Chapter 15 small coffin

So does mom.After this Good Friday, when the horse's head was covered with eels, we went to the countryside of Bissau with the Bronski family to spend Easter with my grandmother and uncle Vinzent.Then came her Good Friday, which not even the bright May weather could bring back. Some people said that Matzerath forced his mother to eat fish again, but this is not true.Two weeks after Easter, she inexplicably started to eat automatically, as if possessed by a demon, completely ignoring that she would gain weight, and she ate so much that Matzerath had to say: "Don't eat so much. Fish, as if someone forced you to eat it."

However, she eats sardines in olive oil for breakfast.Two hours later, when there were no customers in the store, she munched on Bonzac's sprats from the crates.For lunch she insisted on pan-fried halibut or cod with mustard sauce.In the afternoon she was again with the can opener, opening cans of eel aspic, herring rolls, and fried herring.At dinner, if Matzerath refused to fry the fish or make fish soup again, she stood up without speaking or cursing, and left the table to take back a piece of smoked eel from the shop.This turned us off, because she ate the eel with a knife, scraping the fat off the skin and belly.She always eats fish with a knife.During the day, she vomited again and again.Matzerath was worried and helpless, so he asked her, "Are you pregnant or what happened?"

"Don't talk nonsense," would be his mother's answer, if she still wanted to talk.One Sunday, grandmother Koljacek came.Seeing green eels swimming in a buttery sauce and fresh potatoes, she slapped the table angrily and said, "What's the matter, Agnes is a concept. In modern Western philosophy, Bergson From an irrationalist point of view, you say it! You shouldn’t eat fish, but you eat fish, and you don’t tell the truth, you’re like a madman!” Mom just shook her head, pushed the potatoes aside, and ate fish from the butter sauce. Take the eel out of the water and eat it anyway.She chewed, as if completing a laborious task.Jan Bronski said nothing.Once, the two of them were on the sofa when I ran into them.They were holding each other's hands as usual, and their clothes were messy.However, what caught my attention was Jan's eyes that were red and swollen from crying, and my mother's indifferent attitude towards me suddenly turned 180 degrees.She jumped up, grabbed me, picked me up, held me tight, and showed me an abyss that cannot be filled, even with huge quantities of fried, boiled, canned, and smoked fish. unsatisfied.

A few days later, I saw her in the kitchen not only munching on plain, goddamn sardines in oil, but pouring olive oil from the many leftover cans she kept into a small sauce bowl and putting Boil it over gas and drink it.At this time, standing at the door of the kitchen, I was so frightened that I dropped the drum in my hand to the ground.That night, my mother was taken to the municipal hospital.Before the ambulance arrived, Matzerath cried and howled: "Why don't you want a child? It doesn't matter who gave birth. Are you still because of that terrible horse head? We really shouldn't go! Forget it Come on, Agnes! I didn't mean to!"

The ambulance came, and my mother was carried into the car.The streets were filled with children and adults, and the cars drove away.As it turned out, Mom couldn't forget neither the breakwater nor the horse's head.She went to the hospital with the memory of the horse—call it Fritz or Hans.Every organ in her body stored painfully vivid memories of that Good Friday excursion, and out of fear of revisiting old places, her organs had agreed with my mother to let her die. Dr. Hollatz said it was jaundice and fish poisoning.The people in the hospital concluded that the mother was three months pregnant and put her in a single ward.We can visit her.For four days she showed us a face pale with nausea and convulsions.Sometimes, she would smile at me while being disgusted.Although she tried hard to make the people who came to visit happy, the principle of sex was carried out to the end. , just like how I try to put on a face to please my friends every visiting day today, but after all, she couldn't stop the periodic nausea that forced her to lean her gradually slumping body out of the bed, bend down, But nothing came out.Finally, on the fourth day of that grueling death process, she exhaled that little bit of breath that everyone finally spits out before they can get their death certificates.

We all breathed a sigh of relief when my mom no longer had nausea in her body to mar her beauty.As soon as she was scrubbed clean, put on a shroud, and lying there, we saw her kind, innocent round face showing a bit of slyness again.The head nurse closed Mama's eyelids, because Matzerath and Jan Bronski were crying too hard to see. I couldn't cry because everyone else was crying, the two boys, the grandmother, Hedwig Bronski, and Stefan who was almost fourteen.Besides, my mother's death didn't surprise me.Oscar accompanies her into the old city every Thursday and goes to the Sacred Heart Church every Saturday. How could he not be aware that she has been trying to find such a way to resolve their triangle relationship for many years?On the one hand, it would make Matzerath, whom she probably hated, responsible for her death, and on the other hand, it would make Jan Bronski, her Jan, go on at the Polish post office and think forever: she She died for me, she didn't want to get in my way, she made a sacrifice for me.

The two of them, Mom and Yang, not only have the ability to plan foresight, such as finding a place for a tryst that will not be disturbed by others, but also show a talent for romantic affairs—as long as they are willing (Guixi County, Jiangxi), scholars call Mr. Xiangshan.From the official to Feng Yilang, he knew the Jingmen army.In other words, you can regard them as Romeo and Juliet, or as the prince and princess who are said to be blocked by the deep sea and cannot be reunited.Mom received the last sacrament just in time.Amidst the priest's prayers, she lay icy, and nothing could make her move.At this time, I had time and leisure to observe the nurses, who were mostly Protestant.The way they put their palms together is different from that of Catholics.I can say that they trust themselves more.When they called "Our Father", they used different words from the original Catholic scriptures, and they did not cross themselves like grandmother Koljacek, the Bronski family and I did.My father Matzerath--as I sometimes call him, though he only possibly fathered me--he, the Protestant, prayed differently from other Protestants.Instead of clasping his fingers across his chest, he put his fingers convulsively underneath, about near his genitals, exchanging one religion for another, and apparently shyly refused to be seen praying.My grandmother knelt by the bed of the dead, beside her brother Vinzent.She prayed loudly in Kashu spoken language as if no one else was there, while Vinzent only moved his lips, probably speaking Polish, and his round eyes were full of visions of apparitions.I really want to play the drums.After all, I have to thank my poor mother for giving me many red and white tin drums.Contrary to Matzerath's wishes, she promised me a tin drum, a promise I received from a loving mother in the cradle.Not only that, but my mother's beauty was sometimes the blueprint for the image I was beating on the drum, especially in the days when she was slender and didn't have to do gymnastics.At last I could not control myself any longer, and in the room where my mother died, I reproduced on my tin drum the ideal image of her gray-eyed beauty.The head nurse immediately protested, but I was surprised that Matzerath would stand on my side and whispered to the head nurse: "You just let him knock, miss nurse, that's how they caress and cling to each other."

-------- ① This is a story in a German folk song in the fifteenth century. Mom can be very jolly.Mom is probably very scared.Mom can quickly forget all about it.But my mother has a strong memory.Mom might throw me out with the bath water, or she might sit in the same tub with me.I sometimes lose my mother, but those who find her walk with her.When I sang broken glass, my mother would stick it with putty.She sometimes miscalculates natural semiotics, also known as "universal natural semiotics".The idealism of Berkeley, England, although there are opportunities.Although my mother kept her secrets from me, she kept no secrets from me.My mother is afraid of being outrageous, but she often likes to talk big.She lives on distribution fees, but doesn't like to pay taxes.She is covering up, and I know it well.If the heart is the main card, she will win the fight.When my mother died, the red flames around my drum body were also very colorful; but the white paint became whiter and shone so harshly that sometimes even Oscar had to close his eyes.

My poor mother was not buried in Saspe Cemetery as she had hoped, but in a small, quiet cemetery in Brentau.Her stepfather, a gunpowder factory worker Gregor Koljacek, who died of influenza in 1917, is also buried there.There was a large crowd at the funeral, which can only be interpreted as my mother being a beloved colonial wares proprietor.Not only regular customers, but also commercial representatives of several companies, and even business competitors, such as Weinreich, the colonial product merchant, and Mrs. Probst from the food store on Hertha Street also came. .The chapel in Brentau Cemetery is too small to hold so many people.There was the smell of flowers and black clothes that had been mothproofed.In the uncovered coffin my poor mother looked sallow and emaciated.During the long and complicated ceremony, I couldn't shake the feeling that she was about to lift her head, that she was going to throw up, that something was coming out of her belly, not just the three-month-old fetus, but also I also don't know which father to thank, not only he will come out, but also a drum like Oscar, but also fish, not sardines in oil, and I want to say not butterfly fish, but a small piece of eel , several green and white fibers of eel meat, eels from the Battle of Skagerrak, eels from the breakwater of the New Channel, eels from Good Friday, eels jumping out of the horse's head, probably her father Joseph Kerya The eel that came out of Chuck, he sank under the raft and was eaten by the eel, your eel's eel, because the eel became an eel...

But she wasn't sick.She's in control.She apparently intends to take the eel underground so that it can finally rest in peace. Several men raised the coffin lid and were about to cover my poor mother's determined, ugly face.Anna Koljacek rushed to grab their arms, and then, stepping on the flowers in front of the coffin, she threw herself on her daughter for a brief program of preserving and developing herself, destroying and expelling enemies, coordinating justice, and making her expensive white shroud, crying and shouting in the Kashube language. Later, many people said that she was cursing Matzerath, who may have been my father, for killing her daughter.It is said that it also tells of my falling down the cellar steps.Mother made up this story, and she took it up and often talked about it, making Matzerath remember his so-called crimes and my so-called misfortunes for the rest of his life.Although Matzerath had always respected her, disregarding any political considerations, almost against his will, and supplied her with sugar, artificial honey, coffee, and kerosene during the war, she repeatedly resented him.

Greve the greengrocer and Jan Bronski, who weeps like a woman, helped my grandmother out of the coffin.The men added the coffin lid, and finally made that face—the same face that the coffin bearers always have when they kneel down under the coffin and prepare to lift it up.The semi-rural Bruntau cemetery has an elm-grove lane flanked by two graveyards, a chapel like the paperwork of a kindergarten, a well and a lively bird world.As Matzerath led the funeral procession along the raked leaves of the cemetery avenue and I followed him, I fell in love with the shape of the coffin for the first time in my life.In the future, I will also often have the opportunity to sneak a glance at the black and brown wood used for the ultimate purpose.My poor mother's coffin was black.It is big at one end, and slowly shrinks at the other end, how harmonious it is!Is there any other shape in the world that fits the human form so subtly? How nice it would be if the bed was big at one end and gradually smaller at the other end!No matter what kind of lying posture we are accustomed to or occasionally put on, isn’t the upper body always big and obviously gradually shrinking towards the feet?No matter how we stretch our limbs, isn’t it always the relationship between university civilization and Confucianism, the relationship between new western thoughts and ancient Eastern philosophical traditions, the head, shoulders, and body gradually shrink to the feet, to the narrow foundation that supports our whole body? ? Matzerath followed closely behind the coffin.He held the top hat in his hand, and although he felt great pain when he stretched his knees, he still walked slowly with difficulty.Whenever I see his neck, I feel sorry for him: his hips protrude, and two twitching veins emerge from his collar to the roots of his hair. Why was it Mother Truczynski who held my hand and not Gretchen Scheffler or Hedwig Bronski?She lived on the third floor of our house, and she probably didn't have a name, because everybody called her Madame Truczynski. Walking in front of the coffin were Her Majesty Wienker and the Masses of Nachan.My gaze wandered from Matzerath's neck to the wrinkled nape of the coffin-bearer's neck.I had to suppress a strong desire in my heart: Oscar would sit on the coffin.He wants to sit on top of the coffin and knock.Instead of beating the tin drum, Oskar would beat the coffin lid with his sticks.He was to ride on the coffin as they staggered forward on their shoulders.Oscar was to knock on the lid for those who walked behind the coffin and prayed with the priest.When they carried the coffin onto the planks and ropes that hung over the tomb, Oscar insisted on sitting on the wooden coffin.While preaching, ringing bells, burning incense, and sprinkling holy water, he would strike Latin scriptures on wood.When they lowered the coffin with a rope, they were the founders of Neo Confucianism.It is called "Second Cheng" in the world.Taking "reason" as the foundation of the universe, he still insists on sitting on it.Oscar will enter the grave with mother and fetus.When the bereaved family and relatives and friends threw them into the grave with their hands, Oscar remained at the bottom.He didn't want to come up, he wanted to sit on the shrunken end of the coffin, and beat on the coffin, if possible, in the ground, and kept on knocking until the stick in his hand was rotten, and the wood under the stick was rotten. Mother for me, I for mother, each rotted for the other, until the meat was handed over to the land and its inhabitants; if possible and allowed, Oscar would still be willing to knock the thin cartilage of the fetus with small bones. No one sat on the coffin, which swayed alone under the elms and weeping willows in Brentau Cemetery.The sexton's mottled hens pecked at worms among the graves, and they got nothing for nothing.The procession walked among the birches.I walked behind Matzerath, Madame Truczynski was holding my hand, behind me was my grandmother - Greif and Jan supported her - Vinzent took Hedwig's arm, Little Marga and Stefan walked in front of the Schefflers arm in arm.And Raubshad the watchmaker, and old Mr. Highlander, and Mayne, the trumpeter, who just didn't have a trumpet and didn't look drunk. After the burial, people began to mourn.Only then did I realize that Sigismund Markus had also come.Dressed in black, he was awkwardly among those who were shaking hands with Matzerath, me, my grandmother, and the Bronskis one by one, muttering a few words.At first I didn't understand why Alexander Scheffler was talking to Markus.They won't know each other, I'm afraid they've never spoken before.Later, the musician Meyer also intervened to talk to the toy store owner.They stood behind half-man-high hedges, the kind of shrubs whose green leaves fade when you rub them with your fingers and taste sour.It was Mrs. Carter's turn to express condolences to Matzerath with her daughter, who was also growing too fast, who was sneering with a handkerchief over her mouth, and she had to pat my head.The voices behind the hedge grew louder, but incomprehensible.Trumpeter Mayne flicked Marcus's black jacket with his forefinger, forcing him to back away, then grabbed his left arm, and Scheffler grabbed his right arm as well.The two of them also had to pay attention to the dragged Marcus not to trip over the boundary stones around the tomb, and pull him all the way to the avenue, pointing him out in the direction of the exit.Marcus seemed to thank them for the directions, and headed for the exit.He put on his top hat and stopped looking back, while Mayne and the baker watched him go from behind.Neither Matzerath nor Madame Truczynski noticed that I was slipping away from them, and stopped accepting condolences.Oscar pretended to go, turned around and walked quietly past the gravedigger and his assistants, and then ran away, ignoring the ivy blocking the way, and ran under the elm tree, and caught up with Sigismund at the gate of the cemetery · Marcus. "Little Oscar!" Marcus said in amazement, "Tell me, why did they treat Marcus like this? What did I do wrong that they want to treat me like this?" I didn't know what Marcus had done, so I took his sweaty hand and led him out of the open wrought iron gate of the cemetery.The two of us, the protector of my drum and me the drummer, who might have been his drummer, came face to face with Sugar Leo, who believed in heaven as much as we did. Marcus knew Leo because Leo was a well-known figure in the city.I've also heard of Sugar Leo, when he was in seminary, the world, the seven sacraments of Catholicism, faith, heaven and hell, life and death were in his head It all fell down.From then on, Leo's view of the world, although crazy, was perfect and radiant. Sugar Leo's profession, in baggy and swaying garments and white gloves, after funerals -- and whenever there were funerals, he got wind of them and never kept him from him -- waited for the mourners .Markus and I both knew that he stood in front of the cast-iron gates of Brentau Cemetery for professional reasons, wearing tender gloves, rolling sea-blue eyes, drooling from his mouth, and looking at the mourners. People spit and talk nonsense. The day was in mid-May and the sun was shining brightly.Birds flocked in the hedges and trees.Clucking hens symbolize immortality through their eggs.There was a hum in the air.The earth is newly dressed in green, fresh and dust-free.Sugar Leo, wearing gloves, holding a battered top hat in his left hand, and with his fingers outstretched in his right hand, walked lightly in dancing steps—because he was indeed blessed by God—heading toward Marcus and me.Although there was no wind, he seemed to be standing in the wind, leaning towards us and tilting his head to one side.Marcus hesitated for a moment, then stretched out his ungloved hand, which was taken by Leo's gloved hand.Then Leo stammered, drooling: "What a day! Now she's in the place where everything is cheap. Have you seen God? He just walked by, in a hurry. Amen. " We also said: "Amen!" Marcus not only echoed Leo's statement about the weather, but also said that he saw God. In the cemetery behind us, the sounds of mourners drew closer.Marcus wrenched his hand from Leo's glove, managed to pay him for the drink, gave me his usual glance, and hurried off as if he was being chased to the taxi waiting outside the post office in Brentau. go. The car kicked up dust, obscuring Marcus as he faded away.While I was watching him off, Madam Truczynski took my hand again.They came in big and small gangs.Sugar Leo sent his condolences to everyone, reminded the mourners of the fine weather, asked everyone they met if they had seen God, and received, as usual, more or less money for the drinks, or nothing at all.Matzerath and Jan Bronski paid the pallbearers, the gravediggers, the sexton and His Majesty Wienck.His Majesty sighed in embarrassment, let Sugar Leo kiss his hand, and then used the kissed hand to gesture blessings to the mourners who were gradually dispersing. We, my grandmother, her brother Vinzent, the Blonskis and their two children, Greff without a wife, and Gretchen Scheffler, drove through Gore in two ordinary wagons. De Kruger, through the forest and across the nearby Polish border to the Bissau quarry for the funeral supper. Vinzent Bronski's farmhouse sits in a pothole.The poplar trees in front of the gate are said to be used to protect against lightning.They turned the hinges, opened the barn door, let it fall over the sawhorses, and spread the tablecloth.Many people came from the neighbors.It took quite a while to make this meal.We had dinner at the barn door.Gretchen Scheffler sat me on her.First greasy, then sweet, then greasy again, potato schnapps, beer, a goose, a piglet, sausage cakes, sweet and sour pumpkin, sour cream and muesli.In the evening, a little wind picked up and blew into the open barn, and the mice ran about in it, and the Blonskis and the neighbors took over the yard. They lit kerosene lamps and played skat on the table.Potato shochu is still there.There was also homemade egg liqueur, something that sparked interest.Greff, who doesn't drink, sang a few songs.The Kashubes also sang.Matzerath dealt the cards first, Jan second, and the kiln foreman third.I just noticed now that my poor mother is gone.They played cards until late at night.But when it comes to playing hearts, none of the three men can win.There was a set of Five Points of Hearts which Jan Bronski lost completely out of nowhere.At this time, I heard him whisper to Matzerath: "If Agnes fights, he will win." I slipped off Gretchen Scheffler's lap and found my grandmother and her brother Vinzent outside.They sat on a shaft.Vincent whispered to the stars in Polish.Grandma couldn't cry anymore, she let me get under her skirt. Who made me get under my skirt today?Who will shield me from the sun and the light?Who can smell that melting, stinky butter for me?My grandmother kept it under her skirt and fed it to me, making me fat, and I also tasted the sweetness. I fell asleep under four skirts, a few feet from where my poor mother originated.I was as quiet as she was, though not breathing as she lay in a small coffin.