Chapter 23 maria

History broadcast one special news after another at maximum volume, and drove like a well-oiled vehicle through the roads, waterways and skies of Europe, taking possession of everything in its path.And my business—limited to breaking children's lacquered tin drums—was bad, faltering, even stagnating.Those who make history wastefully throw vast quantities of precious metal around, and my tin drum is broken.Although Oskar rescued a new drum from the Polish post office with barely a scratch of paint leather, and thus made the defense of the Polish post office a little bit meaningful, but Mr. Nacharnik's tin drum is simply nothing to me. to no avail!Because I, Oskar, in the good old days could turn a tin drum into a heap of iron in eight weeks.

Immediately after I was released from the city hospital, mourning the loss of my nurse, I began beating the drums like hell.After returning from that rainy afternoon at the Saspe Cemetery, I did not let up. On the contrary, I tried twice as hard to eliminate the witness who saw me colluding with the militia, that is, that drum. But the drum withstood my blows to it.I hit it, and it came back, like it was accusing me.My purpose is only to erase this period of history of myself.Strangely enough, whenever I was hammering away like this, I always thought of Victor Veloun, who delivered the money order, although he was short-sighted and an unlikely witness to what I had done.However, didn't this myopia escape instead?Could it not be the case?Myopia sees more things, and Veluen—I probably call him poor Victor—sees my movements and postures like a black and white silhouette, and judges that I am doing Judas' business, and now He escaped and spread the word about Oscar's scandal all over the world.

Only in mid-December did the lacquered, red-fired conscience hanging around my neck wear down on me.There were hairline cracks in the paint, and the paint peeled off.The iron sheet softened, thinned, and cracked before becoming transparent.When a dying man suffers the agony of his death, on the proposition that an arrow in flight must at every instant occupy equal proportions to itself, the man who sees this suffering will always wish to shorten it, and let him end his life as soon as possible. .The same goes for Oscar.He picked up the pace, knocking the neighbors and Matzerath to their ears during the last week of Advent.The Oscars are expected to be over by Christmas Eve, as I was hoping for a new, non-mentally burdensome tin drum for Christmas.

I have achieved my goal.The day before December 24th, I untied from my body, and from my soul, a pile of shattered, colliding fragments, rusty objects reminiscent of a crashed car; In other words, at this time, the defense of the Polish post office was completely defeated as I hoped. Never has anyone - if you will take me seriously - had such a disappointing Christmas as Oscar.There is a gift for me under the Christmas tree, everything is there except a tin drum. There was a box of blocks in there that I never opened.A swan to ride and swing that will turn me into Lorhengrin is an unusual gift in the eyes of grown-ups.They dared to put three or four comic books on the gift table to do the conversion work.It also stated that possibility is the same as reality and false possibility, which was clearly meant to piss me off.In my eyes, only a pair of gloves, a pair of lace-up boots, and a red pullover knitted by Gretchen Scheffler have any practical value.Oscar was shocked, his eyes slipped from the building blocks to the swan, and he stared at a picture in a comic book, which showed some teddy bears who were considered to be very funny, holding various musical instruments in their front paws.One of these pretending clever beasts had a drum hanging from his body, and he looked as if he could beat the drum, as if he were beating down with a stick, as if he were beating the drum.I got a swan, but no drum, I got a thousand blocks, but no drum, I got a pair of gloves on this cold Christmas Eve, but I got nothing when I should be holding a round The slippery, lacquered and iron-skinned icy drum walked into the midwinter night, giving the cold a little warm sound.

Oskar thought to himself, maybe Matzerath had hidden the drum and hadn't taken it out yet.Maybe it was Gretchen Scheffler—who came to our house with her husband, Alexander the baker, to share the fat goose for Christmas—with the drum sitting under her ass.They want me to enjoy playing with swans, building blocks, and reading comic books before I bring out the real treasure.I gave in, first flipped through the comics like a fool, and then rode on the back of the swan and swayed. For at least half an hour, I was disgusted to the extreme.Then, I let them try on a sweater, even though the fire was too hot in the room and it was very hot.Gretchen Scheffler helped me put my lace-up boots on again.During this time Mr. and Mrs. Greif also arrived, for the Fat Goose was intended for six.Matzerath's cooking skills are superb, and the fat goose stuffed with dried fruits is delicious.After everyone had wolfed it down and was eating dessert--Millaberry plums and pears--I was clutching in despair a comic book; it was Greff's new addition to the four he already had. .After the soup, fat goose, red cabbage, brine potatoes, Mirabelli plums, and pears, we all—Oscar included—sang to They sang A Christmas Eve Song, and sang: "Be merry, O Fir-tree, O Fir-tree evergreen, and thy little bells jingle, jingle, jingle year after year." Outside the house, bells rang.At this time, I finally asked for my drum.The drunken band of brass bands--musician Mayne used to be a part--started to play too, blowing icicles off the window sills...I want drums, they won't give them, they won't take them out.Oscar: "Here!" The rest: "No!" At this point, I yelled, and I hadn't yelled in a long time.At this time, after a long interval, I sharpen my voice again into a sharp tool for cutting glass. I don't destroy vases, beer bottles and light bulbs, I don't cut glass cabinets, I don't smash glasses. The ready-to-decorate, festive bells, balls, and brittle silver soap bubbles, all ping-pong and the tree ornaments crumble to pieces.The fir needles were also shaken off one after another, as many as dustpans.The candle is still burning peacefully and sacredly.Still, Oscar didn't get The Tin Drum.

Matzerath was a man without knowledge.I don't know whether he wanted me to quit the drumming habit, or simply didn't want to supply me with drums in sufficient quantity in time.Seeing that disaster is imminent.My life is getting worse and worse, and the operation and management of my family's colonial commodity store is becoming more and more chaotic, and it has reached the point where it cannot be concealed. In view of this situation, it is necessary to ask a helper to take care of me and my family's store in time; as People always think this way when they are desperate. Oskar is too small to stand behind the counter selling crunchy bread, margarine, margarine, and he doesn't want to, so Matzerath - for the sake of brevity on the importance of dialectical and historical materialism Stalin Philosophical, and I called him my father again—to have Maria Truczynski, the youngest sister of my poor friend Herbert, come to run my family's shop.

Not only was her name Maria, but she was indeed a Madonna.She restored my store's old good reputation within a few weeks.She is very friendly, runs her business with all her might, and Matzerath obeys her willingly.In addition, she has a little bit of eyesight, able to distinguish colors and understand my mood. -------- ① Maria is named after the Virgin Mary.The name of the Virgin is usually translated as Mary. Before Maria came to my shop to help, whenever she saw me full of resentment, with a pile of scrap metal hanging in front of my belly, stomping into the stairwell, walking up and down the more than one hundred steps , she gave me an old laundry tub many times as a drum substitute.Oscar, however, wants no substitute.He stubbornly refused to turn the laundry tub upside down as a drum beat.As soon as Maria established a firm foothold in my shop, she met my request regardless of Matzerath's wishes.However, Oscar refused to let her walk into the toy store arm in arm.The shop's astonishing displays certainly remind me painfully of Sigismund Marcus's smashed-up shop.Gentle and submissive, Maria made me wait outside the toy store or go shopping by myself, and gave me a new drum every four or five weeks as needed; In exchange for rare materials, which are purchased and sold by the state, Maria had to conduct under-the-counter transactions with merchants, exchanging white sugar or one-sixteenth pound of real coffee for my tin drum.She never sighs, shakes her head, or raises her eyes to look up into the sky when she does this kind of thing, but concentrates, seriously, and takes it for granted, just as she puts on my washed and mended trousers. , socks, and blouse.In the years since, Maria and I have had a changing relationship, even today, but the way she handed me the drum has remained the same, even though today children's tin drums cost less than 194 ○ was much higher.

Today, Maria is a long-time subscriber to a fashion magazine.When she came to see me on a visiting day, her dress changed again and became more and more fashionable.What about that year? Was Maria beautiful back then?She had a round, freshly washed face, gray eyes with short, thick lashes, a little too bulging, with a cool but not cold look, and thick black eyebrows joined at the base of the nose.The well-defined cheekbones (the skin on them pale blue in the cold, tense and throbbing with pain) frame and give a sense of balance to her flat face, her small The nose—not unbeautiful, much less ridiculous, but a very regular, delicate little nose—does not impair this balance either.Her forehead was round and low, and there were several vertical wrinkles on the base of her nose where her eyebrows joined, which were left by too much thought at a young age.Her slightly curly brown hair—which still retains that warm tree-trunk sheen—tightened from the temples on a small round head—like Madame Truczynski, she had almost no back.When Maria put on her white blouse and came to stand at the counter in my shop, her hair was still braided and hung behind her stiff ears, which would turn red at once, but the earlobes were not hanging, but directly It grew into the flesh above the lower jaw, and although there were no unsightly wrinkles, it was completely degenerate, so that one could infer her nature from this.Later, Matzerath kept persuading the girl to cover her ears with her hair.Today, Maria shows only her earlobes beneath her fashionable cropped hair, and conceals her imperfections with a pair of large earrings—a reflection of her modest taste.

Just as Maria's pinchable head had full cheeks, high cheekbones, and large eyes flanking a small, inconspicuous nose, so her diminutive body had too broad shoulders , The breasts protruding from the armpits, the big pelvis and the plump buttocks, and the buttocks are supported by two too thin legs. Although there is a gap between the two legs, they are still quite strong. Maybe Maria had a little knee varus back then.Besides, her body was mature and well-proportioned, and her little hands, always red, seemed to me childish in comparison, with fingers like sausages.To this day, she cannot completely deny that her hands look like children's.But her feet—first in heavy hiking shoes and later in my poor mother's heels—were well made but worn out and didn't fit Maria's feet.Although she wore other people's shoes of the wrong size, her feet gradually lost their child's red color and ridiculous shape and adapted to the fashionable styles of leather shoes from West Germany and even Italy.

Maria didn't talk much, but she liked to sing, both when she was doing the dishes and when she put the sugar in blue paper sacks for the pound and the half-pound.Maria would play the harmonica after the shop was closed, when paying the bills in Matzerath, and even on Sundays, as soon as she had a half-hour break.This harmonica was left to her by her brother Fritz when he was conscripted and sent to Gross Boschpol. Maria played almost anything on the harmonica.For example, roaming songs, which she learned at the evenings of the German Girls' League, or operetta tunes and popular songs, some of which she heard on the radio, and some of which were written by her brother Fritz in 1940. During the few days of Easter business trip to Danzig, she listened to it when humming at home.Oskar remembered that Maria had slapped her tongue on the harmonica and played "Raindrops" and played "The Wind Taught Me a Song," but she didn't imitate Zara Leandre's singing.But when she was working in the store, Maria never got out her Horner harmonica.Even when no customers came to the door, she didn't show off her music, but sat there writing price tags and merchandise lists in childish round script.

-------- ① Tsara Leander, a Swedish female film star. Also not to be overlooked, Maria is actually in charge of my store.After my poor mother died, some customers stopped coming because they couldn't compete with others.Now Maria has won them back and made them regular customers.Despite this, she was respectful to Matzerath, even to the point of humility, but she never embarrassed Matzerath, who always thought he was great. Whenever the greengrocers Greve and Gretchen Scheffler made fun of him, he always said plausibly: "After all, I hired this girl, and I taught her how to do business." It was as simple as that, and it was only when he was doing what he loved, which was cooking, that he became sensitive, discerning, and worthy of approval.Because Oskar had to do him justice, his Cassel ribs with sauerkraut, mustard-sauced pork loin, Wiener schnitzel, and his best of all, buttered carp with white radishes, really looked good.His advice to Maria in the shop was really limited, because firstly, this girl was born with the ability to do small business, and secondly, Matzerath knew almost nothing about trading at the counter, and he was only suitable for working in large shops. Shopping in the market, but he can teach Maria a few things in cooking such as simmering, stewing, steaming, frying, and frying.Although Maria had worked as a maid for two years in a clerk's house in Schidlitz, when she first came to my house, she couldn't even boil the water. Before long, Matzerath's life schedule will be about the same as it was when my poor mother was alive: the kitchen is his world, the quality of the food baked on Sunday is getting better every time, and he can wash it for hours with satisfaction. Cutlery, stop by the companies in the big market and the Economic Bureau to buy and order (this is more difficult every year during the war) and check out, do some cunning correspondence with the tax office, set up a window every two weeks, prove He is imaginative in this respect, not low-key, not clumsy at all.He also took care of his trivial party affairs seriously and responsibly. All in all, he seemed very busy, because Maria was standing by the counter.You may ask: what is the purpose of spending so much time in explaining, and so tirelessly describing a young girl's pelvis, eyebrows, earlobes, hands and feet?I completely agree with you, and I share your objection to such a description of a person.Oskar, however, was convinced that he had succeeded in distorting Maria's image, if not once and for all.I will therefore add one more sentence, which I hope will illustrate the point: Maria was Oskar's first lover, apart from all the unnamed nurses. How did I realize this?Listening to my own drums one day (which I rarely do), I couldn't help noticing that Oscar was eagerly but cautiously channeling his passion to the tin drum with new beats.Maria listened intently to the sound of the drum.I don't particularly like it, however, when she puts the harmonica to her mouth, draws many nasty wrinkles on her brow, and thinks she has to accompany me.But when she was darning her stockings, or distributing sugar into paper sacks, she used to drop her hands, with a very composed face, and watch me and my sticks gravely, before she took up her darning again. , stroking my short-cut hair lightly with his hands sleepily. Oskar couldn't bear this kind of gentle gesture, but he let Maria caress with his hands, and he was so fascinated that he often beat the rhythm on the tin drum for several hours to attract Maria's caressing, until Her hand finally obeyed and satisfied Oscar. After a while, Maria took me to bed every night.She undressed me, bathed me, put me in my pajamas, and made me clear my bladder again before going to bed.Although she is a Protestant, she prayed with me, saying "Our Heavenly Father" once, "Bless you Mary" three times, and sometimes "Jesus I live for you, Jesus I die for you".Finally, with a friendly but sleepy look on her face, she pulled the blanket over me. Although the last few minutes before the lights were turned off (I slowly replaced "Our Father" and "Jesus I am born for you" with "I greet you, star of the sea" and "Loving Mary" as a metaphor for tenderness), but this preparation for bed and sleep every night makes me uncomfortable, almost destroys my self-control, and makes me, who is always careful to hide my true face, full of shyness like a dreaming girl and a tormented boy. His face flushed, revealing his inner secrets.Oscar frankly admits that whenever Maria undresses me with her hands, carries me into the zinc tub, and scrubs the day's dust off the drummer's skin with towels, brushes, and soap, whenever I realize that I, an almost ten-year-old When a six-year-old boy stood naked in front of a girl who was almost seventeen, my face flushed, which lasted for a long time. However, Maria didn't seem to notice the change in my complexion.Did she think it was the towels and brushes that had warmed me up?Could it be that she thought in her heart that this was the result of the blood circulation in Oscar's body caused by the sanitation technique?Could it be that Maria, who shyly and very tactfully sees through why the sunset glows on my face every day, still turns a blind eye? I still get blushes at every turn, usually for five minutes or more, and I can't hide it.My grandfather, the arsonist Koljacek, blushed like a fiery rooster at the word match.And me?Like him, my veins fill with blood when I hear someone, even a stranger, near me tell of bathing little children in the tub with towels and brushes every night.Oscar stood there like a red Indian.People around me laughed at me, said I was weird, and said I was possessed by evil spirits, because for people around me, it is very common for people around me to soap, scrub, and wipe the most unsightly places of a child with a towel. thing. But Maria, the child of nature, was able to do all kinds of extravagant acts in front of my eyes without shame.For example, before she started to scrub the living room and bedroom floors, she took off the pair of stockings from her legs, because they were given to her by Matzerath, and she cherished them.One Saturday night, after the shops closed, Matzerath went to the branch office on business, and it was just me and Maria.She took off her skirt and blouse, and she was wearing only a thin, clean petticoat, and stood beside me by the living room table, rubbing the stains off the skirt and rayon blouse with gasoline. As soon as Maria took off her jacket and the smell of gasoline dissipated, she smelled a pleasant, earthy, seductive vanilla smell. What happened?Didn't she rub herself with the root of the vanilla?Are there any cheap perfumes that smell like vanilla?Or was the smell unique to her, like Mrs. Carter always smelled of ammonia, or my grandmother Koljacek always smelled faintly of stinky butter under four of her dresses?Oscar likes to get to the bottom of everything, and he wants to find out where the vanilla smell comes from.Maria had never rubbed her body with vanilla root.There was such a smell in Maria.Yeah, I am convinced to this day that she had no idea she was born with such a scent, because one Sunday after we had creamed cauliflower, mashed potatoes, and sautéed veal, there was a plate of herb pudding hanging around the table (That's because I kicked the table leg with my boot), but Maria only ate a little, and very reluctantly. This is the most common and perhaps the most tedious kind. In July 1940, shortly after special news broadcasts reported the unshakable victorious progress in the Battle of France, the swimming season began on the Baltic coast.Just as Maria's brother, Sergeant Fritz, sent the first landscape postcards from Paris, Matzerath and Maria decided to let Oskar go to the seaside, because the air there was good for his health.Matzerath said that during the lunch break—the shops are closed from one to three—Maria would accompany me to the beach at Bressen, and if she stayed there until four, that would be all right, he would be happy Occasionally stand at the counter and show up in front of customers. He bought Oscar a pair of blue swimming trunks embroidered with an anchor.Maria already had a green bathing suit with red trim, a confirmation gift from her sister Gust.The swimming bag was used by my mother at that time, and a white plush bathrobe was stuffed in it, which was also my mother’s relic. In addition, there was a small bucket, a spatula and some toy molds for making cakes with sand. is redundant.Maria is carrying a bag.I bring my own drums. Oskar was terrified that the tram would pass by the Saspe cemetery.Could he not worry that the sight of such a silent yet so meaningful place would spoil his already modest interest in swimming?Oskar wondered to himself, what attitude would the ghost of Jan Bronski take when the tramcar jingling past his grave in a thin summer suit? The No. 9 tram stopped.The conductor shouted: Saspe is here.My eyes passed by Maria, fixed on the direction of Bresen, and another tram was coming from there, slowly changing from small to large.Never let your eyes slip to one side!There's something to see there!Poor beach pines, rusty gates with swashes, crooked tombstones, on which only thistles and weak wild oats like to read.Might as well look up at the sky from the open car window; there they roar, fat Junkers 52, as if only a three-engine plane or a fat fly could roar in this cloudless July sky . We drove away again in a clinking manner, and the tram on the opposite side blocked our view.As soon as the trailer passed by, I turned my head and saw the entire ruined cemetery, including the north wall, where the striking white area was in shadow, but it still made me feel very embarrassed... Finally leaving that place, we were almost in Bresen, and my eyes returned to Maria.She was wearing a muslin dress.Round neck with slightly shiny skin, and a string of red wooden carved cherry necklaces hanging on the high collarbone, all of them are the same size, as if they are ripe and about to burst.Did I imagine it, or did I actually smell it?Maria goes to the Baltic seaside with vanilla.I bent slightly and inhaled the fragrance deeply, forgetting for a moment the rotting Jan Bronski.The defense of the Polish post office was history before the flesh of the defenders rotted from their bones.The nostrils of the survivor, Oscar, smell nothing like what his once-fashionable, now-decaying supposed father might smell like. At Bresen, Maria bought a pound of cherries, took my hand (which she knew was the only thing I allowed her to do), and led me through the dwarf pine forest to the baths.Even though I was almost sixteen (the caretaker couldn't tell), I was let into the women's changing room.It reads on the blackboard—water temperature: 18 degrees; air temperature: 26 degrees; wind direction: easterly; weather forecast: sunny.Next to the blackboard was a notice from the Life Saving Society about first aid, accompanied by some clumsy old-fashioned pictures.The flooded people all wore striped swimsuits, and the lifeguards all wore mustaches and straw hats, swimming in the unpredictable and dangerous waters. The barefoot bath girl walked in front.She was bound like a penitent by a rope, and at the end of the rope was a great key that opened all the cells.step bridge.Handrails on the bridge.Along all the compartments is a long strip of coconut fiber mats.The cell given to us was No. 53.The wooden boards in the cabin are hot and dry, and the color is natural white and bluish, I really want to call it the color of a blind man's eye.There was a mirror by the small window, but it wasn't really a mirror anymore. Oscar undresses first.I took off my clothes facing the wall and asked Maria to help me.Then, practically, she turned me around hard, handed me the new swimming trunks, and forced me to put on these tight woolen pants regardless of the situation.As soon as I fastened the buttons of my suspenders, she carried me to the wooden bench in front of the back wall of the small room, put the drum and drumsticks on my lap, and took off my clothes with quick and powerful movements. I started by beating the drum a few times and counting the knotholes in the floor.Then I stopped counting and drumming.Maria pursed her lips in a funny way and whistled, which really baffled me.She blows two high notes, takes off her shoes, blows two low notes, and takes off her socks.Whistling like a beer coachman, she took off her calico dress, she whistled her petticoat over her frock, and took off her bra.She kept blowing hard, but couldn't make a tune, and at the same time, she pulled her shorts-it turned out to be a pair of sweatpants-to her knees, stepped back on her feet, and pulled her feet out of the twisted trouser legs. Kicked it into the corner with the left foot. Maria's hairy triangle surprised Oscar.Although he knew from his poor mother that a woman's lower body is not naked, he felt that Maria was not a woman in the sense that Matzerath or Jan Bronski thought his mother was. on the woman. Immediately, I knew her true colors.Angry, ashamed, pissed, disappointed, my watering can hardened half comically, half painfully in my swimming trunks, and thanks to this new stick growing on me, I forgot about drums and Those two sticks. Oscar jumped up and rushed towards Maria.Her hair caught him.He brought his face closer.Hair grew to his lips.Maria laughed and tried to pull him away.More and more, though, I'm biting the hairs on where the vanilla scent came from.Maria was still laughing.She even let me stay in her herb bushes, which seemed to make her happy because she couldn't stop laughing.I slipped and fell, my slip hurt her (because I don't let go of the hair or the hair doesn't let go of me), the vanilla made me cry, I smelled mushrooms or something pungent.There is no more vanilla at this point, just the earthy smell that Maria masks with the vanilla scent that is going to pin a rotting Jan Bronski to my brow and poison me forever with this rotten smell , At this point, I just let go. Oscar slipped and fell on the bluish-white wooden floor of the cubicle, crying.Maria laughed again.She lifted him up, held him in her arms, stroked him, and made him stick to the only wooden carved cherry necklace hanging on her body. She took her hair from between my lips, shook her head again and again, and said in amazement: "You little rascal! You are messing around, and you don't know what it is, so you start crying."