Free The Collected Stories of Heinrich Boll by Heinrich Böll

rules.”
    “Why is it against the rules?”
    “Because it is, chum, that’s what; patients aren’t allowed outside.”
    “But,” I said with pride, “I’m one of the wounded.”
    The sentry gave me a scornful look. “I guess this is the first time you’ve been wounded, or you’d know that the wounded are patients too. Go on, get back in.”
    But I persisted. “Have a heart,” I said, “I only want to buy cakes from that little girl.”
    I pointed outside to where a pretty little Russian girl was standing in the whirling snow peddling cakes.
    “Get back inside, I tell you!”
    The snow was falling softly into the huge puddles on the black schoolyard; the little girl stood there patiently, calling out over and over again, “
Khakes … khakes …
”
    “My God,” I told the sentry, “my mouth’s watering, why don’t you just let the child come inside?”
    “Civilians aren’t allowed inside.”
    “Good God, man,” I said, “the child’s just a child.”
    He gave me another scornful look. “I suppose children aren’t civilians, eh?”
    It was intolerable, the empty, dark street was wrapped in powdery snow, and the child stood there all alone, calling out “
Khakes
…” although no one passed.
    I started to walk out anyway, but the sentry grabbed me by the sleeve and shouted furiously, “Get back, or I’ll call the sergeant!”
    “You’re a damn fool,” I snapped back at him.
    “That’s right,” said the sentry with satisfaction. “Anyone who still has a sense of duty is considered a damn fool by you fellows.”
    I stood for another half minute in the whirling snow, watching the white flakes turn to mud; the whole schoolyard was full of puddles, and dotted about lay little white islands like icing sugar. Suddenly I saw the little girl wink at me and walk off in apparent unconcern down the street. I followed along the inner side of the wall.
    “Damn it all,” I thought, “am I really a patient?” And then I noticed a hole in the wall next to the urinal, and on the other side of the hole stood the little girl with the cakes. The sentry couldn’t see us here. May the Führer bless your sense of duty, I thought.
    The cakes looked marvelous: macaroons and cream slices, buttermilk twists and nut squares gleaming with oil. “How much?” I asked the child.
    She smiled, lifted the basket toward me, and said in her piping voice, “Two marks fifty each.”
    “All the same price?”
    “Yes,” she nodded.
    The snow fell on her fine blond hair, powdering her with fleeting silver dust; her smile was utterly bewitching. The dismal street behind her was empty, and the world seemed dead …
    I took a buttermilk twist and bit into it. It was delicious, there was marzipan in it. Aha, I thought, that’s why these cost as much as the others.
    The little girl was smiling.
    “Good?” she asked. “Good?”
    I nodded. I didn’t mind the cold, I had a thick bandage round my head that made me look very romantic. I tried a cream slice and let the delectable stuff melt slowly in my mouth. And again my mouth watered …
    “Here,” I whispered, “I’ll take the lot, how many are there?”
    She began counting, carefully, with a delicate, rather dirty little forefinger, while I devoured a nut square. It was very quiet, it seemed almost as if there were a soft, gentle weaving of snowflakes in the air. She counted very slowly, made one or two mistakes, and I stood there quite still, eating two more cakes. Then she raised her eyes to me suddenly, at such a startling angle that her pupils slanted upward and the whitesof her eyes were the thin blue of skim milk. She twittered something at me in Russian, but I shrugged my shoulders with a smile, whereupon she bent down and with her dirty little finger wrote a
45
in the snow; I added my five, saying, “Let me have the basket too, will you?”
    She nodded, carefully handing me the basket through the hole, and I passed a couple of hundred-mark bills through