“A circulus, Herr Professor. I mean: you, I, these two gentlemen, the soldiers over there, we all talk. But what can we accomplish? Can we do something with our bare hands to change the world? We talk. That’s all we’re good for.”
“Tell ya shomp’n, buddy,” says the little old man to the giant. “Dey’re treshpassherzh, poacherzh. And dere’zh no shatishfaction in dat. Did I tell ya how I shlept? I wazh shound ashleep …”
“By God! You can ask Else if you like. Here, Else, did I or didn’t I down fifteen brandies last Saturday? And did it show? Hah! Got up, buckled on my belt and: about face, forward march, direction the barracks. The old legs steady as all get-out, sparks flying from the cobblestones, you’d say I was marching in review on the First of December.”
“I don’t hold with guzzling for the sake of it. Not me. What I drink for is my mood. You knock back a couple and it puts you at ease, like. Take me. When I come in here of an evening I just sit there like some damned plaster saint. Like I had nothing to say. But let me have a shot and whee! I could even kiss Else there and then. Get my drift? That’s what a good jolt does for you.”
“For example, Herr Professor, suppose we build a dam and then a flood comes along and sweeps it all away. What’s the sense of it all, Herr Professor?”
“I wazh shound ashleep when all of a shudden dere wazh tap-a-tapping at the winda. Sho I got up, got out of bed that izh, and what did I shee? Moon shining azh bright azh day and a dove on the winda-shill.”
“Rrruh,” goes the giant, agreeing or belching, it was difficult to say which.
“What did ya shay, bud? Well, I’m no good at reading the dreamzh. And the dove jusht went on tap-a-tapping at the winda. And if I’d opened it, who knowzh, it might have turned out to be a shoul, eh?”
“Grg, no,” replies the giant briefly and assuredly.
“It wazhn’t, eh? Yesh, well, I’m no good at dat short of thing. But it wazh funny, how it went tap-a-tapping … I shaw a film the other day about the Emperor Mackshimilian and how the Communishtsh murder him in Meckshico, shee. And hizh wife the Empresh wazh at Miramare near Trieshte. When the Emperor gave up the ghosht …”
“And what about having children? You’re not married, Herr Professor? Sensible. There’s no such thing as a friend. When they tell you ‘friend’ you think, What does he want from me?”
Well, well, thought Melkior, so Kurt’s philosophy is expanding! He had heard Kurt out on dams before, but his views on children and friends …
“When the Emperor gave up the ghosht hizh shoul went to the Empresh right away like shome dove. Shinging, Open the window, my shoul izh …” (the little old man sang that part). “And you shay, bud, that it wazhn’t a shoul?”
“Nah,” rasped the giant. “That’s just cinema.”
“Far, far awaaay from us, down by the seeea …” nostalgically wails a Sergeant Second Class, throwing his head back and closing his eyes.
“No, no, please,” Else implores him to keep the peace. “We can be fined for this. We have no music license.”
“What do you mean, music? This is national, a folk song. It’s not dance music or anything.”
“No, singing is forbidden as a general rule,” says Else meekly, almost abashed, as if someone were trying to kiss her.
“Armies are for war, aren’t they, Herr Professor?” Kurt then dropped his voice to a whisper and assumed a somewhat confidential air, so that a thought crossed Melkior’s mind, almost alarming him. “See for yourself, Herr Professor: that type of mentality” (he nodded in the direction of the sergeants), “is it fit for waging a war? It’s only fit for barroom brawls. Fifteen brandies, that’s his brand of heroism. War is a science these days. And his idea of a good soldier is sparks flying underfoot. That’s the type of mentality I mean. My poor sister has no choice but to listen to the drivel, because it’s good for business. It’s what we make our living at. And so it goes …”
“What? There ain’t no man alive like our major. To see him facing the ranks on the parade ground, you’d think he’s going to eat your liver for breakfast — but he’s all heart. Word of honor. I went up to him once, sir, says I, you know how it is, a soldier’s life, there’s this gal waiting in town, ‘Any good?’ says he and gives me one of his winks, ‘Welll …’ says I, wondering if I should tell him she’s crème de la crème, ‘Off you go, then,’ says he, ‘and mind you don’t disgrace the battalion,’ and he does his spit ‘n’ snort routine like he was sending me out on a patrol. He’s all heart, honest.”
“And have you ever sheen canariezh kishing, bud? I have. It’sh a lovely shight, their kishing, and mosht interesting, too. You’d never have thought, they being shuch tiny creaturezh …”
“Or take your own case, Herr Professor … You’re a man of intelligence — it’s so stupid!”
“What’s stupid?” Melkior understood immediately and was seriously afraid.
“That lowlifes like that should suck the blood of a man like yourself for nine months! Can’t you think of a way out?” And Kurt became very confidential again. “Herr Professor, my father knows a trick, you see, but it’s nothing dangerous and has no harmful aftereffects. He picked it up in the Great War, it’s a very simple thing to do and there’s no professor of medicine who could suspect a thing. You dip two cigarettes in … in I don’t know what, you dip them in whatever it is and smoke them before your physical. They’ll send you home with tears in their eyes. My Vater got hundreds out that way. What is it you dip them in now? … He ought to be back any minute. If you would care to wait we’ll ask him, all right?”
Melkior was upset by the come-on-we’re-partners intimacy with which Kurt was assailing his innocent fear of history. You know, it’s something altogether different, Kurt, what you have in mind, Kurt, this thing you … in his mind Melkior had started stammering some kind of apology to his conscience.
“Leaving already, Herr Professor? I wanted to ask Vater. What on earth do you dip them in, Christgott? Never mind, I’ll ask Vater for you. Herr Professor. A very good night to you.”
“G’niiight!” Else automaton-like sang her little tune at Melkior’s departure, politely and with a touch of blush in her cheeks.
He climbed to his third floor with difficulty, as though his pockets were filled with stones. That’s exhaustion, he thought, brought on by fasting.
Kurt’s sausage had been his first meal since noon the previous day. He had not even finished the sausage, in view of Kurt’s fingers. “Cannibalism” was the thought he had found in the second half of the sausage. And he had left that half to the surprised, even offended, Kurt. “Horses are more expensive than pigs or cattle,” Kurt had said. “There’s no horsemeat in it.”
There is man-meat, Kurt, in our imagination.