Danzig - The Tin Drum Part 13

LANKES: Houses too, but mostly pictures.

BEBRA: Hear, hear! You mean you emulated the great Rembrandt, or maybe Velasquez?

LANKES: Sort of in between.

BEBRA: Why, good G.o.d, man! Why are you mixing, pouring, guarding concrete? You ought to be in the Propaganda Company. Why, a war artist is just what we need!

LANKES: It's not my line, sir. My stuff slants too much for present tastes. But if you've got a cigarette. . . (BEBRA hands him a cigarette.) BEBRA: Slants? I suppose you mean it's modern?

LANKES: What do you mean by modern? Well, anyway, before they started up with their concrete, slanting was modern for a while.

BEBRA: Oh.

LANKES: Yep.

BEBRA: I guess you lay it on thick. With a trowel maybe?

LANKES: Yeah, I do that too. I stick my thumb in, automatic like, I put in nails and b.u.t.tons, and before '33 I had a period when I put barbed wire on cinnabar. Got good reviews. A private collector in Switzerland has them now. Makes soap.

BEBRA: Oh, this war! This awful war! And today you're pouring concrete. Hiring out your genius for fortification work. Well, I've got to admit, Leonardo and Michelangelo did the same thing in their day. Designed military machines and fortifications when they didn't have a madonna on order.

LANKES: See! There's always something c.o.c.keyed. Every real artist has got to express himself. If you'd like to take a look at the ornaments over the entrance, sir, I did them.

BEBRA (after a thorough examination of them): Amazing! What wealth of form. What expressive power!

LANKES: Structural formations I call them.

BEBRA: And your creation, your picture, or should I call it a relief, has it a t.i.tle?

LANKES: I just told you: Formations, or Oblique Formations if you like that better. It's a new style. Never been done before.

BEBRA: Even so, you ought to give it a t.i.tle. Just to avoid misunderstandings. It's your work, after all.

LANKES: What for? What good are t.i.tles? Except to put in the catalog when you have a show.

BEBRA: You're putting on airs, Lankes. Think of me as an art lover, not as an officer. Cigarette? (LANKES takes it.) Well then, what's on your mind?

LANKES: Oh, all right, if. you put it that way. This is how I figure it. When this war is over -- one way or another, it will be over some day -- well, then, when the war is over, the pillboxes will still be here. These things were made to last. And then my time will come. The centuries. . . (He puts the last cigarette in his pocket.) Maybe you've got another cigarette, sir? Thank you, sir. . . the centuries start coming and going, one after another like nothing at all. But the pillboxes stay put just like the Pyramids stayed put. And one fine day one of those archaeologist fellows comes along. And he says to himself: what an artistic void there was between the First and the Seventh World Wars! Dull drab concrete; here and there, over a pillbox entrance, you find some clumsy amateurish squiggles in the old-home style. And that's all. Then he discovers Dora Five, Six, Seven; he sees my Structural Oblique Formations, and he says to himself, Say, take a look at that, Very, very interesting, magic, menacing, and yet shot through with spirituality. In these works a genius, perhaps the only genius of the twentieth century, has expressed himself clearly, resolutely, and for all time. I wonder, says our archaeologist to himself, I wonder if it's got a name? A signature to tell us who the master was? Well, sir, if you look closely, sir, and hold your head on a slant, you'll see, between those Oblique Formations. . .

BEBRA: My gla.s.ses. Help me, Lankes.

LANKES: All right, here's what it says: Herbert Lankes, anno nineteen hundred and forty-four. t.i.tle: Barbaric, Mystical, Bored.

BEBRA: You have given our century its name.

LANKES: See!

BEBRA: Perhaps when they restore your work in five hundred or a thousand years, they will find a few puppy bones in the concrete.

LANKES: That will only give additional force to my t.i.tle.

BEBRA (excited): What are the times and what are we, my friend, if our works. . . but take a look at Felix and Kitty, my acrobats. They are performing on the concrete.

(For some time a piece of paper has been pa.s.sing back and forth between Roswitha and Oskar and Felix and Kitty, each pair writing on it by turns.) KITTY (with a slight Saxon accent): Mr. Bebra, see what we can do on the concrete. (She walks on her hands.) FELIX: n.o.body ever did a back flip on concrete before. Not even a front flip. (He does both.) KITTY: We oughta have a stage like this.

FELIX: It's a bit too windy for me.

KITTY: But it's not hot and stinky like the movie houses. (She ties herself into a knot.) FELIX: And we've just composed a poem up here.

KITTY: What do you mean we? Oskarnello and Roswitha made it up.

FELIX: But we helped out when they were stuck for a rhyme.

KITTY: Just one word is missing, then it'll be done.

FELIX: Oskar wants to know what those spikes in the sand are called.

KITTY: 'Cause he needs them for the poem.

FELIX: They're too important to leave out.

KITTY: Won't you tell us, Mr. Corporal? What are they called?

FELIX: Maybe he's not allowed to. On account of enemy ears.

KITTY: We promise not to tell anybody.

FELIX: It's for art.

KITTY: Oskarnello has gone to so much trouble.

FELIX: And how beautifully he writes. In Sutterlin script.

KITTY: I wonder where he learned it.

FELIX: Oh, Oskar's educated. He knows everything, except what those spikes are called.

LANKES: I'll tell you if the captain has no objection.

BEBRA: But maybe it's top secret.

FELIX: But Oskar needs to know.

KITTY: Or the poem will be ruined.

ROSWITHA: And we're all so curious.

BEBRA: You might as well tell us. It's an order.

LANKES: Well, we put them in as a defense against tanks and landing craft. They look like asparagus, don't they? Well, that's why we call them. Rommel asparagus.

FELIX: Rommel. . .

KITTY: . . .asparagus? Does it fit, Oskarnello?

OSKAR: -- It fits!

(He writes the word on the paper, hands the poem to Kitty on top of the pillbox. She knots herself still more and recites the following lines like a schoolchild.) KITTY: On the Atlantic Wall

Rommel has sent us steel asparagus And here we sit, bristling and camouflaged.

Dreaming of the land of carpet slippers.

Of Sunday's roasts and Friday's kippers.

Where everything is soft and snug: The trend is toward the bourgeois-smug.

We live in concrete and barbed wire.

We bury mines in the latrines.

But then we dream of garden bowers Of frigidaires and happy hours Bestowed by an electric plug: The trend is toward the bourgeois-smug.

Though some of us are sure to die And many a mother's heart must break, Though death still wears a parachute And Martian harness on his suit, The thought of comfort's like a drug: The trend is toward the bourgeois-smug.

(All applaud, including Lankes.) LANKES: It's low tide.

ROSWITHA: That's time for breakfast.

(She brandishes her big basket, which is decorated with bows and artificial flowers.) KITTY: Oh, yes, a picnic in the open.

FELIX: Nature has whetted our appet.i.tes.

ROSWITHA: Oh, sacred act of belly-filling that will unite the nations as long as men eat breakfast!

BEBRA: Let us feast on the concrete. Let us have human rituals built on solid foundations!

(All except for Lankes climb up on the pillbox. Roswitha spreads out a bright flowery tablecloth. From the bottomless basket she produces little cus.h.i.+ons with ta.s.sels and fringes. A pink and bright green parasol is opened, a tiny gramophone with loudspeaker is set up. Little plates, little spoons, little knives, egg cups, and napkins are distributed.) FELIX: I'd like some of the pate de foie gras.

KITTY: Have you still got any of that caviar we rescued from Stalingrad?

OSCAR: You oughtn't to spread the Danish b.u.t.ter so thick, Roswitha.

BEBRA: I'm glad to see you looking out for her figure. That's the right spirit, son.

ROSWITHA: But I like it and it's good for me. Oh! When I think of the cake and whipped cream the Air Force served us in Copenhagen.

BEBRA: The Dutch chocolate in the thermos bottle is still nice and warm.

KITTY: I'm just crazy about these canned American cookies.

ROSWITHA: But they're only good if you spread some of the South African ginger preserve on top.

OSCAR: A little moderation, Roswitha, I beseech you.

ROSWITHA: What about you? Look at the big thick slices of that nasty English corned beef you've been helping yourself to.

BEBRA: What about you, my dear corporal? May I offer you a paper-thin slice of raisin bread with plum jam?

LANKES: If I weren't on duty, sir.

ROSWITHA: He needs an official order.

KITTY: Yes, do give him an order.

BEBRA: Very well. Corporal Lankes, you are hereby ordered to accept a slice of raisin bread with French plum jam, a soft-boiled Danish egg, a spot of Soviet caviar, and a little cup of genuine Dutch chocolate.

LANKES: Yes, sir.

(He joins the others on top of the pillbox.) BEBRA: Haven't we another cus.h.i.+on for the corporal?

OSCAR: He can have mine. I'll sit on my drum.

ROSWITHA: Mustn't catch cold, precious. Concrete is treacherous, and you're not used to it.

KITTY: He can have my cus.h.i.+on too. I'll just knot myself up a little, it helps my digestion anyway.

FELIX: But do eat over the tablecloth or you'll get honey on the concrete. We wouldn't want to damage the defenses! (All giggle.) BEBRA: Ah, the sea air! How fine it makes us feel.

ROSWITHA: Feel!

BEBRA: The breast expands.

ROSWITHA: Expands!

BEBRA: The heart casts off its crust.

ROSWITHA: Crust!

BEBRA: The soul is reborn.