A little joke: "Greetings, Sergeant Mahlke!"
My joke fell flat. "I'm waiting for Klohse. He's giving a math class somewhere."
"He'll be mighty pleased."
"I want to speak to him about the lecture."
"Have you been in the auditorium?"
"My lecture's ready, every word of it."
"Have you seen the cleaning women? They're scrubbing down the benches."
"I'll look in later with Klohse. We'll have to discuss the seating arrangement on the platform."
"He'll be mighty pleased."
"I'm going to suggest that they limit the audience to students from the lower Third up."
"Does Klohse know you're waiting?"
"Miss Hersching from the secretariat has gone in to tell him."
"Well, he'll be mighty pleased."
"My lecture will be short but full of action."
"I should think so. Good Lord, man, how did you swing it so quick?"
"Have a little patience, my dear Pilenz: all the circumstances will be discussed in my lecture."
"My, won't Klohse be pleased!"
"I'm going to ask him not to introduce me."
"Mallenbrandt maybe?"
"The proctor can announce the lecture. That's enough."
"Well, he'll be mighty…"
The bell signal leaped from floor to floor, announcing that classes were at an end. Only then did Mahlke open both eyes wide. Short, sparse lashes. His bearing was meant to be free and easy, but he was tensed to leap. Disturbed by something behind my back, I turned half toward the glass case: the cat wasn't gray, more on the black side. It crept unerringly toward us, disclosing a white bib. Stuffed cats are able to creep more convincingly than live ones. "The Domestic Cat," said a calligraphed cardboard sign. The bell stopped, an aggressive stillness set in; the mouse woke up and the cat took on more and more meaning. Consequently I cracked a little joke and another little joke in the direction of the window; I said something about his mother and his aunt; I talked, in order to give him courage, about his father, his father's locomotive, his father's death near Dirschau, and his father's posthumous award for bravery: "How happy your father would be if he were still alive!"
But before I had finished conjuring up Mahlke's father and persuading the mouse that there was no need to fear the cat, Dr. Waldemar Klohse, our principal, stepped between us with his high, smooth voice. Klohse uttered no congratulations, he didn't address Mahlke as Sergeant or Bearer of the Thingamajig, nor did he say, Mr. Mahlke, I am sincerely pleased. After evincing a pointed interest in my experience in the Labor Service and in the natural beauties of Tuchler Heath – "you will remember that Löns grew up there" – he sent a trim column of words marching over Mahlke's field cap: "So you see, Mahlke, you've made it after all. Have you been to the Horst Wessel School? My esteemed colleague, Dr. Wendt, will certainly be glad to see you. I feel sure that you will wish to deliver a little lecture for the benefit of your former schoolmates, to reinforce their confidence in our armed forces. Would you please step into my office for a moment?"
And the Great Mahlke, his arms raised like handles, followed Dr. Klohse into the principal's office and in the doorway whisked his cap off his stubblehead. Oh, that bumpy dome! A schoolboy in uniform on his way to a solemn conference, the outcome of which I did not wait for, although I was curious to know what the already wide-awake and enterprising mouse would say, after the interview, to that cat which though stuffed had never ceased to creep.
Nasty little triumph! Once again I enjoyed my moment of superiority. Just wait and see! He can't won't can't give in. I'll help him. I'll speak to Klohse. I'll find words to touch his heart. Too bad they've taken Papa Brunies to Stutthof. He'd come out with his good old Eichendorff in his pocket and extend a helping hand.
But no one could help Mahlke. Perhaps if I had spoken to Klohse. But I did speak to him; for half an hour I let him blow peppermint breath in my face. I was crushed, and my answer was very feeble: "By all reasonable standards, sir, you are probably right. But couldn't you in view of, I mean, in this particular case? On the one hand, I understand you perfectly. Yes, it can't be denied, a school has to have discipline. What's done can't be undone, but on the other hand, and because he was so young when he lost his father…"
And I spoke to Father Gusewski, and to Tulla, whom I asked to speak to Störtebeker and his gang. I went to see my former group leader in the Young Folk. He had a wooden leg from Crete and was sitting behind a desk in the section headquarters on Winterplatz. He was delighted with my proposal and cursed all schoolmasters: "Sure thing, we'll do it. Bring him over. I dimly remember him. Wasn't there some sort of trouble? Forget it. I'll drum up the biggest crowd I can. Even the League of German Girls and the Women's Association. I can get a hall across from the postal administration, seats three hundred and fifty…"
Father Gusewski wanted to gather his old ladies and a dozen Catholic workers in the sacristy, for the public meeting halls were not available to him.
"Perhaps, to bring his talk into line with the concerns of the Church," Father Gusewski suggested, "your friend could say something about St. George to begin with and conclude with a word or two about the power of prayer in times of great distress." He was eagerly looking forward to the lecture.
The young delinquents associated with Störtebeker and Tulla Pokriefke thought they had a cellar that would fill the bill. A youngster by the name of Rennwand, whom I knew slightly – he served as an altar boy in the Church of the Sacred Heart – spoke of the place in the most mysterious terms: Mahlke would need a safe-conduct and would have to surrender his pistol. "Of course we'll have to blindfold him on the way. And he'll have to sign a pledge not to tell a living soul, but that's a mere formality. Of course we'll pay well, either in cash or in Army watches. We don't do anything for nothing and we, don't expect him to."
But Mahlke accepted none of these possibilities, and he was not interested in pay. I tried to prod him: "What do you want anyway? Nothing's good enough for you. Why don't you go out to Tuchel-North? There's a new batch of recruits. The room orderly and the cook remember you. I'm sure they'd be pleased as Punch to have you make a speech."
Mahlke listened calmly to all my suggestions, smiling in places, nodded assent, asked practical questions about organizing the meeting in question, and once the obstacles were disposed of, tersely and morosely rejected every single proposition, even an invitation from the regional party headquarters, for from the start he had but one aim in mind: the auditorium of our school. He wanted to stand in the dust-swarming light that trickled through Neo-Gothic ogival windows. He wanted to address the stench of three hundred schoolboys, farting high and farting low. He wanted the whetted scalps of his former teachers around him and behind him. He wanted to face the oil painting at the end of the auditorium, showing Baron von Conradi, founder of the school, caseous and immortal beneath heavy varnish. He wanted to enter the auditorium through one of the old-brown folding doors and after a brief, perhaps pointed speech, to leave through the other; but Klohse, in knickers with small checks, stood barring both doors at once: "As a soldier, Mahlke, you ought to realize. No, the cleaning women were scrubbing the benches for no particular reason, not for you, not for your lecture. Your plan may have been excellently conceived, but it cannot be executed. Remember this, Mahlke: There are many mortals who love expensive carpets but are condemned to die on plain floorboards. You must learn renunciation, Mahlke."