wait for him several evenings in a row and he had thrice refused to steal but turned thief the fourth time though the police never found him out, Dr. Erwin Scholtis, the dreaded prosecuting attorney, is said to have become a mild, indulgent jurist, a hander-down of almost humane sentences, all because he sacrificed to me, the little demiG.o.d of thieves, and stole a genuine badger-hair shaving brush.

One night in January, '37 I stood for a long while shivering, across the way from a jeweler's shop which, despite its situation in this quiet suburban street bordered with maple trees, was regarded as one of the best in town. The showcase with its jewelry and watches attracted a number of possible victims whom I should have shot down without hesitation if they had been looking at the other displays, at silk stockings, velour hats, or liqueurs.

That is what jewelry does to you. You become slow and exacting, adapting your rhythm to endless circuits of beads. I no longer measured the time in minutes but in pearl years, figuring that the pearl outlasts the neck, that the wrist withers but not the bracelet, that rings but not fingers are found in ancient tombs; in short, one window-shopper struck me as too pretentious, another as too insignificant to bestow jewels on.

The showcase of Bansemer's jewelry store was not overcrowded. A few choice watches, Swiss quality articles, an a.s.sortment of wedding rings on sky-blue velvet, and in the center six or seven of the choicest pieces. There was a snake in three coils, fashioned in multicolored gold, its finely chiseled head adorned and made valuable by a topaz and two diamonds, with two sapphires for eyes. I am not ordinarily a lover of black velvet, but the black velvet on which Bansemer's snake lay was most appropriate, and so was the grey velvet which created a provocative quietness beneath certain strikingly harmonious articles of hammered silver. There was a ring with a gem so lovely that you knew it would wear out the hands of equally lovely ladies, growing more and more beautiful in the process until it attained the degree of immortality which is no doubt the exclusive right of jewels. There were necklaces such as no one can put on with impunity, necklaces that wear out their wearers; and finally, on a pale yellow velvet cushion shaped like a simplified neck base, a necklace of infinite lightness. Subtly, playfully woven, a web perpetually broken off. What spider can have secreted gold to catch six small rubies and one large one in this net? Where was the spider sitting, for what was it lurking in wait? Certainly not for more rubies; more likely for someone whose eye would be caught by the ensnared rubies which sat there like modeled blood -- in other words: To whom should I, in conformity with my plan or the plan of the gold-secreting spider, give this necklace?

On the eighteenth of January, 1937, on crunching hard-trodden snow, in a night that smelled like more snow, the kind of night that is made to order for one who wishes to hold the snow responsible for anything that may happen, I saw Jan Bronski crossing the street not far from my observation post; I saw him pa.s.s the jeweler's shop without looking up and then hesitate or rather stop still as though in answer to a summons. He turned or was turned -- and there stood Jan before the showcase amid the quiet maple trees topped with white.

The handsome, too handsome Jan Bronski, always rather sickly, submissive in his work and ambitious in love, a dull man enamored of beauty; Jan Bronski, who lived by my mother's flesh, who, as to this day I believe and doubt, begot me in Matzerath's name -- there he stood in his fashionable overcoat that might have been cut by a Warsaw tailor, and became a statue of himself, a petrified symbol. Like Parsifal he stood in the snow, but whereas Parsifal's attention had been captured by drops of blood on the snow, Jan's gaze was riveted to the rubies in the golden necklace.

I could have called or drummed him away. My drum was right there with me. I could feel it under my coat. I had only to undo a b.u.t.ton and it would have swung out into the frosty night. I had only to reach into my coat pockets and the sticks would have been ready for action. Hubert the huntsman withheld his arrow when that very special stag entered his field of vision. Saul became Paul. Attila turned back when Pope Leo raised his finger with the ring on it. But I released my arrow, I was not converted, I did not turn back, I, Oskar, remained a hunter intent on my game; I did not unb.u.t.ton my coat, I did not let my drum swing out into the frosty night, I did not cross my drumsticks over the wintry white drumhead, I did not turn that January night into a drummer's night, but screamed silently, screamed as perhaps a star screams or a fish deep down in the sea. I screamed first into the frosty night that new snow might fall at last, and then into the gla.s.s, the dense gla.s.s, the precious gla.s.s, the cheap gla.s.s, the transparent gla.s.s, the part.i.tioning gla.s.s, the gla.s.s between worlds, the virginal, mystical gla.s.s that separated Jan Bronski from the ruby necklace, cutting a hole just right for Jan's glove size, which was well known to me. I made the cutout fall inward like a trap door, like the gate of heaven or the gate of h.e.l.l: and Jan did not flinch, his fine leather hand emerged from his coat pocket and moved heavenward; from heaven or h.e.l.l it removed a necklace whose rubies would have satisfied all the angels in the world, including the fallen. Full of rubies and gold, his hand returned to his pocket, and still he stood by the gaping window although to keep standing there was dangerous, although there were no more bleeding rubies to tell him, or Parsifal, which way to look.

O Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It was high time the spirit moved, or it would be all up with Jan, the father. Oskar the son unb.u.t.toned his coat, reached quickly for his drumsticks, and made his drum cry out: Father, father, until Jan Bronski turned and slowly, much too slowly, crossed the street, and found me, Oskar, in the doorway.

How wonderful it was that just as Jan, still frozen in his trance but about to thaw, turned to look at me, snow began to fall. He held out a hand, but not the glove that had touched the rubies, to me and led me silent but undismayed home, where Mama was worrying about me, and Matzerath, not quite seriously but with his usual show of severity, was threatening to call the police. Jan offered no explanation; he did not stay long and was disinclined to play skat, though Matzerath put beer on the table and invited him. In leaving, he caressed Oskar and Oskar was at a loss to know whether it was discretion or friendship he was asking for.

A few days later Bronski gave my mother the necklace. Surely knowing where it came from, she wore it only when Matzerath was absent, either for herself alone or for Jan Bronski, and possibly for me.

Shortly after the war I exchanged it on the black market in Dusseldorf for twelve cartons of Lucky Strikes and a leather briefcase.

No Wonder

Today as i lie here in my mental hospital, I often regret the power I had in those days to project my voice through the wintry night to thaw frost flowers on gla.s.s, cut holes in shopwindows, and show thieves the way.

How happy I should be, for example, to ungla.s.s the peephole in my door so that Bruno my keeper might observe me more directly.

How I suffered from the loss of this power during the year before my commitment to the hospital! From time to time I would dispatch a cry into the wretched Dusseldorf suburb where I was living. When despite my eagerness for success nothing happened, I, who abhor violence, was quite capable of picking up a stone and flinging it at a kitchen window. I would have been so glad to put on a show, especially for the benefit of Vittlar the window dresser. It was past midnight when I saw him behind the plate-gla.s.s window of a men's fashions store or perhaps of a perfumer's shop. From the waist up he would be hidden by a curtain, but I recognized him by his green and red socks. And though he is or might be my disciple, I desired pa.s.sionately to sing his window to pieces, because I did not know then and still do not know whether to call him John or Judas.

Vittlar is n.o.ble and his first name is Gottfried. When after my humiliating vain vocal effort I called his attention to myself by drumming lightly on the unharmed plate gla.s.s and he stepped outside for a few minutes to chat with me and make light of his decorative abilities, I was reduced to calling him Gottfried because my voice could not perform the miracle that would have ent.i.tled me to call him John or Judas.

The exploit of the jewelry store, which made Jan Bronski a thief and my mama the possessor of a ruby necklace, put a temporary end to my singing outside of shopwindows with desirable displays. Mama got religion. How so? No doubt it was her a.s.sociation with Jan Bronski, the stolen necklace, the delicious misery of an adulterous woman's life, that made her l.u.s.t after sacraments. How easily the routine of sin establishes itself. Ah, those Thursdays: rendezvous in town, deposit little Oskar with Markus, strenuous exercise, usually satisfactory, in Tischlerga.s.se, mocha and pastry at the Cafe Weitzke, pick up the boy along with a few of Markus' compliments and a package of sewing silk, sold at a price which made it more a present than a purchase, and back again to the Number 5 streetcar. Smiling and far away in her thoughts, my mama enjoyed the ride past Oliva Gate through Hindenburg-Allee, scarcely noticing the Maiwiese where Matzerath spent his Sunday mornings. She gritted her teeth on the curve round the Sports Palace -- how ugly that boxlike structure could be immediately after a beautiful experience! -- another curve and there behind dusty trees stood the Conradinum with its red-capped schoolboys -- how lovely if little Oskar could have been there in a red cap with a golden C; he would be twelve and a half, in the first year of high school, just starting in on Latin, cutting the figure of a regular little Conradinian, a good student, though perhaps a bit c.o.c.ky.

After the underpa.s.s, as the car moved on toward Reichskolonie and the Helene Lange School, Mrs. Matzerath's thoughts of the Conradinum and her son Oskar's lost opportunities seeped away. Another curve to leftward, past Christ Church with its bulbiform steeple. Then at Max-Halbe-Platz, we would get out, just in front of Kaiser's grocery store. After a glance into the compet.i.tor's window, my mama turned into Labesweg, her calvary: what with her nascent ill humor, this freak of a child, her troubled conscience, and her impatience to begin all over again, my mama, torn between not enough and too much, between aversion and good-natured affection for Matzerath, plodded wearily down Labesweg with me and my drum and her package of dirt-cheap silk thread, toward the store, toward the rolled oats, the kerosene by the herring barrel, the currants, raisins, almonds, and spices, toward Dr. Oetker's Baking Powder, toward Persil Washes White, Maggi and Knorr, Kaffee Hag, Kuhne's Vinegar, and four-fruit jam, toward the two strips of flypaper, buzzing in different keys, which hung honeysweet over our counter and had to be changed every other day in the summer, whereas Mama, always with the same honeysweet soul, which summer and winter, all year long, attracted sins buzzing high and buzzing low, repaired each Sat.u.r.day to the Church of the Sacred Heart, where she confessed to the Right Reverend Father Wiehnke.

Just as Mama took me with her to the city on Thursday to share as it were in her guilt, she led me on Sat.u.r.day over cool and Catholic flagstones through the church door, having previously stuffed my drum under my sweater or overcoat, for without my drum I would not budge, and without my drum I should never have touched my forehead, chest, and shoulders, making the Catholic cross, nor should I ever have bent my knees as though to put on my shoes and, with holy water slowly drying on the bridge of my nose, sat still and behaved on the polished wooden bench.

I could still remember this church from my baptism: there had been trouble over the heathen name they were giving me, but my parents insisted on Oskar, and Jan, as G.o.dfather, took the same position. Then Father Wiehnke blew into my face three times -- that was supposed to drive Satan out of me. The sign of the cross was made, a hand was imposed, salt was sprinkled, and various other measures were taken against Satan. At the baptismal chapel the party stopped again. I kept still while the Credo and the Lord's Prayer were dished out to me. Afterward Father Wiehnke saw fit to say another "Satan depart", and touched my nose and ears, fancying that by so doing he was opening up the senses of this child, Oskar, who had known what was what from the very first. Then he wanted one last time to hear it loud and plain and asked: "Dost thou renounce Satan? And all his works? And all his pomp?"

Before I could shake my head -- for I had no intention whatsoever of renouncing -- Jan, acting as my proxy, said three times: "I do renounce."

Without my having said anything to spoil my relations with Satan, Father Wiehnke anointed me on the breast and between the shoulder blades. By the baptismal font another Credo, then at last I was dipped thrice in the water, my scalp was anointed with chrism, they clothed me in a white dress to make spots on, the candle for dark days was bestowed on Uncle Jan, and we were dismissed. Matzerath paid, Jan carried me outside the Church, where the taxi was waiting in fair to cloudy weather, and I asked the Satan within me: "Did you get through it all right?"

Satan jumped up and down and whispered: "Did you see those church windows? All gla.s.s, all gla.s.s!"

The Church of the Sacred Heart was built during the early years of the German Empire and its style could consequently be identified as Neo-Gothic. Since the brickwork had quickly darkened and the copper covering of the steeple had promptly taken on the traditional verdegris, the differences between medieval and modern brick Gothic were embarra.s.singly evident only to connoisseurs. Confession was heard in the same way in churches old and new. Just like the Right Reverend Father Wiehkne, a hundred other Right Reverend Fathers sat down in their confessionals on Sat.u.r.days after business hours, pressing their hairy sacerdotal ears to the shiny black grating, and the members of the congregation did their best to slip their strings of sins, bead after bead of tawdry sinfulness, through the wire meshes into the priest's ear.

While Mama, by way of Father Wiehnke's auditory ca.n.a.l, was communicating her commissions and omissions, her thoughts, words, and works, to the supreme authorities of the only-saving Church, I, who had nothing to confess, slipped off the wooden bench, which was too smooth for my liking, and stood waiting on the stone floor.

I must admit that the floors of Catholic churches, the smell of a Catholic church, in fact everything about Catholicism still fascinates me in some inexplicable way, just as redheaded girls fascinate me though I should like to change the color of their hair, and that Catholicism never ceases to inspire me with blasphemies which make it perfectly clear that I was irrevocably though to no good purpose baptized a Catholic. Often I surprise myself in the course of the most commonplace acts, while brushing my teeth, for instance, or even while moving my bowels, muttering commentaries on the Ma.s.s: In Holy Ma.s.s Christ's blood sacrifice is renewed, his blood is shed again for the remission of your sins. The chalice of Christ's blood, the wine is transformed whenever Christ's blood is shed, the true blood of Christ is present, through the vision of his most sacred blood the soul is sprinkled with the blood of Christ, the precious blood, washed in the blood, in the consecration the blood flows, the bloodstained flesh, the voice of Christ's blood rings through all the heavens, the blood of Christ diffuses fragrance before the face of G.o.d.

You will admit that I have maintained a certain Catholic tone. There was a time when I couldn't wait for the streetcar without thinking of the Virgin Mary. I called her blessed, full of grace, virgin of virgins, mother of divine grace, Thou blessed among women, Thou who are worthy of all veneration, Thou who hast borne the. . ., mother most amiable, mother inviolate, virgin most renowned, let me savor the sweetness of the name of Jesus as Thou savoredst it in thy heart, for it is just and meet, right and for our salvation, Queen of Heaven, thrice-blessed. . .

Sometimes, and especially on those Sat.u.r.days when Mama and I went to the Church of the Sacred Heart, that little word "blessed" was so poisonously sweet in my heart that I thanked Satan for living through my baptism within me, for providing me with an antidote which enabled me to stride, blaspheming like a Catholic but still erect, over the flagstones of Sacred Heart.

Jesus, after whose heart the church was named, was manifested not only in the sacraments and in the bright-colored little pictures of the Calvary; there were also three colored sculptures showing him in different poses.

One was of painted-plaster. He stood there, long-haired, on a golden pedestal in a Prussian blue robe and sandals. He opened his robe over his chest and, in defiance of all physiology, disclosed in the middle of his thorax a tomato-red, glorified, and stylized bleeding heart, so enabling the church to be named after this organ.

The very first time I examined this open-hearted Jesus, I couldn't help noticing an embarra.s.sing resemblance between the Saviour and my G.o.dfather, uncle, and presumptive father Jan Bronski. The same dreamy blue eyes full of naive self-confidence. That blossoming rosebud mouth, always on the point of tears. The manly suffering in the line of the eyebrows. The full sanguine cheeks demanding to be chastised. Both had that face which men feel rather inclined to punch in the nose but which wrings caresses from women. And then there were the tired effeminate hands, well manicured and averse to manual labor, with their stigmata displayed like the prize pieces of a court jeweler. I was deeply troubled by those Bronski eyes, those eyes that misunderstood me like a father, which had been painted into Jesus' face. For my own eyes had that same blue look which can arouse enthusiasm but not convince.

Oskar turned away from the bleeding heart in the nave, hastened from the first station of the Cross, where Jesus takes up the Cross, to the seventh station where he falls for the second time beneath its weight, and on to the high altar over which hung the second sculptured image of Jesus. Perhaps he was tired or perhaps he was just trying to concentrate -- in any case, this Jesus had his eyes closed. What muscles the man had! At the sight of this decathlon-winner I forgot all about Sacred-Heart Bronski. There I stood, as often as Mama confessed to Father Wiehnke, gazing devoutly at the athlete over the high altar. You can believe me that I prayed. Athlete most amiable, I called him, athlete of athletes, world's champion hanger on the Cross by regulation nails. And never a twitch or a quiver. The perpetual light quivered, but he displayed perfect discipline and took the highest possible number of points. The stop watches ticked. His time was computed. In the sacristy the s.e.xton's none-too-clean fingers were already polishing his gold medal. But Jesus didn't compete for the sake of honors. Faith came to me. I knelt down as best I could, made the sign of the Cross on my drum, and tried to a.s.sociate words like "blessed" or "afflicted" with Jesse Owens and Rudolf Harbig and last year's Olympic Games in Berlin; but I was not always successful, for I had to admit that Jesus had not played fair with the two thieves. Forced to disqualify him, I turned my head to the left, where, taking new hope, I saw the third statue of the divine athlete in the interior of the church.

"Let me not pray until I have seen thrice," I stammered, then set my feet down on the flags and followed the checkerboard pattern to the left-side altar. At every step I had the feeling: he is looking after you, the saints are looking after you, Peter, whom they nailed to a cross with his head down, Andrew whom they nailed to a slanting cross -- hence the St. Andrew's cross. There is also a Greek cross, not to mention the Latin, or Pa.s.sion, cross. Double crosses, Teutonic crosses, and Calvary crosses are reproduced on textiles, in books and pictures. I have seen the patty cross, the anchor cross, and the cloverleaf cross overlapping in relief. The Moline cross is handsome, the Maltese cross is coveted, the hooked cross, or swastika, is forbidden, while de Gaulle's cross, the cross of Lorraine, is called the cross of St. Anthony in naval battles. This same cross of St. Anthony is worn on a chain, the thieves' cross is ugly, the Pope's cross is papal, and the Russian cross is also known as the cross of Lazarus. In addition there is the Red Cross. And the anti-alcoholic Blue Cross. Yellow cross is poison, cross spiders eat one another. At the crossroads you crossed me up, crisscross, cross-examination, cross purposes, crossword puzzles. And so I turned round, leaving the Cross behind me; turned my back on the crucified athlete, and approached the child Jesus who was propped up on the Virgin Mary's right thigh.

Oskar stood by the left side-altar of the left aisle of the nave. Mary had the expression that his mama must have worn when as a seventeen-year-old shopgirl in Troyl she had no money for the movies, but made up for it by gazing spellbound at posters of Asta Nielsen.

She took no interest in Jesus but was looking at the other boy on her right knee, whom, to avert misunderstandings, I shall identify at once as John the Baptist. Both boys were my size. Actually Jesus seemed perhaps an inch taller, though according to the texts he was even younger than the little Baptist. It had amused the sculptor to make the three-year-old Saviour pink and naked. John, because he would later go out into the desert, was wearing a s.h.a.ggy, chocolate-colored pelt, which covered half his chest, his belly, and his watering can.

Oskar would have done better to stay by the high altar or to mind his business in the vicinity of the confessional than to venture into the company of these two boys with that precocious look in their eyes which bore a terrifying resemblance to his own. Naturally they had blue eyes and his chestnut-brown hair. The likeness would have been complete if only the barber-sculptor had given his two little Oskars a crew cut and chopped off those preposterous corkscrew curls.

I shall not dwell too long on the boy Baptist, who pointed his left forefinger at Jesus as though counting off to see who should play first: "Eeny meeny miny mo. . ." Ignoring such childish pastimes, I take a good look at Jesus and recognize my spit and image. He might have been my twin brother. He had my stature and exactly my watering can, in those days employed exclusively as a watering can. He looked out into the world with my cobalt blue Bronski eyes and -- this was what I resented most -- he had my very own gestures.

My double raised both arms and clenched his fists in such a way that one wanted desperately to thrust something into them, my drumsticks for example. If the sculptor had done that and put a red and white plaster drum on his pink little thighs, it would have been I, Oskar's very own self, who sat there on the Virgin's knee, drumming the congregation together. There are things in this world which -- sacred as they may be -- cannot be left as they are.