Free The Collected Stories of Heinrich Boll by Heinrich Böll Page B

woman asked me, “What?” Oh, she hadn’t lost the thread, not she.
    “Right at the front,” I said, “I was right in the front lines. Is that your idea of an easy way to make a living?”
    “At the corner?”
    “Well, at the station, actually; you know where I mean?”
    “I do. And now?”
    “I’d like some kind of a job. I’m not lazy, I assure you, ma’am, I’m not lazy.”
    “Excuse me,” she said. Turning her delicate profile toward me, she called into the trailer, “Carlino, isn’t the water boiling yet?”
    “Hang on,” called a bored voice. “I’m just making the coffee.”
    “Are you going to have some?”
    “No.”
    “Then bring two cups, if you don’t mind. You’ll have a cup, won’t you?”
    I nodded. “And I’ll invite you to a cigarette.”
    The screams below the porch now became so piercing that any further conversation would have been impossible. The Half-Woman leaned over the geranium box and called, “You must run for your lives, hurry, hurry—the Russians have reached the village!”
    “My husband,” she said, turning round, “isn’t here at the moment, but when it comes to hiring I can …”
    We were interrupted by Carlino—a slightly built, taciturn, swarthy fellow wearing a hairnet—emerging with cups and coffeepot. He looked at me suspiciously.
    “Why won’t you join us?” the woman asked him as he turned abruptly away.
    “Not thirsty,” he mumbled, disappearing inside the trailer.
    “When it comes to hiring, I can act pretty well on my own. All the same, you would have to have some kind of skill. Nothing is nothing.”
    “Perhaps, ma’am,” I said humbly, “I could grease wheels or take down the tents, drive the tractor, or be the Strong Man’s knockabout.”
    “Driving the tractor is out,” she said, “and there’s quite an art to greasing wheels.”
    “Or operate the brakes,” I continued, “on the gondola swings …”
    She raised her eyebrows haughtily, for the first time giving me a slightly disdainful look. “Operating the brakes,” she said coldly, “is a science, and it wouldn’t surprise me if you broke all the customers’ necks. Carlino is our brakeman.”
    “Or …” I was about to suggest diffidently, but a little dark-haired girl with a scar across her forehead came dashing up the half dozen steps that put me in mind of a gangplank.
    Throwing herself into her mother’s lap she sobbed indignantly, “I’ve got to die …”
    “What?” asked the Half-Woman, aghast.
    “I’m supposed to be the little refugee who freezes to death, and Freddi wants to sell my shoes and everything …”
    “Well,” said her mother, “if you will insist on playing Refugees …”
    “But why always me?” said the child. “It’s always me who has to die. I’m always the one who’s got to die. When we play Bombs or War or Tightrope Walkers, it’s always me that’s got to die.”
    “Tell Freddi he’s got to die; tell him I said it’s his turn to die now.” The little girl ran off.
    “Or?” asked the Half-Woman. Oh, she didn’t lose the thread that easily, not she.
    “Or straighten nails, peel potatoes, ladle out soup, anything you say,” I cried in despair. “Just give me a chance!”
    She stubbed out her cigarette, poured us each another cup of coffee, and gave me a long, smiling look. Then she said, “I’ll give you a chance.You’re good at figures, aren’t you? You had to be, didn’t you, in your former occupation, so”—she hesitated a second—“I’ll make you cashier.”
    I had no words, I was literally speechless, I just got up and kissed her small hand. We said no more. It was very quiet; all we could hear was Carlino humming to himself inside the trailer, the way a man hums when he is shaving …

AT THE BRIDGE
    They have patched up my legs and given me a job I can do sitting down: I count the people crossing the new bridge. They get such a kick out of it, documenting their efficiency with figures; that