Chapter 16 The Back of Herbert Truczynski

As the saying goes, there is no replacement for the loss of a mother.Not long after my mother was buried, I started thinking about my poor mother.No more visits to Sigismund Markus on Thursdays, no one to take me to see Nurse Inger's white nurse's gown.Especially on Saturdays, when I realized that Mom was dead, it was even more painful: Mom didn't go to confession anymore. I lost the old city, Dr. Horatz's clinic, and the Sacred Heart.I lost interest in the rally.Now that the profession of seducer has lost its meaning and appeal to Oscar, how can I lure passers-by in front of the window to take the bait?My mother, who used to take me to see a Christmas play at the Municipal Theatre, and to see The Crown or the Jungle Circus, is no more.I was alone, morosely going to class on time, walking dejectedly down the straight suburban street to visit Gretchen Scheffler on Kleinhammer.She told me about the midnight trip to the country of the sun organized by "Strength Through Joy", and I was unmoved by the comparison between Goethe and Rasputin.This kind of comparison is endless, bright and dark, and repeated, so I escaped to historical research. "Battle of Rome", Kaiser's "History of Danzig" and Koehler's "Fleet Annals", my old standard readings, gave me a wide and half bottle of vinegar knowledge.Therefore, I can still recite the exact numbers of armor thickness, equipment, completion and launching dates, and personnel quota of all ships that participated in the Skagerrak naval battle and were sunk and damaged.

I'm almost fourteen, I like to be alone, I take frequent walks.The drum was my companion, but I seldom beat it twice, because after my mother passed away, there was no one to supply me with tin drums in time. Was that in the autumn of 1937 or in the spring of 1938?Anyway, I walked down the Hindenburg Boulevard into the city, not far from the Café of the Four Seasons, and the phenomenon of falling leaves, or the disparity between the number of buds and the number of fields, was recognized and revealed.In a word, nature was undergoing changes; at this time, I met my friend and master Bebra, a direct descendant of Prince Eugene, and therefore of Louis XIV.

We hadn't seen each other for three years, but we recognized each other within twenty paces.He didn't know the whole body, but he was holding a beauty on his arm, a southerner, petite and cute, about two centimeters shorter than Bebra and three fingers taller than me.According to Bebra, her name is Roseweta Laguna, and she is the most famous sleepwalking girl in Italy. Bebra invited me to Four Seasons Cafe to drink much.We sat down at the aquarium, and the coffee-loving female regulars whispered, "Look at these little guys, Lisbeth, do you see them? Is it from the Crown Circus? Let's go too, if we can." Look."

-------- ① Refers to a cafe with a fish tank for viewing. Bebra smiled at me, squeezing the fine wrinkles that were barely visible on the main road.The waiter who brought us the moha was very tall.When Frau Roswitha invited him for a cake, she looked at the waiter in a tailcoat as if looking up at a tower. Bebra looked at me and said: "It seems that our expert glass destroyer is not happy! What's wrong, my friend? Is the glass not listening, or the voice not working?" Oscar was full of youthful vigor, and immediately wanted to test his edge and show off his skills that were far from fading.I looked around for a target, and fixed my gaze on the large glass plate in front of the goldfish and underwater plants in the aquarium.Just as I was about to sing, Bebra quickly said, "All right, my friend! We believe you can do it. Don't destroy it, don't let the water flood, and don't kill the fish!"

I apologize with embarrassment, especially to Mrs. Roswitha.Uneasy, she took out a miniature fan and fanned it. "My mother died," I tried to explain my state of mind. "She didn't deserve to die. I blamed her. It's often said that being a mother sees everything and is considerate. I'll forgive everything. This is all Mother's Day crap! I'm just a dwarf to her. She'd get rid of me as a dwarf if she could. She didn't get rid of me because That's because the child, even a dwarf, is registered on her ID card, so she can't get rid of it casually. And because I am her dwarf, because she dumped me, she got rid of her own flesh and blood, so Can't get rid of it. She asked herself that she and the dwarf couldn't have both, so she ended her own life. She didn't eat anything, only fish, and not fresh fish. She said goodbye to her lover, and now she sleeps in the Brentau. Everyone, from her lover to my store's customers, said: That dwarf beat her to death. Because of Oscar, she didn't want to live anymore. Oscar killed her. .”

I was exaggerating on purpose, trying to impress Mrs. Roswitha as much as possible.In fact, most people blame Matzerath, especially Jan Bronski, for Matzerath's death.Bebra saw through my mind. "You exaggerate, my friend. You resent your dead mother out of sheer jealousy. She goes to her grave not because of you, but because of those tiresome lovers. So you think you Snubbed. You are both vain and mischievous, and every genius has both!" Then he sighed, cast a sidelong glance at Mrs. Roswitha, and said: "It's not easy for people of our stature to live through this life! It's so hard to be a human being but not grow up." what a daunting task!"

Rosweta Laguna, a sleepwalking girl from Naples, her skin is smooth and wrinkled, I guess she is only eighteen years old, but in an instant, she becomes an old woman of eighty or ninety years old.Mrs. Rosweta caressed Mr. Bebra's fashionable dress made by an English tailor. Her cherry-black Mediterranean eyes gave me a glance, and her dark voice-like a promise to a child, not only moved me. I, and numb my whole being, said: "My dearest little Oskar! I understand your pain very well! Come with us: to Milan, Paris, Toledo, Guatemala." -------- ①The original text here is Italian.

I was dizzy for a while.I grab Laguna's old hand.The Mediterranean lapped on my shores, and the olive trees whispered to me: "Roswitha will be like your mother, Roswitha will understand. She, the great sleepwalker, who can read anyone's mind, Know anyone's heart but her own, mother, but hers. Good God!" The strange thing is that as soon as Laguna began to see through me with the eyes of a sleepwalking woman like an X-ray, she suddenly withdrew her hand that was pinched by me timidly.Did my fourteen-year-old's hungry heart frighten her?Did she already understand that whether Roswitha was a girl or an old woman, to me she was nothing but Roswitha?Whispering in Neapolitan, trembling, she crossed herself again and again, as if what she had observed in me filled her with infinite terror, and then, without a word, hid her face behind her fan. .I was at a loss and wanted to know what happened, so I asked Mr. Bebra to explain.However, even though Bebra is a direct descendant of Prince Eugene, she was panicked and stuttered, and it was hard for me to understand what he said: "Your genius, young friend, is a gift from God. , but there must be something devil-given. This puzzles my good Roswitha, and I have to admit that there is an element of sudden intemperance in you which is foreign to me, Although it is not completely incomprehensible. However," Koubra cheered up and continued, "no matter what kind of character you have, it doesn't matter. Come join us and join Bebra's magic troupe! As long as you Be restrained, and even in today's political conditions, you can still find an audience."

I understood right away.Bebra, who once advised me to stay on the stage forever and not stand in front of the stage, also joined the army, although he continued to perform in the circus.So he was not in the least disappointed when I declined his offer with polite regret.I could hear Mrs. Roswitha's breathing behind the fan, and see her Mediterranean eyes looking at me again. We also chatted for an hour.I asked the waiter to bring an empty water glass, sang a heart on the glass, added cartouches to it, and an inscription below it—"Oscar for Roswitha"—and gave her the glass , make her happy.Bebra paid the bill, left a lot of tips, and we got up and left.

The two of them accompanied me all the way to the gym.I pointed my drumstick at the bare podium at the other end of the Plaza de Mayo, and—now that I remember, it was in the spring of 1938①—recounted to me the period of my career as a drummer under the podium. Listen to Bebra, the master. -------- ① In March 1938, under the threat of Hitler, Austria and Germany merged. Bebra smiled awkwardly, while Laguna kept a straight face.When the lady was a few steps away from us, Bebra said goodbye to me in a low voice: "I can't do it, my dear friend, how can I be your teacher anymore? Oh, this dirty politics!"

Then he kissed me on the forehead as he did years ago when he met me in the middle of the circus, and Mrs. Roswitha held out her porcelain hand to me, and I bowed artificially and kissed the sleepwalker. Fingers—seemed too sophisticated for a fourteen-year-old boy. "We will meet again, my son!" Mr. Bebra said, waving his hands. "No matter what the situation is, people like us will never lose touch." "Forgive your fathers!" the lady exhorted me, "get used to your own life, and there will be peace of mind, and Satan will not succeed!" It seemed to me as though this lady had baptized me a second time, but in vain.Go away, Satan—but Satan won't go.I felt empty in my heart, and looked at the backs of the two of them sadly.I was still waving when they boarded a taxi and disappeared completely in it; Fords are built for grown-ups, so when the motor kicks and the car pulls away, there are no passengers in the car, but it seems to be going out Like looking for customers. I tried to persuade Matzerath to go to the Crown Circus, but he was unmoved.When my poor mother died, he was completely in mourning, and he never really had complete control over her.So, who completely dominated my mother?Jan Bronski doesn't count either.If there was one person, it would be me, because Oscar suffered the most after his mother passed away. Not to mention that his daily life was disrupted, even surviving became a problem.Mom left me alone.There was nothing to expect from my fathers either.Master Bebra has regarded Propaganda Minister Goebbels as his master.Gretchen Scheffler was devoted to her winter relief work.It is said that no one will be hungry and no one will be cold.I insisted on beating the drum, beating out my loneliness on the iron sheet that was originally white but now thinned.In the evening, Matzerath sat face to face with me.He reads his cookbook and I whine to the drum.Sometimes Matzerath cried, covering his face with the cookbook.Jan Bronski became a rare visitor.Given the political situation, both men thought it best to be on the safe side, as neither could tell which way the wind was blowing.Playing skat--they are now joined by another man, and often changed--has become less and less frequent, and if it is played, it begins very late, in the chandelier in my living room. , and avoid talking about politics.My grandmother, Anna, seems to have forgotten how to get from Bissau to my house on Rue de la Besse.She hated Matzerath, and maybe me, too, and I heard her say: "My Agnes died because he couldn't stand the drums." -------- ①Winter Relief, a charity of the Nazis, called "War on Hunger and Cold".Germans were forced to donate money and materials to the "Winter Relief". Although I may be responsible for my poor mother's death, I cling even more to the slandered drum.Mother would die, but the drum wouldn't die, and the drum could be bought new or repaired by old Highlander or the watchmaker Raubshad.Drum understands me and always gives me the right answer, Drum and I depend on each other. I think the rooms are too small for a fourteen-year-old boy, the streets are either too short or too long, and there is no opportunity to be a tempter in front of a window during the day, and at night there is no emergency. I was required to play the sure-fire seducer in the dark doorway, and here I stomped up the four flights of stairs, in time, counting the one hundred and sixteen steps, each floor Stay for a while, and smell the smell coming out of the cracks in the doors of a house on different floors, because the smell is the same as me, and I feel that the two-bedroom house is too narrow. In the beginning, I sometimes got away with the trumpeter Mayne.Drunk, lying on the wet floor between the sheets hanging to dry, he played the trumpet with rare musicality, giving pleasure to my drum.In May of 1938, he gave up gin and said to everyone, "Now I'm starting a new life!" He became a member of the stormtrooper cavalry band.I saw him go up the stairs five steps at a time, in his leather boots and breeches with a leather hip.He kept the four cats—one of them named Bismarck—because, predictably, gin would sometimes prevail and entertain him. I rarely knock on the door of the watchmaker Raubshad.He is a silent man who lives among a hundred bad clocks.I witness this excessive time-consuming situation at least once a month. Old Highlander's small workshop is still in the courtyard of the apartment.He still does the job of hammering straight and bent nails.As in the past, there are rabbits and rabbits' grandchildren in the yard.However, the children in the yard have changed.They all wear black ties and uniforms, and they no longer cook brick and mortar.I can't name any of the children who are growing and surpassing me.This is another generation, and my generation of kids have already left school and are doing apprenticeships.Nushi Ek became a barber and Axel Mischke wanted to work as a welder in Sihau.Susie Carter was a trainee sales clerk at the Sternfeld department store, and already had a boyfriend, and the relationship was quite established.What a change!But three or four years.The old shelf used for beating the carpet is still standing in the yard, and the rules of housing notices have not changed: the carpet is beating on Thursday and Friday, but on these two days, there are not many beating noises, and the beating is shy, not daring to be heard Apparently, since Hitler came to power, more and more people use vacuum cleaners; carpet racks are increasingly neglected and only serve sparrows. So I was always alone in stairwells and attics.I read my saved readings under the wavy tiles of the roof.When I need company, I go to the third floor and knock on the first door on the left.Madame Truczynski always opens the door.She was the one who took me by the hand in Brentau Cemetery and led me to poor Mama's grave.Since then, whenever Oscar knocked on the door of her house with a drum stick, she always opened the door. "Don't knock so loudly, little Oskar, Herbert needs to sleep a little longer. He suffered again last night, and they took him home in the car." Then she took me into the house and poured me malt coffee and Milk, and give me a piece of brown rock sugar on a string, which can be dipped in coffee or licked with my tongue.I drink coffee, sip rock sugar, and let the drum rest. Madame Truczynski's head was small and round, her thin gray hair was veiled, and her pink scalp shimmered.The limited strands of hair are tied into a bun-shaped curl at the most prominent part of the occipital bone, although it is small - smaller than a billiard ball, no matter how she turns, others can see it from any angle.The curls are pinned with knitting needles.Every morning, Madam Truczynski wiped her round cheeks that looked glued on when she smiled with a substitute coffee wrapper—red and faded.Her face was like a mouse.She had four children: Herbert, Gust, Fritz and Maria. Maria was the same age as me, had just finished elementary school, and was studying housekeeping at the home of a staff member in Schiedlitz.Fritz worked in a rolling stock factory and was rarely seen.He had two or three girls who spent the night with him in turns, and he took them to dances at the "Ola Racetrack."He also kept the rabbits in the apartment yard, the "blue Viennese," but it was actually Madam Truczynski who fed them, because Fritz was too busy with his girlfriends to get away.Gust, about thirty, taciturn, works as a waitress at the Eden Hotel near the main railway station.She has never been married, and lives on the top floor of the Eden Building like people who live in first-class hotels.Herbert was the eldest, and the only one who lived with his mother—if you didn't count Fritz the fitter, who occasionally came home for the night.He works as a waiter in the port area of ​​New Fairway.It is he who is here to be discussed.For Herbert Truczynski was the object of my investigation, and he gave me a brief pleasure after my poor mother's death; I still call him my friend. Herbert was a waiter at Stabusch's.Stabusch is the owner of the "Swede" hotel.The hotel is opposite the Protestant Seamen's Church, and most of the visitors are Scandinavians, as you can guess from the signboard "Swedes".But there were also Russians and Poles from the free port, Holm's shiploaders, and sailors from the German warships that had just come into port.Working as a waiter in this truly international hotel is not without its dangers.Before Herbert went to New Fairway, he worked as a waiter at the "Ola Racecourse", and it was only because of the experience accumulated in that third-rate dance hall that he was able to mix a sentence and a half of English and Polish in the suburban dialect to calm the crowd. The noise of various languages ​​in the "Swede" hotel.However, things backfired. Once or twice a month, he was sent home in an ambulance for free. In such cases, Herbert had to lie prone on the bed, with difficulty in breathing, because he weighed a hundred kilograms, and had to lie down for several days at a time.On such days, Madam Truczynski scolded him constantly, but took care of him tirelessly.Whenever she re-tied her hair curls, she always pulled out a knitting needle and knocked on a glass frame hanging opposite his bed.In the frame was a retouched photo of a man with serious, glazed eyes and a mustache, a bit like the one on the first page of my photo album. But the gentleman to whom Madame Truczynski was pointing with her knitting needle was not one of my own, but the father of Herbert, Gust, Fritz and Maria. "One day you're going to be finished like your father," she sneered at Herbert, who was breathing hard and groaning in pain.However, she never explained clearly where the man in the black lacquered mirror frame went to find his death, and how he ended up in the end. "What's going on this time?" The gray-haired Mouse Face with arms crossed wanted to know what was going on. "Swedes and Norwegians, as before!" Herbert turned sideways, and the bed creaked. "Same as ever, same as ever! Don't act like it's only going to be them forever. Last time, didn't those guys on the training ship do it? What's it called? Say it! Yes, 'Schlagert' No. Didn’t I say, what’s going on this time? You’re talking about Swedes and Norwegians!” Herbert's ears - I couldn't see his face - were red to the ears: "These damned sailors are always talking and bullying!" "You let 'em go, they're dolls. It's none of your business. I saw them in the Inner City when they got off the ship for vacation, and they looked all right! You must be talking to them again about your disrespect for Lenin." You're talking about the Spanish Civil War, and you must be interrupting again, aren't you?" Herbert made no answer, and Madame Truczynski shuffled into the kitchen to drink her malt coffee. After the wound on Herbert's back healed, I was allowed to see it.He sat in a chair in the kitchen with his suspenders draped over his lap on a blue napkin, and slowly took off his woolen sweater, as if some difficult thought made him hesitate. The back is round, and the muscles are constantly moving up and down.Like a pink field, sown with freckles.Below the shoulder blades, on both sides of the spine buried in the fat, was covered with thick red fox-colored hair, crawling down curlyly, and finally disappeared into the underpants he also wore in summer.From the waist of the underpants up to the muscles of the neck, the entire back is covered with scars, the thick hair has been cut off, the freckles have been removed, the bulging, wrinkled, itchy scars of various colors, From blue-black to greenish-white.He allowed me to touch the scars.Today, lying in my hospital bed, I have been looking out of the window for months, observing the outbuildings of the Sanatorium and the Nursing Home and the Oberat Forest behind it.I wondered what it was that I could touch these days, what was it that was as hard, as sensitive, as confusing as Herbert's scar?This is the part of some girls and women, my own, the plaster "watering can" of the boy Jesus, and the ring finger that the dog brought to me two years ago from the rye field.A year ago, I still kept it in a sealed jar, although I couldn't touch it, but it was intact and clearly visible②.So now I just pick up the drum stick and I can see every joint in this finger and I can count them.Whenever I want to recall the scar on Herbert Truczynski's back, I beat the drum and sit facing the finger in the jar and beat the drum to help the memory.Whenever I want to reproduce a woman's figure--which is rarely the case, because the scar-like part of a woman is not credible--I always make up Herbert Truczynski's. scar.In other words, I can also make it clear: when I first touched those raised scars on my friend's broad back, they had promised me familiarity and temporary possession of that fleeting appearance when a woman is ready to fall in love.Likewise, the markings on Herbert's back promised me at the time that I would touch the ring finger later.And before Herbert's scar made a wish to me, from my third birthday, my drum stick promised me to touch the scar, the genitals, and the ring finger later.But I'll go back further: when I was a fetus, when Oscar wasn't called Oscar at all, I played with my own umbilical cord and promised me that I would touch drumsticks, Herbert's scars, young And the crater that middle-aged women sometimes erupt and the ring finger, and from the "watering can" of the boy Jesus to my own, I hang on my body unwaveringly, it is my impotence and limited possibility An unpredictable monument. -------- ①Generally refers to ancillary buildings such as garages and warehouses. ②This plot will not be explained until the third chapter "Ring Finger". Today, I have returned my drumsticks.I took a wide turn, as the drum dictated, recalling scars, soft parts, my own gear, now only occasionally fleshed out.In order to celebrate my third birthday again, I had to turn thirty.Oskar's purpose, the reader will guess, is to return the umbilical cord; that is why he wastes time dwelling on Herbert Truczynski's scar. Before I go on to describe my friend's back, I must point out that the front of his strong, unprotected and therefore highly targeted body, except for a bite by some whore in Ola, near the left collarbone Outside of the wound, there are no other scars.They could only attack him from behind.Fuck him only from the back, and the knives of the Finns and Poles, the knives of the shiploaders on Warehouse Island, and the sailor's knives used to train the cadets of the ship's military academy, can only scar his back. -------- ① Warehouse Island, an island on the Mottlau River, is located in the center of Danzig City. It is named after a large wooden structure barn on the island. After Herbert had finished his lunch—potato pancakes three times a week, so thin, light and crispy, that no one but Mrs. Truczynski could make them—had pushed the plate aside, and I Hand him the Latest News.He took off his suspenders, lifted his shirt, and while he was reading the newspaper, asked me to ask him how he got the scar on his back.Madam Truczynski was also sitting at the table during my cross-examinations, depreciating her woolen stockings, commenting on what Herbert was right or wrong, and never missing a moment to mention that. The story of the man's tragic death—as bad as one might imagine; his retouched photograph, framed in glass, hung on the wall opposite Herbert's bed. Inquiry begins.I flicked one of his scars with my finger.Sometimes I hit it with a stick. "Press it again, little one. I don't know which one. They seem to be asleep today." So I pressed it again, harder. "Oh, that's it! It was left by the Ukrainian. He quarreled with a man from Göttingen. First they sat at a table like brothers. Because the man from Göttingen called the other a Russian, which All of a sudden the Ukrainian quit, he could do anything but be a Russian. He came down from the Wexel on a raft and passed through several other rivers, his boots were full of money, and the people of Göttingen took He had drunk half his boot at Stabusch's when he was called Ruslin. I had to get the two out of here at once, very carefully, as I always do. Of course, Herbert had something in both hands. This At that time, the Ukrainians called me a Polish water ghost, and the Polish guy who was dredging mud on the dredger during the day also called me, which sounded like a Nazi curse. Well, little Oscar, you know Herbert Truczynski's: That guy on the dredger, that pale stoker-like thing, lay on the spot with his stomach in his arms, curled up in front of the cloakroom. I was about to tell the Ukrainian that the Polish water ghost was the same What's the difference between the citizen of Danzig, he stabbed me in the back - that's the scar." -------- ① Göttingen is Gdynia in Poland. Whenever Herbert said, "That's the scar," he would at the same time turn over the paper to emphasize his words, and then take a sip of malt coffee and let me press a scar, sometimes once, sometimes twice. Down. "Oh, this one! This one's no big deal. It was two years ago when a small group of torpedo boats came from Pilau and anchored here. They were bragging and playing "The Boy in the Blue Uniform" and the girls were crazy How Schwemmel got into the navy is still beyond my comprehension to this day. He is from Dresden, you think, young Oskar, from Dresden! Yes, you will not understand, Dresden What kind of a name is it for people from Dundon to be in the navy!" Herbert's thoughts turned to the beautiful city of Dresden on the Elbe.So, I tapped on the scar he thought was no big deal again, and turned his thoughts back to the new channel. "Yes, yes, I was about to say. He's a signalman second class on a torpedo boat. He's going to be a good guy and make fun of a quiet Scot with his boat in dry dock. Chamberlain first. ①, umbrellas, etc. I calmly advised him, as I always do, to stop talking about such things, especially since the Scot couldn't understand a word, and was just drawing pictures on the table with brandy. I said, Don't mess with this guy, you are here, not at home, you are a guest of the League of Nations. Unexpectedly, the German soldier on the torpedo boat called me a "worthless German", and he even said something in Saxony What. I slapped him a few times on the spot, and he was fine. Half an hour later, a shield rolled under the table. I squatted down to pick it up, but it was dark under the table and I couldn't see it. The Saxon took the opportunity to draw the knife , Stab a knife!" -------- ① Neville Chamberlain (1869~1940), British Prime Minister (in office from 1937 to 1940).According to the British habit, he always carried an umbrella and was often ridiculed by the press. Herbert smiled and flipped through the "Izvestia" and added: "That's the scar!" Then he pushed the paper in front of the grumbling Mrs. Truczynski, and made a gesture of getting up.Herbert had stood up on the corner of the table, and before he went to the bathroom—I could see from his face what he wanted to do—I quickly pressed a black and purple stitched scar.The scar was wide, as long as a skat card. "Herbert's going to the toilet, little one. I'll tell you later." I pressed again, stamped my foot, and sounded like a three-year-old; it always worked. "Well! Don't make trouble. But keep it short." Herbert sat down again. "It was Christmas Eve, 1930. All the work in the port was off. The shiploaders hung around the corner, spitting farther than anyone else. Midnight mass was over—we had just mixed the sweet drink—they all came out Now, the Swedes and Finns in blue and white costumes came out from the seamen's church opposite. I thought the situation was not good, so I stood behind the hotel door and looked at their striking pious faces, thinking, why are you holding your hands? What about the thick anchor cables? They're already at it, and it's a long shot! The Finns and the Swedes have always been at odds with each other. But what does Herbert Truczynski have to them? What about? God only knows. Herbert is a bit of a queer man, and he's always going to be there if you start. I darted out the door, and I heard Stabusch shouting from behind: 'Herbert, take care!' But, Herbert had his mission, he was going to save the priest, the little young man. He had just come from Malmö, a fresh graduate of the seminary, and had never spent Christmas Eve in a church with Swedes and Finns ...I'm going to take him under my arm so he can go home without hurting a hair. I just grabbed the priest's clothes and the bright dick is already in the back. I also want to say: 'Happy New Year!' It's just Christmas Eve. When I woke up, I was already lying on the counter in the store. My blood, what a blood, poured into a beer glass, free. Stabusch took the first aid from the Red Cross box, give me a so-called emergency bandage." "Why do you want to get involved?" Madame Truczynski said angrily, pulling a needle out of a bun-shaped curler. "You haven't been in church since you were a kid. How ridiculous!" With a wave of his hand, Herbert dragged his shirt and braces and walked into the toilet.He walked away angrily, saying angrily, "That's the scar!" He walked as if he wanted to make a clean break with the church and the fights related to the church, as if only the toilet was the place for a free thinker. Yes, always will be. -------- ① Free thinker, a church term, refers to a person who does not believe in religion. When I saw Herbert a few weeks later, he said nothing, and was not ready to answer my questions.I noticed he was grimacing, but not with the bandages on his back as usual.He was completely normal, lying on his back on the sofa in the living room.He wasn't injured, he wasn't lying prone on the bed, but he looked like he was seriously injured.I heard Herbert sighing, calling out to God, calling out to Marx and Engels, and cursing, now and then pumping his fist in the air in the room, hitting himself on the chest with one blow, followed by another blow with the other hand.Beating himself like a Catholic, he cried: "My sin, my indelible sin." Herbert killed a Latvian captain.Although the court acquitted him-he was in emergency self-defense, which often happens in his line of work.Although he was acquitted, the Latvian was dead after all.The waiter felt a heavy weight in his heart, although the captain, according to him, was a small, thin man with a stomach problem.Herbert no longer goes to work.He resigned.Stabusch, the proprietor, came often, and sat down next to Herbert on the sofa, or at the kitchen table with Madame Truczynski.From his leather bag he gave Herbert a bottle of 1900 Stob gin and half a pound of unroasted coffee beans from Freeport to Madame Truczinski.He tried to persuade Herbert, and Madame Truczynski to persuade her son.But, so to speak, Herbert would not take his word for it, and he would never work as a waiter in the tavern opposite the Seamen's Church in New Fairway.He doesn't want to be a waiter anymore; because a waiter gets a knife, and a knife man will kill a little Latvian captain one day, just because he won't let him get close, just because he doesn't want to get a Latvian人一刀，不想让赫伯特·特鲁钦斯基被扎花了的脊背上，在芬兰人、瑞典人、波兰人、自由市人和德国人留下的伤疤之外，再添上一个拉脱维亚人扎的伤疤。 “我宁可到海关去干活，也不再到新航道去当侍者了。”赫伯特说。但是，他没去海关。