Free The Clown by Heinrich Böll Page A

was not disappointed and didn’t start talking about honor. “Was that really necessary—you know how we’ve skimped and savedfor this damned exam, and now,” he closed his hand, opened it, as if he were setting a bird free, “nothing.” “Where’s Marie?” I asked. “Gone,” he said, “gone to Cologne.” “Where is she?” I shouted, “where?” “Keep calm,” he said, “you’ll find out. I suppose you are now going to talk about love, marriage, and so on—don’t bother—go on, go. I shall be interested to see what becomes of you. Now go.” I was afraid to go past him. I said: “And her address?” “Here,” he said and pushed a piece of paper across the table. I put it in my pocket. “Anything else?” he shouted, “anything else? What are you waiting for?” “I need some money,” I said, and was relieved when he suddenly laughed, it was a curious laugh, hard and angry, like the only time I had heard him laugh before, when we talked about my father. “Money,” he said, “that’s a joke, but come along,” he said, “come on,” and he pulled me by the sleeve into the shop, went behind the counter, jerked open the cash register, and tossed out small change with both hands: dimes, nickels, and pennies, he scattered the coins over the notebooks and newspapers, I hesitated, then slowly began to pick up the coins, I was tempted to scoop them up in the palm of my hand, but then I picked them up one by one, counted them, and put them in my pocket. He watched me, nodded, took out his purse, and handed me a five-mark piece. We both blushed. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly, “I’m sorry, Oh God, I’m sorry.” He thought I was offended, but I understood him very well. I said: “May I have a pack of cigarettes too?” and he at once reached toward the shelf behind him and gave me two. He was crying. I leaned over the counter and kissed him on the cheek. He is the only man I have ever kissed.

8
    The thought that Züpfner might be able to watch Marie getting dressed, or be allowed to see how she puts back the cap on the toothpaste, made me feel quite ill. My leg was hurting, and I began to doubt whether anyone would still have booked me even at the thirty to fifty-mark level. Besides, it was torture to think it might mean nothing to Züpfner to watch Marie put back the cap on the toothpaste: in my modest experience, Catholics have no feeling whatever for detail. I had Züpfner’s phone number on my sheet of paper, but I was not yet sufficiently fortified to dial the number. One never knows what someone will do under ideological pressure, and perhaps she had really married Züpfner, and to hear Marie’s voice on the phone saying: “Mrs. Züpfner speaking”—it would have been unbearable. In order to phone Leo I had looked in the phone book under Catholic seminaires, found nothing, and yet knew that these two places existed: Leoninum and Albertinum. At last I felt strong enough to lift the receiver and dial Information, for once it wasn’t engaged, and the girl at the other end even spoke with a Rhineland intonation. There are times when Ilong to hear the Rhine dialect so much that I call up a Bonn telephone service number from some hotel or other, just to hear this utterly nonmartial way of talking which barely pronounces the R’s, the very sound military discipline is based on.
    I heard the “One moment, please” only five times, then a girl answered, and I asked her about these “places where they train Catholic priests”; I told her I had looked under Catholic seminaries, found nothing, she laughed and said these “places”—she said the quotations marks very nicely—were called colleges, and she gave me the numbers of both. The girl’s voice on the phone had made one feel a bit better. It had sounded so natural, not prim, not coy, and typically Rhineland. I even managed to get through to the telegraph office and send off a wire to Karl Emonds.
    I have never been able to